Daniel was the first in his family to be able to attend college.
He came from a long line of hard working men and women who struggled to make their children’s lives better than their own. His parents made education a priority for their son. They worked long hours cleaning houses to scrape together enough money for him to go to college.
Daniel valued their struggle and their dreams. He was determined to lift his family out of poverty. He worked hard at school and got excellent grades. He even applied for and got a loan to help with his college costs.
Daniel’s school was a demanding 4-year college that was too far away from home to walk. There was no local bus, so he used an old 13-year-old Ford that his uncle seldom used.
One day on his way home from school the car’s engine broke down, leaving him with no transportation. He desperately needed to get the car fixed. But it would take several months of his family’s saving to be able to afford the repairs. He saw no option but to drop out of college, get a job, and pay for the car repairs.
The next day, Daniel’s mother told me he was forced to quit school. She was concerned about her son and her family’s hopes for the future.
When I heard this, I quietly pulled Daniel aside to learn more. “My uncle’s old car broke down. After everything my family has done to make my education possible, I can’t ask them for money to fix it. They just don’t have it. I’m going to have to look for a job I can walk to, so I can pay for the repairs.”
Because he’d have to drop out of school he would have to pay back the entire school loan immediately. Plus the car repairs. “It will take me over a year to pay all of those costs.” He knew it meant he would not be able to continue his education.
His family’s hopes for the future would be crushed.
I prayed about how to help.
How can His Provision Ministry, as small as we are, take on the challenge and make a huge difference in a needy person’s life? Sometimes what looks like an impossible barrier, can be solved simply. Jesus taught us we could move mountains [impossible barriers] with faith:
"Have faith in God." “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea,’ it will be done for him.” -- Mark 11:22, 23
He worked as hard as ever. He graduated with honors. He then went on to get graduate degrees and his psychologist’s license. Today, he is a well-respected Christian psychologist, helping hundreds of people through desperate problems.
Daniel knew it was God who rescued him from hopelessness and put him back on the path to a bright future.
Every time you make a donation to His Provision Ministry, you are helping poor families like Daniel’s, or the elderly, single moms, the disabled, veterans, the homeless, the overlooked, and the discouraged move from despair to hope.
It is something we are blessed to do every day by providing emergency help, and giving out clothing and nutritious food, toys and school supplies, fruit trees for community gardens, making referrals to other sources of help and taking the time to really listen and pray.
Here is an opportunity for you to help someone like Daniel transform their life -- an opportunity for you to move mountains. Won’t you also please pray, and consider what you can do to literally transform lives?