A few months ago, Mark preached a sermon at one of our local churches in Cape Town and shared a personal testimony with the congregation which brought back memories of a difficult time in our lives as a family. This story took place after Jennifer returned to the States following her graduation from high school in Kenya in 1994. About one year later, she was battling an eating disorder.

Our normally fun-loving and bubbly daughter had changed.  Mark and I became even more concerned when we noticed that she started looking thinner and thinner but still complained that she felt fat.  We talked to her about our concerns and after a period of time, the Lord opened the door for her to be admitted to the Remuda Ranch Treatment Center for women with eating disorders in Wickenburg, Arizona. 

The program required that the family members come to the ranch for a week of intensive family therapy at the midpoint of the patient’s therapy. When it was time for Jennifer’s Family Week, Mark and I flew to Wickenburg and after talking with her personal therapist, we were alarmed when he said he had some concerns about her.  We had no idea what to expect during our session with her the next day.  That night, the two of us sat in our hotel room on the backside of the Arizona desert and cried out to God. We desperately wanted to talk to Alta—our prayer warrior and intercessor friend who came into our lives during our early years on the mission field.

Alta Stahn was in her eighties and was a member of a small church in Huntington, Indiana. During our first furlough in 1987 we were visiting her church for a missionary service—Mark preached, Judy testified, and Judy, Amy and Jennifer sang “Greater is He that is In Me.” At the conclusion of the service, this sweet little old lady introduced herself to us and said she was an intercessor and that she prayed for our family every day.  We kept in touch with her off and on over the years and especially during this difficult time. We communicated mostly through letters and a couple of phone calls since this was before internet and e-mail.  We didn’t have her phone number with us and we were desperately wanting to talk to her and ask her to pray for us and for Jennifer.  As we were sitting in our hotel room trying to figure out who we could call to track down her number, all of a sudden the phone rang, which was surprising because very few people knew where we were.  When I picked up the receiver, it was Alta.  She had been trying to find us and by some miracle, she found out we were in Wickenburg at a hotel and she finally tracked us down instead.  God had given her a message for us. 

Alta explained that one day she had to drive past a school where a teacher’s strike was in progress.  She said the Lord told her to stop and give them a message: The Lord told Alta to tell them if they would praise Him and trust Him, He would intervene on their behalf and do incredible things for them.  She dismissed it and kept on driving telling herself that surely wasn’t God. The next day when she passed the picketers she again felt something telling her to stop and give the picketers the same message. She said she brushed it off and thought it couldn’t be God and kept driving.  In the meantime, the newspapers were declaring the strike was in a stalemate and that there was no resolution in sight.  The third time Alta passed the picketers she heard the Lord speak again that she was to stop and deliver His message.  Finally she decided that she had better deliver the message whether it was God or not, just to be on the safe side. She stopped the car and rolled down her window and one of the picketers walked up to the car.  She apologized for interrupting but had a message from the Lord for the teachers.  She told him that God said if they would praise Him and trust Him, He would intervene and they would see Him do incredible things for them.  She drove away and felt relieved that she had obeyed the Lord.  The next day the headlines announced an end to the strike.  In fact, the word that was used to describe it was “MIRACLE”!  Alta was overwhelmed with joy and thanksgiving that she had obeyed the Lord. 

However, the Lord wasn’t finished with Alta’s assignment. She said that the Lord then told her to call Mark and Judy Hayburn and give them the same message.  He told her to tell us to praise Him and that He would intervene and do incredible things for our family.  That was the message Alta was determined to deliver to us on that particular day.  She told us all about the strike and the picketers and how God performed a miracle and wanted us to know that God was with us and would intervene on our behalf if we would just praise Him and trust Him. Mark and I burst into tears of joy and thanked her so much for calling us with this word from the Lord.  We began to fill the hotel room with praise and worship to the Lord and knew that God was in control of the situation. That was the turning point with Jennifer.  Her total recovery didn’t happen overnight, but Jennifer not only overcame her eating-disorder, but she has also faced some other major disappointments and challenges that have come her way with a courageous faith in God. In April of 2013, she completed her nursing degree at Georgetown University and is a licensed registered nurse in Washington D.C. in the Cardio Vascular Recovery Ward at Washington Hospital.

From that moment on, we decided never to allow fear to enter our minds when disappointments come or we are faced with impossible situations.  We have made it a practice to trust God and praise Him in everything and always thank Him in advance for working things out for our good because we know that God truly does know where we are. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus…Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16 – 18, 24).