Without money, they got a new orphan house

By Riley Gonzalez —

The Burmese orphans were crying begging that God would provide a house for them. But the pastor’s daughter didn’t believe.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily McAteer told them. Because her parents overcrowded the house with 40 orphans, the landlord gave them until 9:00 a.m. the next morning to vacate.

At 7:00 a.m., Emily’s mother and sister called a Chinese landlord who offered them his large house without background check, without first month’s rent and without seeing them.

Emily was astonished.

Just the night before, she had accepted Jesus — finally — into her heart, and now she was seeing a miracle.

Emily McAteer tells that she grew up in the Talay township of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Her parents were Christians and pastors, leading a Bible school and an orphanage.

Church attendance was required, a bit of drudgery for Emily. Her parents wanted her to excel in her studies, and she worried about her progress.

Since all the other students were Buddhist, their customs wore off on Emily. The other students implored Buddha for help in their studies, and they went to the fortune tellers to assure success.

Emily went along with them.

When her mom found out, she told Emily that she should trust God alone and not resort to idols.

“I don’t think you should do that,” she told her daughter. “God is the only one who can help you”.

But Emily figured if God failed to help her, one of the Buddhist deities would pick up. She was hedging bets.

When it came to her 12th grade exams, she failed.

She realized too late the futility of faith in idols. “This is not real,” she realized bitterly.

Soon after, the family and the orphans — probably some of them rescued from sex trafficking — were getting kicked out.

That very night, the Bible study was on John 3:16, and for the first time in her life, the love of God hit Emily. She received Jesus on the night before they had to vacate with nowhere to go.

Some of the orphan girls had strong faith that God would provide. Emily was skeptical.

Everybody stayed up to 11:00 p.m. praying.

The next morning, Mom called a Chinese landlord who opened doors for them in a new house — without even receiving first month’s rent. He would wait until they could get the money together.

“God helped,” she says. “It was amazing how God helped. These kids told me that God was going to provide for a house. They really prayed. Then God gave everything they needed. I was like, Wow this is the real God that I can trust. God changed me; he put a new spirit in me.”