A gray blanket of haze hung
over Manila. Although it was only 6:30 a.m., the day would be another hot, humid
one--my blouse was already sticking to me. Dreading the trip ahead, I wished I
could make the nightmare of the past few days vanish by closing my eyes.
Weaving through traffic, the Filipino driver was
taking my co-worker, Helena, and me to the bus station. Manila traffic was as
unnerving now as it had been when our family had arrived in the Philippines five
months earlier to do mission work.
I settled back against the seat, my mind whirling with
recent events. I hadn't slept well for several nights and my body was running on
adrenaline.
My husband, Dennis, had spent several days in the
modern Manila Heart Hospital, undergoing tests for shortness of breath and chest
pains. Doctors discovered that his previous damage from rheumatic fever twenty
years earlier had now doubled.
The cardiologist's words ran through my mind like a
continuous tape loop: Atrial fibrillation. Sixty percent leakage past the mitral
valve. Congestive heart failure. Fluid in the lungs. A dangerously enlarged
heart.
The cardiologist told Dennis he needed surgery within
a month, or he would face certain death. Even now she didn't know if the surgery
would be successful. She offered no promises, no guarantees.
Today's bus trip would take me back to the little
barrio (community) of Lantap, 180 miles north of Manila where we had been
learning Ilocano, one of the national languages, for the past five weeks. I
needed to pack up all of the belongings we had left behind when we hurriedly
came to Manila for Dennis's tests.
My thoughts drifted to Dennis, my husband of ten
years, and our two children who were staying in the mission guest house in
Manila while I was making my three-day trip. Dennis would be spending his time
resting while other people watched Tim, six, and Rachel, three.
/Lord, be with them today; keep Dennis safe. /
Over the past few days I had looked at dozens of Bible
verses on peace and comfort, but God's peace still eluded me. My one question
was: would I be a widow at thirty-nine?
/Lord, I know You want me to trust You, but I'm
finding it hard. I'm so afraid. Don't let Dennis die. / "I recognize that
corner," said Helena, jolting me back to the present. "The bus station will be
on our right in about three blocks." She would be traveling back on the same bus
with me.
True to Helena's words, our driver soon pulled into
the bus yard. As we got our suitcases out of the trunk, I turned to Helena. "I'm
glad you'll be on the bus with me."
"It's not really a difficult trip once you've made it
as many times as I have," said Helena. "The Banaue bus is the one we want." She
indicated one in a long line of buses.
Since we were early, we had our choice of seats and
found two toward the back.
The 180-mile trip ahead of us would take about eight
hours with many stops along the way. The road through the mountains of Luzon had
numerous hairpin turns. All scenery along the way looked as if it could be made
into picture postcards, but today I wasn't interested in sight seeing.
I closed my eyes, feeling exhausted. I was trying so
hard to trust God, but the anxious thoughts kept crowding my mind./ Lord, show
me that You are with me in a tangible way. Help me trust You./
Other passengers were now beginning to fill the bus. I
looked up just as two young men entered. One was carrying a guitar and both had
a lapel pins. As they came closer, I could see one pin read "Trust God" and the
other was a cross within a fish. Were they Christians?
Finding seats directly in front of us, the two men
turned around to greet us. They knew English well.
"Are the two of you with SIL?" asked one of the men.
"Yes. How did you know?" I asked, shocked that we
could be identified in a city of 20 million people. How had they even heard of
SIL, the Bible translation organization with which Helena and I were working?
"You don't look like tourists because you don't have
cameras," was the response. "You're not dressed like tourists."
One of the men, a Filipino of Chinese descent,
explained he was Pastor Lim from a small church about forty miles beyond where
we were going. He had met someone from SIL on a previous bus trip.
Pastor Lim's traveling companion introduced himself as
Rogel. He worked with a mission in Banaue.
Helena settled back in her seat with a magazine, while
I continued my conversation with Pastor Lim. He said he was the first in his
Buddhist family to become a Christian. The rest of his family had rejected him
and his choice of occupation.
In answer to his question about my family, I told him
my husband and two children were staying in a mission guest house in Manila.
"Why are you traveling alone?" he asked.
"My husband has a serious heart condition. I need to
go back and pack up our things." Conversation with this gentle man came easily.
"God wants me to trust Him, but I'm afraid my husband might die," I said, wiping
tears from my eyes with a tissue.
"God loves you very much and is watching over your
family," Pastor Lim replied with certainty. "Your husband will be all right."
For the next hour Pastor Lim turned around in his seat and lovingly shared
Scripture and words of comfort with me. Then he prayed with me.
God's peace, which had been eluding me, flooded over
me. I felt God's presence in this encounter with a stranger in a way I never had
before.
/Thanks, Lord, for showing me you care for me. I trust
You. / As I thought about this incident shortly afterward, questions rushed to
my mind. Just who were these two men? How did they know who we were? A Bible
verse came to mind. "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some
have entertained angels without knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2 NIV). What do angels
look like?
When I reached the bamboo house in Lantap, I repacked
everything we owned into a crate. Then I returned to Manila by bus three days
later.
Because Dennis might die, we returned to the U. S. for
the surgery. There we were surrounded by our families.
Heart damage in the U.S. was rated 1 to 4, with 4
being the most serious. Doctors ranked Dennis as 4 plus. However, true to Pastor
Lim's prediction, Dennis came through the surgery well. The mechanical heart
valve is still working sixteen years later with no further problem.
Over the passing years, I've often thought about the
incident on the bus. The strangers seemed as human as I am . . . but who
understands God's ways? Of one thing I am certain--it was a God-arranged
encounter. My two "angels" came with God's message of love and comfort when I
desperately needed it.
Janet Seever jseever1@shaw.ca
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