Power and Protection!--Part 9. CLTP 13, DFO.
True-Life Stories of God's Help in Crisis!
(Recommended reading for 9 years and up. Selected stories may be read with younger children at adults' discretion.)
Dream Warning
By Edward Cushing
When I arrive at the scene, the old frame house on Chicago's South Side is burning furiously. Smoke and embers dance crazily in the windy winter night. I give the order to unroll the hoses and then dash madly inside. I pull out three people and administer CPR1 to two of them before the ambulance arrives, rubber screeching on asphalt2. When the blaze is finally under control someone from the Fire Department comes up to me. "You did a great job, Captain Cushing," he says, "but two of those three people you pulled out didn't make it."
"No!" I cry. "They're all alive!"
"I'm sorry, Cushing."
Suddenly I awoke in a drenching sweat, my heart racing. My wife, Rosemary, was awake too, staring at me. "Honey, what's wrong?" she asked. "You were shouting."
"Nothing," I mumbled, focusing my eyes. The clock read 4:30 a.m. "Just a bad dream." I fell back on my pillow. I had to get some rest. The following day was Christmas Eve, and I was scheduled for duty.
I was assigned to a single firehouse that quartered Engine 91. In Chicago, firemen work three successive 24-hour shifts, living at the firehouse during that time. I'd have under my command three fire fighters and an engineer to monitor the equipment. I was a little nervous. Because of all the men taking their holidays, my company had some unseasoned3 men. I hoped nothing major developed.
By the time I arrived at work the next morning I'd completely forgotten about the dream. In fact, I was happy to find out that my relief engineer had just been promoted, so he must not have been quite as unseasoned as I had feared. Still, I was apprehensive4. The holidays are a busy time for fire fighters. People get careless during all the excitement. God, I prayed, watch over our city on this wonderful night.
The shift passed uneventfully. Then, one minute before Christmas, an alarm came in. We manned the engine and roared out of the garage, our siren piercing the night. The blaze was only a half mile from the firehouse, on North Drake Avenue. We were a block away when I spotted smoke. Fire was raging through an old frame house. I called in a second alarm for more equipment and a chief.
We pulled to a stop and I ordered the engineer to hook up both lines and send water through immediately. The first priority was to get the water moving. Then I directed my two other fire fighters to grab lines from the hose beds. "Move!" I shouted.
I approached the house. The policeman who had called in the alarm was hammering on the locked front door. "There are people inside," he panted. Through a dingy pane of glass I could dimly see the outline of a body lying in the hallway. "Step back," I told the cop.
I battered my way in. I lifted the body into my arms. It was a woman. She'd probably been overcome by smoke while trying to escape. I wondered if there were kids. Peering through the smoky darkness I could see that the whole downstairs was afire. I was on my way out with the woman when I spotted the second body. It looked like a child's.
Outside I ordered a fire fighter to get the child. I directed another to go in with a line and start fighting the blaze. I put the woman down in a snow bank. Her eyes were fixed and dilated5 and I could get no pulse. I'd be back to work on her, but first I went to help with the child, a boy of about seven or eight. We put him down next to the woman. He still had a heartbeat.
I started CPR on the woman. It was a cold, icy night, but perspiration streaked from under my helmet. It had taken us only a minute to reach the scene. A person isn't clinically dead until at least six minutes have passed without oxygen, so I figured we had a fair shot at saving this woman.
I tilted her head back, cleared the breathing passage and gave her five quick breaths followed by 15 chest compressions. I repeated the steps. No response.
In the background the wail of sirens rose from the night. The fire fighter inside called out that the main fire was centred in the front room. I ordered him all the way in to fight it. An instant later I saw one of the hoses a few feet away, bulging from water pressure, snaking rapidly toward the house.
The chief's buggy arrived. The woman still wasn't responding and my efforts were getting frantic. I rubbed snow on her face. "Come on, lady. You can do it."
"What do you have?" the chief snapped as he knelt by my side.
"I've got two people out and one fire fighter inside on a line by himself. I need a couple of ambulances."
The chief nodded. Then he peered at the woman. "You'd better give up on her," he said. "She's gone."
"No," I said, pounding her chest. "She still has a chance!" Then, exhausted and frightened, I silently called out: God, bring her back! I've done all I know how. Only You can help now. A split second later I felt her heart pound against my hand. Thank You, God.
Sinking back on my heels, I stared up at the blazing structure. Three people. There were three people in my dream.
Someone else is in there!
I dashed back into the house. My men would have found any additional victims on the ground floor, so I headed through the smoke toward the stairs. I climbed them slowly, sweeping my flashlight ahead of me. Near the top, I spotted him--a boy lying on his back, unconscious.
He had no pulse. His eyes were dilated. I scooped him up and blew into his mouth, giving him fast cardiac compressions6 with the fingers of my left hand. I carried him down the steps and outside. As I knelt to lay the boy next to his mother, I felt his heart turn over like a tiny motor. He was alive.
After the fire was out and we were putting away our equipment, the chief returned to the scene from the hospital. He took me aside.
"You did a great job, Captain. But I'm afraid the woman and the little boy aren't going to make it."
"Chief," I said, "no one is going to die." I didn't explain about the dream. He wouldn't have believed me.
Christmas morning I called the hospital. All three were stable, but suffering from smoke inhalation. I was put through to the woman. I told her I'd been at the scene and asked her what she remembered.
"Well," she said, her voice raspy from the smoke, "I was asleep on the couch when one of the boys started screaming that our Christmas tree was on fire. I tried to get everybody out. The last thing I remember is everything going red. Then it turned to a beautiful white. I heard chanting, like choir music. It was very, very peaceful. Suddenly I saw an older man looking into my face. That's when I woke up outside. They told me one of the older firemen rescued me."
"Ma'am, that was me," I said.
She began thanking me but I cut her short. I told her about the dream.
"That dream was a warning, a message not to give up on you and to go back in and find the boy. I didn't save you. God did."
That's all I wanted to say. I wasn't the hero. I'd been told what to do on Christmas Eve when I was awakened by the most vivid dream of my life. In a sense, like all good fire fighters, I was just following orders.
I'll Never Hang Up on You Again
By Stuart Reininger
My hand was still tingling from slamming down the telephone. I struggled into my coat and stormed out of my house. I had never hung up on my daughter that way, never cut her off in the middle of a sentence. She deserved it, I thought. She's an inconsiderate kid who thinks only of herself.
But even as I kicked the door shut and ran out to the car, I felt a nagging discomfort. I could see my daughter Karen, with her long, tangled blond hair, staring at the dead phone in her hand with that sad look she sometimes got in her eyes.
For an instant I thought of going back and calling to tell her how I felt and to try to make her understand she simply couldn't change plans on a last-minute whim--that I counted also. Deeper down was the thought that I should apologize. Then I got into the car. I'd tell her when I got there.
Karen was 13, independent and strong-willed. She had a little bit of me in her and a lot of her mother. When her mother and I separated we had decided it would be best if Karen stayed with her up in north Jersey, and I lived in the house at the shore. My daughter and I had always been close, but as she got older, a tension developed between us. Our times together were marred7 by long silences and petty spats. I knew a lot of it was my not being able to see things from her point of view, but as her father, I always thought I knew best.
The one weekend a month we got to spend together was very important to me. This particular weekend we had planned an overnight sail. Then on Friday she had called and asked if I minded if she came down on Saturday afternoon instead of the morning; she wanted to get together with some of her friends. Then she called Saturday and said she had been invited to go to an amusement park with her friends on Sunday. She proposed that I come up for dinner on Saturday night.
That would be it--dinner. I blew up. She countered8 my outbursts by telling me she had her own life to live, but it was still important to her that we see each other. By the time I slammed the phone down she was in tears and I was shaking.
Now I sat in my car listening to the starter grind. The car wouldn't start. I'd have to ride my motorcycle. In spite of my anger, I was careful in kicking over my '58 BSA9. The bicycle-type pedal on the kick starter had worn out, and I was cranking on a bare metal bar. The powerful twin engine sometimes backfired, and the bar often snapped up and gave my shin a nasty slap.
As the bike warmed up, I glanced at the sky--cloudy, overcast, back-lighted by an invisible moon. The smell of rain was in the air, but the BSA was heavy and handled well on a slick surface. Within 20 minutes I was making good time in light traffic on the New Jersey Highway. Another 45 minutes to go. I'll let her know a few things about responsibility, I thought.
It was then that I felt hot oil soaking my leg. The oil line had parted. It had happened before and was easy to repair, but now I stank of oil. In frustration I pulled over onto a large concrete apron10 under an overpass. I propped a flashlight up in the darkness and got out my tools. A few feet away cars and trucks roared by, sending fumes, spray and clouds of dust and litter. As I worked a light rain began to fall. I wished I had never left the house. Finally I got the line fixed.
Making sure the bike was solid on its kickstand, I climbed on to start it. But the kick starter was coated with oil and my foot slipped. The bar snapped up and slammed into my shin just as the engine started. The bike toppled off its stand, pinning my leg underneath. I felt a searing burn and a snap inside my leg, like a dry branch breaking; then excruciating11 pain. I screamed and passed out. But it must have just been for a few seconds, because suddenly I was conscious and gagging from the stench of gasoline pouring out of the tank, over my midsection and hissing against the still-running hot engine.
Oh, God, I thought. Don't let me burn to death, please. Just a few feet away the traffic roared by, but hidden in the shadows of the underpass, I might as well have been in the middle of nowhere. I tried to reach for the kill switch on the handlebars, but as soon as I moved, the pain became unbearable. I screamed and, mercifully, passed out again.
It could have been moments or hours later that I woke. The engine had stopped and the pain didn't seem so intense. But I was cold, and an almost pleasant numbness was creeping through my body. I couldn't feel my right side at all. My left foot felt as if it were resting in warm molasses. I'm bleeding to death, I thought. But I didn't care; I could just let the warm numbness take over and everything would be all right. It would be so easy just to slip away.
Why did I hang up on her like that? The thought seared into my mind. Karen will think I was so angry that I decided not to come. "Oh, God!" I cried out in frustration and sorrow. "I can't die like this."
All night, as I fought the throbbing pain and frightening lassitude12 and tried to breathe through the smothering fumes, I thought of Karen. I wouldn't slam the phone down on an acquaintance, but I had done it to the one I loved more than anybody else in the World.
God, let me live long enough to tell her how much I love her and to ask her to forgive me. Don't let her go through life knowing her father's last words to her were angry ones. I despaired that all the love I held for her would be eclipsed13 by one moment of anger. A Bible verse flickered through my mind: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ephesians 4:26). The sun had not only set on my rage, it was setting on my life.
I no longer had any feeling in my lower body. My mind drifted in and out of consciousness. I could hardly smell the gas fumes anymore. "Stay awake!" I kept screaming at myself, but my voice now sounded distant and, I thought hazily, a little ridiculous.
Then there was a crunch of tires, the scraping of a car's chassis14 on the curb and headlights piercing the darkness. The car pulled past me and stopped. Doors opened and I heard voices. I twisted my head and saw the back of the car. I tried to yell, but only managed a gasp. Moments later the doors clunked closed and the red glow of the car's taillights moved away.
Then the red glow got brighter. They're coming back! Please, God, let it be because they've seen me.
A door opened. I heard the shuffle of feet. A man's face loomed over me, eyes wide with shock and compassion. "My God," he shouted to his companions, "there is someone here!" That was the last thing I heard before a blessed oblivion15 came over me.
At the hospital I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days. I had lost a lot of blood, and suffered a compound fracture of the tibia16 and an infection in my leg. My mind kept going back to that moment I slammed the telephone down. How I longed to see Karen, and set things straight.
"Daddy?" The voice was tentative17, questioning. I had been dozing and thought I was dreaming. But when I turned my head Karen was standing in the room. She moved toward the bed. Her face looked drained. Her hair was stringy and unwashed. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and she was wearing the ridiculous baggy sweatshirt she loved so much. Yet she was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. Everything blurred and I heard a loud sob. Then I realized it was mine.
Karen's hands seemed to flutter, as if she didn't know what to do with them. "It's okay," I finally blurted. "You can hug me." Then she had her arms around me; her face burrowed into my shoulder.
"Daddy, I'm so sorry," she said.
"No," I murmured. "I'm the one who should be sorry." Suddenly I felt whole.
We held one another silently. There would be plenty of time later to tell Karen how much I loved her. I had a feeling she'd tell me the same. And I knew that never again, no matter how hotly our tempers flared, would we let anger get the better of love.
A Very Present Help in Time of Need...
We had been caught by a blizzard, and I was in a convoy going down a winding, snow-packed mountain highway near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. My wife and three children were in someone else's car. Because of a malfunction, our van's lights, radio, wipers, heater and windows no longer worked. Snow whirled through an open window. My body ached from the cold. Then the windshield became a white wall. I tried to lean out and sweep off the blinding snow with my arm. It was no use.
Straining to see, I pulled onto the shoulder of the highway. The van lurched as a front wheel thudded off what felt like a boulder. I hit the brakes. When I jumped out, I found myself looking down into a white abyss18: I'd almost driven over the edge!
"Jesus," I cried as I got back into the van, "I need Your help."
Another driver stopped and got out of his car to direct me. I put the van in reverse. Just then a stunning blue-white light shot through the windshield and struck the steering wheel. I pressed my back into the seat as the flash raced through the steering column. In that instant, radio, lights, windows, wipers, heater--everything started working at once!
"Did you see that?" the other driver said.
At the bottom of the mountain our family was reunited. People have told me the strange flash might have been snow lightning. For me it was an answer to prayer.--Charles Kaelin, Jr.
Two-year-old Ray was lost in a cornfield. There was a river nearby--and a lake and a creek, dangerous for a two-year-old who couldn't swim. It would soon be dark. Nearly twenty people had joined in the search but had found no trace of the little boy. His mother pleaded, "Help us, Lord! Help us find him before nightfall!"
Finally, helpless to know what else to do, his father dropped the reins on old Nellie's neck, grasped the saddle horn, and cried aloud, "O Lord, direct this horse to Ray!"
Instantly she started in a swift canter up along the creek bank. About a quarter of a mile to the north the creek made a loop, and here she started to leave the creek and follow a path across the field. Then the mare stopped dead still, as if an unseen hand had pulled on the reins. Nellie turned and walked straight into the thicket.
They were within twenty feet of Ray when his father saw him. But the horse didn't stop until she could have touched him. There he sat, calmly stripping leaves off a stock of a switch cane. His little face was tear-stained, but he was unharmed. His father knelt beside him and offered a prayer of thanks. Then he put Ray on the saddle and swung up beside him. As the horse galloped, he called out, "Found! Found!" And the searchers relayed the happy news from one to another.
As his mother, overjoyed, pulled him from the saddle, he called out, "Mama, big kitty! Pat big kitty!"
Many bobcats were found in southeast Missouri that year--1939. Could it be that the two-year-old had been in the company of a bobcat during those hours? His mother thought so. He talked about the big kitty for days.--Marjorie Lewis Lloyd
I was driving home after visiting my family for Christmas. Traffic on the two-lane road was slow but steady. A fine mist saturated the cold air, and as the temperature dropped, the highway grew slick.
Suddenly my wheels skidded and the brakes locked. The guardrail was coming up fast! I cried out, "God, help me!" The impact of the crash threw me over the seat and I blacked out.
I woke up on the floor in the backseat. A man and a boy were bent over me. "You hit a patch of ice," the man said. "A policeman saw the whole thing. He's radioing for help."
Peering out the window, I realized that my car had been moved to the opposite side of the highway and parked safely on the grass off the shoulder. How in the world did I get over here? Before I could ask, another car hit the same patch of ice and spun into the guardrail--at the exact spot I had. If my car had still been there, he would have hit me. The man and his son ran to help.
When trucks arrived to sand the road, father and son returned with the policeman. "By the way," the policeman said, "what happened to your companion?"
I looked at him quizzically: "What companion?"
"He drove the car to this spot," the officer said. "I saw him."
"We saw him too," said the father. "He crossed the lane of oncoming traffic and parked right here. But no one got out. In fact, we had to break a window to get in."
There had been no man in my car. But Someone had been with me.--Dorothy Howard
I was sixteen years old and was working on a farm for a man and his family of nine children. This man was a very quiet, but deep thinking Christian, who enjoyed sitting around the warm living room fire at night with all of his children singing songs and telling stories together.
My job was to take care of his 3,000 sheep and to help plant the crops. We grew 400 acres of oats and 200 acres of barley, and in addition to this, we raised chickens for their fresh eggs and had a few Jersey cows for milking. I also grew vegetables for our consumption, since we lived 100 miles from the closest town.
One day we had decided to clear the property of debris and unusable lumber and proceeded to pile up quite a large stack to burn. I was on the other side of the sheep pens, which was about 100 metres away from where the farmer was standing, when I noticed that he had poured a large can of liquid over the pile of debris. He then struck a match and the stack began to burn in an instant.
During the course of the day, I had been driving the tractor, pulling a large trailer behind it, loading up everything I had been assigned to put on the fire to burn. Late in the afternoon, the fire began to burn very slowly and I had yet another large pile to add. Remembering that the farmer poured a liquid on the fire to start it, I had the idea to go to the barn and look for what it was that he used to ignite the fire. All I could see was a large drum of gasoline which had a hand pump attached to it. I noticed that the same can that the farmer had used was sitting on top of the gasoline.
Unaware of the consequences of a flaming inferno that could explode within my hands, I filled the can to the brim with the gasoline, which was about one gallon, and started walking across the field towards the smouldering fire. Approaching the fire, I paused to get a firm grip on the can, ready to toss the liquid on the waning fire, when all of a sudden I heard the farmer calling out to me from a distance, in an alarming manner! Because he was so far away I couldn't hear exactly what it was that he was saying, but his tone got my attention. I hurriedly put the can down and ran towards him until I could hear what he was saying.
"What have you got in that can?" he questioned. When I told him it was gasoline he threw his head back and looked Heavenward and said he had just heard a voice telling him to stop me from pouring whatever it was on that fire! This remarkable voice from Heaven warned the farmer to stop me in my ignorance!
Earlier that day, when the farmer had initially ignited the fire, he had used a mixture of diesel fuel and a very small amount of gasoline. Unaware of this mixture, I had unwittingly assumed that the container was filled with gasoline. If I had poured straight gasoline directly onto the fire--which contains highly explosive gases and is extremely volatile--I might not be here today to tell this story!--Barry Stevens
Danny's Dad
By Cathy Slack
"Stay away from the pool, Danny," I told my three-year-old as he headed for the backyard to ride his tricycle.
"Yes, Mom," he said obediently.
Listening to the sound of his plastic tricycle, I returned to the kitchen, sighing. It was not easy being a widow, and raising two children on my own was often a strain.
I busied myself about the house until something made me stop dead still. I cocked my ear. No sounds of Danny's tricycle.
I rushed to the kitchen window and looked out at the swimming pool. Danny's tricycle was bobbing in the water, and there, floating face down, was Danny.
Desperately I pulled Danny out of the water and tried to administer CPR, but his body was cold and his face grey. Then the sirens, the paramedics19, the helicopter whisking Danny off to the hospital, where he lay in a coma20. Finally, after my long, prayerful vigil, Danny opened his eyes. Soon he was well again, back home playing as usual. But somehow he seemed changed.
One day he blurted out, "Mom, I want to see a picture of my daddy." I had not realized I had never shown him a picture of his father, who had died before Danny was born. The first photograph I brought out showed my husband and his baseball team.
Danny looked at it for a few moments. Then he pointed to one of the coaches.
"That's my daddy," he said.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"He talked to me in the hospital before I woke up. I said, `You must go home now. Mommy needs you.'"
I looked at the man he'd pointed to; it was the father he had never seen.
An Answered Prayer
By Edward A. Elliot
It meant a day out of our vacation, but my wife and I strongly felt that we should make the effort while we were in Maine to go see Dr. Reuben Larson, an 80-year-old missionary pioneer. After lunch during our visit, quite out of the blue, Dr. Larson asked, "Ed, in all your travels have you ever run into an Indian named Bakht Singh?"
How extraordinary! Only two weeks before, on one of his infrequent visits to the United States, Bakht Singh had invited me to lunch. I told Dr. Larson what I'd learned about Singh, how he was one of India's best-known Christian leaders, how he had founded hundreds of churches and had preached to thousands. Whenever he travelled, believers gathered at train stations to speak and pray with him for just a few minutes.
The things I told him about this Godly man had a strange effect on Dr. Larson. He was literally openmouthed. Finally he explained why.
"Many years ago in Western Canada I met a young Indian engineering student who was interested in the Christian faith. His name was Bakht Singh. For 50 years I've been praying for him, praying that he would come to know God better and serve Him. I've always wondered what became of him."
It wasn't long after our visit that Dr. Larson died. But even before then I knew why we'd taken that day out of our vacation to see him. We were meant to bring him the news that he had waited 50 years to hear.
The Woman from Nowhere
By Laura Z. Sowers
My preschooler son, Marc, and I were shopping in a large department store. On our way down to the main floor, Marc hopped on the escalator. I followed. Suddenly Marc screamed! I'd never heard a sound like that before. "Mama! My foot!"
Marc's right foot was wedged between the side of the moving step and the escalator's wall. His body was twisted toward me. He screamed again. The escalator continued downward.
In the panic of the moment, the danger at the bottom of the escalator flashed before me...
"Turn off the escalator!" I screamed. "Somebody help!" And then, "Oh, dear God, dear God, help us! Help us!"
Several people at the base of the escalator began a flurry of activity. The escalator stopped! Someone had pressed an emergency button at the bottom of the steps.
Thank You, Father, I prayed.
Marc clutched my arm and cried while I struggled to get a better look at his foot. A chill raced up my spine when I saw the tiny space in which his foot was trapped. It looked no more than a quarter of an inch wide. All I could see of his foot was his heel. The rest had disappeared into the jaws of the machine.
"Someone call the fire department!" I shouted.
Marc looked at me desperately. "Mama," he said, "pray!"
I crouched next to him, holding him. I prayed. For a moment he quieted. Soon, though, he began crying again. "Daddy! Daddy!" he called out. I shouted out our business phone number, hoping someone would call my husband.
The two of us sat waiting. Marc cried. I patted his head. As the minutes passed I could see dark images of crutches and wheelchairs. I had always taken for granted that our son would grow up running on strong legs and sturdy feet. Now, nothing seemed certain.
My prayers were as scattered as my feelings, and I searched my memory for a Bible verse to hold on to.
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). This was one of the few verses I had memorized.
"You promised, Lord!" I cried. "And we know that all things..." Over and over I said that verse, "...called according to His purpose."
Marc looked up at me and said, "Mama, my bones feel broken and bleedy."
I clutched his blond head tighter to me, but now it was I who was feeling faint. I can't faint, Lord, I prayed. Marc needs me.--Oh, Lord, I know You're here! Where? Help me!
At that moment I felt warm soft arms enfolding me from behind. A woman's soothing voice said quietly in my ear, "Jesus is here, Jesus is here."
The woman had come down the escalator and sat on the step above me. She gently rocked me from side to side, surrounding my shaking body with a calm embrace. "Tell your son his foot is all right," she said in my ear. There was an assurance in her voice.
"Marc," I said into his ear, "your foot is all right."
"Tell him you'll buy him a new pair of shoes--whatever kind he wants."
"I'll buy you a new pair of shoes. Any kind you like."
Marc's crying stopped for awhile. "Cowboy boots? Like Daddy's?" We were talking about new shoes--new shoes for two healthy feet! For the first time since the ordeal began, I felt hope. Maybe, just maybe, his foot would be all right.
"Tell him there are no broken bones," she said.
I did.
The firemen arrived. Two men with crowbars pried the step away from the escalator wall, freeing Marc's foot at last. His shoe was in tatters. It took all my courage to watch as the men pulled the shredded sock off Marc's foot, but when they did, they revealed a red, bruised, but whole foot.
I turned to share my joy with my wonderful friend, but all I saw was her leg as she turned the corner at the top of the escalator. I never even saw her face.
My husband, Craig, arrived just as the firemen were setting Marc down on the floor. He was still sobbing, but he could wiggle his toes. Later, X-rays confirmed what I already knew: no broken bones, only bruises and a slight swelling.
To this day I do not know who the woman who helped me was, who knew that Jesus was there with us, who knew that the Lord keeps His promises.
Many people have suggested that the woman was an Angel of the Lord. I am certain she was Heaven-sent.
The Sounion Is Sinking
By J. Philip Griffin
We had looked forward to our trip to Israel for six months, never dreaming it would take us into the most terrifying experience of our lives.
Esther and I were in our 70's. I had just retired from my job as a rural mail carrier and our plans were to sell our small farm to one of the grandchildren and move into a retirement home.
But we had always longed to visit the land where Jesus walked, and when our pastor, Joe Timberlake, approached us about joining a tour group going to Israel, we decided it was now or never.
In February, 1973, we joined 250 others, most of whom were about our age, and flew to Cyprus, where we boarded the passenger ship MTV Sounion. Esther and I were assigned a tiny cabin on the second deck. It had a double-decked bunk which we didn't like, but we decided to make the best of it. After sailing on the sparkling Mediterranean to Tarsus, the Apostle Paul's home town, we docked in Beirut, Lebanon.
The fact that we were headed for Israel caused some of our group to wonder if the Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, might try to harm us. However, such thoughts were soon lost in the thrill of seeing places we had read about all our lives.
After a day of sightseeing in Beirut, Esther and I returned to the ship. We ate a quick supper and, because of Esther's bad heart condition, retired early to our cabin. The ship was to leave the harbour at 1:30 a.m. and, like most of the passengers, we wanted to go to bed early so we could rise at dawn and see the sun coming up over Haifa.
I was thankful our cabin was next to the dock because the lights of Beirut shone through the thick glass of the small, sealed porthole, giving our cabin a cozy feeling. I reached down, touched Esther's extended hand, breathed a quiet prayer of thanksgiving for what tomorrow held, and drifted off to sleep.
Suddenly a tremendous explosion rocked the ship, jolting me awake. Whistles and horns began shrieking. Dazed, I clambered down and turned on the light. Esther had been thrown to the floor. I helped her to her feet.
The lights flickered and went out, leaving us in blackness. The whistles and horns stopped, and we felt the ship begin to lean away from the dock.
"We've been bombed!" Esther screamed. "We're sinking!"
I grabbed the cabin door. But the twisting effect of the explosion had jammed it tight.
We were trapped. Cold water was surging under the door and rising rapidly in the cabin.
I released the door and grappled in the dark for Esther. The lights of the city no longer reflected in our cabin as the ship continued to list farther away from the dock.
The water was up to her knees. Esther was almost hysterical21; I held her close to calm her.
The floor continued to tilt, and the only sounds in the inky blackness were the surge of rising water and Esther's sobs. The water chilled our hips, then our waists.
"We're going to die, aren't we?" Esther sobbed.
I knew we were in danger of capsizing22. I also knew there could be another explosion as the water reached the ship's boilers. Yet I dared not frighten Esther with such thoughts. Instead, I remembered the Scripture I had read the day before we left: "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee" (Isaiah 43:2).
I began to pray out loud, thanking God for His deliverance. Even though Esther had been a Christian for many years, I had never heard her pray audibly. But the moment I finished, she took up the prayer of thanksgiving also. It was strange, but even in that black moment on the sinking ship, sharing our prayers and praising God together drew us closer than we had ever been.
The luminous23 dial of my watch said 10:45 p.m. We had been trapped almost half an hour. There was no sound of help from the outside.
Unable to stand on the slanting floor, we had to brace ourselves against the wall. The cold, oily water rose to my chest and then to my chin. Now I had to lift Esther to keep her head above it.
And then the water seemed to stop rising. But for how long?
Now another danger. Esther and I were rapidly using up the oxygen in the small amount of air left to us. I struggled to the porthole and tried to break the glass. It was much too thick and I knew the steel hull was at least an inch thick. I slipped back down, urging Esther to relax while I held her head out of the water. I knew that with her bad heart she could not stand much more.
We prayed. Waited. Listened. And prayed some more.
Our clothes, the expensive camera we had bought for the trip, the souvenirs were all lost somewhere under the dark water. But they were of no concern. Only our lives counted now. An hour and a half had passed. We could not last much longer.
Unbeknownst to Esther and me, everyone else on the ship had safely escaped. The ship's captain was making plans to get the passengers into hotels.
Only our pastor, Joe Timberlake, objected. He had been frantically searching for us and was now convinced we were trapped in our cabin. The captain, irritated over Joe's demands to check the ship, suggested that we had not returned to it.
In desperation Joe angrily charged the captain with being more concerned with his own comfort than two lost elderly passengers. Finally the captain agreed to send a crew member onto the hull24 to shine a light into our porthole to prove our cabin was empty.
Down in our water-filled cabin I knew our oxygen was almost gone. We prayed aloud once more. When we slipped below the surface, I wanted our last words to be ones of praise to our Heavenly Father.
Suddenly a light flashed through the porthole. Releasing Esther to cling to that top bunk, I crawled to it and waved my hand under the glass. "Air," I croaked, knowing I could not be heard.
But God heard, and moments later a sledgehammer smashed the porthole. Slivers of glass showered us, but with them came the wonderful rush of fresh air.
Moments later Joe Timberlake's anxious face appeared in the tiny window. The captain had asked him to comfort us while they prepared an acetylene torch25 to cut through the ship.
Then another face appeared. It was Russell Bennett, a young garage mechanic. He had come on this tour because he felt God had a special purpose for his life. He had seen that the Lebanese dock worker could not operate the torch. An expert welder, Russ leaped onto the side of the ship and grabbed the torch. Moments later the intense flame was eating into the steel plates.
But as the flame broke through, white-hot molten steel peppered us. Esther screamed out in pain. Instantly the torch was withdrawn.
"Get down in the water as low as you can," Russell shouted. "We'll spray you with a hose and I'll try to deflect the flame."
They sprayed cold water on my head and back. A shaking chill convulsed26 me as I clung to the top bunk, holding Esther. My grip weakened as nausea flooded me and I feared I might lose Esther, who was now semiconscious, into the dark water. I prayed once more and the convulsion stopped.
It took 20 minutes to cut an 18-inch hole in the side of the ship. I pushed Esther's nearly lifeless body up, and minutes later I was also lifted out. An ambulance rushed us to the hospital. Esther's heart had almost stopped beating and she was placed in intensive care.
Thank God, Esther recovered. Our tour was cut short, but we had already found the revelation that no sight-seeing trip could have given us. Esther and I are now able to praise God for our difficulties that night. That top bunk, for instance, saved our lives. And the jammed door. If we had gone into the dark passageway, we would have surely become lost in the bowels of that sinking ship.
Our lives have been much different since we've returned home. For one thing, material possessions no longer occupy first place in our lives. We learned how meaningless they really are.
Neither am I looking at tomorrow for our blessings. That night in Beirut we thought our greatest blessing would come when we set foot in Israel the next day. Now I understand the full truth of Jesus' Words, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself" (Matthew 6:34).
If we let Him, He will bless us today, even in our times of darkest despair. n
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.)
1CPR: The heart-starting technique known as CPR consists of hard pressure on the lower breastbone 10 to 70 times a minute (to force blood out of the heart) alternating with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
2asphalt: smooth, hard, black, tar-like mixture used in surfacing roads
3unseasoned: inexperienced
4apprehensive: afraid; fearful
5dilated: enlarged, swollen
6cardiac compressions: applying pressure to the heart
7marred: spoiled
8countered: answered
9'58 BSA: A particular model of motorcycle, made in 1958
10concrete apron: an area off to the side of the main highway on which to park
11excruciating: very painful, torturous
12lassitude: lack of energy; weariness
13eclipsed: overshadowed; blotted out
14chassis: framework which holds the body and motor of a vehicle, to which the axles and wheels are attached
15oblivion: state of unawareness
16tibia: the bone of the shin, the larger of the two bones between knee and ankle
17tentative: uncertain; hesitating
18abyss: a bottomless depth
19paramedics: emergency medical workers trained to give emergency care or assist doctors
20coma: prolonged unconsciousness caused by either injury or disease
21hysterical: crying uncontrollably
22capsizing: over-turning
23luminous: giving off light
24hull: body of ship
25acetylene torch: instrument used in welding & cutting metals, using acetylene, a colourless gas that burns with a bright light and very hot flame
26convulse: to cause to shake or jerk one's body violently