“It’s a miracle that I’m in Papua New Guinea,” says Julie, a Bible worker at Port Macquarie church (NSW) and speaker for Site #2 at Hayafaga. “I saw an ad in the Record asking for people who were willing to come and preach for PNG for Christ. Even though I was immediately interested in going, I didn’t think it would be possible. But nothing is impossible with God.”
The first issue was financial. “If you want me to go, God, please provide the money,” Julie prayed. Within two days, two generous donors provided the money she needed for airfares.
The second issue was getting a passport and visa on time.
“There were a lot of delays in getting the documents I needed for the passport,” says Julie. “The day before my flight, the travel agent said that it was too late. He wasn’t expecting me to get my passport and visa on time, and he said that even if they came through the next day, he wouldn’t be in the office. My heart sank.”
But Julie believed that God wanted her to be in PNG. She told her travel agent that she was trusting God for another miracle.
The morning of the flight, Julie was packing and ready to head to the airport, even though her passport still hadn’t arrived.
Just three hours before her flight was scheduled to depart, the postman finally arrived with her passport. But then there was another hurdle. He refused to hand over the passport because it was in Julie’s maiden name and she didn’t have any identification in that name with her.
The postman offered to drop her passport off at the depot and said she could collect it at 2pm. Her flight was meant to leave at 12pm, two hours earlier.
As Julie ”debated” with the postie, a woman appeared and said, “I’ll sign for her passport.”
“I couldn’t believe it!” exclaimed Julie. “The postman wouldn’t give me my own passport but was perfectly willing to hand it over to a complete stranger. I have no doubt that stranger was an angel.
”Praise God, He got me my passport on time. I applied for my visa and got it straight away. Then I called my travel agent and I told him I had received my miracle. ‘You sure did’ was his response.”
Julie left for the airport and she made her flight.
Hundreds of people attended the meetings in Hayafaga every night, with many of them choosing to give their lives to Jesus.
“This has been a life-changing experience,” says Julie. “The people here were praying for me for more than a month before I arrived. I am convinced that their faith accompanied by the faith of my family and church members is the reason that I got here. God answered our prayers.”
Vania Chew preached at Heganofi for the PNG for Christ program and works in donor relations at Adventist Media.
