God Moments & Miracles

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to Lantern Rescue, a ministry program dedicated to bringing light into the darkness of human trafficking. It's time to light the way to freedom. This is Lantern Rescue. We tell the stories, we talk about rescues, and we empower you to do something about it.

William Wilberforce once said, let it not be said I was silent when they needed me. This is Lantern Rescue. Darrell Bock Welcome to Lantern Rescue today, another treat, really, always, as we have Mark in the studio here with us just back from being out of the country. And to see God at work in such circumstances was just more than amazing. And I've often heard that it's always good to ask God that second question. And so I know what you want to share today is like straight out of a Bible lesson, I think, that all our listeners can benefit from.

Mark Bailey Yeah, maybe the show will be a little different, Robbie, than our normal effort as a team. And maybe it's just that you and I get to chat about how God is and how great He is. And maybe there's a listener out there that can assimilate this end of their life and understand it. I think that every trip, every operation that I've ever done in my life, I have a plan in mind of what's going to happen and what we're going to do or what I'm going to do. And then inevitably, God has another task at hand that He wants to accomplish. He thankfully brings that before us, because usually those are the most awesome things. Those are the things that are just as miraculous as anything else. And some people think, well, you guys rescue kids, like what else could be so cool? Listen, if you look at God and what He wants to do for humanity, and for one soul, and for one moment, it's miraculous. It's just amazing.

I want to show you a picture. I can't show all the viewers, but I traveled to a country, immediately hit the ground, had to do an 18-hour ride across treacherous mountains, honestly. I again saw a vehicle go off a cliff, probably 500 feet into a river. Pretty sure nobody made that out.

That kind of drive. And if anybody's ever been to the Far East or those regions, they know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you can Google and you can see some of the riverbeds that are along mountain ranges, and they're just death rides. I usually have to take so many motion sickness pills, and I'm not a motion sickness person, but on those, I have to take a lot just to keep from throwing up.

I had to do an 18-hour, then it was take a little bit of a nap, then get up, and then actually cross into another country and get on a motorcycle and start a ride there. And Robert, do you see this picture here? No.

Okay. This is an enormous swinging bridge. Yeah, I see that. That region of the world is pretty famous for its swinging bridges. They might be a mile to three miles long, right? And you see this sky rise rope system from this bridge. So it's probably 200 feet.

It's probably 30 stories at least. And do you see the individual at the top? Do you see that girl right there at the top? I do.

Okay. So for our listeners, I'm showing Robbie a video. I'm on a motorcycle crossing this bridge, and on the top of the bridge, way up in the air, at least 300 feet, there's a girl sitting on top. And how she got there, nobody knows. So we're actually going through the region, and the asset that I'm with said, wow, maybe she's making TikTok video. Because in the Middle East, Far East, Asia, listen, TikTok is big.

They make TikTok videos all the time. And I thought, oh yeah, maybe so. But something in that moment, I'm just going to be straight with you. In that moment, I felt so much oppression, demonic oppression in the region. And what came to my mind at that moment was there is unlikely that there is a Holy Spirit filled person within a thousand miles of me. Like, oh, wow, there's nobody.

And so at that moment, I thought, wait a minute, is that girl going to commit suicide? And God just spoke to me, and I'm an independent Baptist fundamentalist. I'm not a, for our Pentecostal listeners, charismatic. I'm just not. I'm getting to be more and more. At that moment, God spoke to me and said, you are Holy Spirit filled.

You are at this moment, at this time for a reason. I want you to pray for this girl. She's going to kill herself. So I text my wife who's sitting in the studio on an encrypted message. I said, please pray for this girl.

She's going to commit suicide. Even though nobody had told me that, I just knew it. And I started praying. I said, dear God, I realize I might be the only Holy Spirit filled person in this whole region.

That doesn't mean your presence isn't here and that you're omniscient, that you're omnipresent and you're omnipotent. But I realize the responsibility I have. And I want to pray that you will suppress all demonic activity on this girl, that you will change her emotions, that you will break through the barriers of the false religions and the idol worshiping in this area and that you will speak to her.

And so I'm just praying that my wife's praying. I can't really hang around on the area because I am in a place that nobody really knows I'm supposed to be in that place in that area. So I keep going, but we come to a stop and we're in a meeting with someone and my asset says, hey, no, that girl is going to kill herself. And I said, yeah, I know that. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, I had the feeling. I said, I'm a believer in Christ. And I started to pray for her. And he was like, oh, and I said, can you tell me what's happening? And he said, well, then she's still up there. Nobody knows what to do. And everybody's scared to death. I mean, if you saw the pictures, I mean, this girl, man, I don't know how she did it.

Right. Then I'm like, oh man, Lord, do you want me to climb up there? Am I supposed to go back there and climb up this traverse this somehow? Because Lord, you know, I've torn my meniscus.

My knees are pretty rough. Like, I mean, this would take, this needs a helicopter, not me. I'm like, what do I do? So I feel like the Lord was really testing me. And I said, okay, Lord, I'm willing to do it. So I, I tell the guy there, I said, listen, I'm willing to climb that. If, if you can get an operator there, a counselor, some type of counselor, whatever, I'm willing to climb up there. I just need some rope carabiner.

I need somebody big to belay for me, you know, who can strap on and catch me if I fall. So I don't think they thought I was being honest, but I kept bringing it. I kept saying, no, really, I will. We'll try, you know? Yeah.

You have to see this. So we, uh, we go back, they've now shut the whole area down. Did you tell your wife to be praying for me now?

No, I don't think I told her that because I'm praying for me. I'm like, dear God, give me 25 year old needs. Please give me a knees of a 25 year old, you know, please, you know, and, uh, gloves and everything, please provide it. You know, so we go back to the bridge and now closed it all down the whole region. Uh, the local army is showing up, you know, their armed forces and, and things like that. So we go into the area and then they're not going to let us on until my SS is no, he's willing to climb up there. So they're like, oh, okay, sure. You know, go for it.

You know, whatever. So we go back and, uh, we're getting to that, that spot and I'm thinking, okay, we'll do this if we need to. And to make a long story short, I was able to get close enough to make eye contact and climbed it. I did not climb the whole, you climbed some of it. I didn't have to climb very far, thankfully.

Okay. But she obviously was looking down there. She sees somebody's climbing up here. She saw my face a hundred percent.

And we made eye contact over that 30, 40 stories. She started, she got down, she came down, it's 22 year old, 18 months old baby. And she has a baby with her.

No, not with her, but she had an 18 month old baby. And her husband, her husband was leaving her and she was climbing. I'm just getting, trying to picture this in my mind.

Cause I'm seeing this picture. Like you're watching her come down this thing. Yeah.

Yeah. And I got to, I got to quickly embrace her and then I needed to get out of the area. And all I wanted then at that point was I told my local, I said, I want you to make sure someone sends a counselor to her to say the God of Abraham thought so much of you that at the moment you climb this to kill yourself, he had an American Christian on a motorcycle, not even supposed to be in that country pass underneath you and begin a prayer chain for you.

It's not about me being willing to climb up there. It's about the fact that God had me right there to pray at that moment for her. And I a hundred percent believe of all that happened the most, even if I had had to climb the whole thing to the top and carry her down, that would have been a miracle for sure. But I think the greater miracle is that we prayed and God restrained the oppression and I believe a demonic forces on her so that she was released from that.

And she came down. Like I can't even, if that happened in America, that's, that's amazing. But to be in a place where there is just no believer around and God to orchestrate that moment in that one event so that, that would all occur in that way is amazing for me. It really is.

It's amazing for me of anything I've done recently. And there's been a lot going on. From a time frame, how long ago was this? This was two weeks ago. Oh my goodness.

Two weeks ago. I want, I wanted to talk about that because as people live their day and day in day out, I meet people all the time. We're like, well, man, I'm not doing anything in life. You're like running around different countries, rescuing people. And I'm always like, man, if you'll just look for the God moments and be sensitive to how he wants you to pray and speak and do, there's all types of miraculous opportunities around us.

Absolutely. Being sensitive to what God's up to. And so we come back from this break, you have our full attention, Mark. Like where God has our full attention. Because I mean, again, to see this bridge and to have some idea of how high this girl was up there and how God gave you that opportunity. He does.

He gives those opportunities to people all the time. If we're committed, right? So we get a chance to share with that.

We'll be right back. Lantern Rescue is a USA based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former U.S. special operation law enforcement and intelligence personnel to partner with host nations and assist them in creating specialized units to combat ongoing security problems such as genocide, terrorism and human trafficking.

As a nonprofit charity, they offer services free of charge to their host nations. Human trafficking is grown into the second largest criminal activity in the world, reaching an estimated one hundred and fifty billion dollars in annual activity. Lantern Rescue has developed rapidly to combat trafficking. Lantern operates through a trained international network in order to rescue women and children from sex and labor slavery and facilitates holistic aftercare services.

They're gearing up for operations right now, and you can go to lanternrescue.org to see how you can support them financially. Darrell Bock Welcome back to just an awesome episode of Lantern Rescue. We're hearing from Mark today on recent events of prayer, but there's been other events of prayer. But, you know, I don't want our listeners to miss out on what happened on the break because I was like, well, man, when you looked when I asked you, Mark, when you when you got that look right at 30 feet of what did you see in her eyes? Because she's looking down and she's seeing a white American. I mean, something she probably hadn't seen.

Right. Yeah, I saw the whites of her eyes. She jolted. She looked and jolted down, looked at me in shock. Yeah, because you can imagine she hasn't seen many non-Asian people in her whole life. And here comes this guy to get me.

And, you know, he's a white American. Yes, she was in shock when I made eye contact with her directly under. She was in shock. And you gave her a little hand sign that I didn't know in that language. Yeah, different than come down. Yeah, it's different than how we would signal it here.

Yeah. And the crazy thing is for me, it's like, I know God didn't need me to pray. But he went through a whole lot of events to orchestrate me there at that moment to pray. And I know that our prayers give power to angelic forces. But I also think, you know, it's just, you know, Robbie jumping in here saying, you know, as he put that on your heart to pray, then the natural thing is, now send me, right? Like, that's, I don't think you would have been climbing up that thing if you hadn't been praying.

It was a progression of thought there. It was, oh, she's on a TikTok video. Oh, no, wait a minute.

That's not a TikTok video in the impression. And recently, also that came to mind because recently a friend of our team, it's particularly a friend of Rin's, unfortunately ended his life. And it was actually on that very day. So that was also in my mind, fresh in my mind. So, but God made it clear that's what that girl was there to take her life. And he made it clear to me that I needed to pray. And I needed to pray that the demonic forces be restrained in that person's life. And then he made it clear that I needed to be willing to climb up there, if so be it.

God does so much through prayer for us. Another time I remember we were often in the Caribbean area in this particular country and we kept, we were working in operation on a young girl, but we kept encountering an older girl who was on the street. I kept seeing her, right? And I came back and I told my wife about it. I said, there's this girl. I mean, I don't know how old she is, but she's a beautiful girl and she's always for sale, but I know she's not a minor.

So technically prostitution is legal there and my jurisdiction would end at 18. Do you remember, I'm sorry, I'm talking to my wife in the studio. You remember like I came back, we talked about it. Then I was going back, saw her again, three times, three times. And finally the third time God hit me over the head and go, I'm letting you see out of a million people, I'm letting you see this prostitute for a reason. You need to do something. And so it came to the fact we're like, okay, those are one of those moments where I'll be in life.

I keep having all the time. And that is, if I don't do something, who will? Right. If I don't do it, who will?

Right. Not that you and I are any special, but it's like, I keep being delivered the information. And so unfortunately, when I tell others about it, they go, they're not going to do anything about it.

You know, they don't have the, they're not there. It's yours to handle. It's kind of like in churches, people come to their pastor and they say, well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they dump it on their pastor. Like he's got to handle, you know, I love those pastors who look back at their people and go, look, God told you to do that. God told you to start that. God told you to, to take on that responsibility.

So you should do it. You know? So three times we finally, I go back with the purpose of in the country, I'm going to find that girl now, right now I can't find her. Now we can't locate her. And we're, we're trying to, because I have typed up a message, translated it into her language so that when I do find her, I can approach her and go, look, here's who we are. And I think my message is basically like, look, you are a beautiful young lady. I can't imagine what you've gone through and what puts you here doing this, but I want you to know there's hope and we can help you. And if you have a pimp who's in control of you, we'll take care of that. If you, you know, whatever it is, we're, we're committed to help you.

Right? So here we are. Can't find her working on this issue, not happening, not in the normal locations. I reach out to my wife. She's praying. She comes back in prayer and says, listen, God told me. Right. Cause I heard your wife tell the story.

I don't want to say God stops her in the middle of the bed, like dead in her tracks and gives her this word. Yeah. Gives her the word and says, you, you need to ask Wren where she thinks she would be. Isn't that cool? I love this story. I really do. And so we do, Wren says, oh, you know, I think we need to move to this street down near the water.

We've not checked there, but I know that girls are in that region too. So we go down and there she is. I mean, I don't know how God, he's just amazing that he can work through all the way, you know, transmit information across the world. Your wife knows to ask Wren and Wren is getting the word and now it's builds Wren's conference.

Oh, well, God's telling me because, you know, she has faith in your wife and it's a beautiful thing. And we walk right up to her. Now the situation is how's this going to go? Yeah. You know, first she just, she thinking I want to buy her for the night, you know, all kinds of, you got to overcome.

There's language barriers. I literally handed her a phone. I won't ever forget. She read it on the phone and immediately knows the seriousness of our offer, takes my phone and starts to text back and says, she said something like, oh dear, you are so kind, but you don't understand. I have a child that's, you know, being held by, anyway, long story short, we did get her free. We got her free from her pimp. We got her relocated. We got her a job.

Well, let's go back to the child. That's the way that they had leverage on her. I guess.

Yeah, it was, yeah. It's very often. This is what happens very often. I got to start thinking that when I, when any girl we rescue 14 and up, you got to find out if they have a child already. Because the pimp was holding the kid again. And like, you don't understand because if I do anything, I'm going to lose, you know, the mother's love they're going to lean on.

They'll do it. And in that particular case, it was a brother-in-law, you know, he was the pimp and he was, he was holding the child and he was putting her out on the street at night. And he was saying, you have to, you can't come back until you earn this much money, you know, and this is going to be my cut. And, you know, in those situations, they might get a little bit, but the majority of it goes to a pimp. And, you know, he was forcing her out the door every night and holding her child hostage. So, and we encounter that all over the world. That's not, that's not significant just to the Caribbean.

That is everywhere, every place men do that, especially pimps to their workers. So you got her? Yeah. And you arrested her? Yeah, we have a great, now we have a great relationship with her. She's, you know, we've, we've got her a job. There's been times where while we're in that country, we've made sure she's got groceries. We've taken her grocery shopping. I've taken, held her little kid.

Really? Is she a Christian? Yeah, she is.

Yeah. And young one. And we've attached her to an aftercare facility that is for older women, girls over 18.

She's actually, she would be 23 now, 23 now. And I recently helped her with a surgery that she needed and an accident occurred and she had to have a surgery. So yeah, we, you know, we chat all the time. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that story in the Bible, actually, Mark, where, you know, even Paul, God didn't necessarily get his attention the first time that demoniac woman was prophesying and all, and finally she just annoyed him to the point, stop this.

And, you know, that caused him to be in deep trouble in the country that he was, you know, he wasn't where he was supposed to be either. But at some point in time, God just says, no, I care enough about this girl that I want her free. Yeah. Amen. And so, you know, this is, something is so, is you hear this, right? And you now have some that, you know, you've got a little target on your back, you know, not in a Walmart, but you've got a target on your back. So when you hear God saying, hey, pay attention.

Yeah. I've gotten to where I pray. I'm like, Lord, bless this operation.

Bless our efforts here. And, and, oh, by the way, the one, the other one that you really want done, you know, can you make it clear real clear? Cause I don't want to miss it. Oh, I bet.

I don't want to miss it. I want to make sure. Have you ever had that where you missed it? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I had a car salesman I worked with all these years named Johnny Hendricks and he got cancer. And I've been trying to witness to him the whole time, but the day he came to my, knocked on my door to tell me that he had pancreatic cancer, I was busy with stupid stuff. And he was like, Robbie, I need to tell you, I got pancreatic cancer. He wanted to know right then about Jesus. He really did, but it went by and I didn't, I didn't respond to him. You know, I was like, well, I'll pray for you, Johnny. As he walked out the door, I can remember the Holy spirit going, oh, beautiful.

You know, like he didn't say that way, but nonetheless, I felt it like, you just missed this. Well, two weeks later, he was in a coma. Yep. And his wife calls me say, come in here and pray for Johnny. Cause she knew I was a Christian. And, and so I asked her, I said, Geraldine, is Johnny a Christian? She said, I don't think so.

Yeah. So man, the doctor calls him in and he goes to this coma and he says, you know, we need to think about pulling the plug cause he's not coming back. So I went out and I prayed, talk about prayer. I mean, I remember going, God, I know I blew this. I know Johnny wanted to a deeper answers and I gave him that day. I feel so horrible. Please God, if you just give him some time, I promise. Yeah.

You know, I promise I'll introduce you to him or whatever, you know, I need to do whatever's next. So this went on for three or four days to make a long story short. And every day they're wanting to pull the plug. And every day I was like, no, no, no, don't do it. Don't know.

Please, please. God's telling me that he's going to do something on the fourth day. Johnny sits up in the bed, like what's going on?

And he's totally good. And so I'm, I walk in there and I'm like, Oh God, you did what you were supposed to do. Now I got to figure out how to share Jesus with this. So I went back out of the same place, prayed again, like God, what do I do? How do I, he's really a proud man.

And I don't know how to approach him with this. And God says to me, similarly, Robbie is a car salesman. So I went in there, ah, I got it now. So I walked in there and I said, Johnny, I made a deal with God. He goes, what kind of deal did you make with God?

And I said, well, I made a deal that if, if he would bring you out of that coma, that I would either introduce you to him or, or, you know, help you to get it on better. And he said, well, Robbie, you better get to it. And make another very long story short. Within a few weeks, we were going through the gospel of John. And I was talking about four days late, but right on time. And I walked out, his sister came in, put in the Gather CD four days late, right on time. And he realized that he was, that Jesus was the resurrection. And he asked Jesus into his heart. And the next time I came to his house, the street was full of cars. I thought he'd go, he'd passed away from all these cars, but everybody was there having a party because the pastor had come and he'd received Christ. And Johnny was a brother. I'd known Johnny for years, but it, the relationship was this deep, you know, a half an inch now, man.

I had a brother. So, yeah. You asked me if I remember if I missed it.

I missed it. Yeah. I've got a young man wandering around the state I live in. I helped him out. Got, took him to a church pantry, got him food, you know, just being a friend to him. I knew he was on crack. I knew he was doing drugs.

I knew he was probably skipping out on court and things like that. But I was, I was just being nice to him and everything. And we had some, we had a great we had a great connection there and, and I got him food, all that took him to where he needed to go. He said, I know these people will let me go to there and I'll get a shower so I can move on.

And I take him there and I drop him off and I drive away. And I'm like, I did not give the gospel clearly to that young man. I gave him food. I, I showed him friendship. I mean, I showed him love and it was, I thought I was showing him God's love, but at the end I was just so, I had this like, Oh my goodness, what have I done? You know, I was too busy being nice and loving, which is good, but not the end goal. I did not give him the gospel. And so I made a deal with God too. I said, God, if I see that young man anywhere, I'm going to swing across interstates because I missed the ball the first time. And I'm not going to miss it the next time.

And I want to make sure I just give him the Roman drug and make it as clear as I can. You know? So yeah, I missed the, I missed that one. Well, we'll all be praying that he'll show up again. I'm sure he will.

We ran out of show the top of the time before we ran out of show. So yeah, if you're hearing this, we're just hoping to give you these opportunities to realize, man, you know, he's got a second chance. And whatever it is, keep praying. Thank you for listening.

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