Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well, I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of When God Says Go. Welcome to Miracles in the 21st Century. I'm Celia Moncrieff. You know, sometimes God asks us to do things that might sound tricky or hard or unusual. One day I was sitting in church up at Mooloolumba when I got this impression: If Paul Fuwa asked you to go to this little school, then you must go. And I thought, that's a strange thought, but I felt quite peaceful and calm about it. At the end of the service, I saw Paul Fuhrer get up out of his seat and he made a beeline for me. I was sitting up near the back. And he said to me, look, we've got this little school that is actually struggling and I might need you there. Well, I was pretty shocked because I'd just had that thought and here comes Paul asking me this. And he said, "Don't worry though, nothing's going to happen yet. I would definitely talk to the principal of the school you're at, at TVAC, and if she's not happy for you to go, then that's it, you won't go." I said, "Okay, I would need to pray about that." So some weeks went by and Paul came to me and said, "It's okay because the principal wasn't really happy for you to go, and so—" That's the end of that. You'll stay where you are, which I was very pleased about because I had become very involved in the music up there. I was teaching a grade 3 class that I absolutely loved, and we were doing all our action-based learning, and life was going very well. We'd run a musical called Now about Jesus coming, and I was very happy. I'd even started writing my programs for the next year. It was coming up towards Christmas. And then I got a phone call from the principal, and she said to me, I must apologize to you. I said, what for? You haven't done anything. And she said, well, I feel like I've been blocking the Holy Spirit by telling— saying I didn't want you to leave. So she said, I'm telling you, you're free to go. And I said, oh, What did you tell me that for? And so anyway, after she hung up, she said, "You're gonna get a phone call." So Paul Fuhrer rang me and said, "Will you go?" I said, "I need to pray." But do you know, I knew I had to go because how did God give me that impression and then I got asked like that? I knew it was God and I got many other confirmations along the way. My sister said to me, "You know you've gotta go," even though she lived near and I was going to be leaving. She said, "You know you've gotta go. When God says go, you have to go." And so it was like scramble, scramble. It was just before Christmas. We had to get like a removalist. And so I was up there for Christmas scrambling around, packing up my classroom, which was full of hospital beds and jails and all sorts of paraphernalia that I needed to make, run my action units. And so everything fell into place. It was like we got the removalist, for my school belongings. We got the removalist for my belongings and everything worked out seamlessly. So zoom, in my car I went down to Toronto. I walked in the door and no one else was there. I had 2 weeks to go before school opened. Now Paul and I had had some conversations because the school was in trouble, even though there were some good things going on there before. The school had— was in trouble. They'd gotten down to apparently only 4 would commit to staying at the school if something didn't happen. So I walked into the school and there was nobody, just me. We decided sole charge was the best way to go because there were not very many children. It had worked out in the end there were going to be 11. And so I'd said, yes, I think sole charge is the way to go. And so we were in the school and there was all of my resources piled into the pre-kindy teacher, Andree, who's fabulous, by the way. In her classroom was all my stuff, piles of beds and this and that and the other. There was a whole lot of stuff in the school that needed sorting and changing. And so I'm going, "Oh no, God, what am I doing here? There's only like 2 weeks to go and this is like scary." You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to turn around and run back to TVAC, but there was no doing that. I said, "Help God." So God sent help. People came in out of the woodwork and said, "I will help you to arrange this and clean that." And Marty Stafford, a friend of mine, organised for us to get a sort of a shed, which we got and put all of my resources in there. Everyone came and helped. We got the lawns all mown and everything all cleaned up, and it was time to open school. Well, When we opened, we opened with 18 students because some of the homeschoolers had joined us and some others. And so I am telling you, God has blessed this school abundantly. My prayer has been, dear Lord, please send us strong Christian Adventist families who are ready to share their faith. Send us families who are in love with you. And then, Lord, send all the others who are willing to listen. Do you know, before I actually got in my car and zoomed down, I said to God, Lord, if you're sending me down there to Toronto, I've been enjoying music so much here. I was the choir director for a short time. We'd run all these musical things. And I just said, Lord, could you give me some musical children? And Lord, I would like you to get Leticia Campbell, a lady I'd worked with in a previous school who was the most amazing strings teacher. So I prayed and I said, Lord, please, could you get her to answer the phone? Please, Lord, could I have Leticia? So I rang on the phone and then Leticia talks to me on the phone. I said, Leticia, you'll never guess what's happened. I hadn't talked to her for years. I said, "Latisha, I've been asked to go to Toronto and I really, really would like you to come as the music teacher." And Latisha said to me, "I cannot believe what you just said." She said, "Do you know I have just been praying that you would come back to Cooranbong and you would come to Toronto." She said, "I cannot believe this phone call." She said, "My daughter's about to start pre-kindy and I wanted you to teach her and I wanted you back here." And so God is amazing. Isn't he a bit like a puppeteer? Over here, over there. He knows where everything's happening. I don't know how he does it. He just knows what to do all the time because he's God. Well, we did start a music program. And if you would like to see some of the YouTube clips that we have made, You can look at them on YouTube. Just type in Toronto Adventist School and you will see them. Do you know that God blessed these kids so much that within 10 months of most of them never picking up a violin before or any other stringed instrument— there were a few who'd learned before— that within 10 months they were playing Gloria by Vivaldi. Can you believe that? That tells me two things. Number one, God is an enabler. Number two, he gave me a beautiful music teacher. Number three, it tells me that God blesses when you are trying to follow his ways. He promises you will be the head and not the tail if you obey my commands. You know, we have gone on at that school. We've got the most amazing staff now. We are growing, growing, growing. We have not advertised, but do you know what? The Lord is answering my prayer and the prayer of many others, and people are pouring into the school. And we are excited to see what God's doing next. So do you know, one day I was sitting in my office. Many parents had talked to me about the idea of starting a high school at Toronto, expanding into high school. And that is a big thing. So I felt this day that God was saying to me, "Do it, and don't you worry about applying for government funding. I will supply." Do you know how crazy that thought is? That is a very crazy thought because this would take a lot of money and a lot of work. Well, that Sunday, as I was having my worship at home, I asked God a question. I said, God, I don't want to dishonor your name by saying something publicly when it could have just been my crazy thoughts in my head. So if this was you speaking to me saying, I will provide, could you please confirm that that was you? Well, I just finished my worship and I got this text. From 2 Chronicles 16:9, it said, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him." You know what? I almost— if I had been sitting on a chair, I would have almost fallen off it, but I wasn't sitting on a chair, I was sitting on the floor. And I was just astonished. I thought, I'm gonna look up the surrounding story of that text, and I'll try and summarize it very briefly. So there was a king called King Asa in the Old Testament who was a good king. He was getting rid of all the idols. And one day a big army came against him, the Ethiopian army, and they had a million-odd soldiers and chariots and whatever else. And he went to God and said, God, you can save by few or by many. Nothing's too hard for you. And so God did. He saved them from that great big army. Then quite some years later, the king of Israel came against him and blocked off any entrance in or out of Judah to be able to see the king. And so the king said, oh dear. And he took money out of the treasury of the temple. He took money out of his own treasury, and he sent it to the king of Syria and said, can you please make an alliance with me? And can you please come and get rid of those is those people, get them out so that I cannot be attacked by them and so they can get out of my way. So the king of Syria maybe liked the money, I don't know, but he said yes. And sure enough, he got rid of that army of Israel. Now you might say, well, how smart was Asa? What a good idea was that? Because the army, the other army's gone. No, because God sent a prophet to King Asa and said, King Asa, you did the wrong thing. Why did you go to the world, to the king of Syria, instead of coming to me? Don't you remember how I defeated the Ethiopians for you when they had a great big army? Why did you go to the king of Syria? Now you will have to have wars for the rest of your reign. And sadly, King Asa's life didn't end so well. He got diseases in his feet, and instead of going to God for help, he went to the medicos. Not that there's anything wrong with doctors, I'm not saying that, and God does use them also. But in this case, God wanted him to go to God and ask for healing, and he did not even ask God, and he ended up dying. Sad story. But do you know what? I am telling you that I don't think if I had looked right through the whole Bible to every single story, that I could have gotten greater confirmation to my question, "God, are you sure this is you saying you will provide the funding?" Now I've got to tell you, that is the most insane thing that I said. Any sensible person would say no such thing. But I felt like I felt impressed, and I felt like that was confirmation. You know, we've gone on to make plans and we're working towards doing this, but we don't have the money. And what's more, we know that the devil does not like what we're doing because he is putting barriers and barriers in front of us. We have got this tiny little triangle that we're allowed to build on at Toronto because it is a fire-prone block. And so We tried to even get a portable in. It would've gone 1 meter out of this little tiny triangle. And they are telling us, you have to have, get all your windows out and your doors out. You've got to have double glazing. You've got to have this. You've got to have that. The requirements would've cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They wanted us to put in a great big road. And they wanted us to do this and that and everything, which we have no resources to do. And you know what? Another teacher who has just come Mr. Adam Cavanagh and I sat down and we put all these requirements before the Lord. And we said, "God, just like King Hezekiah says, we're not happy with this letter. Will you please do something?" And so we screwed up the letter and threw it in the bin. We wait to see what God is going to do. And we are so excited because we know that there is nothing too hard for God. Do you know God even said himself, "Is there anything too hard for me?" And I'm telling you, I say to the parents, God owns the cattle on the thousand hills, the silver and the gold is his. There is no resource problem with God. So ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls, you have to know that we serve a powerful God who made the world. He spoke it into existence. Do you think this little request of ours is too hard for him? I say no. So thank you for listening, and I hope you remember that God loves you. He knows how many hairs on your head.
