God’s Protection on the Mission Field

We often see God’s hand of protection while on the mission field. One time, we were hanging out in the new house on a Sunday afternoon, looking at a book with our buddy Pu. It was almost time for lunch, and Kian was in the process of bellowing “chow time!” when we felt the first tremor. The house started shaking pretty badly, and we all jumped up in surprise as such an intense earthquake was pretty uncommon. In the past we had felt small tremors occasionally, but nothing big. The tremor passed in a few seconds and the house stopped shaking. We thought it was over, but suddenly it started up again and it was really shaking! We and the house were literally rocking back and forth. We tried to stay upright, but crazily enough it was hard just to keep footing! We all ran for the door, and all around us things were crashing to the ground in chaos! We got to the porch and jumped off, down onto the ground below, but that was also rocking. We thought the house was coming down . . . it was a sad thought! The trees and the mountains were also swaying, and the ground had visible cracks.

Morgan remembers it rather dramatically: “There was first this tremor and then it stopped and we abruptly got up. Then it really got going. I started yelling for the house to be evacuated. The house felt like a piñata—all around us were things crashing and exploding across the floor. We got to the door and an avalanche of toys deterred us from finally busting through the door and launching ourselves off the porch to freedom . . . . It was awesome.”

Hudson’s teasing recollections in response to Morgan’s were a little bit less dramatic. “Oh, you mean that one small toy that fell into the schoolroom? Like 20 feet away from the door? I definitely wouldn’t call it an avalanche, but call it what you want, Morgan. It definitely was hectic trying to get out of the house because it was shaking so badly. When we finally made it off the porch, we watched as the ground jiggled below us.”

Finally it stopped, and we shakily went back inside, nervous for any more tremors. The inside was a wreck; everything that had been on shelves was scattered over the floor! Where we live in Southeast Asia, we are directly on the path of the ring of fire, and earthquakes often occur through it. Later we found our earthquake was a 7.2! Our house stood the challenge!

Another time that we saw God’s hand of protection was when the helicopter was shot at in mid-air. The bullet entered the helicopter through the pilot’s window and exited without hitting any of the vital equipment and instruments in the helicopter. Our good friends were inside, and the bullet flew past without injuring either one of them.

Now some might say that it was a bad marksman, some might say that it was just luck that the bullet missed everything completely, but we in the Wild family say that was a sovereign bullet. This kind of reminder is good for us. It makes us pause and remember that God ultimately holds our lives in His hands and not even a single sparrow falls without His knowing (Matthew 10:29–31). All of our days are known by Him, and for the followers of Jesus Christ He is working all these things out for our best and for His glory.