By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Yolanda Malla learned about the power of prayer from a rice field.

Yolanda found work, planting and cultivating rice, in a field in her native Philippines after her husband divorced her, leaving her with two baby boys. The land owner gave her permission to work in his rice field under the condition that she gave half of the harvest to him. The field was located beside a field owned by a relative.

Yolanda worked hard and, when the crop started to grow, she saw that the harvest was likely to be first-class rice.

“Lord, I don’t want any disaster to destroy this rice”, she prayed. “I need it to feed my children”.

Two weeks later, a powerful storm struck the region. Yolanda listened as the wind and rain pounded against her home.

Suddenly she remembered the rice.

“I can’t do anything, Lord”, she said. “Please remember my prayer”.

Several days later, after the flooding subsided, she managed to leave her home and travel to the rice field to survey the damage.

To her surprise, her rice was brown and ripe. There was no sign that the fierce storm had ever happened.

Then Yolanda looked over at the surrounding fields. They were completely ruined. Even her relative’s crop was destroyed.

The field’s owner was amazed at harvesttime.

“This is the first time that this rice field has produced first-class rice”, he said, surprise ringing in his voice. “Rats ate the crop of the farmer who borrowed this field to grow rice last year”.

The rodents had eaten so much of the rice that the previous farmer was able to harvest the entire crop on his own. Yolanda, however, needed 17 people to help her harvest the rice.

Looking at the bountiful crop, Yolanda remembered her prayer on the night of the storm.

“A small prayer is a powerful prayer”, she said in an interview in Cyprus, where she works as a domestic helper. “A small grain of prayer produced a million grains of rice. We couldn’t even count the rice”.

Read next week about how Yolanda, pictured, became a Seventh-day Adventist in Cyprus and led two friends to Jesus.