We started looking for work, but as our new home was on acreage, kilometres from anywhere, it was tough going without a car. Two mornings later the landlord came up to me. He said that since we didn’t have any transport we could use their spare car! It was a Toyota Corolla and had a full tank of petrol. I started driving all around the nearest CBD door knocking on businesses looking for a job. I was getting nothing. As I drove past a nightclub the Lord put on my heart to go in there right now. I was like, What?! Go into the night club? As I walked through the door of the hotel, I walked past another man who was walking out. I went up to the reception and asked the lady if any work was available. She gave me an application form, and then the manager came out straight away. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said, “I’ll do anything!” He said “That’s great! It’s true what they say, ‘The guy that walks in gets the job.’” It turns out that the guy that I walked past in the doorway had just quit and now the job was mine! I began by picking up glasses in the nightclub. Each 6 hour shift was worth $100 (the rent money!). Praise God! Cherie also got a job in retail and we were away. Now I was on a whole other faith level. I didn’t want to go back to living the way I used to. God had shown me that He was my provider.
Unfortunately years earlier (when we were teenagers and had no clue about finances), we had accumulated a fair bit of debt on credit card; therefore, we needed to send money back to New Zealand to make our payments on the debt owed. So even though we had jobs, we got to the point again where we only had $50 cash and no food in the pantry. We knew we could put $50 into groceries and manage to survive for the week, but we felt God asking us to trust Him to provide. So we decided we would give the $50 into the offering that evening when we got to church and believe God. That afternoon we were with a friend driving to a park to have some chill time. I had stopped at a set of traffic lights. When the light went green God spoke so clearly but quietly “turn left.”
I started to go left and Cherie and our friend Cleone said, “No Benny, the park is straight ahead.”
“It’s ok,” I said, “I’m going left.”
Cherie just rolled with it thinking I was going on an adventure. She saw a nice looking dog in the back of a car (I think it was an Alaskan Malamute) and said, “Wow, look at that dog, follow the dog!” You see God can use anything. I mean seriously, “follow the dog”? So we did. The car with the dog turned right into a car park and then drove off. We were driving slowly through the car park and I was wondering, God, why are we here? And then I saw it. I thought, No way! I drove up and didn’t even have to get out of the car. In the middle of the car-park, with no one around, I opened the car door and reached down and picked a $50 note up off the ground. And the Lord put on my heart, “I will provide for you always!”
We continued to learn that God is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. Once again when we were down to our last eight dollars, we decided to sow it all into the offering at church and believe God. After church some friends invited us to come to their place for pizza. That was Sunday’s dinner taken care of. We had a little bit of food in the pantry for Monday, but by Tuesday we’d run out of food. We waited on God, and soon received a phone call from our pastor telling us that on Sunday someone put an envelope with our name on it into the offering. Inside the envelope was $500! Wow! God is so faithful!
Another time that God showed us His faithfulness was after we had been using our landlord’s car for a few months we found out they wanted to sell it. They had blessed us so much, and we wanted to see them blessed too. We prayed and asked God to bring someone in to buy it for the full price that our landlords wanted (which seemed to us a lot more than that type of car was worth, but hey, nothing is impossible with God!) We prayed and believed God would do it.
A few days later a man who had seen the car advertised came to look it over. He took it for a quick test drive and then paid the full price with no bargaining. Our landlords were stoked! Now, of course we didn’t have a car to use anymore, but we believed God; even though the car wasn’t ours we felt as though we had sown it and knew God would provide. Almost immediately we received a phone call from a mate. I answered and he just started apologising.
I asked, “What for?”
He just said, “I’m really sorry.”
I said, “What for?” again and he apologised again saying that a week ago God had told him to buy us a car and he was only just telling us now!
God is Awesome! My mate drove around, picked me up and we went to look for a car to buy. Praise God! His timing is perfect. God knew it would take my mate a week to wrestle with the idea and then finally call us. God knows the end from the beginning. How great is our God!
In the same week of receiving $500 and a car, God spun me out again: After having worked for a few months at the nightclub and sharing about God all the time, I also got a job at a ten-pin bowling alley. I worked both jobs for a while. However, the hours clashed and it just wasn’t working, so I decided to finish at the hotel and try to get more hours at the bowling centre. Everyone there wanted to know why I was always happy, so naturally I shared with heaps of people at work about Jesus!
After a few months I asked the manager for some more hours, and he replied sarcastically “Ask God!” I kept a good attitude and thought to myself Ok. I went home and that night asked God for more hours.
The next morning I received a phone call from a guy at church:
“Hey is that Ben?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ve got a proposition for you, how would you like a full-time job, with great pay, starting tomorrow?”
“Yes please!”(I was employed causally at the bowling alley, which means only an hour’s notice was required before terminating employment.)
I then called the manager of the ten-pin bowling alley. I told him, “I prayed for more hours and God answered my prayer. I’ve been offered a new job, better hours and better pay.” The manager was surprised and then asked if I could still work the evening shift. I said I would, and even did a few more evening and weekend shifts to make sure they were not put out. God is so faithful. Five hundred dollars, a car and a job all in about a week!
God continued to stretch us and grow us. We were constantly learning that He is our source and our provider. Little did we know that these faith building lessons were shaping us and preparing us for the call God had put on our lives.
One day as I was driving through a rural area on my way to work, the car began to shudder. It was out of fuel, and I only had $2.70 on me. I was still moving at about 80km an hour when the engine stopped. I just coasted and had peace in my heart. Down a hill then up another. A car came behind me, and I was able to move to the left and let them pass. My speed started to drop down to about 40km. Then down another hill and up again. As I came around the next corner and started rolling down the hill, there was a petrol station on the right hand side of the road. I thought, God don’t let another car come the other way because I’ll have to stop in the middle of the road and then push the car across to the petrol station. No cars were around and I rolled across the road and pulled up to the petrol pump. With a big grin on my face, I told the attendant that I just rolled here! I put $2.70 petrol in and continued onto work. At work a friend gave me $5, which was enough to get me home again.
I remember another time God was teaching us to rely on Him.
We had decided to go fruit picking in a town called Stanthorpe. We drove out there and on the way prayed that God would have a caravan available for us to rent. We pulled into a caravan park and the managers said, “Yes we have a caravan for you.”
It was the largest caravan in the park and we were stoked. A massive storm rolled in and outside all the tents were getting hammered by the rain, but we were warm and dry inside. Later people asked us how we got the caravan. They said people had been asking all week for one but the managers had said none were available.