By Lita Sample

Prayers are often said in hopes of asking God for something specific. Sometimes we pray for direction and a sometimes we ask for God to give us a word on what we need to do. This is what I prayed for months before our Easter Egg hunt.

How many Afghans will you bring to us at this special event? In my logical mind I planned for 250 people. I hoped that maybe we would have 200 in total come. Then in my doubt, I actually wondered if 100 would come to our Easter event. It was a Christian holiday. Why would they want to come? As we prepared for the 250, in faith God would bring that many, and continued to pray for the Afghans we would invite, God revealed something surprising. He said to prepare for 250 CHILDREN!

That would bump up our overall total to hundreds more! We reserved 4 picnic areas near each other to have a great big grassy area for all the crafts, games, face painting, and 6 hunts we would have. Halal meat was on the invitation to be sensitive to our Afghan friends. I have seen God work in miraculous ways in bringing people and children to events that we were unsure of. I knew God would work again. Okay, God, we will be ready. The weeks before the event as we made so many visits to families, texted, emailed, left flyers, and hundreds of invitations were sent out, we were encouraged as so many said they would be there. The day of the hunt, we had Afghans pouring into the large picnic areas we had decorated. We loved connecting and serving and seeing the joy on the faces of Afghans who may not have had reason to be joyous in a long time.

We had people being prayed over, reading the Christian literature in their own language, hearing the Easter story, many of whom were hearing it for the first time. It was an amazing day and God was in the midst of it all. At the end of our time, we went home exhausted but happy. We counted the registration cards and the lists of volunteers who signed in to help.

We all know that in our world, numbers matter. Here’s how God blessed in numbers: 74 volunteers; 8,000 eggs; 103 families; and amazing–exactly 250 kids; and 478 people–all Afghans! God is so good. He must have been delighted to see our amazement at God’s hand. So now, we pray in thanksgiving. Who would have ever guessed that almost 500 Afghans would come to celebrate Easter together and hear the good news? Only God could do such an amazing thing and we praise Him for His greatness!

Lita and Rick Sample are Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel serving with the international and refugee community in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, being the presence of Christ through relationship building, church starting, evangelism and outreach. You can support their ministry here.