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Topic: TRUST (07/21/16)
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TITLE: My Wilderness Experience | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ingrid Forsberg
07/23/16 -
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I was a white female who was not street smart, had zero experience working with juvenile delinquents, gang members, or drug users and dealers. What qualified me for the job? I was a L.I.F.E. Bible College graduate and something inside me desperately wanted to be chaplain at those two camps. I found it was not in me to ask for the position so I silently endured the agony of yearning for the position. A couple months went by without finding a chaplain for the camps. No one wanted it. It was just too far away, was a thankless job, and it paid nothing. Finally, I volunteered to go up there until a chaplain was found. I was then asked to be the chaplain. I accepted, but I was scared to death to take it on. I had never done anything like this before. And I had to raise my own financial support. I was not healthy enough to hold down a regular job and do a decent job as camp chaplain. It had to be one or the other. I couldn’t even do graphic art freelance in such a remote location. Only scientist used computers back then and there was no Internet.
The county didn’t pay chaplains. They carefully maintained separation of church and state. I had no Ph. D. or Masters. I had no special training for work with juvenile delinquents. The churches said because I would be working for the county, the county should pay me. The organization that placed me had no money. They told me to send out 200 letters asking for support. I got one positive response and felt really stupid. That is when I told God, “If George Muller could only pray, then I can only pray. If money doesn’t come in You get to find another chaplain.” George Muller ran an orphanage in the 1800s and never asked anyone but God for provision.
It was a blessing, yet I hated living like that. I asked God, “Why can’t I have a regular, established, predictable monthly salary like normal people?” No answer to that came until recently. This was an actual wilderness experience for me in more than one way. Trusting God was my only option. I could not ask for money, but I sure did ask for prayer, lots of it.
More important than the temporary financial supply that always came was the eternal accomplishments. Every week a minimum of one ward (usually more) came to salvation in Christ. Many wards asked me, “Chaplain, can I become a Christian?” Lives were forever changed. I know the power of prayer support. I experienced the faithfulness of a wonderful, loving God.
Now I am almost seventy and I don’t have much. Yet, I don’t worry about the future. I learned in the wilderness I can trust God completely.
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Thanks for sharing.
Blessings~
People today can still become a Christian like the 3,000 did on the day of Pentecost who asked, "What shall we do?" Peter told them to repent and be baptized. That was all it took them and that is all it takes us now.
Keep using you life experiences as it add so much to your stories.