The road to recovery from massive flooding will be long and winding in Minot, N.D., but stories of God using this disaster to draw people to Him are already coming out.
The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team deployed on July 25, shortly after flooding subsided enough for Samaritan’s Purse to set up in the area where over 12,000 residents (just over one-fourth of the population) were evacuated.
The Rapid Response chaplains have prayed with over 800 survivors with many salvations and rededications reported. Here are a few of the testimonies.
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On one particularly rainy day, the Rapid Response chaplains decided to go to the mall in Minot with some materials to see if they could find anyone who needed prayer.
The chaplains came across a man sitting alone on a bench, who told them an amazing story about how he died on the operating table after an artery that feeds his heart had ruptured, then came back to life.
After many resuscitation efforts had failed, the life-saving equipment had been turned off. About six minutes later, the nurse noticed his heart had restarted, beating on its own now.
The man called himself a walking miracle and the chaplains told him God surely must have a plan for his life.
Only, the man had never committed his life to Christ until that day in the mall, when the chaplains led him to a new life in Christ.
Saved Before Noon
A young lady was hanging with her dog outside the church on a Sunday when the pastor’s wife noticed her and asked the chaplains to pray with her.
She had been drinking — alcohol could be smelled on her morning breath — and told the chaplains she was homeless and needed help.
They listened to her and talked with her about her condition and she prayed to ask Christ into her heart right there in the church parking lot.
She then came into church with the chaplains and went up front, bowing at the alter and praying again to show a public commitment to the congregation.
REDEDICATION DURING DINNER
Rapid Response chaplains invited a family to dinner after losing their house in the floods.The mother and daughter lived together with the daughter’s three children, who were now scattered around, living with other relatives.
The six-year-old came over and gave one of the chaplains a hand-drawn picture, saying, ‘This is to thank you for coming to my house and helping us.”
The mother and daughter began to share how they had both been out of church, but were now convicted to come back. The daughter went on to explain how hard it was to go to church alone and meet new people.
The chaplain invited them to come that Sunday, sit with her and go to the church picnic afterward.
The mother and daughter looked at each other and began to cry.
Right in the middle of dinner, both rededicated their lives to Christ.
“Thank you for loving my family and encouraging my daughter to get in church,” the mother said.
SAVED BY A HEADACHE
When one of the young volunteers who was helping clean out the mud-filled houses didn’t show up for breakfast, one of the chaplains went to check on him.
Turns out, he had a terrible headache and so the chaplain prayed for him and spent some time talking to him, both that day and over the next few days, as the young man shared his struggles.
During their time one morning, the chaplain talked with him about how Jesus loved him and died to take away all his heaviness and give him the gift of Salvation.
The young man, after listening diligently, said, “I need him and want to ask Jesus into my heart to be my Lord and Savior.”
And he did.
