Life in The Family International

Joni writes: I wanted to tell you all about an experience I had. It was a few weeks ago, but fresh in my mind like it was yesterday. It’s one of those things that I won’t be able to prove but there’s no doubt in my mind that it was supernatural—miraculous.

It was Halloween night. Visiting at my Dad’s, he and I took the kids to a Peter Piper’s Pizza where the kids played their hearts out and the manager donated a couple of pizzas for us. But it started to get crazy in there with a lot of people coming in to celebrate Halloween, I guess. So we decided to go home. As it was, the older children wanted to go trick or treating (even though I sort their candy and they’re only allowed to keep a few. It’s just fun for them to dress up and be out at night) and we wanted to make sure to do that before it got too late.

So we get home, the kids basically run out of the car to get some costumes on, there are already trick or treaters at our door, I’m carrying the baby and Andie out of the car, Dad’s trying to get the van parked in the garage etc. etc. –a bit hectic.

The baby’s asleep so I go with the kids to the neighboring houses and leave the little ones with Mom and Dad. Then we get home, the kids have their candy strewn all over the floor “sorting it,” the baby’s still asleep, everything is calm and peaceful. I ask “Oh Tiff was tired huh? She already went to sleep?” the answer came: “Tiff’s not with you?” TOTAL PANIC!! No she has not been with me! Our thoughts were all racing—“Did we leave her at the pizza place?” I thought she may have run out the door with us, and started traipsing behind another group of trick or treaters or something…I didn’t know, my mind was going wild. I ran out of the house screaming “Tiffany!!!” as loud as I could.

Finally I got ahold of myself (somewhat) and I asked the Lord for the keys to unlock miracles. As soon as I did I heard her crying in the garage, I said “she’s in the car in the garage!” My Dad runs in there…yes…she is in the car…in the corner of the back seat…but completely, peacefully asleep. There is no way I could’ve heard her crying, she was asleep, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I did. It was her cry, in her own unique way (very whiny). I know also that I would not have thought of that, that we had left her in the car, at least not right then, my mind was nowhere near a stage of thinking about the options—it was shown to me. All I can do is thank the Lord for His amazing power and undeserved love for Me to show me that and to help us.

Vas and Joni are members of The Family International and are fulltime missionaries in Mexico. Vas helps to organize outreach, writes, records and produces music, plays in a band, performs and does shows, counsels young people and engages in evangelism. Joni teaches her four children, evangelises, performs and does shows, sings and records and assists The Family childcare board. More about Vas and Joni

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 11:33 am and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.