“God, save us!” – a missionary moment

We took a visiting team to do ministry on an island off the coast of Mozambique where some members of our mission were doing church planting. It took four hours to get to the island in a dhow boat. The first stretch was rough as it was where the river met the ocean, but the rest of the ride was alright. On the way back, however, we didn’t have such a smooth ride.

Usually the boats carry about 15 people and it was meant to be just our team with our luggage, but the boat guys decided to take on other people as well.  They said that it was the only boat that day and people needed to go and all of that.  We couldn’t change our schedule, so we all got into the boat and left.

Normally, the guys would row up to a certain point and then when they got to the place where the river met the ocean, they would put up the sail because then it was a too rough for rowing.  However, because the boat was overloaded, they waited to put up the sail until a bit later.  Then, it was too late and they couldn’t get the sail up, and the boat was tipping to the side.

The guys were so tired from rowing because the boat was so heavy, and the boat was going slower than usual.  Then the water started coming into the boat, and all of us had to find a container and scoop the water out of the boat.  It was horrific and the boat was just being pushed around by the waves.  Everyone in the boat started praying and crying out to God to save us, to help us get to shore.  It was quite a scary experience, and when we finally go to shore and got out, everything was soaked. People were soaked, our backpacks were soaked, Bibles were soaked, phones were soaked, cameras were soaked, everything was soaked.  But the interesting thing is that when we  were on land and had ground under our feet, we didn’t care that all our things were ruined. We were just so happy to be alive, and we were praising God for that.

-Zambian missionary to Mozambique