The Caspian Sea
Located not too far away from where I was teaching.
Exodus 14:21-22 NIV
"Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left."
My presentation over, I drank tea and talked to the English teachers from a small town in Turkmenistan. On my left, I noticed commotion as two teachers discussed a topic in private and nodded toward me. One looked shy and timid; the other jabbed her in the side with her elbow.
Finally, the shy woman addressed me with an unusual request. She asked me to look for her family's cousin in America. She was concerned because they hadn't heard from him in seven years. He had last visited them with his father, and then they lost touch. They wanted to make sure he was safe.
I had witnessed too many miracles in Turkmenistan to turn the woman down, although the image of a needle in a hay stack entered my mind. However, I promised I would look for him.
Due to complications, she was unable to give me his name and last known address before I left for the states. I felt terrible about not getting the information from her. I thought that was the last I would hear from her.
One fall morning as I prepared for work, I opened my email to discover a note from Turkmenistan. It was from the sister of the English teacher I had met. Her sister worked for an oil company in Turkmenistan, so she had access to a scanner and email. She sent me a copy of the last envelope with a return address they had received from their cousin. She also explained he worked in a drugstore.
I looked at his name and address and nonchalantly ran it through Google. The first hit took me to a respected scientist who worked for a major chemical company and university. He had several patents for creating pharmaceuticals under his name and with teams. I blinked. Wow, I thought. They said he worked in a drugstore. This man creates drugs!
However, I thought I was looking for a Turkmen, and the scientist was clearly not Turkmen. I kept searching.
Finally, I located an obituary for the scientist's father. The obituary mentioned his father's family originated from Iran and Turkmenistan. This placed his family near the region where I had been teaching during the summer.
I returned to the scientist's homepage. I summoned all my courage, wrote a note asking if he were the man who had family in Turkmenistan, and told him if so, I had a message for him from his family. If not, then please disregard my email.
In less than an hour he wrote back. It was him.
I had found the long lost cousin on the first Google hit! The family had lost him for seven years. God helped me find him in the span of minutes.
The needle in the haystack image came back to mind. Logically, there was no way I should have been able to find their cousin. However, God led me to him. God placed the right pieces of information in front of me.
Miracles happen. They don't have to be big, like parting the Red Sea, but miracles happen everywhere.
I trust Him to work miracles in my life and for people I know and for the strangers I pray for. God is a living God, and miracle of miracles, He helped me reunite a family.
I wonder how much more I could do for God if I allowed Him to work through me everyday?
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Lord, thank you for your miracles, which change lives around the world.
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