When In Doubt... Pray!

Mandy asks Eugene for help after Jessica Dunn mocks her for praying in the school library. Jessica claims that God may have answered prayers during Bible times but no longer does so. Eugene says that history contains many later examples and invites Mandy into a new Imagination Station program Whit has created about prayer.

Their first destination is an orphanage in Bristol, England, during the 1840s. Mary Müller welcomes the American visitors but explains that the institution neither asks for donations nor maintains a list of regular benefactors. She and her husband, Reverend George Müller, depend upon God to provide for the children.

Johnny, one of the boys, tells Mandy that his mother died when he was born and his father later drank himself to death. He had survived on the streets through stealing and lying until Reverend Müller sought him out like a shepherd finding a lost sheep. At the orphanage, Johnny has learned that he still has a heavenly Father.

That evening, the staff discovers that supper has used every remaining scrap of food. The cash box is empty, and nothing is available for breakfast. Frank, the worried assistant, urges Müller to ask wealthy businesspeople for regular help. Müller insists that their work began in faith and that God has never failed the children.

Everyone prays for food, thanks God in advance, and goes to bed. Müller admits that faith does not erase every struggle with doubt, but he trusts the promise that God is a father to the fatherless. Before Mandy can witness an answer, the Imagination Station carries her and Eugene away.

They arrive at a prison in Villevoorde, Belgium, where a guard mistakes Eugene for an official sent to question William Tyndale. Tyndale has translated the New Testament into English and hoped to complete the Old Testament so ordinary people could read Scripture for themselves. Church authorities regard his work as heresy and plan to execute him.

Tyndale prays for deliverance, but he does not assume that God must preserve his life. He remembers that Jesus prayed in Gethsemane while submitting to the Father’s will. Mandy cannot understand why God would allow a man to die for making the Bible understandable, but the program moves on before she learns the outcome.

In nineteenth-century Ohio, a terrible drought has threatened crops and animals around Oberlin. A crowd gathers as preacher and college president Charles Finney prepares to pray for rain. While everyone else stands beneath a blazing sky, Finney carries an umbrella because he believes they should prepare for the answer they are requesting.

Finney asks God to relieve the suffering of the people, animals, and thirsty land. Clouds gather while he is still praying, and rain begins to fall. Mandy joyfully sees that an answer can arrive immediately and visibly.

Back in Bristol the next morning, Müller seats the children before empty tables and thanks God for the food he will provide. A baker arrives and explains that he awakened during the night with an overpowering conviction that the orphans needed breakfast. He and his apprentices spent the remaining hours baking bread and sweet rolls for them.

Then a milkman’s wagon breaks down outside. Unable to continue carrying the fresh milk and unwilling to pour it away, he gives every container to the orphanage. Frank’s panic turns to praise as the children receive both bread and milk through circumstances no one at the orphanage arranged.

Mandy and Eugene return to Villevoorde expecting Tyndale’s release, but he is executed. Eugene later explains that Tyndale’s deepest prayers were nevertheless answered. His final prayer asked God to open the English king’s eyes, and seventy-five years later King James I ordered an English Bible for all his subjects. Tyndale’s translation became one of its important sources.

Mandy learns that an answer may be immediate like rain, surprising like bread and milk, or fulfilled beyond a person’s lifetime in a way that still involves suffering. She returns to Whit’s End ready not merely to argue with Jessica but to pray for her.