Young Ben Tarner loves testimonies. He often asked his mom, Carol, "Mom, would you please tell us another amazing God story?" Then one day, Ben experienced an "amazing God story" of his own to tell.

One day Carol and the kids were driving out of Buraimi, a tiny territory in the Arab country of Oman where the Turners were missionaries. It is a desert region where there can be virtually no rainfall for years. Ben asked, "Mom, are we going to live here forever?" Carol said that it depended on God's will and asked Ben if he wanted to live in Buraimi forever. Ben said,"no," he wanted to live in America because it snows in America, but it never snows here. Trying to sound encouraging, Carol agreed that it never snows here, but reminded him that it does rain in winter sometimes.

"But we had winter and it didn't rain. If it would just rain . . . " lamented Ben.

"What would you do if it did rain?" Carol asked.

He rattled off a whole list of ideas-obviously he'd been thinking about this for some time. "Well, it doesn't rain here in the summer, but maybe next winter it will rain some," Carol offered lamely.

Suddenly Ben became bold. "You know, Mom, God could make it rain in the summer. He can make it rain whenever he wants to. He can make it rain right now. I think we should ask him. Let's pray," he said, sticking his hand toward Carol. She took his hand and prayed, ". . . it if would please you and if it wouldn't mess up any of your other plans, could you please make it rain? We'll understand if there's some reason you don't want it to rain right now, but i8f it would be OK, we'd really like some rain…."

The next day was a normal day. Carol was doing chores around the house and the kids were playing as usual. Then the electricity went out for a while (also as usual). With the air conditioners and fans immobilized, the rest of the house was suddenly very quiet and very hot. Carol lay down on the floor to rest from the heat. In the stillness, she heard a low rumble that sounded like thunder. Ben heard it too. Of course, it wasn't thunder-it must be a plane. Then they heard it again. It wasn't a plane. They all went outside, looked up, and there it was . . . a big, black thundering rain cloud, poised right above the house! Next they heard the plink! plink! plink! of raindrops landing on the metal carport.

Realization dawned on Carol. "Ben, God is answering your prayer! Do you feel the drops? It is actually raining!" Ben looked around, rather unsatisfied, and said, "Actually, I was expecting more rain than this …" and he went to get the umbrella. As soon as he did, the rain broke and really started coming down, and Ben got to do all the things he'd been wishing he could do in the rain.

The neighbors emerged from their houses and stood in the rain, looking up and remarking to each other at the spectacle. Children came out of the woodwork and into the streets to play in the cooling rain. But the most amazing part of this story is that it only rained until Ben had done all the things he'd wanted to do in the rain (around 15-20 minutes). "If the power hadn't quite at just that moments, we probably wouldn't have heard the thunder and would have missed the whole thing!" Carol says. "And it only rained in our neighborhood (about two city blocks in size)," she adds. "Some friends who live nearby remarked that the ground on our side of the street was wet, and the ground on their side of the street was dry!"

Can't you just picture God behind the scenes, smiling with delight as he creates a storm cloud above believing Ben's house, carefully timing the electrical failure and the rain shower? "Where there is great love, there are always miracles," wrote Willa Cather.

Now, wouldn't it have been something if Ben had decided to pray for snow ….