July 6, 2021

The Miracle Water-slide Ride

18  comments

I’m sure most reading this have never thought of water-slides as miracles before. Until last Saturday, I (Chelsy) hadn’t either. But because of an experience we had this past week-end, I will never again hear the words “water-slide” without remembering how big our God is and how He cares about the smallest things in our lives!
Now for the story…..
On Saturday our family was spending the day in Des Moines. We planned to visit the Des Moines Farmer’s Market in the morning, go out to eat for lunch, and spend the evening with friends at a going-away party for one of the young men (from the church we previously attended) who is leaving to be an intern at Vision Forum. After spending about an hour at the market we took a vote on the lunch options: Pizza Hut vs. Mexican. Between the eligible voters, Pizza Hut got 8 votes and the 3 Mexican lovers resigned themselves to the fate of pizza. On the way to Pizza Hut……we passed Adventure Land. Now for those of you who know the Bontrager children, you know that we are not big into roller coasters, etc. but  that we do dearly love all things connected with water, particularly BIG, FAST water-slides. Because our family has made the decision not to swim at  public pools, we don’t often get to enjoy a fast water-slide ride. Most private pools, for some reason, don’t have big slides. So it is just one of those things we mostly do without. Anyway, back to the story…..we were driving past Adventure Land, which was crawling with people, and talking about how that is the last place on earth we would want to be! It really didn’t look inviting. None of it, that is, except for the amazingly huge water-slides that loomed high in the sky. If there was only some way we could take one of those home with us…….! With these thoughts in mind, I made a comment about how I wished somebody would offer to let our family have a big public pool rent-free all to ourselves for a day. Of course everybody looked at me as though the thought was ridiculous (which it was) and with a last longing thought of rushing down one of those slides on that very hot day…we continued en route to Pizza Hut. We duly arrived, sat down, and began to eat our 4 pizzas. (we had called and ordered ahead of time, so everything was ready when we arrived.) We had just begun eating when Dad’s phone rang. As that is no extraordinary occurrence, nobody thought anything of it until he hung up and asked how we would like to ride a 200ft long water-slide on Sunday afternoon. Our neighbor from up the road built a water-slide that runs all the way down their hill, and he had called to invite us to come up and “ride the slide”
Wow.
Of course we said yes!
And that is what our God did. Call it a little insignificant thing if you want, but it was big for us. We hadn’t even prayed about it, and we weren’t planning to pray about it in the future either. It was just one of those times we wished for something and knew we couldn’t have it, so we hadn’t given it anymore thought…..but God did. And He wanted to provide this “little thing” just to show us that He is BIG and that He hears our prayers even before we can ask.
So that is the story of the Miracle Water-slide Ride. And…….it was an amazing ride!!








Taylor at the top, ready to fly down!




The “water-train”
top to bottom: Mitchell, Kenyon, Carson, Allison, Katrina, Joshua, Austin, Denver, Taylor, & Emily. 
Thank-you, Yoder family, for sharing your slide with us! It was such fun!

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  1. Bontrager family-
    When you are obedient to your parents it says in The Word that, "it will go well with you!" How fun to SEE first hand it going well with you! God is blessing you for all of your faithfulness!

    Becky, we would still love to come visit! We are totally free the rest of August! And September for that matter! I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you! I did not notice that you called! I apologize! I was waiting for you and you already contacted me and I did not know until you commented on my blog!
    Thank you!
    Heather

  2. I love how God answers prayers that might seem insignificant to some people. I think He does it just to show us how much He loves us, and delights in surprising us! Wow, what fun! That really, really looked amazing!

  3. Oh… that looks like fun! We love the water and are blessed to live close to the river and have friends that allow us to use their pool when they are gone for the day!

    God has truly blessed us as well in being faithful to His calling!

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