Sometime back in the late \u201880\u2019s after a day at a lake in southwest Missouri, my friend Betsy and I found a local diner to eat some home-style cooking. As we enjoyed the plates of country goodness set before us, we couldn\u2019t help but overhear snatches of conversation\u00a0from\u00a0a nearby\u00a0table. It seemed our fellow diners were believers discussing miraculous exploits and supernatural interventions.<\/p>\n
We paid our bill and commented to the owner about the small group. He told us that they were members of the \u201cEnd Time Handmaidens\u201d organization and that one of the men at the table had been their guest speaker. This man was also the owner\u2019s personal friend; would we like to meet him?<\/p>\n
Of course we would! As the others in the party paid their bills and left, Betsy and I were introduced to the gentleman, Phil Cooper, a missionary to Africa. He didn\u2019t need much urging to share about the event we had heard bits and pieces of while we ate our dinner at an adjacent table\u2014he, his wife, their one-and-a-half year old daughter, another couple, and two single ladies had been abducted from their remote mission by soldiers of the Mozambique National Resistance army in May of 1987.<\/p>\n
It was closing time in the diner. Phil had just started telling us his story. The owner needed to clean up, but was happy to let us stay and drink coffee and talk as long as we wanted. As he\u00a0locked the door and put up the \u201cWe are closed\u201d sign, Betsy, Phil, and I settled back at\u00a0the table for a conversation about God\u2019s miraculous protection long into the night.<\/p>\n
The divine intervention that most captured my interest and imagination had to do with a harrowing experience that Phil, his wife Vikki, and their toddler Abi experienced one afternoon. The missionaries had been trekking for months from\u00a0outpost to\u00a0outpost with their guerilla escort through the jungles of Mozambique, pausing only briefly to rest, eat meager rations, and to \u201cbathe\u201d in portable grass huts by pouring a pan of water on their bodies.<\/p>\n
It was when Phil, Vikki, and Abi were in the grass bathing-hut that God showed up to deliver them\u2014just in the nick of time.<\/p>\n
Phil told it this way: He was standing closest to the doorway of the hut, rinsing himself off. Out of nowhere, in through the opening, vertically and at top speed, whipped a seven-foot black mamba. It stopped short and reared up, nose to nose with Phil. Despite the fact that the mamba is Africa\u2019s most aggressive\u2014and deadliest\u2014snake, the family simply froze, too startled to be afraid. And then, as quickly as it entered, it left, zipping out through the thatched wall only to be shot and killed by the leader of\u00a0the captors.<\/p>\n
After they were rescued and safely back home, Phil and Vikki began to share about all the miracles attending their abduction and three-month forced trek through the jungle.<\/p>\n
One\u00a0woman, upon hearing the details of the mamba encounter, asked Phil to tell her the day it happened. As they compared notes, she wept. \u201cI was sleeping and the Lord awakened me so forcefully that I almost fell out of bed. \u2018Phil\u2019s in trouble!<\/em>\u2019 the Lord\u00a0told me. I knelt beside the bed and prayed like never before with a deep sense of urgency, and then\u2014just as suddenly\u2014the burden lifted. Now I know why!\u201d<\/p>\n Betsy and I listened in amazement to this godly man\u2019s testimony of deliverance and victory, knowing that our \u201cchance\u201d selection of that little diner was nothing short of a divine appointment.<\/p>\n And as I reflect upon the black mamba tale, I\u2019d like to address three perspectives.<\/p>\n May you always walk in the triumph prepared for you in Christ!<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometime back in the late \u201880\u2019s after a day at a lake in southwest Missouri, my friend Betsy and I found a local diner to eat some home-style cooking. As we enjoyed the plates of country goodness set before us, we couldn\u2019t help but overhear snatches of conversation\u00a0from\u00a0a nearby\u00a0table. It seemed our fellow diners were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[153,208,209],"class_list":["post-6721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snakes","tag-gods-protection","tag-intercessory-prayer","tag-missionary-testimonies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6721"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6766,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions\/6766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n