Intro: Bob and Jean Robinson and their 4 sons have been friends of the Hornberger family for more years than my wife and I have fingers and toes.  Together we watched our children grow up, have children and start careers of their own. We first met when the Robinson family had to flee from Congo’s Simba Rebellion.  They lived on our Kijabe station as refugees in Kenya, until the fighting finished.  During that time, Bob and I became best buddies. We worked together on the Kesho magazine staff.  Shortly after returning to Congo, Bob died an untimely death bathing our souls with sadness, but gladness and eternal life for him.  Someday we’ll be together again.   In the meantime, Jean, who is now retired at AIM’s Retirement Center in Florida, continued their work in Congo.  She’s a natural storyteller.  And whenever she says, “I feel a story coming on….” we all sit back and listen.  From time to time I’ll publish some of her stories, until I can persuade her to start a blog of her own.  Here’s one of her true stories that I know will thrill your heart. — dave hornberger

Jean says:  “In the book, Praying For One Another, Gene Getz says, ‘Somehow, the simple act of prayer links a sovereign God to finite man.  When man prays, God responds.  Difficult situations change.  Unexplained miracles occur.”

     As I think back over the years God allowed me to minister in Congo, there are many examples of the above quote.  Let me share just one of them with you.

     When my husband died I needed to cross over from Congo to Uganda to get a new passport since I had been a dependent on his, which was now no longer valid.  The immigration officer, deeply saddened to hear about Bob’s death, reached across the big desk to express his sympathy.  He groped for words that did not come easily, finally blurting out, “It’s disgusting!”  And when you stop to think about it…that it was! From that time on, we fondly referred to this friend, as “Mr. Disgusting.”

     Years passed.  He left that office and was reassigned to some new location.  As a result I lost all contact with him.  During that time Idi Amin came into power in Uganda, unleashing a reign of terror in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.  During that awful time, I had to go to the East Coast of Africa to pick up my truck given to me while on furlough for the work at Adi mission station.  The route back home to Congo required that I pass through dangerous Uganda.  I came fearfully to the border customs and immigration office.  I was met by a young customs man who, I could tell by his demeanor, was proud of his authority and determined to give this lady a difficult time.  Gruffly he demanded I give him cash for the total value of my truck promising it would be reimbursed when I got to the Congo border. Of course I knew that promise would never be kept, even if I had that kind of cash. He was after a very expensive bribe.  I stuttered meekly saying I didn’t have any such cash with me!  So I was told I would have to return to Kenya and find some other way home.

     Outside the building were some truck drivers laughing at me.  When I got to the truck I noticed I had a flat tire — picked up on the way in there because of a nail they had put in the parking place where I stopped.  I got down on my hands and knees trying to release the spare tire from under the truck, and I didn’t know how to do it.  They continued laughing at me and at my efforts.  I did not know what to do, and thought, “This is no place for a woman alone…in this dangerous country at this time.”

     I heard a car pull into the parking lot, but just kept on with my work.  Suddenly I heard a voice saying, “Mrs. Robinson, what are you doing here?” I looked up and there was “Mr. Disgusting! My long lost friend!”  He told me he was the Chief Customs Officer at this post but it was his day off.  “But,” he said, “something told me to go back to the office to check things out.”

     I told him my problem, and that the man in the office wouldn’t give me papers to travel through Uganda (a trip of some 500 miles) and now I had this flat tire.  He ordered the laughing men, now very sober, (who, by the way, had been waiting for him) to fix my tire and that he would come back and check to see that they did a good job of it.  They responded with, “Yes, SIR!” and saluted him.

     Then he took me into the office and stamped all the papers and did not charge me anything, but rather, wished me a safe journey home!

     So, is that the end of the story?  No.  Not quite.  Sometime later I received a letter from a man from one of the churches where I’d spoken while on furlough.  He said he woke up one night and couldn’t sleep, so he got down on his knees and prayed for me, not knowing what my need might be.  After some time, the Lord spoke to him and said, “It’s okay now; the problem has been fixed.”  He then asked, “What happened on that date and at that hour?”  As I checked it out, it was when I was kneeling beside my truck needing help so badly, and when my friend, ‘Mr. Disgusting’ came to my rescue!

     And that is one of my favorite stories from my long life in Africa.