Yvonne, a girls’ dean at Bogenhofen, appreciated a rule that limited teenagers to 45 minutes of cell phone use each day. She had seen how addictive cell phones could be, and she noticed that the rule encouraged students to spend more time together—talking, laughing, and doing fun activities such as rowing boats on the campus stream.

But she also knew that whenever there were rules, there were students who would try to break them. She suspected that some girls in the dormitory owned second phones, hidden away after they turned in their first phones. But as long as she didn’t see anything, she couldn’t do anything.

One day, several girls were sick in their rooms. That evening, Yvonne brought them hot herbal tea. When she brought tea to one girl’s room, she felt that something wasn’t right.

To enter the room, Yvonne had to pass through two doors—an outer and an inner door. She knocked on the outer door and opened it. Behind the inner door, she heard the sound of something moving and paused, wondering what was going on. When she opened the inner door, she found nothing unusual. The 16-year-old girl was lying in bed. She thanked Yvonne for the tea and asked, “When are you going to bed? Are you going to check up on me again?”

Yvonne thought to herself, What interesting questions.

She finished checking on the other girls and, about 10 minutes later, returned to the 16-year-old girl’s room unannounced. She knocked on the outer door, and when she opened the second door, she saw the girl quickly tuck something under her blanket. 

Now, Yvonne was convinced something was wrong. What should she do?

That night, in her home, she prayed, “Lord, help me to help this girl.”

At 4 o’clock in the morning, she awoke with a strong impression to return to the girl’s room. She thought, Why? She’s sleeping. You’ll just wake her up. Then another thought came: Maybe she’s sick.

Yvonne went to the girl’s room and opened the outer door. A light was shining under the second door. She opened it and saw the girl was in bed, looking at her cell phone.

Quietly closing the door, Yvonne went to her office and knelt to pray. “Lord, what should I do?”

This time, she felt impressed to speak with the girl. Yvonne returned to the room and spent the next two hours talking with the student. At the end of their conversation, the girl said, “You know, I didn’t want to give you my second phone, and I’ve been using it all this time. But now, it’s easy to give it up because I know you really care.”

Yvonne was overjoyed. The girl realized that she wasn’t trying to be unkind but to help her overcome an addiction to electronics. In the early hours of that morning, the girl made God the Lord of her electronics.

Thank you for your Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering, that leads people to the God Who empowers us to overcome addiction. Bogenhofen, located near Braunau, Austria, received part of the 1986 offering to open the girls’ dormitory where this story took place. This quarter’s offering will help lead more people to God throughout the Inter-European Division, which includes Austria.