When There Was Nothing Left, God Performed a Miracle | YWAM Newcastle

I hear the scraping of the bottom of the pot, I see there is no more food left. The sides, bottom, and the lid have been scraped clean, and the bread is nearly gone. I look around the room and see that none of the teenagers or adults had received any food yet, and here we were completely out.

What were we going to do with over thirty more mouths to fill?

We began our trip to the township like every other time, someone prayed, we sang songs, played with the kids, and then one of us was to share a Bible story, that person was me. I knew even before being told that someone would be sharing, that I’d be the one, and I was ready to share the story of Noah and the Ark. When we arrived it was cold and windy outside and there were many more people than on previous visits. I stood at the front of the dimly lit room, with faces of all ages looking up at me, empty containers in their hands. Rather than tell the story of Noah’s Ark I felt the Holy Spirit lead me to share about the time Jesus fed five thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and some fish. We would soon discover how relevant this story was to our evening.

Later that night, after about twenty children had been fed, the local Pastor looked at me and asked me to pray, having faith that God would enough provide food for everyone to be fed. I’ll admit I was sceptical, we had already served half of the rice and there were still many more mouths to fill.

Pretty soon we ran out of rice, and only the children had eaten.

The Pastor looked around calmly and dug through some of the boxes to find some pre-packaged rice dishes which he emptied into the pot, allowing all the teenagers to eat. We went back to the van and found more bread which we were able to hand out, but there were still some that hadn’t gotten any food. The Pastor then found some salami which he handed out, two pieces for each person, but that wasn’t enough to fill them. He asked me to check the van again for more food, even though we had already gone back a couple of times to get whatever was left. When I opened the door I found two loaves of bread on the seat! However, I knew this still wouldn’t be enough, there had to be more! Near the front, there were two boxes filled with clothes to hand out later.

As I lifted the top box, I saw that the one underneath was full of even more food!

Now there was enough food to go around all the adults – the exact number of rolls for one each! It didn’t stop there, we found oranges stored under a table and were able to hand those out as well.

Everyone was fed that night, and fed well. The Lord provided for us to feed all of the people who came! He used the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand to spark belief and trust in Him, believing that He can, and will, provide when we pray and ask Him too. When we try to understand how we managed to feed everyone with our earthly minds, it just doesn’t make sense. However, our heavenly minds understand that He does miraculous things for His children, all we have to do is ask.

By Rebekah Waterhouse
YWAM DTS – Sports staff

3 min read

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