05.05.08
Need A Real Friend? Have Coffee With Pat
Real friends are hard to come by, but here’s one who is available 24/7. No kidding! Pat Aman at her computer and on her knees.
When this 54-year-old wife and mother sits down with a cup of coffee she’s never alone. Homesick soldiers, depressed college kids…and even you have access to Pat Amans friendship through the miracle of cyberspace.“I want everyone to feel as though they are sitting down with a close friend,” Pat says. “People need that. I need that.”
A visit to her website at coffeewithpat.org is an eye-opening experience. Like all great relationships Pat’s friendship comes with no strings attached. She shares advice on everything from a happy marriage to how to know you’re saved. She will drop to her knees in the middle of the night to pray for you, but never asks for a donation.
Yesterday she even taught me how to make an authentic Louisiana roux. Okay, so I read the directions from her website recipe section, but I felt as if she was helping me stir. That’s exactly what Pat intends.
“When I post to the website I try to make like I’m looking over their shoulder and I believe God is allowing me to be there by his spirit.” she says. “Everyone needs a good friend. I try to be that for people.”
Deployed soldiers feel the same connection when Pat leads them in communion via the internet. Once each month, at a preappointed time everyone on the list receives instruction for communion sent out at five minute intervals.
Soldier Louis Wright of Birmingham Alabama stationed in the Middle East doesn’t mind staying up late to take part. “I love it,” he said. “It makes me feel like I’m home sitting by my mama in church.
Pat keeps her computer within arms reach so she can answer middle-of-the-night searchers immediately and has her home phone forwarded to her cell.
“See, if that person contacts me asking for prayer it is important for them to get an answer then, not in the morning. If they are about to commit suicide, or want to be saved, or are at their ropes end, they need to hear from someone NOW. They don’t need to get mail saying, your request has been received and someone will get back with you.”
It’s a full-time job taking calls in the car, doctor’s office whenever she’s needed, yet it never gets to be too much for Pat.
Seven surgeries since 2002 and three medically inquired infections kept her bedridden for two years, but Pat rarely missed writing a devotional. She credits husband Joe and friends with seeing to it that Coffee with Pat carried on when she was at her lowest.
“They knew I couldn’t live long without doing some work for God,” she said. “God has always been my life. He keeps me going.”
Now back at her computer Pat ministers to thousands, sending out over 300 Bibles and 500 prayer cloths in 2007. Missionary Rose Boyd, founder of Operation Teaching Tools shoulders much of the cost. Pat and husband Joe take care of the rest.
“I don’t take donations because I have everything I need, but if someone wanted to give us Bibles we wouldn’t turn that down,” she said.
Coffee with Pat which began in 1989 as a daily devotion sent to friends and family has really grown. Last year more than 150 people wrote to say they were saved through the world wide ministry.
“Only God knows how many people have been touched because not everyone writes in,” Pat said. “I’m so grateful when I think how the Lord has allowed me to help others ‑ I just fall down on my knees crying. See, I am just a willing vessel for the Lord to use. He pours into me and I pour out to others,” Pat said. “That is the way it should be.”
So sit down and let Pat pour you some coffee. She will introduce you to new friends from around the world and to Jesus ‑ the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Married for nearly 31 years Pat and Joe raised their daughters Tara and Anna at the Gospel Tabernacle of Dunn. Pat is ordained with the North Carolina Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.