WAYNE, N.J. – Lilly and her husband Stan simply stopped by the Rapid Response Team trailer to ask for a little help.
The couple was picking up their two-year-old from daycare at the church where Samaritan’s Purse set up their flood relief ministry in Wayne, N.J.
Rapid Response Team chaplains were in the parking lot and started to talk to Lilly and Stan, while grandma watched the baby inside the car.
The chaplains sensing the couple wasn’t in a hurry to leave, asked about the week they had experienced and found out the family, grandma included, had been evacuated to a hotel while their flooded first floor was being cleaned out.
Lilly and Stan shared about the stress they were under and later the chaplains inquired about their relationship with Christ. Stan said he had received Christ in his heart when he was an early teen, but Lilly said she had never done that.
Both listened intently to Scriptures shared by the chaplain about the hope and love that Jesus gives and Lilly ended up praying to receive Christ into her life that day.
The chaplains gave Lilly and grandma a Billy Graham Training Center Bible and the topic index caught their eye as a helpful tool to navigate the Word of God.
Grandma, speaking through an open window of the car, was very thankful and excited to receive the Bible and confessed that she often was confused about which saints to pray to (coming from a Catholic background) and maybe this would help.
The chaplains shared that she could pray directly to Jesus and after the chaplains read through “Steps to Peace With God,” grandma prayed to receive Christ too, as Lilly came close to offer her support.
The family thanked the chaplains over and over for helping them make this decision and were grateful that they all had the assurance of seeing one another in Heaven someday.
The family was also given appropriate BGEA literature, along with the Bibles, and have been referred to the Samaritan’s Purse host church for follow-up, as Lilly’s sister already attends that church.
Weekend Update
The chaplains were deployed on Wednesday to Wayne, N.J., to help with the flooding relief and have hit the ground running.
On Thursday, the team spent the day setting up the BGEA trailer, organizing BGEA supplies and literature, while getting acquainted with Samaritan’s Purse personnel.
On Friday, the chaplains traveled to Queens, N.Y., meeting with a local Bishop and also participated in an Samaritan’s Purse/BGEA conference call.
The weekend was spent encouraging Samaritan’s Purse staff, leading devotions and praise and worship music in the mornings, ministering and praying with teams in the field, meeting with and praying for the pastors of the host church, Calvary Temple of Wayne, N.J., and speaking on behalf of the Rapid Response Team in two services on Sunday morning.
For more information, visit billygraham.org/rrt or www.facebook.com/BGRapidResponseTeam.
