Crow and a tumbler

(A crow brought a steel tumbler as a sign from the Lord.) 

As I prayed about what to do next one or two ideas emerged.  The first idea was to plan some program for their school going children in the summer.  We therefore thought about the possibility of joining Steward Bible College as staff to come back in summer to the Nilgiris.  But the Lord clearly led us away from taking that step. 

The other possibility was to bring the Kurumba children who went to the near by government schools to give them a hostel facility where we could actually teach them in the morning and evening.

Several hours were spent in the prayer room trying to discern the mind of the Lord.
I was hesitant to start a hostel because I knew how difficult it would be by way of financial strain and labor.  But the Lord asked me whether I ever starved with my five children.  On the contrary we were sumptuously fed!  The Lord impressed upon my mind the truth that five and fifty were the same to Him.

He said,  “If I did not fail you with your five children, why can’t you trust Me for fifty?”
I was convinced in my prayer that it was easy for the Lord to do great things if I trusted Him fully.

I was reading Is.7 for meditation one of those days.  As I came to v.14, the lord spoke to me saying that He was going to give me a sign that He was about to do some great things  for me.  The phrase “the Lord Himself will give you a sign” came back again and again in my mind.

Then I said, “Lord, give me a sign by a crow and I will name my ministry ‘Cherith Children’s Home’”.  Now that I prayed that prayer, I was waiting for a sign from a crow.  I had answer to all my prayers specially those days when I spent on an average eight to ten hours in prayer.

On the third day about 7 in the morning, I was standing in front of my house brushing my teeth.  It was the 28th of Feb.l985.  Pear trees in the Nigiris fall their leaves in February.  There was a pear tree just opposite to my house below the road with no leaves on it.  As I watched there came a crow.  There was a steel tumbler on its beak.  The crow placed the tumbler on a branch there and fluttering its wings made a peculiar noise for a minute or so and then leaving the tumbler on the branch the crow flew away. 

As I was watching this behavior of the crow, the Lord said, “That is the answer to your prayer.”  To which I replied,  “Lord, I cannot accept it because the tree belongs to my enemy.”  The tree actually belonged to one Mr. Bokan who stoned our house a couple of years back when we had our public gospel meetings there. 

On the following day while we were having our family prayer, we heard a noise. Something fell on the roof of our house.  As soon as prayer was over, I climbed the roof to find a coconut shell there.  The Lord made a crow to drop it on the roof of my house itself this time! 

I took the shell from the roof first and told the Lord that I was going to take that tumbler from the pear tree as well which I did.  But to prove that it was He who made these two incidents take place, I asked the Lord to give me my enemy’s land in one year! 

Who would believe that on Feb.28, l986 we registered 4 cents of land which belonged to my enemy.  Unknown to any man any where the Lord provided funds for the same and Mr. Bokan gave the land to a brother in the assembly never knowing I was behind it all and the land was going to be used for a hostel for Kurumba children.