Can dreams really come true?
It’s our first day of ministry and we’re going throughout the village visiting houses and meeting the people. The second house we come to we meet a young lady who’s been
dealing with terrible headaches for several months. Let’s call her Emily. She
couldn’t eat a lot and wasn’t feeling herself anymore. Emily started sharing her story with us and at
the end she shared that she had a dream last night that was honestly, kinda
freaking her out right now.
Emily dreamt that she
was in the dark, like in a cave, and couldn’t find her way out. She was feeling
scared and lonely. And then in the middle of her dream several strangers come
up to her and tell her how to get out of the cave. Not too crazy of a dream,
except that Emily just keeps looking at these strangers sitting in front of her. We are all silent for a few seconds
and then Emily starts again by saying that she feels it was God telling her
that she was going to be helped, helped by strangers and that the strangers
sitting in front of her the very next day after her dream are the ones who will
help her find her way! Crazy! God went before us in a big way! We prayed over
her and her family, talked with them for a little while, and then left knowing
that God was not done with Emily or her family!
The fourth house we visited we met a woman whose husband
worked far away in the city and only came back about twice a year; she was very
lonely and heavily burdened for her children. We’ll call her Karen. Karen has
three children, does all of the things around the house, and fills both roles
of mom and dad. In America it’s really hard being a single parent. Here in 3rd
world Cambodia, it’s even harder. Karen doesn’t have the luxuries of baby
sitters, grocery stores, clothing stores and cars. Women here make everything
for their family. So on top of all that she has to do to keep her family running,
she also has to pour into them as their mother. So Karen was very tired and
hopeless to say the least when we first met her.
Karen also had a dream.
Karen’s sister is a believer and talks with her about God
sometimes, but every time she told her Christianity isn’t for her. Her sister is also in the same
situation with her husband and children, but for some reason she just didn’t
seem as burdened or tired like she did. Then she tells us her dream.
Karen was walking in a deep valley and was somehow
lost. She couldn’t find her way out of the valley to get back home and she
started feeling anxious. Then a person walks up to her and tells her that they know
the way out. Karen says this person was a Christian, and as soon as she sees
this Christian, her anxious feelings go away and she is lead back to her home.
Our translator, Samuel (this IS his real name), then turns to her and says that
he thinks that it was not a coincidence that she had this dream the very night
before we came to meet her. Karen is silent. She hadn’t thought about God
talking to her in her dreams. She didn’t even think that if God was giving her
that dream that it would mean He sent people to her the very next day.
I’ve always known that God speaks to people through their dreams, but I’ve never been the answer to those dreams before, and for two people in one day! God is busy here in the village of Dork Por in Cambodia!
But this isn’t the end of Karen’s story…
