Petra's Answer to Prayer

When Petra prayed for God to lead her, He asked her to go way outside of her comfort zone. This resulted in a trust in God that allowed her to share more about prayer in a set of YouTube videos. Here is that story behind the videos.

Even though Petra grew up in a Christian Adventist home and always had a heart to serve the Lord, there were still some areas of her life she subconsciously kept for herself. Through a series of experiences, she realized she was not fully surrendered to God and that she needed to give God 100 percent or nothing at all. One experience was going through a miraculous health transformation, and another was when she watched her mother contend with a life-threatening health crisis from which she was later healed. These laid much of the spiritual groundwork in her heart, yet her growth in surrender to God wasn’t an overnight change, but a process.

Through those experiences and the Holy Spirit’s moving on her heart, God gave her a hunger and thirst for the Bible like never before. As she read through the Scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy books, she began to see God as her friend and Jesus as walking right beside her. She says, “It’s one thing to see God as a Father but another thing to see your Father as a friend. It’s a deeper relationship and I just wanted to make Him happy in every way.” There were various YouTube ministries that were instrumental in encouraging her in her Christian growth and, along with Bible study, she devoured their content.

Not long after this, Petra felt convicted that she should give up her job of ten years at a public university to go into full-time ministry. She felt specifically led at that time to go to South Korea as a missionary. It was 2015 and she put her house up for sale. Being a careful and detail-oriented person, this was a scary move, but she knew God was speaking to her. So, she applied to be a missionary and decided to wait until her house sold to quit her job. Even though she prayed for the house to sell, months went by and it went unsold. She prayed, “Lord did I hear you right?”

She heard God say, “Step out on faith, quit your job, pack, and go to Korea!” This was not a comfortable idea to Petra, but she did it. A family member advised her to have someone look after her house while she was gone, so she prayed about this and strongly felt God was leading her to just go and not worry about the house. She got on a plane to fly to Asia. The day after she arrived in South Korea, she was pleasantly surprised to receive a text message from her realtor stating that there was an offer on her house. This was confirmation that she had done the right thing.

Her brother had been working in South Korea for several years, but due to various circumstances he was unemployed. Being new to Seoul, she needed help getting all of the paperwork for selling her house signed and authenticated at the US embassy. Because her brother wasn’t working, he was able to assist her freely. Besides that, she was able to encourage him during that time to pray and ask God to open doors with regards to employment. God led in such a way that as soon as her paperwork was submitted and her house completely sold, her brother found a job. In this she could see that God worked several miracles for both of them.

After serving in South Korea, she came back to the States and went through the Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism (AFCOE) training. She also traveled on a short mission trip to Mexico, and then served as a Bible Worker in Eastern Washington. These were all experiences that helped to solidify her understanding of the scriptures.

Because of how God had led her, Petra felt called to make YouTube videos in late 2016. Conviction and action did not come at the same time, but finally in early 2020 she began. Her goal was to make videos that help Christians understand, internalize and live Bible teachings in a simple and practical way. The videos on prayer came from her personal experiences as she grew in faith and surrender in the year 2020. These videos are a gift God put in her heart to share with others. “With the recent uncertainty in our world, I have found myself praying like never before. 2020 was a tough year, but its many lessons have shown us how important it is to trust God and surrender to him. The more we surrender to God, the bigger the prayers we pray. But we start small and we grow in our faith.” Petra encourages those who struggle with their prayer life to start small. “When you pray for the small things and surrender in the small things through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will grow and be able to look back and see how God brought you through.”

Petra currently works in the UCC Church Ministries Department. You can visit Petra’s YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/c/PetraDotsonMaranatha

Photo by Chan Hyuk Moon on Unsplash.