The 2011 Tennessee State Prayer Conference was held the end of January at New Hope Church of God in Sevierville. I was unable to attend but I watched it online from home. Our evening speaker was Bishop P. Douglas Small, President and Founder of Alive Ministries: Project Pray. He also serves as the International Liaison for Prayer Ministries out of the office of the General Overseer of the Church of God.
I must admit that over the years, I have heard some wonderful sermons on prayer which have informed, stirred, blessed and encouraged me, but this was the first time I had heard a Church of God minister preach about prayer who had the true heart of an intercessor! There was something about his ministry that connected with the cry of my spirit.
My brother is Bishop Raymond Hodge, State Administrator Coordinator at the Tennessee Church of God State Office. I told him after the Prayer Conference that I would love to let Brother Small know that there was a group of women praying at Barney Creek and everything that had happened thus far. He said that I should let him know because he was interested in things like that.
I began to ponder how to let him know. I felt that after a conference, he would probably be inundated with emails and I wanted this to be done in God’s timing. So I began to pray for God’s direction about it.
The following Sunday afternoon, I thought of something that I need to tell my brother. I waited a while after church to call, hoping to give him time to finish lunch. When I called, I could tell by the background noise that he was still in a restaurant. I hurriedly told him what I needed and was ready to hang up, when he told me that he was having lunch with Brother Small and that in the course of conversation the topic of Barney Creek came up. He continued to tell him about our prayer group and what we felt God was doing. He said that Brother Small said he’d like to talk with us about it.
This again excited my spirit! Now I just had to wait on God’s timing. I sometimes jokingly say that if I could give God a gift, I would give Him a watch because from my perspective, He can’t tell time! It often appears that He procrastinates and puts off answering our prayers until the very last possible minute! But I know that He answers in His timing and it is always perfect.
I was scheduled to speak at a retreat April 8-10, 2011, the same weekend that Brother Small was going to be in a conference in Cleveland, TN, about an hour from my home. A part of me wanted to say that I couldn’t be at the retreat because my spirit longed to be able to go the conference in Cleveland. But I told the Lord that I would be a woman of my word and continue to prepare for the retreat and trust Him for directing my timing for sharing this with Brother Small.
We were praying, planning and preparing for the retreat and also continuing to intercede for Barney Creek Second Edition. Toward the end of March, for reasons we now understand as God’s divine timing, the retreat had to be rescheduled. My appointment schedule was totally rearranged so that I could attend the conference in Cleveland.
As our prayers continued for a fresh outpouring of Holy Spirit, I began to notice something out of the ordinary happening. As I have stated in an earlier post, three days after our first prayer meeting there was an earthquake in our county. I checked the website every week or so to see if anything else had happened. I began to notice something unusual.
From October 17, 2010 until January 9, 2011, there were four small earthquakes scattered around in the east Tennessee Region. From January 10th through March 24th, there were six earthquakes. This is more than our normal activity, but that’s not the unusual thing. What made this unusual was “where” they were occurring. There seemed to be a pattern forming.
There was a 1.8 earthquake on Friday, February 11, 2011 in Spring City, TN which is in Rhea County. Rhea County does not touch Monroe County but Highway 68 passes through Spring City. (You also turn off Hwy 68 to go to Barney Creek.)
There was a 2.3 earthquake on Friday, February 18, 2011 in Ducktown, TN which is also on Hwy 68 in Polk County which is also adjacent to Monroe County.
There was a 1.7 earthquake on Saturday, February 19, 2011 in Athens, TN which is in McMinn County, also adjacent to Monroe County.
There was a 1.3 earthquake on Monday, March 7, 2011 Louisville, TN in Blount County, also adjacent to Monroe County.
There was a 2.3 earthquake on March 24, 2011 in Friendsville, TN in Blount County adjacent to Monroe County.
The earthquakes seemed to be occurring either along Highway 68 or in counties surrounding Monroe County. This occurrence seemed most unusual for our area…very unusual indeed.
Things were indeed happening! Now we were waiting for an opportunity to connect with Doug Small – in God’s perfect timing, of course.
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