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Inspirational
Christian Stories
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"You will be Travelling" “So the men went, travelling through the land, and made a record of it by towns in seven parts in a book” – Joshua 18:9 
In 2009 the Holy Spirit told me I would be travelling. I thought this was funny because I was about to travel to New Zealand and knew I would be. Why did God specifically mention it to me? I was planning to visit my mother in law to make sure she was coping all right after the death of her son, and had been thinking that maybe I should visit my father and a friend while over there, as well. I had seen them but not visited them since shifting to Australia . My flight left Canberra in the evening so that day I started packing and the thought again came into my mind that I should use a different hand bag as things could easily fall out of the one I was using. I was rushing to get everything ready so I dismissed the thought. My shoulder bag had been OK on the last trip. I would put it inside my cabin bag. Arriving at the airport, I discovered that I had booked the wrong month. There were plenty of seats however, so I was still able to travel at the same time, which was great as my phone didn't have any credit left in it and I would not have been able to warn my daughter who was picking me up from the airport in Sydney in time. I had thought of buying more credit, but had decided not to. The flight cost me an extra $100, which was annoying, but I was on my way and I did actually have enough money to pay for it. I stayed the night with my daughter and was up at 4.30 the following morning to travel the next leg of my journey. The thought came into my mind to put my hand bag in the cabin bag but this time I didn't. I put it off. I would do it later….. but somehow I didn't get around to it. My bags were all scanned when suddenly the security people took my hand bag off me and put it through the scanner again. When I got it back I thought that it felt lighter. I looked inside but didn't know what could be missing. I thought that I should wait and see if any more of my things came out of the scanning machine but I didn't. I wandered off towards the shops. The thought came into my mind to buy a coffee but I reasoned that I didn't need one. The thought came into my mind to buy something for my mother in law but I didn't. I saw an ATM that gave out different currency and thought that I should get some New Zealand money out, but I didn't. When the thought came into my mind to buy something for my mother, I should have thought twice, but I didn't. I didn't even take notice of the thought that I should take the Australian money out of my purse and put the New Zealand twenty five dollars I had in it. I saw the internet and did my emails instead. As I waited for the plane I found myself silently but very earnestly praying in tongues. Something was wrong, someone needed help. I felt burdened to pray so I kept on silently praying. I saw a news item come over the TV about an earthquake and tsunami in Samoa , so I continued praying about that until just before I got onto the plane. The prophesy God had given me earlier in the year, about earthquakes and billowing waves below the waves, was coming to pass. I wondered if New Zealand would be hit next while I was there. Just before landing in Wellington , the message about making a donation for using the headphones was shared and I looked into my bag for my purse. It wasn't there. I looked again and panicked. Someone suggested that I speak to the air hostess which I did. I was given a place to go to at the airport in Wellington and a Sydney phone number to ring. My heart was racing and as I tried to tell the lady at the service desk what was wrong, the word “found” barged into my mind and I think it even got mixed up with what I was saying. The Qantas service desk tried the number but the wait was too long, so they told me to go to Qantas Ticketing and try again there. The lady at the counter was nervous about letting me use the phone, but thankfully she did. I couldn't get through either so I was allowed to ring my husband and get him to make enquiries. I rang my mother's place as well and thankfully my sister was there. I told her my situation and said that I would go down to the train station as I had enough New Zealand dollars to do that much of the journey, if she could pay online for a ticket. The lady at Qantas Ticketing counter arranged for me to use the Internet to find phone numbers for my bank so that I could cancel my credit cards. She told me to come back and ring my sister again afterwards to make sure she had been able to do what I asked. At the time I didn't think that would be necessary. As I sat at the internet still quite stunned, I wondered about the word God had given me about travelling and wondered how He was going to provide now that I didn't have any money. Because I had time to reflect while on the internet, I believed that my wallet had been found according to the word the Holy Spirit had put into my mind and mouth, so I decided that I wouldn't cancel the cards, just put a temporary stop on them. On my way back to the Ticketing counter I remembered the suggestion to ring my sister back and it seemed a wise thing to do. The receptionist let me ring the bank and they were able to put a hold on my credit cards without cancelling them. This was no problem and it was so easy to do that I felt a little less stressed. I rang my sister and it was just as well that I did, because she said that her friend in Wellington was on her way to pick me up and would pay for the train ride. I told her where we could meet and it wasn't long before Kathy Bevan was standing in front of me. The tears welled up with relief when we met. She went to an ATM and got some money for me and then drove me to the station. We shared some of our life stories on the way. She said that the only reason she was not working and able to pick me up was that her young charge had turned 5 that very day and his father had told her that she could have the rest of the day off after she had taken him to school. She would not have been home to receive the phone call otherwise. What miraculous timing! It was so lovely to hug her when we said goodbye. Having missed the bus I had planned on taking, I bought a ticket, a coffee and a bacon and egg roll and waited for the next train. About half an hour later I was travelling sharing life stories again, this time with a man and his son who were also going to Palmerston North. They had been in a car accident the previous year and the father had arm troubles like I had had from the accident. It was a miracle that he had not been killed in the crash either. He had moved from house to house as I had, when I was young and had also travelled a lot overseas. I told them about how God had miraculously brought me back from death and he wanted to know if I was religious. The whole conversation cheered me up enormously and the lady seated opposite me, having heard much of the conversation smiled very warmly, as she wished me well on my journey before she left. In no time I was back in the shelter of my mother's home. I told her I thought my wallet had been found and when I checked my emails, I discovered that this was so. It was already on its way back to me. I wondered if the credit cards and money was still in my wallet. My mother smiled and said that everything would still be in it. I rang Peter and he told me that the money was still in the wallet. He hadn't asked about what else was in it but like my mother, I believed that everything would be. It was an expensive lesson as the courier cost $125 but I hoped that I had relearned an old lesson: When something good comes into your mind to do. Don't put it off or reason it off. I felt as though God was preparing me for even more travel in the future. My Mother in law had given me my late brother in law's car. My sister had driven it down from Napier so it was there for me to use for travelling. When I saw the make I was amazed. Of all the cars to be provided with, this one had my username on it! Wingroad! My website was citwings.com for computer and Information technology and I called it "Webwings." Now I had the wings I needed for both internet and road travel! The word was indeed confirmed. I was travelling and God had provided the transport. Having been in five car accidents, my concentration for travelling wasn't good and the longest I had driven was about an hour at a time. My sister Susan therefore offered to drive me the two and a half hours up to Napier, where I visited Peter's mother. She let me know that she was coping well, and didn't need me to take her out, so I returned to my mother's place in Palmerston North. The thought came into my mind that I should go and visit her again before her birthday. Well it just so happened that my sister Michelle was going up to Napier at the right time so I decided that I would go with her. Michelle's husband was going to be at a conference for a couple of days and she was going to be on her own so was pleased to have the company. In the meantime I flew across to Picton to visit my father, but not before responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to buy some flowers as a thank you for Quantas Ticketing for the use of their phone.
During my time with Dad as I took photos, I found myself wondering how much of New Zealand would disappear in the next big earthquake because God had been speaking to me since Christmas about earthquakes and billowing waves. Dad said that he could not see past Christmas and was wondering how long he had left on earth. I began wondering how much time some of New Zealand had left. Was I taking the last photos that would be taken of the area I was in?
While at Dad's place I found a photo of Walter Peak Station taken by Henriette Beikirch and wanted to use it in my autobiography. The following morning Dad said that an email had arrived from Henrietta. It just so happened that she was hitching a ride to Picton in a couple of days. Her timing was perfect! I was able to ask her in person if I could use her photo and she wanted a copy of my autobiography when it was finished.
With my sister Michelle, we visited my mother in law. While we were at her house a man arrived whom Peter and I knew from his cricket days. Bob had been at Westshore when I had been preaching there and remembered what I had preached when I asked him. “The Gospel”, he told me! He asked me a question, which I answered explaining that the gospels were all about Jesus, and soon I was travelling back to Palmerston North on the bus. 
I drove to Wanganui to visit my old friend Lucy and her husband Stephen, who my children still knew as “the Cookie Monster”. It was an encouraging time of sharing and meeting their two children whom I had only seen in photos. I was greatly encouraged and enabled by them to use the sword on a thunderbolting lie that had been thrown my way. Before leaving Wanganui I decided to visit a relative, Catherine Baeyertz . I had the address but the phone number and spelling of her name was not right so I just dropped in unexpectedly. What would I say when I got there if she was home? Would she remember me? I had visited her with my father only once and that was in the early seventies. Tentatively I knocked on the door. I didn't recognize the house. Catherine was at home. Because she knew my father, I introduced myself as his daughter. She knew my name and welcomed me in. What a relief! Catherine had done a lot of the family genealogy and so I was able to complete my family tree. I discovered that she had done a lot of travelling overseas and was also a keen photographer. In her travels she told me, she had taken cider vinegar, which had saved her from the tummy upsets that others around her suffered. I made a mental note to take some with me on the overseas travelling I felt God was preparing me for. Back in Palmerston North it was time to visit my Mother in Law again. I decided to travel by myself and asked God to protect and help me with the driving. I was later setting out than I had wanted to be and wondered how I would go getting through the snake like gorge. Well, I got stuck behind a slow van, so the gorge was no trouble. After that a tractor doing 18-20 kilometres an hour kept me crawling along. He finally pulled over and I found that I was stuck again behind another tractor. This one was a little faster. He was doing 22 kilometres an hour! I wasn't frustrated. I trusted that God knew what I needed and it must have been a slow journey! After the tractor pulled over I was just beginning to think of speeding up when I got stuck again, this time behind a convoy of three army jeeps. It was becoming obvious that God was up to something, but I never did find out what! It wasn't until I had passed all the bendy roads that I was free of the slow traffic, free to obey the road signs……. and I was about half way there. I wondered how long the journey would take…… about three hours I reckoned. Being my Mother in laws birthday my brother and sister in law had come over from Australia to visit. They were waiting for me with morning tea, a big sponge cake when I arrived at lunch time and yet strangely enough the trip had only taken me two and a half hours! It reminded me of a time many years before when I was running half an hour late for a meeting and suddenly found myself half an hour further on and yet no time had passed. Had God moved me again like he had moved Phillip who suddenly found himself in another place, called Azotus (Acts 8:39)? Finding night driving difficult I set off early for the drive back to Palmerston North. Being prompted by the Holy Spirit, I turned back and visited a couple, who gave me lunch and two smoked fish to take with me. These were perfect for the meals we had when two other friends visited back at my mothers place. One of the visitors looked at my autobiography and told me it was made up of “short stories” and that I should think about publishing some of them as such. The other visitor was an old friend of mine who had gone to the same church in Napier as me. She was now pasturing a church in Waverly. Over lunch she told me that one of the New Zealand prophets had also been predicting a big earthquake that would take out a large area of the North Island. This was the first I had heard of anyone else being warned by God about an earthquake in New Zealand. I wondered how I could warn people too. I wanted to tell New Zealand to wake up and pray, to stop worrying about the things of this world and to think about things that have eternal consequences. It was later than people thought. I prayed for my families protection and theHoly Spirit let me know that the earthquake would not reach Palmerston North, so I encouraged my mother who also felt that it would not reach her house. One evening I read from psalms 84:5, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” I thought of my sister travelling around Spain and felt burdened to pray for her. The following day I emailed her the bible verse and received one back saying how tired she was, having just walked something like 174 Kilometres. She had been lost a number of times and received miraculous timely help. God had provided the help she needed. I had visited my parents and my Mother in Law a number of times and it was time to go home. I paid the departure fee at the airport and the man who served me said, “Have a good Summer!” That was strange. Should I speak out the prophecy or not? I found myself saying that I hoped that he would have a summer without an earthquake because there was a big one coming. Back home as I pondered my travelling, I remembered the prophecy God had given to me when I was a young mother. “You will travel form place to place and preach one on one with people you meet on the way.” So that was why God had heralded this trip with the words “You will be travelling.” The old prophecy was coming to pass. I had started travelling and the opportunity to share, one on one with the people I met had been there. I decided that when I got back home I would look for some tours of Israel. I arrived safely back home and discovered when I went to church, that a tour of Israel and Turkey was being planned for 2011. Peter said that he had placed the notice on the coffee table. I had missed it thinking that it was a summary of a past tour our minister and his wife had been on. I felt excited. In May of 2008, God had spoken to me about going to Israel . The Living Bread Church had invited me to join their team there as well, so perhaps this was the time for me to go travelling further afield. In 2008 I had wondered how I could pay for the trip. Now I had a large proportion of the money as the shares I had bought when the market crashed were making money for me. I decided to ear mark the money for travelling, travelling to Israel. I would set not only my heart, but also my money on pilgrimage too. November 2009 |
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On an afternoon outing to see if we could spot the bay where my Grandmother's summer house had been, we stopped at Ngakuta Bay where we took a few photos. While there a man called us over to join him and his companions in a glass of wine. He introduced himself as John and said that he had always wondered how photographers took photos with the water in the foreground. Having watched me take photos he now knew how. We chatted together sharing some life experiences and thoughts about heeding the thoughts that came into our minds. John told us that his father was a Christian so I knew God was speaking to him through our encounter, probably bring to his mind the things his father had also shared. “Well that was a chance meeting” John said (or something similar) as we were leaving. Returning to the car I noticed that I had accidentally broken the coral branches growing on a shell I had found a few hours earlier. At the time the thought had come into my mind that I should take a photo of it then, but I didn't do it right away. Now I was disappointed. As I thought about what John had said I knew that it had not been a chance meeting but another divine appointment. God speaks in many ways even through people who do not believe they know Him and I still hadn't learnt the lesson. I needed to get better at recognising the Holy Spirit as he counselled me through my thoughts. 
The TV news presenter spoke about the recent earthquakes being along the tectonic plate. My ears pricked up. I had written poems about the tectonic plates earlier in the year not knowing that they were actually mapped on the earth. I decided to Google them and when I saw that the plate went right though the areas I had just been photographing I was concerned. I looked at the latest art work I had created and knew it was prophetic as well. It showed the land stripped of trees and waves of paper, billowing paper waves, in a place that looked just like the Sounds – the top of the South Island …… and underneath was a tectonic plate. I had sketched the image in the year 2000 with waves like Punga spirals in mind. It seemed to me that the damage the loggers in Tasmania could do to the rainforests was small compared to the damage the earth itself was about to inflict. I prayed that God would protect my family who lived above the tectonic plates at the top of the South Island. 
Because the forecast was for sunny weather I decided to take the ferry back to Wellington the day Henrietta left. Leaving on that day meant that I had a three hour wait at the ferry terminal as Dad had an appointment with an eye specialist. I saw a sign arrowing to a gift shop. “I must have a look”, I thought and so I did. I started chatting to the owner Esmay Pascoe, who showed me a Paua shell that was about 150 years old. “How do you know it is that old?” I asked. “By the rings,” she replied. I had been wanting to take photos of paua but didn't end up buying one. I discovered that we had much in common. We had both gone to Teachers college and been discus throwers. Esmay even remembered my name from her throwing years. We shared experiences of Gods miraculous healing power in our lives. God had miraculously healed her nose so that she didn't need the surgery that she was booked in for. I also shared some of the encouraging concrete poems I had with me. Esmay was keen to sell some them in her shop and gave me her address before I left. So I continued my travelling having been very much encouraged. 
Back in Palmerston North, I regretted not buying one of the Paua shells and was reminded of it when my sister, Susan arrived with one. She had been wondering what to do. I had told her to get everything ready in preparation for travelling and she had. She had been wanting to go hiking in Spain from Cadiz to Seville then along the Via de la Plata to Santiago de Compostella, known as the Camino, a pilgrims walk. By the time I returned, Susan had taken the plunge and decided to go. I was delighted to have a Paua shell to take photos of and discovered that Susan had a number of them. She was taking them with her to give as presents along the way. God had given me what I wanted. He had provided for me again and I made a mental note to take something like a Paua shell with me when I went travelling in the future.