A beautiful display of providence...

This is an email we sent out last week to our church family, and I thought you all might enjoy hearing about it as well...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear friends,

I want to give God the praise for all He has done for us in the past couple days. He has surely shown His hand of providential faithfulness in a wonderful way.

We had become concerned about the security of our apartment ever since someone tried our door late one night. This led us to buy an extra lock and a shotgun and to begin praying and looking into other options. However, we were still willing to stay through the end of our lease if that was what the Lord wanted. Apparently, as the story unfolds, it wasn’t!

At 3:00 AM, Thursday morning (July 26th), we awoke to the sound of water flowing in our house, through the air conditioner/ water heater space. I immediately called the apartment answering service, and they said they would look into it. Meanwhile water had begun to drip from the ceiling and down the walls. We started moving things out of the bedroom into the living room area to get them out of the way of the water. Buckets were placed under the main water flow to keep most of it off the floor, which was becoming soaked already. Eventually, water was dripping from the ceiling fan and light in the bedroom and the fire alarm in the living room. This made the fire alarm go off, which was annoying until it filled up with water, when it sounded like a cricket! Water even got in the breaker switches, which made me very nervous about walking in the wet bedroom! The mud and paint on the walls began to puff out, filling with water. We kept on calling the answering service, and I knocked on the guy's door upstairs, but he wasn't home. I looked for a way to turn off our water, but couldn't find any. A man did show up around 4:30 or 5:00, and tried to turn off the water to the building, but it still ran full force! We were quite exhausted, but we tried to stay in good humor. We took some time for breakfast together and some devotions. We read Psalm 23, and it was a great encouragement at that time to remember that the Lord is our Shepherd, who watches over us. We laid our situation before Him to deal with as He saw fit.

When it was still too early to call others, we called our married brothers and asked them to pray for us in this situation. We called Beth's parents about 7:00 and they were willing to help out in any way. A little later, I went down to the office, and they told me that I must sign a new lease to get into another apartment, or I could leave as I was, without further obligations. We weren't crazy about staying another six months there, but I went ahead and checked out the only other apartment they had available, which was an upstairs one, overlooking a pool. It had a smokey or chemical smell, and when I took Beth down there to look at it, her lungs began to tighten up. When we got back, Dad Turack called and told us that Pastor had called him and that the apartment was available for us. What a blessing this was to us! We praised the Lord for His mercies. Around this time we had a second breakfast. Then Dad Turack, Angie, the twins, and Josh came over to help us load up for a move - the fastest one so far in my life. I had never before decided to move and moved in about 12 hours! We were able to load up the trailer, van, and truck with everything, and headed south sometime after noon. When we were leaving the paint and mud were coming off the ceiling and walls in the bedroom, and it looked terrible! I asked the apartment to write me a letter showing that I was not responsible and they did do that. On the way to Elmendorf, we saw gray clouds and met some sprinkles. We kept praying, "Lord, keep the rain back." We had some tarps, but it was not sufficient for a real downpour. God was merciful, and there was no real rain the whole way.

Now we are rejoicing in the love of God and of the saints that has brought us down to Elmendorf. God does move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. The clouds that seem ready to break over our heads are rich with His providence. Now we are closer to the church (building and people), and to Beth's family, and hopefully will have more opportunities for interaction and service. We are still getting unpacked, but I have seen a definite change in Beth, which is encouraging. She seems a lot more energetic now that she is among friends in a healthy environment. I want to praise the Lord for His grace to us in all of this, and extend our thanks to those who helped out.

His mercy endureth for ever!

In Christ,

Victor and Bethany Maxson