My Favorite Stories

Dr. Sergei Korotya sat behind his desk and said to me with a slight smile, “I know why you are providing humanitarian aid to my hospital. You want people to become Christians.” I was in Gorlovka, Ukraine at a hospital that had received a significant amount of humanitarian aid. “You’re right” I responded. Dr. Korotya continued, “Well, I want to keep getting the aid, but I do not want to hear about Jesus.” He was quite surprised when I said, “Deal. I will keep giving you humanitarian aid and I won’t say anything about Jesus unless you ask me to.” It was about four years later when Sergei, (whose wife had begun attending worship services) asked if we could start talking about Jesus and studying the Bible. He added, “But don’t push!” We set up the time and agreed to meet at our home once a week. My wife prepared a great meal and we hosted Dr. Korotya and his family. After studying in Mark for about an hour, my wife interrupted and said, “It is time to eat, the food will get cold.” Sergei did not want to stop. After supper he suggested that we not wait until next week to study more, “Let’s meet again this week.” I told him, “Sergei, you are pushing!” He replied, “It’s okay if I push!” Not long after that he and his wife were baptized into Christ.

We were sitting in a small apartment in the Qvartal region of Gorlovka with several babushkas (grandmother in Russian) singing hymns, having a Bible lesson and taking the Lord’s supper. Babushka Anya was nearly deaf and almost blind. When the tray for the bread was handed to her she took a large piece of the bread and passed it on. Those around her noticed her and one even scolded her for taking such a large piece of the bread. Then when the juice was passed around she wanted to take more than one cup. The babushka beside her said loudly (they may have thought they were whispering), “you can only have one of the cups!” In reply, Babushka Anya said, “Isn’t the bread and the wine supposed to be the body and blood of Jesus? Well, I want more Jesus!”

When people live out their faith, and tell the story of Jesus well, the end result is always the same: People fall in love with Jesus, they commit to become his students, they tell the story. “I want more Jesus, too!” Don’t you?

In my earlier years when I was a morning person, I would arise at 5am for prayer. From time to time I would mix it up and pray in a different location. Sometimes in a closet, the living room or outside. This particular time I was praying outside. In front of the townhouses I lived in was a patch of brush with a little pig trail that looped off the end of the townhouse’s driveway. Hardly anyone used that pig trail to loop or exit the townhouse driveway. So I chose that area for my pre-dawn prayer time.

I slept in “jogging shorts” that were mainly white with some designs on it and a sleeping t-shirt. Many times I would just roll out of bed, slip on my tennis shoes and head outside to pray. So get this image in your mind. In the pre-dawn hours of the morning, white jogging shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes.

This particular morning as I am praying I heard a car speeding down the dirt road by our townhouses. It then slid sideways into the townhouse parking lot, raced to the end of the driveway and stopped. I froze in the middle of the pig trail and watched. After a second or two the car started speeding off but made its way onto the pig trail. “Yikes”, I thought to myself and was high steeping it through the headlight beams across the pig trail into the brush to escape the madman in the car. The car never slowed down but zoomed past the brush I had dove into. “What in the world was that”, I said to myself as I emerged from the brush, unharmed but shaken.

The next morning the same scene, me praying, insane driver stopping at the end of the driveway and me high stepping through the headlight beams as I dove into the underbrush again.

The third morning, I hear yet again the now familiar sound of that car racing down the dirt road. I was sure that this was a demon possessed individual sent on a mission from the devil himself to disrupt my prayer time. This time however I hurried to the underbrush to get not only ahead of the driver but to see if could catch a glimpse of his face. This time when he stopped I saw him throw something out the window. He then put the pedal to metal and tore through the pig trail.

Once the demoniac was gone I cautiously approached the object that he threw out the window. What could it be? It was still rather dark but it seemed to white. My heart is racing as my mind races through the possibilities a demonic could throw out the window. To my bewildered amazement, it was…..the newspaper.

There’s some poor newspaper delivery person out there who has an odd story about some crazy person running around in what he assumed was his underwear.

I was pastoring First Baptist Church, Slidell, LA when Hurricane Katrina devastated our city. Every building of our church was inundated. With a certainty of divine direction, the staff and I concluded that God wanted us to minister to the hurting people of our community even while we rebuilt our own facilities. We decided we would open up a Disaster Relief Center on the parking lot of the church the next morning. We didn’t know what we would give folks who came, maybe some canned food not ruined in the storm; but we knew God was telling us to do it.

The next morning we arrived to witness the first of many miracles God would do as He proved Himself strong and faithful day by day, sometimes hour by hour. During the night, some large truck had dumped its load of food, water, and cleaning supplies right where we planned to start doing disaster relief. We had no idea where it came from. I still don’t, except I know God sent it.

Daily God began to send at least one semi-truck of supplies to be distributed to people in need. We never called to request a single one. Everything we needed, God supplied. We borrowed a big tent for the clothes and supplies we were giving away. I said, “We need another tent, but none are available for sale or rent.” My cell phone rang. “Pastor, I live in Texas, and we make tents for a living. If you could use another big tent, my crew will bring it tomorrow and set it up.”

Debris cleared from the interior of the church was all around the building and needed to be moved. I was sitting on the blade of a little bobcat and said, “What we need is a big tractor to move all this junk.” My cell phone rang. “Say pastor, we’re coming down from Minnesota to help you guys. Do you need for us to bring our big front end loader?” We progressed to the point of hanging sheetrock in the building, but we could not find any insulation to buy for the outside walls. I went to my office, which was the front seat of my truck, and prayed, “Lord, remind me of some friend in North Louisiana that I can ask to buy insulation and bring it to us in a U-Haul truck.” I no more then said “Amen,” and my cell phone rang. It was a pastor, not from Louisiana but from Georgia. He said, “Pastor, I’m bringing a work team down tomorrow. We have a big empty U-Haul trailer. What can we bring you?”

In those days, weeks, months my faith grew leaps and bounds as I saw God do time and time again more than we could ask or think. Even now, I often say to the Lord, “God, I’m not saying I want to go through something like Katrina again, but I’m so grateful You didn’t let me miss that.”

Years ago I was part of a mission team leading a pastor’s conference in Hyderbad, India. Hundreds of pastors came from remote villages and tribal areas to attend the week long training event.

At the same location was a boarding school for tribal children. They were brought to the school to be nursed back to health and educated. They were very poor. The majority of them only had two sets of clothing, a pair of sandals, a pencil, a sleeping mat and maybe, if they were lucky…a toy.

The weekend before the conference began we interacted with the children a lot. They were learning English so we talked, played and laughed together. One of the children, a boy name Subru, wanted to know my name. To him, I became “Uncle Steve.”

On Monday the children were back into their normal routine of school, chores and activities. Our “friendships” were reduced to waving to each other from a distance. Each time Subru saw me, his face would explode into a smile and he would loudly shout his greeting, “Good morning, Steve…Uncle!” or “Good afternoon, Steve…Uncle!”

Every day I eagerly anticipated this little boost of encouragement and sunshine. As the week neared its end I believe Subru started skipping some chores, activities and perhaps even some classes to make sure he was able to greet me numerous times a day.

On our last day at that location, Subru became my shadow. Wherever I went…he was there. I could tell he was saddened by the thought of never seeing me again. He was on the verge of tears all morning long.

When the time came to leave, Subru looked at me with those big brown eyes and stammered in broken English, “I…..gift….you.” My heart broke because I literally had nothing to offer a little Indian boy. I had given everything I had to the schoolmaster to distribute to all of the children. Good thing I did that or Subru would’ve gotten it all! But I had nothing to offer my Indian ‘nephew.’ After a moment I realized he wasn’t asking for a gift. He wanted to give me a gift! He had shoved his hand into the pocket of his trousers and was struggling to remove my gift…his only toy, a little (broken) Matchbox car. His hands trembled as he reassembled the car as best he could. And with crocodile tears streaming down his cheeks he handed me the best gift I’ve ever received.

In that one week and in one brief exchange…a little Indian boy taught me more about love than I had ever known. Even though I was the American missionary…he taught me that real love is sacrificial. His gift helped me understand John 3:16 in a new light. When someone gives you the best (and perhaps the only) thing they have to offer…there is no question about their love.

I will never forget Subru and his lesson of loving sacrifice. And I will forever cherish that busted up Matchbox car.