Jilin, our adopted daughter, her husband, and three children have established a new school and mission station in a very remote area.
Recently, my husband Junie and I hiked with some people from our village of Mermà to buy sticky rice for our youngest son’s birthday. Our son’s nickname is Manuk, which means chicken. (We tagged him with this moniker because his hair stood on end when he was born).
When we arrived back at the dam after making our purchases in town, we found that we had lost a 50-pound sack of dry rice. We asked people if they had seen the sack of rice fall from our tricycle, but no one had seen it. I recognized that Junie was getting stressed and very disappointed and perhaps feeling guilty because he was the one driving. But what could we do? The rice was gone, and we didn’t have money to buy more.
As we prepared to hike five or six hours back to our mission home, we prayed that God would touch the person who found it and convince them to return it. Or if someone had perhaps seen our sack of rice, we hoped they would tell us where to find it. I reminded Junie that maybe whoever saw it and picked it up needed it more badly than we did.
After two days, the chieftain of our area, who lives quite a distance from us, came to visit and started apologizing. “Because I was not there when you lost your rice, I am sorry I could not prevent the mishap. I will make sure that you get your rice back.” (Interestingly, this chieftain is the blood brother of a man who has previously killed several people in this area.)
“Please, do not worry. Maybe the person who found it really needs the food.”
But the chieftain strongly disagreed with us. “I do not want people stealing your food or taking advantage of you. It is my responsibility to keep you safe and make sure that your belongings are not stolen.”
The next day, my siblings from faraway Kemantian came for the birthday feast . . . carrying our lost rice! They said they had met the chieftain, and he told them he had found our rice. He had actually hiked all the way back to the dam, at least a three to four-hour hike, to look for it.
My older sister, Bubit, then invited him to the birthday party, but he declined, saying, “I am unable to attend, but my family will attend to attest to my support of your sister Jilin and her and her husband’s mission work.”
His actions reminded me how, though we don’t see God, He is always close, keeping us safe and supporting us even when others do not. It reminded us that God uses every situation for His glory.
Ultimately, we learned that the person who took our rice was a man from the lowlands who did not like us. Some Palawano people saw him take our rice and reported it to the chieftain.
God is truly great. He not only knows when a hair falls from our heads, but He also knows when a whole sack of rice disappears, and He knows the needs of His children.
