Hey my friend! Thanks for stopping by to read this WILD and Supernatural story of how our daughter Natalie Grace Vercelli entered into the world.
Let me start from the beginning…
When Sofiya and I got married in April of 2022, we had mutually decided that we would not try to have children so we could stay focused on the mission of evangelizing the 941 area 12 times a month and other cities as God led. We felt that a child would hinder us from this, so we chose to put that desire aside for the sake of the Kingdom.
We also didn’t believe in playing God through birth control, vasectomy or tubal ligation, so we instead decided that NFP- Natural Family Planning, was the way to go. And, as the old saying goes- if you want to hear God laugh, tell Him you have plans.
In late March 2023, when Sofiya was a few weeks late, we pretty much knew what was going on. God was calling an audible. And, I’ll be honest, at first it was a tough thing to wrap my head around. I kept thinking about the possibility of having to go back to work full time and quit the mission, so I was stuck in fear for a few days.
Then one day, God spoke to me and He said, “son, I gave you this baby, and I’m giving it you as a redo.” Let me explain what He meant by that…
You see, my first family didn’t turn out so well. I married my first wife when I was still an unbeliever, and she and I were never equally yoked after I got saved. She eventually left me back in 2016, and on top of that, when my son was very young, I was working a lot trying to build my business, so I didn’t really get to see him a lot when he was growing up.
When God spoke this to me, I felt like He was saying that He was giving me this new family, with a wife who loves Jesus and is equally yoked with me, at this more settled stage of my life- so that I can truly experience what a godly family is supposed to be. I felt so much peace after that.
What was so cool was that within a few days, I told my 16-year-old son the news about his soon to be little brother or sister and his response was, “you know what Dad? You know how you always say that you wish you would have been able to spend more time with me when I was growing up because of the problems with mom and because of having to work so much? Well, I think this is your chance to have a redo.”
I was floored! He actually used the exact same phrase the Lord had given me! This was such a beautiful confirmation!
After this I had so much peace and excitement for the future arrival of our child, but it had not even gotten close to peaking yet.
Because Sofiya and I had been doing NFP, I was able to find out the date that my child’s life actually began. Isn’t that cool!? It was March 7th, 2023.
A few weeks after I discovered this, I got a letter in the mail from a ministry that I absolutely LOVE. In fact, it’s probably my favorite ministry of all time, and it is based in my own hometown- The International House of Prayer (IHOP). IHOP is the clearest living example of the Tabernacle of David that I have ever heard of. They have literally been doing live prayer and worship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since 1999. This has taken over 20,000 staff members (musicians, singers, prayer leaders, tech people, etc.) exerting a total of over 20,000,000 man hours. You can walk in there anytime day or night and hear the most beautiful, spontaneous worship music played and sung by some of the most talented and anointed people you’ve ever heard. This creates an atmosphere of Glory like no place I’ve ever been, and I have to believe that it is a taste of what it was like in David’s Tabernacle.
Here’s a pic of me at IHOP recently. It’s only 27 miles from my childhood home.
In the letter, it said that IHOP was celebrating its 40th anniversary. It also said that its entire prophetic journey began on March 7th, 1983.
When I read this date, I locked on to it. I thought to myself… You mean to tell me that my child’s life began exactly 40 years after IHOP was conceived? That is SO cool!
Here’s the letter I got in the mail.
Sidenote- the 21 day fast/prayer for Israel that they wrote to me about ended up being the BIGGEST prayer rally in history. 5 million people joined from around the world to pray for Israel, and as you know, just a few months after this was the October 7th attack and the subsequent war. Totally a move of the Lord done in His perfect timing.
When I read this letter I kept thinking, what was it exactly that happened on March 7th? I looked up some of their prophetic stories on YouTube and discovered some VERY interesting things.
On March 7th, 1983, a man named Bob Jones, prophesied a number of things to the man who later founded the International House of Prayer. Here are 5 of the things he told him:
- You will begin a movement of singers and musicians who will do 24/7 worship and prayer in the spirit of the Tabernacle of David.
- You will be on Harry S Trumans property as a sign that God has positioned you as a spiritual intercessor for Israel. (Sidenote- Harry S Truman was President when Israel was founded, and he was a major figure in helping them get established. A “political intercessor” for Israel, as Bob called him. He also had property in south Kansas City, MO, and sure enough, many years later, IHOP was given part of that property.)
- People will watch the prayer meetings on “unplugged TV sets” in remote places like the rice patties in Asia. (He was seeing smartphones livestreaming the prayer meeting)
- Homosexuals will be out parading in public in those days with the support of government. (Remember this was 1983.)
- In those days people will be able to have an abortion by taking a pill. (Nobody had ever heard of such a thing back then.)
When I heard this testimony, I was floored. I felt like maybe God was saying that my child would have a powerful prophetic gift like Bob Jones. Bob went on to become one of the most famous prophets of the modern era and went home to be with the Lord on Valentine’s Day 2014.
I watched videos about this story that night and the next night, and then the next day I went to lunch with a friend and leader from Victory Church. For several hours we were sharing God stories with each other, and I had mentioned nothing about the letter or about IHOP. Then, out of the clear blue he says to me “hey, have you ever heard of Bob Jones, the man who prophesied the International House of Prayer in Kansas City?”
I said, “yes I have. Why do you ask?” He said, “well last night I was watching a video about the day he first shared that prophecy, and I was really blown away by it.” I was stunned. I told him about the letter and the connection of that date to my daughter’s conception, and as it turned out- we were both watching that exact same video, at the exact same time, the night before. I knew God was trying to get my attention.
At this point, I had no doubt that there was a strong connection to worship, intercession, prophecy and David’s Tabernacle in my future child, so now I was getting very excited to meet her. Even though I still didn’t know she was a girl.
A few weeks later, on June 7th, my son and I were on vacation in California. Every year I take him somewhere and that year we decided to fly into San Fransisco, drive the Pacific Coast Highway and then hang out in LA for a few days. It was awesome. I even got to see 4 different sites where major revivals began over the past 120 years, which was AMAZING.
In addition to that, this was also where I was when God gave me the name for our baby. My son and I were in San Fransisco, and we were walking up to a spot called Hawk Hill. It is the place where people say you can see the most epic views of the Golden Gate Bridge. While we were walking up there, we passed through a concrete tunnel. As we were walking, I looked over and noticed something written on the wall of the tunnel. It was a name and a date. And the date was… March 7th, 2023!
When I saw this, I was floored. I took a picture right away, and I felt like maybe it was God giving me a message about my baby through the name. I looked it up and one of the meanings of Natalie is “a gift from God” and another is “rebirth or fresh start.” This definitely felt like a confirmation of what God (and Christian) had told me weeks earlier, so I held on to it. Interestingly, another of its meanings is “birth of the Lord.”
Later on, after we discovered that our baby was a girl, the Lord made it clear that He also showed me this because this was meant to be her name. How cool that a girl stopped and wrote this back in March, on the same day as my daughter’s conception, in the exact place where I would be three months later, 3000 miles away from my home! God is so sovereign!
I also took this to mean that what I was hearing Him say about my daughter related to that date, was absolutely a fact. Now I was even more excited.
Now, we transition into Part 2 of Natalie’s story, which we will pick up here- Baby Natalie’s Miracle Story! – Awaken941