LUCKY KAUR part 1 of 2 parts
My husband replied 'I'm not crying because you give us money, I'm crying because God is faithful, He heard our prayers and He answered. That is why I'm crying'.
In 2019 Lucky lived in Te Puke with her husband and son aged 2. They struggled with living costs plus their Visa had expired and they were illegally here. They applied for a Visa under section 61 [unlawful people in New Zealand may make a request for a new Visa under section 61]. All their money had gone on lawyers and applications and life was hard for them. So with no Visa, no job and no place to live they decided to move to Hamilton hoping for a change in their circumstances. They started searching online sites for rooms and jobs in Hamilton and found one room they hoped would provide a haven for them. It was owned by a Pastor in a local Hamilton church and during the phone call he asked about their circumstances and "talked a little bit about Jesus". The Pastor invited them to come to Hamilton, use his room and said he would pray for them. "We knew nothing about Jesus, we followed the Sikh religion from Punjab where we grew up and were married. We were wary of what he said although he told us he was also from Punjab, so we went to look at another one bedroom room available and decided to move in there. We had all our belongings in our car and felt so relieved to have a room and not live in our car. We decided to go and meet the Pastor and we told him our story and what had happened. His response 'I want to tell you Jesus loves you'. He shared with us about Jesus, He is the way the truth and the light. He prayed for us and we felt a peace".
"We returned to the other place but after just one night we went to stay with the Pastor and his family. He taught us about Jesus and we started going to his church where we were prayed for and accepted with love. As soon as we heard about Jesus we just accepted Him and His teachings. We felt the love. John 10:27 'my sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me'. I felt this was how it had always been for me. There was no disbelief in my heart. Jesus called us and we knew we belonged to him. When we were in Tauranga my husband had an addiction to pain medications and alcohol, which began at night time, then in the daytime also. I would tell my husband 'leave it, use your will power and stop'. A lot of our money was going into these habits. It was not easy for my husband, but one day he shared this with the Pastor and asked him for prayer so he could leave it. When the Pastor began praying, my husband had a 2 hour encounter with Jesus. Just like that, he was a totally changed person although he continued to take the drugs for pain relief. I never thought my husband would accept Jesus just like this. My husband would always say to me 'you are the spiritual one'. I would wake up in the night-time, wash my head, take a bath, and start worshipping in our religion. My husband would tell me I would go to heaven and he would go to hell, but Jesus chose my husband to encounter him first and not me. Jesus does not base His choice on who is a better person or things like that, He sees the heart and I knew my husband had a very pure heart. He was concerned about each person and always tried to help. God didn't look at the addictions, He looked at his heart and chose him first. By this time I had accepted Jesus also and I was in the car one day when my husband went to buy tablets and I prayed to Jesus 'please put in his mind to stop this'. When we arrived home God changed my husband's mind and heart, he threw them all in the bin even though he knew they had cost us precious money. He had another voice telling him to take the pills and then stop, but no, he had decided not to listen to that voice, and he threw them all away. We were taught, for complete deliverance we must pray in tongues and so for 3 days we continuously prayed. One the third night my husband struggled with the pain in his legs, and a pounding head. I saw standing in our room, and heard the enemy telling my husband, take one tablet, take half a tablet. His eyes were on my husband telling him, you can take it and you will feel fine. You don't need to take any more tomorrow but just take one now. The next morning my husband was completely delivered and to this day has never taken another tablet".
In June 2019, we were reading Bible for most of our days. Neither of us was working but we decided to take a step of obedience and 9 June we both were Baptised. God began working in our lives a lot. We saw so many things start to change. One night, the family we were living with went to Auckland. We were not asking anybody for anything and no one knew our situation. On this night we had no milk for our small son, and we didn't know what to do as we had no money to buy milk. We asked our neighbours and they gave us milk for our son. God laid on our heart, 'I am your shepherd, you lack nothing (Psalm 23) Ask me what you want'. We decided we would only ask God, no one else for anything we needed. The next morning we had no more milk, no nappies, no food. We asked God to provide for us. Someone arrived at our doorstep and asked us to accompany him to church is his car as we had no car anymore.. There was one lady there who gave us a supermarket card to buy whatever we needed. The friend took us to the supermarket to buy supplies and then dropped us back at home. We started declaring the promise of Jesus over our lives and one by one things happened. One time we had not enough money to pay rent, so we prayed about it and someone at church gave us money. On another occasion someone we didn't know found out our phone number and rang us. He told us God laid on his heart to give to us something and could he have our address so he could visit us. When he knocked at our door, he handed over an envelope to my husband. It was exactly the money we needed for the rent. My husband began crying". The man asked him why he was crying. My husband replied 'I'm not crying because you give us money, I'm crying because God is faithful, He heard our prayers and He answered. That is why I'm crying'.
"Another day I saw in my dream a Doctor giving us keys of a house. I could see the room with a bed and my son playing there. The Doctors face was the same as my family Doctor in Punjab. At the time we had applied to appeal our Visa and I was wondering whether we were to return to India. I had been praying about a bigger place to live as there was no where for my son to play. I was praying 'Lord I want a home where my son can enjoy room to play'. We met a family in our church fellowship, he was a local Doctor who offered us their granny flat to live. The room was the same as the one I had seen in my dream and was a haven during the Covid lockdown. I was shocked to find this dream come to reality".
LUCKY KAUR - Part 2 of 2 parts
Lucky continues "we were given a 3 month visitors Visa by immigration New Zealand. Then during Covid the time was automatically increased and our stay lengthened. A visiting pastor from America prophesied 'God is going to bless you with a baby'. I told him I already had a son, but he said no, this is another baby. A short time later, I felt like I might be pregnant and I was asking the Lord how we would manage everything. When my son was born in Tauranga, I needed an operation and I wondered if that happened again, how we could possibly afford it. How will we do that Lord? God gave us a verse from Isaiah 30:18 'therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you: therefore He will rise up to show you compassion'. More than that, God said I will bless you even more than getting your residence Visa. We reapplied for our work Visa in September and it was declined, but we stood on God's word. He had promised us He would provide and give us more than our needs. Our next Visa step was reconsideration, but because we had spent all our money on lawyers and applications, I prayed Lord, I want you to show us what to do. That very evening our lawyer called us and said he would not apply for reconsideration. He believed it was not worth it and would refund our money. Our employer at that time, also said no, he wouldn't help us. Both of them said no. Lord I was asking, what are you doing here? We both prayed, Lord now we have no lawyer so if you want us to do something then you will need to bring a lawyer in front of us if it is your will. A few days later we were praying with others in church and Pastor said God had a word for us. We asked the Lord what the word was? Unexpectedly during a conversation someone gave us the number of a lawyer but explained he was very busy and often took weeks to pick up the phone. 'Ring him or email him and he will reply when he has time' we were told. I rang the lawyers number and within 5 minutes he rang me back. He was visiting from Auckland so we met with him and told him everything that happened, he gave us lots of papers to fill out. It took me a whole day to fill these out but 3 days later, after 4 years waiting, our documents were accepted for our Visas. And, we were told there would be no medical costs when our baby was born! We thanked the Lord for His favour in our lives, but I was wanting God to tell me when our situation would change. He didn't give me date but told me when the time came it would happen swiftly".
"My husband was given a dream that my delivery this time, would be normal. There would be no C section, it would be a normal birth. Three times God told us the birth would be normal. As my due date drew near, the hospital called me in wanting me to book in for a C section. They wanted me to sign the papers for this delivery as they were anxious about complications similar to when I gave birth to my son. I heard the Lord tell me 'if you sign these papers for a C section it will be against my promise. I have told you it would be normal. This is your time to show faith'. Together with my husband we tried to weigh up the risks. We knew there would not be costs for a C section now, and God told us the birth would be normal. This was not about us, this was about believing what God has told us. We advised the Doctor and midwife I would go for a normal delivery. I was in labour 24 hours and still nothing was happening. When my waters finally broke during the night, I was taken to the delivery room. But by morning still waiting, a new Doctor assessed me and started shouting to my midwife 'where is the babies heartbeat, we cant find the babies heartbeat'. She called all the surgical team who got busy preparing for an operation. I felt the enemy was trying to steal my testimony and I was not wanting another C section. My husband was beside me praying and my midwife who was Christian was also praying. My husband sank to his knees declaring the scripture in James 4:7 'submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee'. We were all praying in tongues and my midwife advised me 'you will have to tell the Doctor not to go ahead with C section as this is now out of my hands'. Although they could now hear a faint heart beat, due to the risk they were all poised ready to cut me open. My husband said to the Doctor 'can you please try for normal as my God told me it would be normal'. The Doctor came to me and asked me 'what do you want?" I replied " I want to try normal'. The Doctor said ok you can keep trying , but the birth will not be normal. The babies head is up and the position is not right. She was upset with our decision and did not want us to do that. She thought we were wasting time and the baby was at risk. She then said 'I will give you four chances to push normally but this baby needs to be delivered, so if this does not happen then we will do a C section'. The first push nothing happened. The second push nothing. The third push there was a little change and I began declaring I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. My husband was behind me declaring the same scripture. I said please Lord give me the Bible verse to stand on. Isaiah 41:13 Fear not I will help you, I will strengthen you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. I said to the Lord, you promised you would help me and strengthen me. Its not in me. Give me the strength. The fourth push, her head was out and as the Doctor held her head, she declared it was a miracle. She congratulated us and said she was happy we had made that decision. Everything was normal and we gave God the glory. We named her Grace, to honour His gracious favour.
"When Grace was 1.5 months we were given notice and had a date we needed to be out of the rented property. We had no place to go. The owner gave till 25 April to move. Although we had people offering to help us pack, we told no one we had no place to go. On the 25 April with everything packed but no place to go, we prayed. We had looked at one very small place with a garage but that area showed clear signs of alcohol cans, bottles `and evidence of drugs. I said to the Lord, 'I will move there but its not my happiness, it's only a compromise. But Lord I believe in the last hour you can do anything.' When the delivery van arrived he asked where we were moving to. We told him we didn't know. He told us about a house his Aunty owned but had in the hands of a property manage to re-let. He took us to talk with her and she explained she would need to contact the agent first and as this is a long weekend she would not be available. She allowed us to put our things in the garage and stay in the house. With others who were praying, we claimed the house in Jesus name and one day later we were officially told we could move in. It was the last hour but God was faithful and knew how to bless us.
With God's guidance and a lot of prayer we started a company for my husband. He had the skills as a carpenter and God showed us the right time. God gave us the company name , Grace. As we drove to Auckland to sign the registration documents I prayed, Lord did I hear you correctly. If the name is not from you we have time to change it. Ten minutes later I checked my phone and a message had been sent to me "my grace was with you, is with you, will be with you' Three times he confirmed the name. We never did any marketing for my husband's renovation company, but God has blessed us and others through us. God is with us and He is taking us to the next level.