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Breakthrough
Our Walk by Faith Part Two The faces of our beloved Ugandans were pressed against the glass window outside the entrance to Entebbe Airport as they waved goodbye to us in September 2001. An hour later, our plane lifted off the ground and we began the long journey back to our home in Seattle. Barry clasped my hand in his. When I turned toward him, we looked knowingly into each other’s eyes. Our hearts already longed for the day when we could return again to this land that soon would be so far away. The hours passed by slowly during the flight home and I quietly reflected on all that had happened. I recalled the morning when the glory of the Lord fell upon the pastors in the shipping container we called home and all the times we had seen a visitation from the Lord among the people deep in the bush. I thought about the dramatic conversion of the Witchdoctor of Seguku and the heart-rending suffering and spiritual depravity on Mt. Elgon in the Village of Sadness. “Do you realize,” Barry said as he interrupted my thoughts, “that we have $22 in our pockets?” I nodded in agreement and then quietly considered that $22 was actually all the money we had in the world, and most of our bills were due two days after we returned home, including rent. Month after month, this same scenario repeated itself at the time when rent and bills were due. This proved to be the most taxing and difficult part of our walk by faith. The Lord always did provide for us, but only after we felt pressed beyond our limits in trusting Him. Many a day the Lord sent His provision through unexpected people who reminded us of the ravens that fed the prophet Elijah. Often we felt we had been blessed by an angel when we opened the front door and surprises of generous provision had been lovingly placed on our porch. This was a time in our lives when Barry could be building a lucrative career, making plans for future retirement and saving money for us to fall back on during lean times financially. Instead, the Lord kept telling us to keep on seeking first His Kingdom by serving Him together and He would cause all that we needed to be given to us (Matthew 6:33 NASB). He also reminded us of this conversation that Jesus had with Peter…
“We have left our all and have become Your disciples. Even as the Father impressed this remarkable promise upon the tablets of our hearts, He continued to instruct…
“Never use the message I have entrusted to you Although every missionary we’ve ever met devotes most of his time in his own country to itinerating and raising funds, the Father repeatedly made it clear that He was asking us not to do this. Instead, He frequently reaffirmed to us that we were to only trust Him to sovereignly speak to people about our needs. The Lord also assured us that living on the edge financially was just for a season. This was a comforting reminder because the Word does promise that…
Those who trust in the Lord will never lack any good thing. Therefore, during the hard times we knew that there would come a day when we would enter into an abundance of provision. We longed for this breakthrough, not only for our own needs, but also to have more than enough to always bless others, and to be able to travel in and out of the country to spread the Gospel whenever we needed to go. Meanwhile in the financial realm, we continually stood at the edge of a steep cliff, acutely aware that apart from the intervention of the Lord we would fall and be crushed in the rocky crags of the canyon far below us. Living on the edge of that unnerving precipice was the only way we could learn an unshakeable trust in the faithfulness of our God. Often we felt totally alone. Few could understand how God was asking us to live and what people don’t understand, they often judge. They make inaccurate assumptions based on their own experiences. They predict defeat. These judgments forged in me an even greater capacity to love people with God’s love and to have His heart of understanding and complete forgiveness toward them. We didn’t speak about these struggles, except to our closest co-laborers whom we affectionately call our “Peter, James and John.” Yet many still began to tell us… “Even though you don’t say anything, just watching your lives is giving me the strength to walk more by faith as well.” The extreme stretching of our trust in the Lord had a dramatic impact on the ministry here in the States. The more radically we relied on the Father, the more powerfully His presence came into the meetings. Without laying hands on anyone or even praying personally for them, supernatural signs and wonders flowed like a mighty river of the Holy Spirit. We witnessed amazing physical and emotional miracles and deliverances from demonic oppression. Unbelievers fell on their faces at the altar and accepted Jesus on their own while others had a Damascus Road encounter with the Lord and came back to Him. Later they testified that all of this happened while we were worshipping Him in the Holy of Holies. Even though we were in awe of this miraculous impact of the presence of God during our times of ministry, our faith walk was still wearying. Living on the edge financially took its toll on us physically and emotionally. The exhaustion also came from the ache in our hearts to see the faces of our beloved Ugandans once again. It came from the intense battle in the spirit realm that constantly raged against our return to Africa and against our ministry in the Northwest. “Ruth,” Barry asked me one evening, “is this too hard? Are you sorry we are doing this?” “No,” I replied as I leaned my head on his shoulder. “No, I’m not sorry. I’m just very tired because sometimes it’s so hard.” There was no turning back. No matter how difficult it was, we were committed to trusting the Lord for all that we needed to serve Him. So that night we knelt down together at the foot of our bed. “Lord, I long to hug the Ugandans we love so much,” Barry prayed with a pleading voice. “Please make it possible.” To see this big, strong man on his knees, humbling himself with such passion and brokenness before the Lord, brought tears to my eyes. We often cried out to the Father to have mercy on us. We would much rather take the strength and energy that we had to put into trusting Him for every need, and invest it in His Kingdom. Yet our season of waiting didn’t end. Consequently, we learned more and more to trust the God of the Impossible for the impossible, even as the demonic attacks against us were unrelenting and came at us from all sides. For example, one night we were having dinner with friends and Barry felt a compelling from the Lord to get home as soon as possible. Almost immediately we were in the car and on the way back to our condo. As soon as we opened the front door, we were assaulted by a sickening stench that smelled like something was burning. We went quickly from room to room and Barry searched all around the outside of the building. But we found nothing. The noxious smell grew stronger. Finally Barry detected that it was coming from the garage of our neighbor in the other half of our duplex. When he pushed on the door, he was almost knocked to the ground by the fumes that billowed out of the garage. I quickly went inside and called the fire department. Moments later they forcibly entered our neighbor’s home. A thick cloud of highly combustible haze had filled every room. In the garage they discovered rags that were soaking in a cleaning solvent and smoldering in a bucket. “This place was within minutes or even seconds of exploding into flames,” one fireman told us as he emerged from the garage. “If that had happened, the whole building would have burned so fast we couldn’t stop it. The explosion would have been like a bomb had been set off.” Flashing emergency lights reflected on the walls of our living room while loud beeping sounds from the fire truck echoed throughout our home. In the midst of this turmoil, I climbed the stairs, sat at my desk and covered my face with my hands. Both of our offices were on the other side of the wall where the worst fumes had collected. If the house had exploded, many years of writing labors, Biblical research and invaluable files for the ministry would have been destroyed. Even more alarming, Barry and I had been dangerously close to being seriously injured or killed. At that moment, the Father opened up my understanding to this shocking realization that He spoke to my heart…
“Do you realize what has happened? At first I shuddered at these alarming insights. But then I was elated because it struck me that we had just experienced a fulfillment of these phenomenal promises…
If we make the Most High our shelter, no evil will conquer us. I dashed down the stairs in search of Barry to tell him what the Lord had shown me. Several weeks went by and the attack against us intensified. “There is a dense area in your mammogram,” my doctor explained to me during a phone call. “You need to come in right away for an ultrasound.” While I listened to this disconcerting news, a gripping fear attacked me. Thoughts of what had happened to three couples who were on the mission field with us in Africa flashed through my mind. One couple had a daughter and their two grandchildren die in a car accident. This tragedy forced them to leave Uganda and return home for the funerals in America. A month after they had buried these loved ones and they were preparing to fly back to Africa, a third grandchild was killed in another car accident. This missionary couple was so brokenhearted that they were unable to return to Uganda for many months. When they did come, they had aged and were greatly weakened in their health and strength. The daughter of another couple had serious breast cancer while we were in Africa. Then shortly after a third couple returned home to the States, the wife discovered that she had an aggressive breast cancer. There was no doubt that these sicknesses were demonic attacks against the call of God on these missionaries. The doctor interrupted my frantic thoughts by saying goodbye and I hung up the phone. I was desperate to run into the presence of God and be as close to Him as quickly as possible, and decided to go for a walk. I went briskly down the street. As I did, I commanded the spirit of fear that had come against me to leave in the name of Jesus. I spoke the Blood of the Lamb over my life and my physical body. Then I stood on the promise in Psalm 68:2 that “just as smoke disappears when blown by the wind and wax melts in the fire, all the powers of evil perish in the presence of our God.” With these powerful promises surging through my spirit, I began to worship. Instantly I felt God’s presence pushing back the sinister evil force that was trying to destroy me. And a burst of freedom flooded my spirit as the Father ministered these profoundly impacting words to my heart…
“I will honor My Word that promises you I will rescue you from the evil trap. Although the details will vary, this compelling reassurance is for each of us during our hard times. While I rested in the comfort of this reassurance from the Father, during the remainder of the walk I gave no more thought to the fear that had attacked me. Instead, I thanked the Father for the miracle of His calming peace that had so quickly apprehended my soul and silenced my panic. A week later I had the ultrasound and a lump was discovered. “This lump went from being slightly suspicious to very suspicious,” the doctor informed me as he did the biopsy a few days later. It was evident from his countenance that he was concerned. The battering of the spiritual forces against us didn’t let up. Shortly after we arrived home from the hospital, I heard Barry moan with pain and I rushed downstairs. He was doubled over and could hardly move. “We must worship, Barry,” I said with urgency. “We are under very serious attack.” Barry nodded in agreement. I sat down at my harp while Barry lay on the couch and winced with excruciating pain. As soon as we began to worship a supernatural peace settled on us. Then despite all the difficult events of the day, we slept peacefully that night. But the next day, the attack persisted on another front. We had a ministry commitment that evening and Barry was in too much pain to travel with me. While driving on the freeway, I suddenly realized that there was a row of cars to my left and a row of cars coming into my lane on the right from a freeway onramp. There was also a car in front of me and a car following close behind me. Going sixty-five miles an hour, my car was heading rapidly into the center of all these converging cars and there was no way I could escape a deadly collision. Yet suddenly I found myself on the other side of the cars. I can’t explain how the Lord rescued me. But somehow He guided me to a place of safety. It just happened. And to this day, I marvel at how the Father miraculously rescued me. The days passed as we waited for the results of the biopsy. “This isn’t a cyst or a self contained lump,” my doctor finally called to tell me. “It’s a lymph gland and I’m so glad to be able to tell you that there is no malignancy. If there had been cancer, it would have been very serious.” Seconds later I hung up, sat back in my chair, released a sigh of relief and told the Father…
“The enemy’s plan wasn’t to just give me breast cancer like the other women who were involved with the missionary team. The plan was to
attack me with a type of cancer that could have easily gone into many organs because it was in my lymphatic system. The following afternoon we traveled to one of our favorite places in the Northern Cascades. We wandered off the beaten path and hiked up to an opening in the woods. There we contentedly lay on a blanket that was cushioned by a thick bed of moss beneath us. Majestic pine trees that towered magnificently overhead sheltered us. Myriads of leaves shimmered in the sun as its radiant light filtered through the branches and gently warmed us. While we rested in a comfortable silence and gratefully basked in the beauty that had enveloped us, I quietly reflected on how we had grown since our last trip to Africa. The most critical lesson I had learned was to die to my need to base our financial security on anything but our trust in the Lord as our Provider. Although the stretch of my faith was still wearying at times, now there was no fear. I was no longer anxious about falling off a cliff and wondering when we were going to hit the bottom and go splat! Because of this drastic change in my thinking, I wasn’t the same person who had begun this walk of total trust in the Lord only a year ago. Now, as never before, I understood what it meant to call the Lord our Jehovah Jireh, our Provider. Consequently I could face each day steadfastly expectant of how He would demonstrate His faithfulness to us. Barry had also undergone a radical transformation. He had a long, troubled history of shutting down toward God if things didn’t work out the way he had hoped for, or if they didn’t happen as fast as he had believed they would after he had prayed. He also blamed God for disappointments we experienced after trusting Him to change circumstances that were deeply discouraging for us. But now, no matter how long it took for his prayers to be answered and no matter what attack came against us to temporarily frustrate what we were called to do, Barry didn’t get upset with God. He no longer blamed Him for the works of the devil that came against us. He no longer blamed Him for the destructive choices of others that God had no control over. He realized that the Father had given people a free will so that they could freely choose to love Him. But many use that precious gift of choice to betray Him and inflict terrible pain on others. Now Barry understood that the suffering caused by the choices of others was not what the Father wanted. This insight helped him in the midst of the most disheartening circumstances. Now, no matter what was happening that was disappointing or discouraging, he could still worship and still pray. This was a powerful step of growth for Barry that established in him a new strength during the hard times. My mind now jolted back to where we were resting under the canopy of the trees. Swallows playfully darted across the treetops that were etched against the azure blue sky. Fluffy white seed pods from the nearby cottonwood trees drifted through the air as thick as falling snow. This sight reminded me of a word of encouragement that was given to us a few days before…
“I saw cottonwood seeds. I quietly pondered these words while Barry and I sat in the peaceful woods. Then Barry made a remarkable statement…
“All along we thought the breakthrough in our walk by faith meant a miracle in the financial realm. And there is no doubt that is going to
happen. We returned to Africa in January 2002. 
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