14th Hour Miracles

We love testimonies of eleventh-hour interventions.

Help arrives just in time

Intervention happens at the nick of time.

But do you realise that God is not constrained to the eleventh hour?

Do you realise that He can get glory even beyond the eleventh hour?

And the Bible is full of such.

Shadrach and his friends were not rescued just before they were thrown into the fire. Daniel’s intervention did not arrive just as he was about to be thrown into the den of lions. Joseph was not rescued before misfortunes happened.

This means that eleventh hour interventions, though far more comfortable and safer for us, are many times the exception instead of the rule.

Allow me to get to my testimony.

I had been invited to Nairobi to start a ministry after waiting for God’s clear order for about four years after leaving employment, again on His orders.

Ministry thrived and started bearing fruit.

But the big guys in the structure developed other ideas; they wanted me to be their poster boy. They wanted me to be their PR item. They wanted me to run their errands.

I confronted them, of course respectfully.

The reason you called me is because you were clear that God has called me into ministry. Do you think I should start listening and following you just because you are the ones holding the purse strings? Should I stop listening to Him because you are my superiors?

They tried to push their weight around.

Incidentally I was doing exactly what they had called me to be doing and so they couldn’t say that I was ineffective.

To cut the long story short, I became a problem to those ministry bosses.

Mark you, these were long term friends, people I highly respected.

They therefore kicked me out and even killed the ministry to erase my involvement in it.

Here I was in the city, without friends or means of support.

And of course, very hurt by the open betrayal of people I had spiritually held in high esteem.

But then I prayed and God spoke.

He told me that He was the One who had wanted me in Nairobi and that they were the tool God used.

I had of course wanted to go back home because there I had a house and a piece of land but God again spoke.

He wanted me in Nairobi and He will take care of me.

Of course that settled it. Or did it?

Here I am with a growing family and no friends or supporters staying in Nairobi that was difficult to stay in ten years earlier as a single person with a salary.

But I chose obedience. But I told God that I would not be raising support from the experiences of friends I had seen struggle through that.

So, here I was in Nairobi without any support.

The first thing I did was to move from a house run by estate agents.

Again, because of a retired neighbour who probably died from the harassment caused by them.

Any slight delay and they would come and confiscate all his things then return them when the rent is paid after including may other charges like that confiscation and transport.

I moved from the estate I was and the first place I got was small for my family. And in my spirit, I felt that the move was very temporal.

We therefore continued praying for the right house.

One time, my son, who was seven then, prayed and his prayer was a description of a house.

As I was walking around the neighbourhood looking for vacant houses, I found the exact house my son had been praying about, every detail.

The landlord was an old man who was very agreeable because he even allowed us to move in at the middle of the month yet start paying rent the next month.

I had of course told him that I was a minister and that my rent would not be predictable.

Not long after that, rent did not come. One month. Two months.

I think that alarmed him because I had not been there even three months. I therefore did not have any argument since there was no evidence of the provision I ‘claimed’.

He therefore gave me a deadline (a 15th) to pay rent or he throws me out.

He was not even opposed to my moving out without paying that rent as he seemed intent on having his house back.

A friend I had discipled offered to help.

He would look for a smaller house and pay rent. Then he would take a friend’s handcart that he would pay much later and help us move.

But God had said He would take care of us and so I refused that help.

If God could get any glory by letting us be thrown to the streets, who was I to resist?

And so we waited.

Another thing worth noting is that my cell phone had a weak battery (those days there was nowhere to buy batteries) and so it had to be on power to function.

This means I did not have it during the day.

I arrived home on 14th evening and find a message from a friend.

Please pass by my office. And in case you do not find me, ask for so and so.

That offered hope. But hope that was almost too late because the mzee had told me that come 15th, there would be no talking.

On 15th, I woke up very early.

I thought to rush to see my friend and if it is the miracle I needed, I rush back.

As I was praying, God told me

What are you running away from?

I remembered I had allowed God to get the glory from by being thrown out to the streets and decided to wait for him to do his worst.

But he didn’t come.

At 10.30, I decided to leave and told my wife to tell him that I left after he didn’t come.

I was given an envelope (my friend was not around)

I went to the church (that was nearby) and gave thanks before even opening it.

In it was the full rent plus food money (of course I have not told you that even food was a challenge).

I then went back home.

The mzee had still not come.

I therefore told my wife and son to take the rent and tell him that we had waited but he had not come.

Today is the 14th, is what he said. Mark you he was an educated fellow.

He then went to look at his calendar and was shocked that it was actually the 15th.

So what was I actually running away from since God had actually sorted out the calendar?

There are many testimonies that happened in that house; from reduction of rent, twice, to being fed better than his children even with rent arrears.

And our departure was as dramatic when the season ended.

 

Provision

I have recently sensed that direction of my online ministry is changing for some time.

It appears like I cannot write those long messages (at least for now) that you know me for.

Recently, a friend requested a testimony he had heard me give and the release for that was immediate.

It is therefore possible that God is leading me to share short testimonies of what He has been doing with my life.

There are too many testimonies about God’s provision as I continue serving Him that I can only share a few.

As a background, I minister as God directs.

This means that I have no support structure (institutional or financial) backing me.

I also do not raise support or even challenge people to support me.

For the most part people will respond to God’s promptings to support me and what God has called me to.

This testimony is about the time my firstborn joined high school.

The calling letter had come with all the requirements and reporting dates.

However, up to the last day (deadline) of reporting, the only thing I had acquired for his schooling was a box.

When a deadline passes, the vacancy is declared vacant and somebody else can be offered that chance.

After praying and getting no provision, I decided to do something I do when the road is not clear, especially provision; I do what the ten lepers did, I start walking in the direction I have been ordered.

And that is what I did.

I had enough money to take me and my son to town (Nairobi) and nothing else.

I therefore picked the box and asked my son to join me.

After getting to town, I received some money and started buying the required books.

(M-Pesa, mobile money transfer had started)

After finishing that, I received some other money and started buying the uniform, of course no branded since I did not have much money.

I then took a matatu to the estate the school was at to buy beddings and similar items as well as label them.

I received some money that I deposited for fees (there was a bank nearby).

Then we left for the school, at this time evening was approaching.

And I was scared, especially because I did not have branded uniform.

You see I had before then taken students to school and been forced to buy from their preferred shop, even for non-branded uniform.

(I remember once going all the way beyond Busia [phones pick Uganda network there] and was forced to buy a skirt that looked just like the one I had bought in Nairobi because I had not bought from ‘their’ shop).

I was therefore scared that I would be forced to buy uniform afresh when I did not have any money. I also do not think I had bought enough stationary.

But what happened was interesting.

The teacher receiving us just asked one question

Do you have the uniform?

When I said yes, he simply received my son. He did not check anything.

And I had not even paid all the fees.

Forgiveness

(A friend asked for this testimony and I thought to share it here as well)

When I was working in the Media and posted at Marsabit, I encountered an armed robber.

As a background, there was no public transport in the Isiolo – Marsabit – Moyale route those days.

We therefore rode trucks transporting goods, and paid very expensively for that.

Another dynamic was that there were highway robbers (called shiftas after the shifta menace of the 70s).

This meant that the trucks would travel in convoys.

The journey goes through the desert and so many times it meant the trucks would leave very early.

I had been on leave and was therefore going back to work.

On this day, I had spent the night at my brother’s place some distance from town.

I left shortly after three.

Not long after, I met someone I knew as a robber.

In fact, he proudly called himself a murderer.

His name was Ibilisi (lucifer), a name he was proud of so I suspect it was a nickname.

The last time I knew he had gone to prison.

More surprising was that he operated from Meru and not Isiolo.

I therefore pretended not to know him for obvious reasons.

He asked for money and I gave him and thought the worst was over.

I suspected he realised that I knew him because he hit me with that bolted club at the back of my head.

I came to probably two hours later, completely unaware of where I was.

But it was still dark.

I started walking anyhow.

The only thing I knew was that I had been attacked and was severely wounded as I was bleeding even from the ears.

I then stumbled on a church mission where there were watchmen at the gate.

I told them I was wounded and needed help and they turned me away.

I fell again and became unconscious for some other minutes.

When I came to again, I was able to recollect where I was.

I started walking toward the Police station which was kilometres away.

The officer I met wrote me a note to take to the hospital so that I could be helped.

The hospital was also some distance away but I walked.

By then dawn was approaching.

I met a distant cousin who worked at the hospital as he was coming from his shift.

On seeing me, he took me back to hospital so that I do not struggle with much protocol.

He left when he was sure I was being attended to.

Then they required an X ray and required payment.

Interestingly, another cousin was the accountant of the hospital who was told about my case when he met the other one.

He therefore was able to authorise that X ray.

My skull had been dented by that knock.

Then I was taken to the wards.

I was initially taken to the observation ward because the nurses thought I would somehow die.

Many would come and look at me and openly wonder

You are not dead? And many other such questions.

It appears that the guy was a professional and only God frustrated his mission.

Two days at the observation ward and I was taken to the normal ward after which I was discharged after another two days.

It took some time before my memory was fully healed.

As an example, I would be holding the guitar to play the intro to a song in church and I can’t recollect the tune and someone has to hum for me to catch.

I probably need to state that he took my bag which had tools I had bought very expensively and some Bibles especially a Study Bible I prized.

After I felt better, I went to the police to report since I knew the guy.

After several visits, I realised that they were not in a hurry to do anything. And I was then operating from home in Meru.

In fact, I at one time saw him at our market. When he saw me, he was so shaken because I think he had been convinced that I had died.

The family decided that we will need to take the police to court to force them to take action, especially since the offender was known.

But I had been praying.

And the hospital had been extending my leave, especially since the clotted blood stuck in one ear was not in a hurry to come out.

God told me to go back to work and so I went and the plan of taking the police to court died.

As I continued praying, God challenged me to start praying for the guy.

But how does one pray for someone who had killed him but for God’s intervention?

Incidentally, God had given me Psalm 34:7 as the reason I did not die.

As I prayed, God slowly started working on my heart until I started praying good things for him; he finds salvation, he ministers alongside me, etc.

Eventually, I was able to completely forgive him.

But I didn’t know that until God confirmed it.

After I left work, I went back home to await other orders.

I got involved in a denomination that planned a youth camp in the school near the shopping centre.

There were many events, but in the evenings, we had meetings where we would talk to the youth and share the Gospel.

On this day I was the one leading and I asked whether there was someone who wanted to get saved.

Who do I see walking from the back?

The guy who had ‘killed’ me in Isiolo.

But instead of feeling bitter or edgy, I felt such a release and love that I gladly led him to Christ.

But this is not what I have been asked to write about.

Yet the next story would not be clear if I had left out this one.

Marsabit had enough drama for me and my faith.

I went because God told me to ask for the transfer.

I therefore expected ministry to thrive because at that time we were praying through Operation World and combined it with praying about unreached people in Kenya.

I went and there was confusion and pain all over, for the most part.

After that assault, and combined with some intense persecution at work, I decided that God did not call me to Marsabit and I had just imagined it since there was so much pain (at one time my salary had been stopped for six months)

I requested for a transfer and even looked for transport to move.

Then I thought to ask God for a sign, a sign that I knew He could not beat.

But He did it anyway.

This confirmed to me that He wanted me in Marsabit.

I therefore settled.

He had showed me a church deep in the Manyattas and I went there with gusto.

Even the bosses who had engineered the stoppage of my salary had gone and so I thought things would get better.

Incidentally, my friend, who had been at loggerheads with those other bosses, was the one who was made my boss.

But my joy was short-lived, especially as ministry opportunities started opening up

I will not speculate, but as ministry started getting clarity and results, my friend completely turned against me, started placing as many blocks as he would to those ministry openings.

He even started accusing me of anything, asking for explanations from me for very funny (let me not say stupid) things.

The other staff could not understand.

The others had done the machination in secret. This one was openly fighting me as a person.

To imagine I had to walk twelve kilometres (one way) to town and back to do my shopping yet the rest of the staff would be taken by the station vehicle is one such reality.

My life became one battle after another.

Incidentally, that persecution and incessant accusations is what God used when He wanted me to leave employment because I told Him I would be ready to leave employment but I was not ready to resign.

But this time I was no leaving as had been the case of planning to go for a transfer. God had clearly asked me to leave employment.

It is only that I wanted Him to work out in such a way that I would never be in doubt that He had asked me whatever else happened.

I was later called to start a student ministry in Nairobi.

As I had learnt when I was dealing with the guy who had attempted to kill me, I was sure that God wanted me to pray for this guy who had made my life a living hell of sorts.

After a few years, I felt that God had healed my heart of bitterness and anything else that would stand between me and what God wanted for me.

I prayed and asked God to give me the evidence that He had healed my heart.

God is very interesting.

I had friends in the tallest building in Nairobi (then) and would visit them.

That was a government office which had an unending stream of visitors at all times. The lifts are packed at all times.

I therefore got into one lift and this former boss enters.

Nobody else enters and I know that my heart has healed.

But it does not stop there.

We start talking.

The lift goes up to the 29th floor without anybody entering. It would stop, people would look in and simply not enter.

Then it goes down to the ground floor the same way.

It then went up, again the same way. But this time he stepped out at the floor he was visiting.

That was how God confirmed to me that He had healed my heart of any bitterness against him.

Any questions?