As one of our Northside Church outreach activities during February 2019, we gave Valentine gifts to our neighbors in the Walla Walla, Wash., area. Each zip-top bag contained a little tract and the beautiful version of the book Steps to Christ, with a spectacular, full-color photograph as part of each page. We included little red, pink and white “hearts” to represent our love for our neighbors.
Gary Laabs and Roger Johnson, Northside Church pastor, visited homes on Edith Avenue. Laabs walked through the front gate to deliver the love gift to this home.
A short time later, the homeowner called. He said he had checked the gate before Laabs arrived. After Laabs prayerfully walked to the door and left, the homeowner checked the gate again. Both times he found it locked.
The homeowner asked how somebody could have walked through his locked gate to his front door and left again with the gate still locked. My answer was simple: “God sends angels to open locked gates.”
The Washington State Penitentiary is a couple of blocks north of this home. Men are behind locked gates there. However, people outside of those prison walls also can also be imprisoned by Satan’s many strategies. God wants to free them. Please pray for this man!
Laabs assured me he did not vault the fence (as I have been known to do). He was one of my environmental science students in the course I taught in the penitentiary during autumn quarter and was released on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2019. He has been an active participant in our Northside Church every Sabbath since. Praise the Lord!
Ted Carpenter, Walla Walla Northside Church outreach director, as told to Donna Ritchie Casebolt
The gate was locked, but somehow the church member walked right through.
