In my previous post I pledged to give an account of a supernatural experience that I have had, the sort of thing that prevents me from ever questioning my belief in a supreme being. I would have to deny my own senses to do so. Here's one that happened a few years ago.
The Water Shortage
In the middle of my teaching career I arranged a one-year leave of absence from my rural public school teaching job so I could try a more "missionary" assignment serving the underprivileged in an underdeveloped country. I took my family to the Dominican Republic to teach in an international school for a year.
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| My sixth grade class of bilingual international students at Santiago Christian School |
Infra-structure was sub-standard in the city of Santiago, and services were limited. The electricity went off for several hours almost every day. And though we were unaware of it for the first few weeks, there was a severe water shortage. Our rented house was equipped with a large in-ground holding tank where the intermittent city water would be stored and then pumped into the house as needed. Without our knowing it, our tank was slowly emptying as our carefree usage far exceeded the scant incoming flow from the city water supply.
One day we were without water and I lifted the metal lid on the backyard cistern to investigate. It was empty. And there was not the slightest trickle coming in from the supply pipe.
I reported our situation to the administration at the school and they conveyed our problem to the city water department who said they would send someone to take a look. In the meantime, the school ordered a tanker truck sent to our house and the cistern was filled again with fresh water... at a cost about equal to a month's rent! Yikes!
A profound truth became clear to me at that moment: Americans use a lot of water. We quickly implemented water-saving measures that I assume the rest of our neighbors had probably been following for years. The premier conservation rule: Save the Flush.
The city did send a service man who discovered that our house didn't have a water meter. At the time of construction the builder had made an illegal connection to the city water main without a permit and a meter. The worker got out a shovel and pick axe and dug a hole in the hard-packed street large enough to accommodate a water meter, cut out a corresponding section of the supply pipe to the house... and then left without installing a meter. Our line was disconnected and stayed so for several weeks.
Eventually, the inevitable end of our temporary water supply arrived and we were again nearing the bottom of the tank. And so was our bank account. We had no money for another tank fill. I was at a loss to know what to do in this foreign land.
An Answer to Prayer
In desperation I called home and asked for help (maybe somebody would be inspired to donate money for more water?) There was a Global Prayer Group meeting that Wednesday night at the home church and they said they would pray about our situation. And they did.
Thursday morning Kaye got up for her early morning journaling time but returned to the bedroom shortly.
"Should there be water coming into the water tank?" she asked me.
"It can't happen," was my groggy reply.
"Why not?" she said.
"Because the water line is disconnected at the street."
"Well, it sounds like there's water running into the tank." She turned and headed back to the other room. I stayed in bed for another hour until it was time for me to get up for school.
When I arrived in the kitchen I could hear the familiar sound of water running into the backyard cistern. I opened the back door, stepped to the water tank and lifted the lid.
And there I saw a refreshing and steady stream of crystal clear water flowing from the supply pipe and dropping about 7 feet into the nearly empty tank!
I immediately spun and headed down the sidewalk alongside the house and looked down at the hole in the street. Yes, the hole was still there and it was powdery dry as it had been for several weeks. Not a drop of moisture anywhere near.
Impossible! I walked all around the house looking for another inlet to the water tank when it occurred to me that the city water wasn't even flowing on our street. In fact, nobody in the neighborhood was getting water. Because of our repair, the water main was shut off at the end of the street.
Nonetheless, the water ran steadily for two days while we went about our business until Saturday morning when it stopped. I went out and lifted the lid to see that the tank was full. Yes, the tank was full to the top. It had filled from a miraculous stream of fresh water that had flowed continuously for 48 hours from a water line that was disconnected at the other end... and while no one else on our street received any water.
A few days later the city service guys returned and installed a water meter... and opened the main valve at the end of our street so that the water supply could flow again - however infrequently - and we didn't have any more problems.
Those who know me are aware that I am a very practical person. I believe in reality. I could not wrap my head around what I had seen and heard with my own eyes and ears. I studied the plumbing in that house and on that street every which way until I had to conclude that there was no possible way around it: We had witnessed a very real miracle of God's provision, and a direct answer to prayer. Real water that we flushed and laundered and bathed in. With a new sense of gratitude... and conservation.
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| Our three daughters did their homework on the front porch of our tropical home. |
I Don't Need Faith... or Superstition
I recently shocked a friend of mine by stating that my belief in God has little to do with faith. It is because of the actual facts -- real experiences that I have seen and heard and touched -- that I cannot deny the existence of a higher power. Though my initial desperate request for prayer may have seemed like an act of faith, it was a very practical step based on previous real answers to prayer. With the water tank newly filled, reality is what flushed away the poop. Not faith.
And not superstition. One of my atheist friends refers to the stories in the Bible as superstition, fairy tales. But here's the thing: I did not flush my Dominican toilet with superstition. I flushed it with real water that was supplied by a miraculous source.
When you are experiencing these sorts of realities, miracles become a fact of life... and an undeniable operative in one's theology as well.
For those who have experienced such practical manifestations of the supernatural, belief in God is entirely logical. Belief is a product of experience.
This is reality, Greg.*
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This is only one of several accounts I could share of apparent miracles I have seen -- and not the most fantastic. Maybe I'll post more another time.
*"This is reality, Greg." is my favorite line in the movie E.T. Greg asks Elliot why the extraterrestrials can't just "beam up" the abandoned E.T. like in Star Trek. Elliot replies, "This is reality, Greg," -- right before they ride their bicycles into the sky across the full moon. Hah!
