Power and Protection!--Part 8, CLTP 12   DFO
True-Life Stories of God's Help in Crisis!

         (Recommended reading for 11 years and up. Selected stories may be read with younger children at adults' discretion.)
         Stories courtesy of "Guideposts", "Reader's Digest", "It Must Have Been an Angel" by Marjorie Lewis Lloyd, & "Making the Miraculous Part of Your Life."
         (Christian Leadership Training Program publications are circulated free of charge on a strictly non-profit basis.)

"Please Don't Leave Me!"
By Jim Hutchinson
         Buddy Marsh, a truck driver for 40 years, steered his gasoline tanker down the busy road leading to New Zealand's biggest shopping mall, in South Auckland. The 35-ton truck and trailer held 40,000 litres of gasoline. It was Thursday evening, August 9, 1990.
         As the rig neared the mall, a taxi left the parking lot and pulled out, partially blocking Marsh's lane. He swung away, and a glance in his mirrors showed his trailer just clearing the taxi. Looking ahead again he gasped in horror. A stopped car lay directly in his path!
         Marsh spun the steering wheel and hit the air brakes. Too late. The truck slammed into the rear of the car, spinning it around and rupturing its fuel tank. Gasoline ignited. The trailer jackknifed and toppled onto the car.
Marsh radioed his shift mate1. "Brian, I've had an accident! I'm on fire. Call the emergency services!"
         He jumped from his cab and ran towards the car, which lay beneath the overturned trailer, flames licking out of a hole in the trailer. The whole rig could blow!

         "Let's go, Mum!" Shirley Young begged her mother, Gaylene. It was Thursday--the late-shopping night at Manukau City Centre mall. For the 12-year-old, this was a special outing. So her mother grabbed her car keys, and they were on their way.
         As the couple approached the mall, Gaylene pulled over to the curb and dropped Shirley off. "Wait, Mum," she said. "My money..." Opening the passenger door, Shirley leaned in to tell her mother that she had forgotten her purse and would have to go back home to get it.
         One second, Gaylene Young was talking with her daughter, the next, she was whirling around in a vortex of crumpling metal. Flames poured into the car. Where is Shirley? Gaylene thought frantically. A sudden, excruciating2 pain shot up her legs--her clothes were burning. She tried to open the buckled doors. "No!" she screamed. "I won't die like this!"

         Marsh got to the car just as a bystander, David Petera, hauled Gaylene out and used his body to smother the flames on her. Above the roar of the fire, Marsh heard a voice calling, "Mum! Mum!" He searched beneath the toppled trailer and saw a dark-haired girl trapped in a tiny space between a rear wheel and the chassis3.
         Marsh grabbed Shirley beneath the arms, but he couldn't budge her. The wheel assembly had pinned her lower body to the ground. Petera crawled in alongside. Through a gap in the chassis, Marsh could see a stream of fuel spilling from the trailer into the gutter. "We've got to get her out now!"    he shouted to Petera.
         Marsh dashed back to the burning cab and twisted the ignition key. The engine roared to life. He inched the rig forward, but Shirley shrieked in pain. "It's no good," Petera called. "She's still trapped."
         A wall of fire ran the entire length of the tanker, threatening to sweep under the wheel assembly where Shirley lay. Marsh grabbed a fire extinguisher from the truck's cab and sprayed around the girl, hoping to buy precious seconds.
         Then came a thunderous boom as an explosion blew a hole in one of the trailer's fuel compartments. Marsh and Petera, shielded from the full force of the blast by the trailer's chassis, staggered out into the open. A policeman ordered them away. Truck, trailer and car were now lost behind flames shooting 100 metres into the air.
         "That poor girl," Marsh said. "She didn't have a chance."

         Sirens blaring, two fire engines from Manukua Station arrived. The heat was so intense that one of the first firemen on the scene, Royd Kennedy, saw his boots, fireproof trousers and the rubber on his breathing apparatus4 begin to melt. When he and his partner, Mike Keys, turned a hose on the fire, the water just turned to steam.
         Uppermost in the fire fighters' minds was the knowledge that tankers can blow up in a giant fuel and air-vapour conflagration5 reaching outward for hundreds of metres. About 20,000 shoppers were packed into the mall that night, just 100 metres from the burning tank.
         More fire crews arrived and concentrated on using the streams of water from their hoses to try to push the flames away from the tanker. But more explosions forced Kennedy and the others back.
         As they prepared for another assault on the fire, a high-pitched wail cut through the night. One fireman dismissed it as expanding metal. When the eerie6 sound came again, it raised the hair on Kennedy's neck. It's coming from the tanker! he thought. Shielding his eyes he peered into the wall of flames. For a split second the flames parted. Beneath the trailer he saw something waving--a child's hand.
         "Cover me!" Kennedy shouted and ran straight into the inferno7.

         For ten minutes Shirley had been trapped in a sea of fire, crying for help.      She was giddy with pain and gasoline fumes, and her mind began to drift. She had a sudden, vivid image of her grandfather, Edward Young, and her great-uncle, Vincent Bidios. Both had died years before, but she clearly recognised them. They're Guardian Angels now. They'll watch over me. The thought gave her new strength. Straining to see through the flames, Shirley glimpsed moving figures. Then, with every bit of force she had, she screamed.
         As Kennedy neared the blaze, the heat hit him like a physical blow, stinging his face through his visor. Under the trailer he found Shirley clutching an overhead brake cable. Her hips and thighs were under the wheel assembly, and her legs were pushed up like a grasshopper's next to her chest.
         "I'm scared!" Shirley wailed. "Please don't leave me!"
         "I promise you I won't," Kennedy said, looking into her trusting eyes. "We're in this together now, so we have to help each other." He cradled her body in his arms. The trailer was still shielding them from the main blaze, but the air was so thick with gasoline fumes that the two could barely breathe.
         Whoosh! The vapour suddenly ignited, and the air exploded around them. This is it, Kennedy thought. We're goners. He felt sick with helplessness as flames washed over the girl. For a moment the fire drew back. Unstrapping his helmet, he said to Shirley. "Put this on." He tightened the strap under her chin and flipped the visor down.
         A second wave of fire washed over them. This time the helmet gave Shirley's head some protection. But more explosions rocked the trailer. Kennedy looked down at the girl's tortured body. "I won't leave you. I promise." He wrapped his arms tightly around her and waited for the final surge of flame that would surely engulf them both.
         Instead there came a sudden ice-cold waterfall. "My mates are here!" Kennedy yelled.
         Four hoses were directed onto Kennedy and Shirley, and 5,550 litres of freezing water were now cascading over them each minute. Ironically8, the two began to shiver violently. They were in the first stages of hypothermia9.
         "We'll get someone to relieve you," a fireman yelled to Kennedy.
         "No," he said firmly, "I must stay with her. I promised."

         Grant Pennycock, a paramedic10 from a waiting ambulance crew, donned a coat and helmet and, biting back his fear, headed into the flames. As he crawled to where Kennedy and Shirley lay, he saw there was no room to get an IV drip11 going. Coming back out he radioed the trauma team assembling at Middlemore Hospital. "Prepare for a patient with critical burns, fractures12 and crushing to her lower body." Trauma victims need to get to a hospital within an hour of injury--the so-called golden hour--to have a decent chance of survival. Shirley had been under the tanker for over 30 minutes.
         Kennedy kept talking to keep Shirley conscious. This man's so brave, Shirley told herself. He could get out of here any time he wants. She thought again of her Guardian Angels. Granddad and Uncle Vincent must have sent him.
         Occasionally she would let out stifled moans. "It's okay, yell all you want," Kennedy encouraged. The pain was becoming unbearable. She cried out, pulling hard on his thick hair in her agony. But she never shed tears.
         "Do you like horses?" Kennedy asked, desperate to keep her talking.
         "I've never been on a horse."
         "When we get out of here, I promise you a ride on my daughter's horse."
         As Kennedy talked he kept checking Shirley's pulse. She'd been trapped for nearly 40 minutes. Dear God, how much more can she take?
         Suddenly he felt Shirley's pulse flutter, and she closed her eyes. "Shirley, talk to me!" he pleaded. She rallied briefly, lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "If I don't make it, tell Mum I love her," she whispered. Her head rolled back in his arms.
         "We're losing her!" he yelled. "Throw me an Air Viva!" He put the mask of the portable resuscitator13 over her face and forced air into her lungs. She opened her eyes.
         "You tell your mum yourself that you love her," he scolded. "I promised I wouldn't leave you. Now don't you leave me!"

         The desperate rescue team had brought in air bags to elevate the trailer. Made of rubber reinforced with steel, the bags could lift a railway boxcar14 over half a metre--more than enough to slip the girl out. They slid one under each set of rear wheels and pumped in air. But the ground was sodden15 from all the water, and one of the air bags was sinking into the mud. Praying for the space they needed, the rescue team shoved a small hydraulic ram16 under the chassis. The trailer rose slightly. It would have to be enough.
         Kennedy gently untangled Shirley's legs from under the wheel.
         We're free! As Kennedy carried her to a stretcher, Shirley smiled weakly at him, and he kissed her on the cheek. "You've done it, Shirley," he said. Then, overcome by fumes, shock and cold, he fell forward into the arms of another fire fighter.
         Firemen were at last pouring foam on the tanker. Any earlier and it would have endangered Kennedy and the girl. In minutes the flames were quenched.
         When Kennedy's station officer, John Hyland, returned to the scene the next morning, he saw something that will haunt him for the rest of his life. For 70 metres the top layer of asphalt17 had been melted away in the inferno, in one section down 15 centimetres to bare gravel--except for a patch about as big as a kitchen table, so lightly scorched by fire that a painted line was still visible. It was where Shirley had been lying. "It was as if the Devil was determined to take that girl," one fireman said, "and when she was snatched away, he just gave up."
         For two weeks Shirley lay in intensive care, sometimes heavily sedated18. Hooked to a respirator, she couldn't talk. On the fourth morning, as she drifted in and out of sleep, she scrawled a note: "I love you, Mummy." The next day they wheeled Gaylene into Shirley's ward, and mother and daughter wept with happiness.
         Despite an unwritten rule that fire fighters should never visit victims--to guard against becoming too emotional on the job--Kennedy visited Shirley often, eating her chocolates and clowning with her. "This kid is far too noisy," he scribbled jokingly on her chart.
         "She's a miracle child," Kennedy says. "No one knows how she survived in there."
But Shirley knows: "I had Guardian Angels watching over me!"
         Just before Christmas, Shirley was well enough to go home. Four weeks later Royd Kennedy kept another promise. On a beautiful day in January, he took her for that ride on his daughter's horse.

Our Deliverer...
--By Don Meares
         Aaron and a friend had trekked into the rugged mountains in their homeland of Nepal to share the Gospel in unevangelised villages. After hearing that Christians had arrived in his village, the shaman (witch doctor) planned to do away with them.
         Running out to greet Aaron and his friend, he warmly "welcomed" them to his village and invited them to have dinner in his hut that evening. Since he was the leader in that village, it was unthinkable to decline.
Just as the shaman extended the invitation, however, God gave Aaron a strong impression of impending danger.     "He is going to poison your food," the Holy Spirit warned. After praying for direction, Aaron sensed that God wanted him to accept the shaman's offer.
         Before going to the shaman's hut, Aaron and his friend cried out to God and placed their lives in His hands. The Lord reminded them of Jesus' promise, "If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them" (Mark 16:18).
         That evening the shaman served a hearty portion of rice and curry to his guests. Before eating, however, Aaron made a request.
         "It is our custom as Christians to ask the Lord to bless the food."
The shaman nodded in agreement.
         "Dear Lord Jesus, our Deliverer, we cry out to You!" Aaron prayed. "We thank You for this meal, and we ask You to sanctify it for our nourishment and strength. We commit our lives to You for continued service."
         Then the two men praised and worshipped the Lord as the shaman looked on. He had no idea that this was more than a typical blessing over a meal. It was a request for a miracle.
         The shaman watched in amazement as they dug into their meal with obvious enjoyment. Before they could even finish eating, he cast himself at their feet, trembling with fear.
         "Your God is more powerful than my god! I have put enough poison in your food to kill ten men," the shaman confessed, "but your God, Who is all powerful, has protected you and made my power as nothing in His sight. Please tell me Who He is that I may serve Him, too. I do not want to be destroyed for this evil I have done to you, His servants."
         Aaron and his friend experienced the joy of leading this old man into a living relationship with a powerful and loving God. As a result of the shaman's conversion, many in that village also believed.
         (Editor's note: Praise the Lord for how wonderfully He answered this little missionary team's desperate prayers & performed a miracle, delivering them from an otherwise certain death!
         (Of course, under normal circumstances we shouldn't knowingly eat something poisonous & expect God to save us. However, this was obviously an extreme life-and-death situation--one in which this witch doctor seemed intent on killing these missionaries. While the missionaries could have said, "God showed us that this food is poisoned & therefore we can't eat it," the witch doctorprobably wouldn't have seen it as so great a miracle, thinking that someone had spied on him & had passed the word on to the missionaries & they probably would still have ended up in the cemetery, by one means or another.--So in this instance, it seems they were more or less forced into eating this poisoned food in order for the witch doctor to witness a powerful enough miracle so that he would believe & could be saved. "He that would lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it" [Luke 9:24].
         (These missionaries had desperately prayed & cried out to the Lord for His leading, receiving His promise that "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them."--So their action in eating this poisoned food was not done carelessly or nonchalantly, & was definitely one in which they had little alternative but to pray desperately over the poisoned food & eat it by faith, claiming the Lord's supernatural protection.)

Sudden Fury
--By Kim Engelmann
         My husband Tim and I like to take our pocket Bible with us when we go camping. In the evening we read aloud to each other from Psalms. Over the years I've come to memorize many verses, repeating them over and over in my mind. But I would never have guessed the strange power of one verse that came to me on a camping trip in New York's Adirondack mountains.
         We had arrived at the ranger station around noon. It was a beautiful, clear fall day. The leaves were just turning colour, and the scenery was spectacular. We parked our car and registered with the ranger. He described the area to us, telling us about local landmarks and sights we'd see on our hike in the wilderness to the campground. He gave us a brief warning about bears.
         "If you see a bear at your campground, just clang some metal pots together, give a yell and the bear will run away," he advised.
         Neither Tim nor I were particularly alarmed. We put on our backpacks and began the six-mile hike up to the campground. No other campers were on the trail. It was so quiet we could hear the leaves crunching beneath our feet.
         Tim and I relished the solitude. Back in the New York City area, we were both full-time graduate students, commuting to different schools. Now we were grateful to have a few days together away from classes, textbooks and papers.
         We reached camp just below the timberline at sunset and set up our tent in the waning light. The moon came out and the air was cool and still. By a roaring fire we ate our dinner and spent a while reading from Psalms in our pocket Bible. Then we put the rest of our food away in our backpacks and hung them from the half-dead branch of a tall, spindly tree, out of the reach of scavenging rodents. The last thing I did was mix some instant chocolate pudding and bring it into our tent before going to bed. Tim and I were soon fast asleep in our sleeping bags, worn out from the hike.
         Suddenly something woke me. "What's that noise?" I asked Tim. "A raccoon?" I glanced at the luminescent19 dial of our alarm clock. It was 2:00 a.m.
         Tim sat up and grabbed the flashlight he had left by the tent door. "Too big for a raccoon," he mumbled, half-asleep. "Look," he whispered.
         The moon was bright, the sky clear, and with the flashlight I could make out a furry creature shuffling about the campsite. I grinned, "A baby bear," I said. "He's adorable."
         We watched as he tried to overturn the stones that had formed the semicircle around our campfire. Disappointed at not finding any food, he lumbered over to the base of the tree that held our backpacks. For a moment the cub disappeared behind a thicket, and we could hear only a few grunts and the tree groaning.
Then came a sudden snap, and our backpacks fell from the broken branch to the ground with a loud thud. Frightened, the cub fled the scene, cracking twigs and kicking up leaves as he left. Then all was quiet. Late-summer crickets chirped.
         "I'd better try to hang up those backpacks," Tim said. "The food in them will be a real invitation to raccoons if I leave them there."
         "Okay." I slipped back into the warmth of the sleeping bag.
         "I wish I had some rope to tie them up with," Tim said.
         "We might have some..." I began drowsily. I never finished my sentence. We felt the vibrations of heavy running footsteps, then deep growling. Tim froze. I grabbed his arm.
         "The mother bear," he said in a hushed tone as he peered outside. "She's in the camp. She's enormous and she's mad. I think we scared her baby."
         We sat frozen with fright and listened as the huge bear began tearing apart our campsite. Pots and pans came clattering down on the rocks. The growling grew more intense. Then she found our backpacks lying on the ground. We heard the dull rip of the canvas bags and the long, searing scream of the zipper as she tore open the metal teeth with her claws.
         "Quick, grab some pots and pans and yell!" I said, remembering the ranger's advice. Tim picked up a saucepan and the metal bowl with some of my leftover pudding in it. I could smell the sweet aroma of hardened chocolate in the pan, and it flashed through my mind how bears are drawn to sweets.
         Clang, clang, went the makeshift cymbals. "Get outta here!" Tim bellowed. "Go on, now! Get!"
         The bear responded, but not the way we expected. She started growling, then blasted forth with a violent roar. I scrambled out of the sleeping bag and crouched next to Tim, who fumbled for a small Swiss army knife and clenched it in his hand. The ground trembled beneath us, and I realised in a split second that she was coming toward us.
         Another deafening roar and she was outside the tent, so close that I could smell her breath. It was like rotting garbage. The wall of the tent bulged as the bear pushed against it.
         And then as Tim and I clung to each other in terror, I found myself saying some words out loud. "No evil shall befall you." I didn't know why I said them, but even then I knew they came from Psalms. "No evil shall befall you," I kept repeating as the bear began circling the tent. "No evil shall befall you." It was as though I were drawing a protective circle around us.
         Then an amazing thing happened. A breeze began to blow. It rustled the few leaves hanging on the tips of the trees. Bushes whispered and the forest wood creaked. The mother bear, who had been roaring furiously, paused for a moment. With the breeze blowing our scent away from her, she stopped in her tracks. For a few moments she was silent. Then she barged off into the brush.
         The next morning we surveyed the damage the bear had done. The camp was in shambles, debris strewn everywhere. Our food was gone. The bear had actually chewed up and swallowed most of the glass jar in which we had stored our honey. Only one corner of the jar remained.
         On the ground I found our pocket Bible with a bite taken out of it and three long claw marks scratched into the leather cover. I picked it up and thumbed through it, looking for the Bible passage that had come to me so mysteriously the night before. There it was in Psalm 91. But what particularly amazed me was the second half of the verse, appropriate for the two of us huddled in our tent. "No evil shall befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling" (Psalm 91:10).
         These days Tim and I still go on camping trips. As usual, we take our Bible along and we always read Psalms by the campfire. And if I ever doubt the power of Scripture, I only have to look at the outside of our "Bear Claw Bible". Three long claw marks and one bite in the corner are evidence enough.

The Prayer of a Child
--By Barry Stevens
         The shuffling of little feet echoed down the main hallway of the humble orphanage. An air of excitement and the chattering of muffled whispers added to the atmosphere of expectancy. Respectful of the request to assemble quietly in the dining room, the children sat patiently waiting for the arrival of the Mother Superior. The orphans were accustomed to gatherings such as this, as the nuns had instilled faith and encouraged daily united prayer, and often a visiting missionary would come to tell of his adventures in some faraway land.
         As the Mother Superior entered the room, all the children rose to their feet and greeted her with a hearty and enthusiastic, "Good morning, Mother Superior!"
         She replied, "Good morning, dear children." The children loved her very much, as she showed great concern for their every need, both materially and spiritually. She was so very warm and caring that the children thought she really was like a mother to them.
         After leading out in sincere prayer for the Lord to bless their meeting, Mother explained that she would like to ask all the children to pray for the Lord to supply much-needed curtains for the orphanage. Many of the windows didn't have any curtains at all. One of the children volunteered to pray. Respectfully, all the children bowed their heads as little Maria began to bring this request before the Lord. Her words were few, but her faith in prayer was sweet and pure, and Mother and the other nuns nodded in acknowledgement to the unfeigned faith of little children.
         Unbeknownst to anyone else, Mother had meticulously measured every window to the precise measurements and wrote out a detailed list of all the needed hardware, brackets, rods, curtain hooks, etc.--right down to the very last screw and even the choices of colour. To purchase all these materials was far beyond the budget of the poor orphanage and collectively amounted to several thousands of dollars. She placed this list in a special box in her office where she kept all the prayer requests.
         One week had passed when a delivery truck arrived at the front of the orphanage. "Curtain delivery!" shouted the driver at the main door, clipboard in hand, and assistants energetically unloading large boxes of curtains and accessories. Mother came to the door astonished and overwhelmed at what was taking place. "That will be $2,900, Ma'am," said the driver.
         "I'm sorry," replied Mother, "but I did not make such an order and besides, I could never afford to buy such nice material as you have here. There must be some mistake."
         "This is the address on the invoice, and all of these curtains have been custom made in accordance to this order. I'll have to call my boss," said the driver.
         After calling his boss, the driver told Mother that he had been told that no one at the office ever received such an order, but the boss had "mysteriously" found this order on his desk. It had no name on it, only the address of the orphanage. For some reason he gave the go-ahead to fulfil the order, and production of the curtains was carried out.
         When Mother had once again assured the man that no one at the orphanage placed this order, he decided to start packing everything back into the truck. However, little Maria stood by Mother and pulled on her habit20 to get her attention, and reminded Mother of the prayer for the curtain materials. Mother then explained to the man that she did have a list made out and that all the children had prayed for curtains for the orphanage. The man decided to call his boss once again. The boss told the man to check the list the nun had made and to see what it was that they needed. To his dumbfounded amazement, it was exactly the same as the order she had made out and placed in the special box in her office, which, incidentally, was kept under lock and key.
         Reporting back to his boss, the man explained in detail the uncanny "coincidence" that had taken place. The boss, being a man of God, knew that the hand of the Lord must have made out that order in his office. He gladly and willingly instructed the driver to unload and give the entire order free of charge to the orphanage.
         The curtains were the exact colour, size and fabric that Mother had hoped for, and there wasn't one screw, bracket or curtain hook left over after all the curtains were installed!

From the Fifth Dimension
         When the girls were young, I could hear them calling for me at night, "Mom, Mom!" if they were sick or troubled, and I would go rushing down the hall to their bedsides. But this time when I heard the cry, "Mom, Mom!" both daughters were grown, and one of them, Kathryn, was a married woman, travelling halfway around the World with her husband, Peter. Still, it was unmistakable: She was calling me.
         Picking up a Bible from the nightstand, I went into the family room to pray. I had a feeling of great urgency; Kathy needed help. "Dear God, show me what to do," I prayed. Then I turned to the 91st Psalm, repeating it over and over again, before I was able to feel at peace.
         A few weeks later we got a letter postmarked from Singapore. "I'm grateful to be able to write this," Kathy began. "I can now tell you I was quite ill in Borneo with some sort of flu. We were there, doing our usual exploring one afternoon, when I suddenly became very sick and feverish.
         "Back in our room, Peter became worried. As I rambled incoherently, he searched for someone who knew of a good doctor. Finally he found a local doctor who came to our scruffy, rented room. Seeing our predicament, this good man invited us to his house, where he and his housekeeper nursed me back to health--thank God."
         What touched me most came at the end of the letter. "Remember when I was a girl, and I would call out, `Mom,' and you would come rushing down the hall? That night in Borneo, in my fever, I called...
         "And then I could hear you rushing down the hall."
--Carol L. Mackay

         Years ago my husband, Dan, was a missionary pilot in Ecuador. We lived at the foot of the Andes Mountains, and when he flew he kept in touch with me at the base camp by radio. One day I was logging his position and altitude when he suddenly announced that his Cessna plane had engine trouble. He needed to make an emergency landing.
         I looked at my map and saw nothing but steep hills dropping off into deep precipices21. There was no flat space for miles around. From the sky, Dan searched for a road, a field, a meadow--any place he could possibly bring the plane down. He was losing altitude fast.
         "Pray," he said to one of his passengers, a missionary travelling with her four children. "Pray," he said to me over the radio.
         As the plane came through a pass, Dan saw a mountain village and a small green field. Down he came for a landing. He radioed his position to me and I drove to meet him. When I arrived, Dan's plane was in a field surrounded by a crowd of Indians. My husband and his relieved passengers were unharmed. "Es un milagro," one farmer repeated over and over again. "It's a miracle."
         I assumed he was talking about the plane's safe landing, but he had another milagro in mind.
That small green field had been filled with cows peacefully grazing. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, they had all started moving to one side of the field, just before Dan's plane came into view.
         --Elly Derr

         My mother had been haunted by the same dream for five nights in a row. She described it to me as I took her to the hospital for an operation to relieve a slipped disk.
         "It's snowing," she said. "In the distance I can see headlights approaching. When they come close, I recognise a hearse22. It stops in front of me. A door opens and the driver motions me inside..."
Against her wishes, I told Mom's doctors and nurses about the dream so they would be sensitive to her concerns about the operation.
         Before dawn on the day of her surgery, snow began to fall. At 7:15 I went to her hospital room to be with her while she was prepared for surgery. We were waiting at the elevator when a nurse hurried up. "The surgery has been cancelled," she said.
         Finally, I was able to reach our doctor to find out what was going on. "Well, I woke up during the night and couldn't go back to sleep," he said. "Something was bothering me. I looked outside and saw the snow, and I thought about your mother's dream. I got up, called the hospital and ordered a second electrocardiogram23. It caught a heart condition that didn't show up on the first test. The lab called the anaesthesiologist24 and he cancelled the procedure." The doctor hesitated and took a deep breath.
         "If your mother had had the anaesthesia, well..."
         Later I found out what he did not say then. Under anaesthesia, Mom would have been in grave danger of dying of heart failure.
         --June Davis

The Holdup
--By Steve Akers
         It was 9:00 p.m., February 6, 1981--closing time at the self-service Husky Gas Station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I'd been employed for about two months. As I counted out the day's receipts and put the money into a bank bag, I thought again how fortunate I'd been to get this job. In the two years since I'd graduated from high school, I'd had a hard time finding good, steady work.
         My mother, however, had not been pleased when I'd told her about my new job.
         "Steve, I'm scared," she'd admitted. "I read all the time about robberies at those self-service stations. What if you get hurt?"
         "Don't worry, Mom, I'll be fine," I'd reassured her. "Nothing is going to happen."
         Now, looking forward to the dinner waiting for me at home, I slipped my fleece-lined denim jacket over my white T-shirt and blue corduroy pants, and tucked the bank bag under one arm. I left the cashier's booth near the pumps to cross the parking lot to the storage shed where the safe was located. En route, I passed a man wearing a black windbreaker and black pants. He mumbled something to me, but I just nodded and went on. People on foot often cut across that parking lot, so I felt no alarm.
         I stashed the money in the safe, then hurried outside and locked the shed. I'd started to turn back toward the booth when the same man I'd seen five minutes before stepped around from behind the shed and stopped me. A shock flashed through my mind at the sight of the black ski mask he'd pulled down over his face. The thing that turned my knees to jello, though, was the gun he held in his black-gloved hand.
         "Oh, my God," I gasped.
         "That's right," he responded coolly--meaning, I knew, that he was about to hold me up, and he could see that I realised it. He motioned with the gun toward the booth, which was still unlocked and brightly lit.
         "Give me your money," he said.
         He hadn't seen that bag under my arm, then. He didn't know I'd locked the money in the shed.
         "I don't have any money," I told him.
         He snorted in disbelief. "Don't give me that! Get in there and open that cash register!"
         I moved toward the booth, trying to control my rubbery legs, which threatened to pitch me forward onto the asphalt.
         "I'm telling you the truth," I insisted. "All I've got left are some rolls of change." And then, realising I'd have to explain that, I did tell a lie: "The manager came by just awhile ago and picked up the rest of the money. You're too late."
         "Oh yeah? I'll have to see for myself."
         He followed me into the booth. I glanced out toward the empty street, usually so busy. Surely someone would drive by and see what was happening, I told myself. All I had to do was try to stay calm until help arrived. Calm? My hands trembled as I groped for the lever on the register. The drawer slid open.
         "Look, just change," I told him.
         He began to curse. His eyes glared ferociously at me through the holes in the mask. He looked insane. Or high on dope. Still holding the gun on me, he began rummaging through the shelves in the booth with his other hand, hunting for the bag of money he seemed convinced was there.
         "Pull the phone off the wall," he told me shortly.
         The hole in the barrel of the gun, pointed at my chest, looked as big to me as the hole in the end of a car's tailpipe. I grabbed the phone with both hands and yanked. It didn't budge. I tried again, but my arms had all the strength of wet spaghetti. Finally, I picked up a small knife and cut through the cord.
         He's just making sure I won't call the police, I said to myself. Now he'll leave, and I can go home.
         That's all I wanted right then--just to go home, to the safety of my own four walls, to the love and support of my parents. I'd tell my younger brother about the attempted robbery. He'd be surprised, maybe not even believe me at first. Home...
         The man peered through the window of the booth toward my 1973 Chevy Impala parked nearby.
         "The money must be in your car," he snapped. "Get moving."
         And he motioned again with the gun.
         We left the booth and walked across the parking lot to the car. He searched me there, looking for rolls of money in my pockets. All he found was my wallet, which he kept. Then he told me to open the car. Still keeping the gun pointed in my direction, he felt around under the empty seats.
         "Get in," he demanded. "You drive. Pretty soon I'll have you drop me off somewhere."
         I wanted to believe him. After all, I argued to myself, I had nothing to give him. Sooner or later, he'd have to let me go.
         We headed down the street in the car. When the man noticed that the gas tank registered almost empty, he went into a rage. He began to taunt me about making minimum wage at a gas station and not being able to afford gas for my own car.
         "Look at me, I can get plenty of money any time I want it," he boasted, "and I don't have to work for no crummy minimum wage."
         Then he told me he was the man who had murdered Phil Chacon, a popular Albuquerque policeman who had been shot to death several months before. That murder was still unsolved.
         My heart began to pound. My hands, damp with perspiration, slipped on the surface of the steering wheel. For the first time I faced the possibility that this man might kill me.
         I needed help. I wanted to reach out to someone, anyone, but only God knew the danger I was in. Somehow my grandmother's face appeared in my mind, smiling at me the way she had when I was little. She'd been the one in my family with a strong belief in God. I'd wanted to believe in God, too--but for me, He seemed so far away, out of reach. I just couldn't get in contact with Him, not the way she could.
         Maybe it was because I'd always felt shy and insecure. Despite my parents' encouragement. Despite my grandmother's love. For I'd had some physical problems as a child that had kept me from developing as fast as my friends. While they shot up to become basketball and football stars, I remained slight of build. When they all began talking in deep voices and shaving every morning, I still looked, with my baby face, like a twelve-year-old. I gradually drew away from others at school, staying in my own corner, never speaking up in class. Even though I finally grew to be over six feet tall in my last two years of high school, my habit of staying in the background continued. That's another reason I'd never called on God--I thought someone as unimportant as I was didn't stand a chance of being heard.
         Now, with this masked gunman sitting beside me, I wanted to be noticed. I kept hoping that someone would glance into our car at an intersection and see what was happening. One man in a car did pull up beside us, but then the light changed, and he took off, leaving me once more alone. Or was I alone?
Desperately, I began to silently pray: God, if You're listening, I sure do need help. Maybe I am a nobody--maybe I've never done anything important--but I still don't want to die. Please--please, can You do something?
         The gunman told me what streets to take and where to turn. I saw at last that we were headed toward the airport near the south edge of town.
         I said, "Look, I'll just let you out, and I'll go away, and you'll never hear from me again. You've only taken about $15 in change. I'll make that up out of my own pocket, and no one will ever know..."
The old coward surfaced in me. I'd fantasised when I was younger, about all the brave things I'd do if I were ever in a jam. But actually looking into the barrel of a gun had sent my once-imagined courage right down the tubes.
         "I haven't decided yet what to do with you. Just keep driving," he told me flatly.
         When we came to a fork where the road circled to the left into a loading area in front of the terminal building, the man had me veer instead to the right, down a winding dirt road that led out into the deserted dunes25 beyond the west end of the runways. In the glow of the headlights, I saw the clumps of trash-draped tumbleweeds. The rocky dunes rolled away on either side, bleak as the surface of the moon.
         My chest felt constricted. My breathing had become fast and shallow.
Lord, this really looks bad, I prayed silently. Are You there? Are You with me?
         At the same time, a part of me kept rationalising--maybe the man really didn't intend to kill me. Why should he, what would he gain? Maybe he'd just let me out and then steal my car. It would take me awhile to get back to the main road where I could flag down a ride. But at least I'd be safe--the nightmare would be over, and I could go home.
         "Stop," the man suddenly barked.
         I pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the key.
         "Now get out. Leave the key in the ignition," he instructed.
         I felt greatly relieved. Good, I thought, he'll soon be gone.
         I climbed out and moved a few steps away, into the sand and tumbleweeds. The man slid over and got out too, coming to stand directly in front of me. Without saying another word, he brought the gun up, pointing it at my face.
         It's amazing the number of thoughts that can flash through a person's mind in just one split second. I knew that I was going to die right then, and there was nothing I could do. I felt no sorrow for myself, but I grieved for my parents and what they would have to go through, trying to deal with such a terrible memory for the rest of their lives.
         Well, Lord, this is it, I thought, becoming strangely calm.
         All that, in the brief time it took the man to level the gun and pull the trigger.
         I saw the flash, I heard the explosion. I waited to fall. Nothing happened. I stood on my feet, staring straight into the barrel. Had he missed? He couldn't have missed...
         He pulled the trigger again. Again, I saw the flash and heard the explosion. Again, incredibly, I found myself still on my feet, facing that gun.
         It misfired, I thought...but in that case, there would just have been a click, no flash or loud noise. Blanks? Even with those, there should have been a blast of some kind, powder burns, at that close range...
         Where had those bullets gone?
         I stared at the man. He stared at me. Then he looked in a puzzled way at the gun. He started to pull the trigger again, but seemed to change his mind. Instead, he taunted me about how close I'd come to death.
         "You're lucky this time," he concluded, motioning toward the road. "Start walking."
         I took off at once, stumbling through the sand and gravel. I couldn't believe that I was still alive. My mind reeled as I tried to take it in. To have a gun fail once seemed to me to be a miracle. But twice...
         I snapped back to the present with a new shock of alarm, realising that the car was rocketing behind me like a race car roaring off the starting line. Before I could dive out of the way, the front bumper slammed into the backs of my legs. The car threw me into the air and I crashed headfirst onto the hood. With arms and legs waving in the air, I bounced over the windshield to the top of the car. From somewhere came the sound of breaking glass as my body careened about, somersaulting onto the trunk and then smacking facedown into the road.
         The car roared off. I lay there, stunned, with sand in my mouth. But I was still alive! Broken and helpless, no doubt, but alive...
         Gingerly, carefully, I began to stir, testing for broken bones. I thought my legs would surely be fractured from the impact of the bumper, or my skull cracked and my neck snapped from the crash onto the hood. But all my joints worked with no trouble. I pushed to my knees, blinking against the sting of gravel in my left eye. Getting my feet under me, I rose to my full height under the brilliant glitter of the desert stars.
         Broken bones? Not one! Only a few skinned places on my face and chest, a knot on my head, and the gravel in my eye. I'd been shot at twice and run down with my own car--and there I stood, virtually unhurt.
         I heard myself saying aloud, "Thank You, thank You, thank You," over and over. And I knew that I was thanking God. Because to come out whole through three attempts on my life seems to me to be more than just coincidence. I know the hand of God had to be at work in there somewhere.
         I headed through the dunes toward the distant glow of lights in the 15-story hotel at the airport. With my clothes torn and dirty, with blood from the skinned places seeping through my T-shirt, I finally stumbled into the lobby and asked the startled desk clerk to phone for the police.
         Later, the police and I found my car abandoned near the airport with two blue imprints from my pant legs ground into the bumper, a big dent in the hood where my head had hit, and a broken right window, which I must have kicked with my foot in my tumble over the car. Although the person who kidnapped me was never identified, there was a man of the same height and build convicted a few months later, along with another man, for the murder of policeman Paul Chacon. When I looked at the eyes of that man in a newspaper picture, I felt a shock jar my nerves. He might well have been the man in the ski mask, although I can't say for sure.
         But one thing I do know for sure: My old sense of worthlessness is gone. It doesn't matter that I was never a big football star or a straight "A" student--when I called to God, He heard me. To Him, I was not unimportant.

Discussion Questions
         Following are a number of questions, some of which can be applied to each of the stories in this magazine. After reading each story, you can choose several of these questions for discussion. You do not necessarily need to ask or discuss every question after reading every story, but you may choose those which apply and are helpful.
         1. Is there anything that could have been done to avoid the difficult situation the people in this story found themselves in?
         2. The people in the story responded in one way to what happened to them.--What are some other ways that people might react if the same thing happened to them?
         3. Does this story show you anything about the benefits of the training, education and instruction you have received? Please discuss.
         4. How might you have reacted if this had happened to you? How do you think you should react in similar situations? What would you pray and ask God to do?
         5. Did you feel that the people in these stories could have been more of a witness? If so, how?
         6. What lessons could you learn from a situation like this?
         7. Why do you think God allowed this situation for these people?
         8. Is there anything in these stories that you don't understand?
         9. Did the Lord do a miracle in this story? If so, how did He use the miracle in the lives of the people in the story? Did it bring a change in their lives?
         10. What specific answers to prayer are there in this story?
         11. Does this story encourage your faith that God will help you in difficult, dangerous or seemingly impossible situations?
         12. Have you ever experienced the Lord doing a miracle to save your life or someone else's? If so, what was it? Did it change your outlook on life or your relationship with the Lord or others?

Definitions:
         (The meaning given is for the use of the word in the story & does not cover every meaning of the word.)
         1shift mate: another workman who works during the same period of time
         2excruciating: very severe
         3chassis: the metal frame of a vehicle
         4apparatus: instruments, tools or materials required for certain work
         5conflagration: a big fire
         6eerie: suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious
         7inferno: a place of fire
         8ironically: contrary to what would naturally be expected
         9hypothermia: a condition of reduced body temperature caused by exposure to cold
         10paramedic: emergency medical worker trained to give emergency care or assist doctors
         11IV (intravenous) drip: injecting liquid nourishment or medicine into the body through the veins
         12fracture: a break in a bone of the body
         13resuscitator: a device used to force oxygen into the lungs
         14railway boxcar: a railroad freight car, used for transporting merchandise, etc.
         15sodden: soaked through; saturated
         16hydraulic ram: very powerful jack used to raise heavy loads
         17asphalt: smooth, hard, black, tar-like mixture used in surfacing roads
         18sedated: calmed by being given a drug that lessens pain
         19luminescent: giving off light
         20habit: a particular dress worn by nuns
         21precipice: a very steep cliff or slope
         22hearse: a vehicle used for carrying a coffin to the cemetery
         23electrocardiogram: the tracing or record made by an instrument that is used to determine the health of a person's heart
         24anaesthesiologist: a doctor who administers anaesthesia, a drug which causes loss of the feeling of pain & usually causes unconsciousness
         25dunes: hills of sand
         [end]