Philippians 4:6 says, “Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart” (Good News Translation).
Early on a Friday morning, Abraham Sando knocked on my door. Always respectful, he said, “Sir, I started the pump this morning. But we are not getting any water!”
All of us at Ikizu Seminary and Secondary School in Tanzania were dependent on that water. No rain had fallen for well over a year.
After checking everything, I went to the principal and, not as respectfully, announced, “George! We have no water! Our well has run dry! I suggest prayer and fasting for rain tomorrow.” We did exactly that.
When I mentioned it to my senior math class, several of the boys scoffed amongst themselves: “If it rains, it’s the rainy season. If it doesn’t rain…, in either case God didn’t answer our prayer!” I recognized that God was in a hard place.
Sunday morning, the sky was still like brass over our heads. I sent Abraham the mile down to the well to start the pump and see if water had seeped in over the weekend.
“Sir, it’s coming, but very little.” It was coming—about a quarter of the normal amount. We usually ran the pump about eight hours a day, six days a week.
“Well Abraham, let’s run it night and day until the water stops flowing.” We added fuel twice a day and kept the oil at normal levels. I wasn’t sure whether the situation warranted doing it on Sabbath, so I personally kept it running on Sabbath while Abraham ran it the rest of the week. I didn’t want Abraham to have to answer to God for working on the Sabbath.
For six long weeks we kept the pump running. Water flowed at a quarter of the normal rate, 24/7, just barely what we needed. But the water never failed.
At the end of the six weeks, now fully into the middle of the dry season, a great tropical rainstorm blew in. It poured! It filled the village dam that had been dry for months. A torrent flowed past our well for several hours. And the well ran dry!
The next day, water, fresh, beautiful water came up into our water tank full-bore! We went back to running the pump eight hours a day, six days a week.
In class the next week I said to those agnostic seniors, “I heard you say, ‘If it rains, it’s the rainy season. If it doesn’t rain…, in either case God didn’t answer our prayer!’ You are sitting in these chairs because of a miracle. You drank water because God supplied the water for six whole weeks. You have just experienced a great miracle!” For once, they had nothing to say!
Every time I pray to God for something specific like that, I say to myself, I wonder how God is going to answer my prayer this time. Often when it happens, I get chills running up and down my spine! We serve a magnificent God—and God always answers our prayers. Just give God a chance to do it God’s way!
Wil Clarke loves living with his wife, Sylvia, in the (sometimes) green hills of La Sierra and watching God bring the hills back to life yearly.