Dongi Dongi Mission Trip - Day 21

Answered Prayer!

In my previous blog post I briefly shared that I lost my phone at a major shopping mall in Jakarta.  This is not how I imagined finishing up our mission trip!  However, after some fervent prayer and the determined actions of my travel companions, this happened (as shared on Facebook):

"I would like to share with you an extraordinary experience I had this morning! On Saturday I lost my iPhone while at a major shopping mall in Jakarta, which contained my credit card, driver's licence and medicare card in the cover. You can imagine my distress at losing my phone and identification in such a busy foreign city!! Yesterday morning, Neville and Nyoman decided to try calling my phone from Nyoman's Indonesian number, to no avail. However, last night we noticed two missed calls on Nyoman's phone from my phone number. Nyoman called back and discovered that my phone was found on the ground beside our car in the car park at the mall by a man from Bandung. He took the phone home and tried to send a message to me via my Instagram account, which was still logged in on my phone. This morning, this man and his family drove all the way from Bandung, about a 3 hour drive, back to Jakarta to return my phone and identification to me! While this alone is remarkable, my phone was still in 'flight mode' and my SIM card was disabled by Telstra after we reported it missing, so it shouldn't have received our call; the battery on my phone never holds charge for more than a day anymore; and it was found by a Muslim man and returned by his family who wanted to demonstrate the integrity of their faith. I praise God for this miracle against the odds of ever seeing my phone again and the risk of my ID being used for identity fraud overseas. I'm still astounded by this incredible blessing!!"

What threatened to be a spoiler of an extraordinary mission trip became a major highlight!  Once again I was reminded how God can use any situation to bring unexpected encounters and blessings that reinforce how great He really is!!  I also can't help thinking that my encounter with this family is no accident and that our paths will cross again some time in the future.