Not Dead Yet

“But let all who take refuge in Thee be glad, let them ever sing for joy; and mayest Thou shelter them, that those who love Thy name may exult in Thee.” Psalm 5:11, NAS.

A group of seven key leaders were riding in a Toyota SUV just after a prayer and planning retreat at a restaurant. Before they started down the hill, one of the leaders asked everyone to pause and pray again. He said, “Satan is angry about what we are attempting to do, so we better pray.”

The hill they were on was steep, and construction unexpectedly narrowed the road to two lanes. A motorcycle was on course for a head on collision, so the driver swerved onto the dirt embankment to avoid an accident. The truck fishtailed and then lifted off the ground. When the truck hit, it rolled over two and a half times and then slammed into a ditch. Just beyond the ditch was a shear drop off a cliff.

One of the leaders sitting in the back asked, “Are we in heaven?”

“Not yet,” answered a pastor. “God must not be done with us. That’s okay; we’ve got lots of work left to do.”

In the front seat, the driver and passenger were in the opposite seats from where they had started. How that happened nobody was sure. The rearview mirror was discovered by the back tailgate. How it didn’t hit any one of the five passengers in back was another mystery.

People from a nearby village came running to the accident scene. Apparently there had been many accidents on this particular section of road lately, and the people expected to find several dead bodies in the truck. But, one by one all seven got out of the truck with only minor cuts and bruises.

Everyone was amazed that nobody was injured until they found that the truck was full of pastors. “Oh, that explains it,” one man said!

Several men helped the dazed group pull the truck out of the ditch and set it back on its wheels. While the roof was badly dented and all the glass was broken, the engine was still in working order and the undercarriage and frame were unbent. There didn’t appear to be any gas leaks, and the engine turned right over when they tested it.

One of the leaders had the presence of mind to immediately send text messages to the wives of everyone in the truck over her cell phone to let them know that no one had been seriously hurt. This turned out to be a good thing, because the wife of the truck’s driver got several calls over the next several hours saying that her husband had been killed.

It turns out that the truck was a fairly new automatic, and the wife had enjoyed being able to drive it after not being able to drive the former vehicle they had owned for the past ten years because it was a standard transmission. Her husband had taken the truck to the prayer retreat, and had wrecked it! To each call she received, she was able to glibly respond, “He’s not dead, yet!”

Pray that:

God’s hand of protection will continue to surround His servants as they do His work.

The people group that these leaders are seeking to reach will respond to the Gospel in large numbers.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.