He is in Control

In late summer, 2008, I found myself on a 3 day mission trip to east Cleveland.  WHBC was there to do some work and provide a VBS for the Faith Baptist Community Center, started by our missionary Norma Nulph.  As we transitioned to our VBS program for Saturday, I had my doubts that things would go off without a hitch.  The weather was calling for thunderstorms and most of our planned activities were setup for outside.  The other problem was, with it raining, no kids would be outside to invite.  We planned on handing out 120 book bags filled with school supplies. Mike Vaneck, Faith Community’s Pastor, said they usually get between 40-60 kids on a good day.  To make matters worse, another local community center was sponsoring a school supply give away with a dance. Frustrated at how this was all working out, I remember praying with Dan Ernst and Mark Holsinger. We asked God to use this day for whatever He wanted but we needed dry weather to do what we planned. After praying, a group of us went through the nearby neighborhood.  The rain came down sideways and we found no kids. Discouraged with the day we stopped in to the other community center that was hosting the dance. Children filled the rooms and it appeared that all the kids were more interested in the dance than VBS. Walking out of the center I was stopped by a gentleman in a dark Mercedes with tinted windows. He asked me what I was doing in his neighborhood. I quickly unfolded the last flyer from my pocket and told him that Faith Baptist Community center was having a VBS and trying to give the kids some school supplies. All he said was “Ok, I’ll get the word out”.  We picked up a few kids in the bus as we headed back to our community center. On our way back, it was like God said, “Ok, doubting Joel, watch this!”  A hole in the clouds opened and the sun shown through. Cleveland was under a tornado warning and over the center was a sunny sky. As we pulled into the community center there was a steady trail of kids coming across the street. When we entered the building we had over 80 kids already in the building. We gave out 120 book bags that day. Thank you God, for showing that YOU are in control.

Joel Harbaugh