RENEWED Ministries Update – 12 April 2025

NEWS PRAYER AND SUPPORT UPDATE!

This is the RENEWED Ministries update for 12 April, as provided by Reverend Courtney Richards.

Greetings, friends, prayer partners and donors! I trust and pray that you and your loved ones are well. Here’s a story for the ages, a miracle indeed:

I’ve been home in Miami for the past several weeks preparing for Africa Missions 2025. Last Sunday night, April 6, I went with Brian, the son of my friend Pastor Gilbert Harris, to pick up a package for Gilbert in Miami Beach. On our way back to the house, I was feeling hungry, so I asked Brian if we could stop at a restaurant in downtown Miami so I could get something to eat. And so we stopped at a Chipotle restaurant. We got our food and left. Life went on. So we thought!

On Tuesday, I had a dental appointment and ran a few errands after that. After my return home I needed something from a pouch I had in my backpack.  This pouch is my traveling pouch that contains my travel documents and some money. I couldn’t find the pouch. I searched the entire backpack. No pouch. I searched everywhere in my room and in the office at the house, and in my car multiple times. No pouch. I called the dentist’s office. No pouch. I called the restaurant of friends from Jamaica where I had lunch. No pouch. Anxiety and fear began to set in. If I lost the pouch, there goes my passport and US resident card. I wouldn’t be able to leave the USA in a few weeks for Africa missions. I would have to make a police report as to how and why I lost my resident card!! Things could get very difficult for me.

I called Brian and told him what was happening. I asked him if I had taken the backpack with me into the restaurant on Sunday night. He said, “yes you did.” I asked him if he could call the restaurant and check if any staff had seen or found a pouch there since Sunday night. He promised to investigate since he was close by there at the time. In less than half an hour, Brian called and said, “Uncle Courtney, I investigated the matter, and the manager of the restaurant told me that a man found a pouch on Sunday night on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and came in and spoke to me. He left his name and contact number.” The manager gave the information to Brian.

Brian went on, “I called the man and he said ‘yes I had the pouch but didn’t feel comfortable with leaving it with the restaurant manager. I called the police, but they said I had to come and make a report and it would be filed away and may get lost in the system. I  didn’t feel comfortable about leaving the pouch with the police. I called the Jamaican Consulate in Miami on Monday but didn’t feel comfortable with leaving the pouch with them either. The Consulate referred me to a lady who runs a business in Fort Lauderdale that helps Jamaicans to renew their passport. So, I went there and left the pouch with her.” The man gave Brian the address to go to and both of us went there on Tuesday evening and collected the pouch. My passport and resident card plus some other documents were in it but no money!

We called the man to tell him we got the pouch. I said nothing about the missing money. He told me to call him on Wednesday after 11am. I did, but he was very sleepy so I called him back on Wednesday afternoon. He was awake now. “I am glad you got your documents,” he said. “But don’t you want your stuff?” “What are you talking about?” I responded. “Didn’t you have money in your pouch?” he asked. “Yes!” I said. “Well, I have it. I took it out because I didn’t feel comfortable with leaving it with anyone else. I wanted to give you back myself.” He told me how much and what kind of money I had in my pouch. What kind of man is this? I felt….JOY! Sheer and inexpressible joy! What a man. An angel? I think so (in a sense), and I told him so. 

One last twist to this extraordinary, supernatural and miraculous story. The man is a missionary to Africa like me!!! He’s about to leave for Liberia in West Africa in two weeks and I am about to leave for East, Central and South Africa in a month. Who does these things? Who connects people like us in this way? GOD!! Of all the millions of people in Miami and South Florida, God chose a man from Alabama to come to downtown Miami at the right time on Sunday night to find my pouch with my documents and money lying on the ground and to return everything in it. So many other people could have found it. Others may have found it, take the money and toss the pouch into the garbage. I would never see my documents again. But God brought someone. An honest man. A man of great resolve to help me. God did all this as I prepare to go on Africa mission 2025 for God Himself. WHAT A GOD! WHAT A GOD! A MIRACLE WORKING GOD!

Rejoice with me. God is AWESOME and AMAZING in all His ways. He still does miracles. Hallelujah! Praise to the Most High God.

Coram Deo.
Always in God’s grip,
Courtney