As we were having our worship time, on that unforgettable day in January 1994, the reading was from Deuteronomy 7:11, 12, (NIV) where God says to His people: “Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees, and laws I give you today. If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep His covenant of love with you, as He swore to your forefathers.”

Then we started to rejoice! We recalled we have a true God and a tolerant father whose heart is set on the victorious welfare of His children! He is ALIVE! He is aware of every single move His children make.

The promises of our Father to His believing children are always positive, like God Himself. They are guarantees of His everlasting goodness and mercy. They are about lands flowing with milk and honey and new wine.

Oh what great love our God has lavished upon us His children through the personal knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ our true manna. Of Himself our Savior said in John 6:41, (NIV) “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

This assurance is spiritually effective for us His redeemed children just as manna had been physically essential for the Israelites of the Old Testament when the Lord miraculously exited them out of Egypt .

Let us consider that even the manna God gave them for food and sustenance for forty years in the wilderness, was also a school for learning. In Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV) He says: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

When the Lord allowed our family of four to move over from North East Africa to settle here in the U.S.A, we believed His sacred promise to His people in Joshua 1:5 (K J V) “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”  

This rang continuously in our hearts during our long and timely preparation to hear from the Lord. We trusted our heavenly Father for a miracle; which was for a safe exit from Khartoum , the Capital of the Sudan where we lived. At that time , no one was allowed to leave the country without a special permit.

 In God’s own timing, we received a special request through our son who lives with his wife, here in Missouri . It was a card saying, “Dear Friends:  Do you not consider it time for you come over to U S A to see your first granddaughter  who was born last week?”  To our great joy and surprise, the card was signed by none other than the late Governor of Missouri, Mr. Mel Carnahan himself!

For he was a very close friend of our son’s father-in-law! With the card in our hands, the American Embassy in Khartoum soon granted us the needed Visas.

On March 10, 1995 we began our God-ordained trip fearlessly. After our arrival in the USA and more than a few days of rejoicing, our son said: “PLEASE! DO NOT LOSE TIME! NOW THAT THE LORD BROUGHT YOU HERE SAFELY, HE WISHES TO HELP YOU TO SETTLE IN THE USA !”

This was a great shift: from the life of dire hardships in one impoverished continent to an extremely new life in a totally different part of God’s universe. As children of God living in His will and under the Blood of Jesus, we found no reason to hesitate. With praise and thanksgiving in our hearts, we all took God’s extended hands of love….We recalled the sacred and unforgettable promise of Jesus to His disciples in Mathew 28:20 (KJV) “and lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  Praises be to God…just like the Israelites, in our Exodus, we too experienced the same timed guidance of God’s awesome Presence.

Now, we rejoice as we read in Psalm 124: 7, 8, (KJV) “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth”