I’ll confess, sometimes I get frustrated. Sometimes it seems that nothing is going right, my plans aren’t working and everyone around me wants something from me. It’s getting close to that time of the year in Cameroon when the demands on my time increase exponentially and it’s also the time when I have to report on the financial status of our branch for the last fiscal year. Part of this report includes any changes in staffing in the finance department.

Well I read my report from last year and realized there have been several large changes since September 2013. The first big change was our finance manager Bob passing away from a heart attack in February 2014 and then our long serving comptroller of 30 years, retired in September.  So this left some big shoes that we needed to fill. As I reflected how we have attempted to fill these shoes I wanted to share how I have been able to see God’s faithfulness in difficult times.

Being the practical guy that I am, when the finance manager passed away I realized that we still needed funds to operate.  Since I supervise the finance manager it was now my job to ensure we had necessary funds to operate. We have many security protocols in place in our process to get money from the United States to our work here in Cameroon. And we also have many security protocols to make payments to vendors in Cameroon. Besides requiring 2 signers on checks we also have an electronic system that requires one person who enters requests into the banking system, a second verifies the information and then 2 people authorize it. We have special electronic security cards that generate a new password every time we log in, along with a pin number that goes with the card.  I thought that I had plenty of back-ups in place. I had multiple people that could enter the requests and 4 people who could authorize. But I found a small problem, I currently only had one verifier and he was no longer able to verify transactions since he had gone to be with Jesus.

Nothing happens quickly with bank bureaucracy, lots of forms, stamps and signatures before any changes to the systems can be made. But, we still had funds to wire and bills to pay.  I had contacted the bank and informed them of what happened and they said without his pin number there was nothing I would be able to do until I submitted all the changes to add a second verifier.

So, I was sitting at his old desk and I just said Lord what can I do. Then I saw it, on the base of his monitor a small yellow Post-it® with 4 numbers on it. I thought it can’t be that easy. I went to the banks website grabbed his security card from in his desk and tried those 4 numbers and it worked. I was able to verify the necessary transactions.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Psalm 118:1 NLT