Divine "Airplane" Appointment

By Donnie Jones

My wife, Connie, and I have been nurses for over 40 years and strive to live for Christ in all we do. However, our spiritual life was led by our human nature until February 2019, when Pastor Don MacLafferty and his daughter, Julie, held ten days of prayer and revival at our church.

Since then God has performed miracle after miracle for us. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and spiritual “heart surgery,” God helped Connie resolve over 35 years of bitterness towards her father. She claimed the promise in Ezekiel 36:26–27 that God would give her a new heart and put a new spirit in her. This resulted in a commitment to live a Spirit-led life and a bold resolve to follow His guidance.

The Lord blessed us with another miracle, resolving 40 plus years of guilt, pain and bitterness between Connie’s parents, and brought about further healing in our family.

Our lives changed in other ways, too. While on vacation, I found out that my job was being eliminated. After continual prayer and asking God to show me His dream for our lives, I took early retirement in July. Connie retired early in December 2019.

We had a burden to serve the Lord in gratitude for all He had done for us. We prayed that He would give us guidance in teaching others to serve Him and become disciples for Jesus. We were impressed by the urgency of His soon coming, that the harvest is great and the workers are few (Luke 10:2). He convicted our hearts to go into the harvest to reap souls for His kingdom.

Divine Appointment

God confirmed our calling by giving us a divine appointment. We were returning home from our second series of meetings and training with Pastor MacLafferty in Canada. During our online check-in the night before our flight, I noticed that our seats for the final connecting flight were not together. I changed our seats so we were sitting side by side. When they scanned my boarding pass in Atlanta, however, a separate boarding pass printed out and I was told that my seat had been changed. I was one seat ahead and across the aisle from Connie. She had two open seats beside her.

God knows the whole story before it unfolds. “His understanding is beyond measure” (Psalm 147:15, ESV).

As final boarding was approaching, a man I recognized, accompanied by his wife, came down the aisle and sat next to Connie. I got up, greeted them and renewed our acquaintance, then introduced him to Connie. I returned to my seat and began praying. I knew God had arranged the seating for this flight.

In conversation during the 22-minute flight to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Connie shared the recent miracles that had occurred in our lives and with her family, the burden God had placed on our hearts, and the urgency of Jesus’ soon coming. She told him of our discouragement in trying to share with fellow believers that the harvest is great and the workers are few, and their seeming lack of sincere interest. She explained how God had convicted our hearts to go into the harvest to reap souls for His kingdom, and that we felt called to share and teach principles of discipleship as written by Pastor MacLafferty in Discipling the New Generations.

God had placed beside Connie the Georgia-Cumberland Conference director of Children’s, Junior and Youth Ministries. He opened his schedule planner and stated: “What are you and Don doing the weekend of February the 8th? I would like for you and Don to come have a booth and present Discipling the New Generations in a breakout session at the Children’s Ministries Convention that weekend.” God is so good, and worthy to be praised! At our booth we made connections with leaders from North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee, and gave out more than 100 books.

Connie and I prepared for our breakout presentation for weeks. We spent consistent time in prayer and the Word. We told the Lord that this breakout session was His presentation, we were following His direction, and that we wanted Him to do the speaking, not us. The Holy Spirit blessed in more ways than we ever dreamed.

It was Sabbath evening. In our prayer time, we told the Lord that if only one person who needed to hear this material attended, we would be fine with it. Ten minutes after the scheduled start time, we had three in attendance. We pulled our chairs close to them, had prayer and started our presentation.

Within a matter of minutes, the room was full. Connie and I talked about how to disciple others. We expressed how we wished we had been able to discern the voice of God at an early age as did Samuel. We shared our testimonies of God’s miracles and leading in our lives.

The Holy Spirit moved on hearts as we neared the end of our presentation. We witnessed His power through tear-filled eyes, as we made a passionate plea for children, youth, schools and families to go and make disciples.

We closed with the following quote: “There are those who for a lifetime have professed to be acquainted with Christ, yet who have never made a personal effort to bring even one soul to the Savior” (Desire of Ages, p. 141).

Dear friends, time is short. Will you take a few minutes to open your heart to God, ask Him to give you “heart surgery” (Ezekiel 36:26–27) and arrange divine appointments to labor for Him?

Donnie and Connie Jones are retired Registered Nurses, following God’s dream for their lives. They’ve been married 43 years and are blessed with two married children, and (2) grandchildren. They are currently partnering with Don and April MacLafferty with In Discipleship, and assist with revivals, weeks of prayer and more from their home in Tennessee. This testimony was shared with permission of Time to Get Ready Ministries.

World Church Prayer Requests

October 8 - 14, 2021

• Pray for the Annual Council fall meetings that are taking place this week in Silver Spring Maryland. Pray for the Holy Spirit to lead the agenda.
• Pray for the Public Campus Ministry Day that will be taking place in churches around the world, October 16th, 2021.
• Pray for your local young adults who are attending public universities and schools, to be a light and a witness for Jesus.
• Pray for church members who are going through financial challenges right now because of the Covid pandemic or because of conscientious convictions.
• Pray for the preservation of religious liberty for God’s people. Pray for wisdom how to live and witness in these challenging times.

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