Recently, I received a similar email from another Mom who has the same idea, and thought I would pass it on.

“I have a daily intention to ‘pay it forward’,” says Teresa. “For example, if someone in line at the cash register behind me has fewer items than I do, I let them go first. If they are a couple of cents short, I give it to the cashier.” These actions in and of themselves are quite contagious, Teresa says, and she and her family members each strive to execute a minimum of one per day.

There’s more. “My husband and I, once a month, pay for the coffee for the car behind us in the drive through. My daughter does the same,” says Teresa. “One time she was about 10 and insisted that I let her out of the car so that she could take her own shoes off and give them to a young girl who was barefoot. It was way below freezing.”

What could Teresa say? She pulled over, watched her daughter take off her shoes and socks and help the girl into them. She raced back to the car barefoot through the snow, got in and never said a word.”
After a few minutes when the tears stopped rolling, Teresa told her daughter how proud of her she was. “Mom,” her child answered, “I have other shoes at home, and that girl needed them more than me!” Teresa has seen her do other acts of kindness and sacrifice as well. “I love that she is that way, especially because she keeps doing it even when the recipients are less than gracious about it.”

In Teresa’s house it is common practice to open the doors for others. “We say please and thank you at every opportunity, return change that does not belong to us, help the elderly load their groceries into their car then return the cart to the parking lot corral,” says Barbara. “These little gestures mean the world to other people, especially when done with the right attitude and a warm smile. We know it works, we have seen it work. That’s the philosophy in our house, and hopefully always will be.”

If you wondered how to be an Earth Angel, these ideas may help….

Barbara was 25, traveling by herself through Italy. She had grown up in Colorado Springs, Colorado and despite the differences in travel was managing the challenges that European trains bring. She had just come down from Brussels — “I’d flown there because the fares were much cheaper –” and was on her way to Rome, where a distant cousin and his wife were going to meet her at the train station. Barbara knew that sometimes trains would split apart at certain cities, and part of the train would go one way and the other part would go elsewhere. “So you had to be sure you were in the correct car,” she says. “I thought I had it all under control. I’m good at that kind of thing.”

But as the day wore on and evening approached, Barbara realized she was NOT headed toward Rome. In fact, she could see the Adriatic Sea out the window. The train had split off in Florence, she realized, and she’d been been on the wrong car. “When the train stopped at a seaside city (maybe Ancona?) I hopped out to make a frantic call to my cousin,” Barbara recalls. “But I could not figure out how the phones worked.”

Night was falling. Barbara was panicking. She didn’t have enough money for a new train ticket. “But I did have a Eurorail Pass I had been planning to activate later in my trip. I decided I’d better activate it right then.” She did, and hopped on the next train toward Rome.

But her troubles were not yet over, she realized, for her Italian was not very good, and she had no way to notify her cousin that she would be late. She was really frightened now.

“Somehow the man sitting across from me on the train realized I was an American,” Barbara says, “and he spoke to me in perfect English.” How could he help? he asked.

Barbara hesitated. Was it a good idea to tell strangers about her dilemma? But the kind man seemed to see her from the inside out. “There’s no need to worry,” he reassured her. “I have spent a lot of time traveling in the United States.. I know my way around, especially in the West.”

“What part of the West?” Barbara asked, curious despite her concern..
“A beautiful little area called Colorado Springs,” the man replied. Barbara gasped. Her home town!

The stranger wasted no time making arrangements. He would be getting off at a station before Rome. “Give me your cousin’s phone number,” he told Barbara, “and I’ll call him when I get off the train and tell him when you’re arriving.”

Barbara could hardly believe it. “And when I finally did arrive in Rome, at around midnight, there were my cousin and his wife, who had gotten the message from the man on the train.”

What were the odds of two strangers from Colorado Springs meeting at just the right moment? Barbara has always felt that man was an angel.

At one time Ephraim’s wife, a physical therapist, had an elderly lady as a client in Naga City, Philippines. To ease the burden of boring therapy sessions, the women talked of their families and their faith. Lucy, the client, shared a particularly amazing incident that started with her brother’s death.

Lucy’s brother and his wife had died in a car accident. While she was on her way to their place to attend the funeral, the bus she was riding in suddenly had engine trouble. The bus driver told them to transfer to another bus.

“I was so preoccupied with thoughts of who would take care of my late brother’s eight small children, I didn’t notice that I was the only one left in the bus,” Lucy recalls. “I even failed to notice a kindly lady dressed in white wearing rope-tied sandals who entered the empty bus and came over to me.”

The lady patted Lucy’s shoulder, comforted her and said: “Don’t worry about your serious problem. It’s better that we pray in church in order to obtain for you the graces you need to take care of the problems ahead.”

Lucy was bewildered. Who was this woman, where did she come from, and how did she know that Lucy was mourning so deeply? Yet when she and the lady left the bus, there was a church just around the corner. Inside the church Lucy cried and cried while embracing the statue of Jesus, locally called Hinulid. Seeing her grief, the lady in white added more comforting words: “Don’t worry, I will help you. Just pray.”

Despite her sorrow, Lucy felt as if a thorn had been removed from her heart. But when she got up to thank the lady, she was no longer around. Lucy was the only visitor in the church.

After the funeral and burial of her brother and his wife, she and the couple’s eight children, looked for a residence to rent. They found a little house and inside, to her surprise, was a calendar, with a picture of the Virgin Mary on it. Lucy gasped. It was the same lady in white who had patted her shoulder and accompanied her to church. Lucy knew now what she had to do.

“My boyfriend broke up with me because he couldn’t bear the thought of feeding eight children not our own,” Lucy said. And because of her deceased brother’s meager pension, Lucy could not depend on anything else other than the assurance given her by the lady in white that she should not worry.

“And did you obey the lady?” Ephraim’s sister was hanging on every word. “Did things work out?”

“Yes.” Lucy smiled. “At this time, all my eight nieces and nephews have finished their studies. We have an accountant, a dentist and two who work overseas…”
“But how were you able to provide them with good educations?”

“God works in mysterious ways,” said Lucy. “He provided the eight children with special talents, so that each of them was able to obtain a scholarship. But still, there was the need to provide for food, clothing and health care. I don’t know the answer myself, but if you have strong faith in God, nothing is impossible.”

“Now, Lucy is old,” says Ephraim. “Although she never married and had no child of her own, I believe she is the happiest person that I have ever met.

“God makes all things happen,” he says. “Praise the Lord!”

Nancee Donavan agrees. One morning, her second-grade daughter, Rebecca Lynn, was supposed to bring cookies for the class treat. But Nancee had gotten a late start baking, and the cookies weren’t ready to take on the school bus. “I’ll finish them, and drop them off at school ‘way before lunch,” Nancee promised. Rebecca Lynn was not happy about this, but she kissed her mom goodbye, and got on the bus.

In an hour or so, the cookies were ready. Nancee’s husband went out to start the car, as Nancee dressed the three-year-old, Jerry Jay. But she didn’t hear anything. Looking out, she realized that the car’s engine wasn’t turning over. After about fifteen minutes, her husband came back. “The car’s dead,” he said. “I’ve tried everything but it won’t start.”

“What are we going to do now?” Nancy wondered aloud. “Rebecca Lynn is going to be so disappointed.”
Little Jerry Jay looked up. “We could pray!” he suggested, his eyes bright. The adults looked at him. “Well…” Nancee began. But Jerry was already on his knees. “Please, God, make the car start!’ he prayed.

Nancee’s husband smiled. “I guess I’d better try it again.” He went out, turned the ignition keys and the engine sprang to life. Astonished—and before the car could change its mind!—Nancee and Jerry jumped in, and they sped to school. Nancee’s husband kept the engine idling, as Nancee and Jerry brought the cookies to a delighted Rebecca Lynn, then ran back to the car.

Next stop, the mechanic. He would be back in a few moments, they were told, so they sat down to wait. Soon the mechanic returned, opened the hood and looked at the car. “Who towed this in?” he asked.

“No one,” Nancee’s husband replied. “We drove it here.”
The mechanic shook his head. “You couldn’t have done that. The battery is completely dead. It’s ice cold.”

The adults looked at each other. What a Father they served, One who cared about every detail of their lives! And what a lesson to remember, that God loves to give His children good things, even the littlest ones. “I have told many people about our miracle,’ Nancee says. “The prayers of children are amazing.”

—Recently a nice lady wrote to ask if we had heard about “pillowcase dresses.” She had made 50(!) and sent them to African girls, but was planning to send the next batch to the girls in Thornton, Arkansas. You need pillowcases (used ones at Goodwill, etc,) thread and some sewing ability, (which lets me out) so if you are interested, check the website for information and the pattern. You can send the dresses anywhere as long as it is a poor area. Check www.littleDressesforAfricaorg.

—Exciting news for me! I wrote a book titled AN ANGEL TO WATCH OVER ME several years ago, for children and their parents to share. The book ($15 plus postage) has been updated with new stories, and is out in time for Mother’s Day. You can’t imagine how important book sales are–they actually sponsor this website–so I am hoping for Great Enthusiasm from my readers. Ordering from amazon.com is probably the easiest and cheapest, but you can also contact me at joan@joanwanderson.com and I’ll walk you through.

—And here’s our story.
Kathy’s family of four had lived comfortably on two incomes until she became ill and could not work. “Things went downhill fast,” she says.“Before we knew it, we had sold every ‘toy’ we owned—my husband’s small hunting trailer, the row boat, even our telescope.” But Kathy’s medical bills and other debts kept mounting. Worse, they had two vehicles that were
almost paid off—but they could no longer make those payments either.

One day a collector phoned to warn Kathy that both vehicles were going to be repossessed. “But they’re both almost paid off,” Kathy protested. Yes, the collector told her, but if she couldn’t make the payments, the cars would have to be picked up. “I couldn’t let that happen—not when they were almost ours—so I phoned our life insurance agent, and asked to have our policy cashed in.” The agency sent Kathy the paperwork, and she filled it
out and sent it back.

A week passed, and then the car dealership contacted Kathy, demanding payment or the cars within three days. Upset, Kathy phoned the agency to ask when the life insurance check would be ready. “Oh,” the secretary said,“those transactions take at least two weeks, usually longer.”

“Two weeks!” Kathy gasped. “I need the money today.” She explained the family’s dilemma, and the secretary was very sympathetic. But there was nothing she could do to speed things up. When Kathy hung up, she put her face in her hands and wept. Between her illness and the bills, life had become overwhelming, and the only thing she could think of to do was to
pray. Of course she believed that God could help her—-but where was He?

Her small children came into the room. “What’s the matter, Mommy?” one of them asked.

Kathy looked up. She hated to burden them with adult problems. And yet,didn’t the Bible say that children’s angels always behold the face of the Father? If she asked her children to pray with her—something she had never done before—could the angels carry their prayers to God very quickly?

Kathy explained to her children that the family was having some trouble,and everyone—-even them—needed to pray. The children seemed honored by their mother’s request. Quickly they knelt and folded their little hands. “Please, God,” they raised their voices in perfect confidence, “help Mommy and Daddy…”

Slowly, Kathy felt a weight lifting from her shoulders. Her mind seemed peaceful, steadier than it had been in weeks. Could the prayers of children do all this? Were their angels, even now, petitioning the heavenly throne? “Just as we stood up,” Kathy says, “the phone started to ring.”

Not another bill collector! But when Kathy answered, she was astonished.It was the sympathetic secretary from the insurance office. “I don’t know how this happened,” the lady began, “and in all my years here, it never has before. But I made a call to the accounting department after we talked, and your check is being mailed today. You should have it in time to pay off your cars.”

“Oh!” Kathy was speechless. But when she hung up, she and the children got down on their knees again, this time in gratitude. Amazing, Kathy mused. Hard times DID focus attention on God.

Kathy and her husband manage their money carefully today. They know that prudence and self-discipline are their responsibilities. But now,“Whenever we need something, material or otherwise, we don’t hesitate to pray together,” Kathy says. “We believe that the angels of children have God’s immediate attention. What a blessing, and a faith practice for all of us!”

Marti was diagnosed with multi-lobular acute pneumonia, and was so sick that a few days later, her local hospital transferred her to a more advanced facility. But eight hours after the transfer, she had fallen into a coma, was on life support and her family was told that she would probably not survive. Marti’s husband started a prayer vigil throughout their community, and was at her side continuously. But nothing changed.

After eight or nine days in a coma the doctors became concerned that Marti may have become brain dead. On January 19, a neurologist was called to do an EEG to check her brain waves.

Before the neurologist began his test, however, Marti became aware of two gentlemen who entered her room without hesitation. “Remember me, Marti?” the first man asked.

“Yes,” Marti nodded. “I remember you.” She was having trouble seeing the second man’s face, but both of them came around and stood on the right side of her bed next to her head, not interfering as the neurologist arrived and started to set up for the test. Marti felt comforted that the visitors were there, and after about twenty minutes, when they started to leave, Marti sat up in the hospital bed and swung her legs over the side. “I’m going with you,” she announced to the men.

The first man turned to her. “Baby girl, you can’t go with us. You have to stay and take care of the kids,” he told her. It seemed the most natural request; Marti thought nothing of it, and obediently laid back in the bed.

The neurological test was never done because within a few seconds of the visit, Marti started responding to the nurses, and to painful stimuli. Within three days she was alert and active, and was removed from life support. It was then that she questioned the nurses. “Did you see the two men that visited me on Wednesday?” she asked.

“The only two men who visited you that day were your brother and your husband,” the nurses assured her. Intensive Care was closely monitored.

But Marti knew those men were not her husband and
brother. “There is no one else on this earth who has ever called me “Baby Girl,” except for my father,” she says. “He passed away a few years ago. But I believe he came to me at the point of death and saved my life.” Had he not told Marti to stay and take care of her children, she believes she would have gotten off the bed and followed him, thus walking into eternity. Instead, although she still has some respiratory distress, she received an amazing healing.

“I am a living miracle of God,” Marti says today. “I know that there really is someone more powerful than we are. If I could somehow show the people who doubt, what I saw that day in my hospital room, I think it would make believers out of us all.”

I’ve been wondering about the other gentleman, the one who accompanied Marti’s father on his errand of mercy. Who do you think he was?

–I’ve been meaning to let you know that our blog here is available for your Kindle. And here’s our story:

Tina Zuccarellâ’s interest in angels and saints started after her mother died in 1999. “I could feel something present that I couldn’t explain,” Tina says, “and I cherished these feelings because I thought she was trying to communicate with me. She was truly an angel on earth while she was here.”
One day around noon Tina, of Schererville, Indiana, received a phone call at work from the nurse at her ten-year-old son’s school. Tyler and another boy had been involved in a playground accident, and the nurse thought Tyler should see a doctor, probably for stitches. Tina left right away for the forty-five minute drive to school, trying to keep herself calm. These things happened all the time, she told herself, especially to active boys like Tyler.
But when she reached school, she was not prepared for the scene in the nurse’s office. Tyler and the other boy had collided, and three of the boy’s teeth had cut through Tyler’s forehead. One of them was still there, embedded in Tyler’s head. Trying not to telegraph her fear and shock to Tyler, Tina drove him immediately to the nearest hospital’s emergency room.
The emergency room staff took a precautionary cat scan because the cut was so deep. And when the results were in, they realized that Tyler needed more care than they could provide. “He needs to be airlifted to the University of Chicago-Wylers Children’s Hospital in Chicago,” the doctor explained to Tina, “because the tooth is embedded in Tyler’s head between his skull and his brain.” Emergency pediatric neurosurgery was necessary to remove the tooth.
Tina and her husband drove to Wyler’s as Tyler was being airlifted. Time was passing, Tina realized. What if the hospital couldn’t locate the right surgeon. What if…? She could barely think. Fortunately, the right neurosurgeon just “happened” to be at the hospital when they arrived, and assembled a team to begin at nine p.m. “The surgeon explained to us that he would not know the extent of the injury until he went in,” Tina says. “Tyler could be brain damaged, he could lose some functions, he could be perfectly okay—or he could die..”
Infection was also a risk. It all depended on how and where the tooth penetrated. Tina and her husband went to the waiting room, preparing for a night of tears and prayers. Tina sat down.
And suddenly, a blanket of calmness and peace wrapped itself around her. She felt the presence of a force far greater than she, and she knew—without knowing how—that everything was going to be fine. Her mother was there, watching over all of them. And she had brought a brigade of angels to surround them with peace.
Everything turned out beautifully. As the surgeon later explained, the tooth did not penetrate the brain wall because of the angle that it “happened’ to enter. Although Tyler remained in the hospital for five days, it was a precautionary measure against infection taking hold, which it did not. He was fine, and suffered no complications.
“From the moment I sat in the waiting room, I knew this would happen, but how?” Tina asks. She saw nothing unusual. But she truly believes that her mother brought her the peace and confidence she needed that night. Her mother, and a great band of angels.

Let’s finish today with a song from Jackie Evancho who sings like an angel: < http://www.staged.com/video?v=NtK

”We were enjoying the tour when, about 45 minutes later, it began to dawn on us that we were in the mountains,” Chris says. This certainly was not the way to the fort. “Where are you going?” Chris asked the driver, the only one on the bus who spoke a little English.

He was finished with work and was going home, he told her. In Puerto Rico, bus drivers take their vehicles home with them!

“But…” Chris was fighting back panic. By now, the mountain roads were so narrow that the bus barely fit on the road. There were goats chained to posts, and only huts housing the people there. Any approaching vehicle or animal had to back up as there was not room enough for the bus to pass. “I was becoming more and more terrified as we traveled into this dense mountainous forest,” Chris says. “By the time my husband and I were the only ones left on the bus, the driver pulled over and ordered us out. He then drove off.”

Stunned, Chris and her husband looked around. It was beginning to get dark, and they were on a barren street with nothing but boarded up buildings, at least sixty miles from San Juan. And they had to be back to their ship in two hours—or they would miss it.

The couple saw two people in a storefront, approached and asked if there was a police department nearby. The people just laughed, and shooed them out of the building. “We decided to look for help,” Chris says, “so we walked the main street. The entire town was deserted, and looked like a bad movie set. On the edge of town we did see a man in a building, sleeping with his feet up. We approached him and he spoke no English and had no desire to awaken enough to try to help us.”

By now, all Chris could think of to do was to pray. Stories of abductions ran through her head, and she was in terror. God, God…help us, she said, over and over again.
Suddenly a young man came around the corner. “May I help you?” he called to them, in broken English. Were they hearing things? No, they explained that they had been hijacked and dropped off in this village, and needed help.

The young man had been surprised to hear them speak English, he explained, because no one in this village could. He had learned English when he went away to school, and now was a teacher in a school near San Juan. He had been visiting his mother who lived in the town. “In fact,” he pointed out, “I come here only one day a month, usually much earlier in the day. Had I followed my usual schedule, I would have missed meeting you. Come along!”

Chris and her husband looked at each other in relief, for the man seemed quite genuine—and he had a car! .“He took us half way back to port as he had to go the other direction, and then got us a ride across the bay on a ferry,” Chris says, “and we made it to our ship on time. He was truly an angel.”

Perhaps even more of an angel than she had first realized. For later, when Chris returned home, she mentioned the episode to a neighbor who was raised in Puerto Rico, and the neighbor was shocked that nothing unfortunate had happened to them. “That area is extremely dangerous,” she said, “and I am surprised that even the teacher was there alone.”

Chris wondered too. And she did want to thank him again. But her efforts bore no fruit. The school where she thought her rescuer worked did not know him. Nor did anyone else she contacted. But he came just when he was needed most. And she’ll always be grateful for that.