Narrow Escape!

By Saengsurin Phongchan

God loves me a lot.

Image © Pacific Press

When a friend moved away to Australia, I agreed to visit her parents every once in a while back here in Thailand. It wasn’t easy to find the parents’ house. I had to look up directions, and I learned that the house was quite some distance from my own. For my first visit, I filled my backpack and several bags with groceries. Carrying the food, I hailed a three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxi to take me to the bus station.

Partway through our trip, the tuk-tuk driver suddenly said, “I can’t take you. Can I call you another tuk-tuk?” He didn’t give any reason for his change of heart. What could I do? A second tuk-tuk picked me up, but the driver took me to the wrong place. I got into a third tuk-tuk.

It took nearly two hours to reach the bus station. I was fuming in frustration when I arrived. Why had it taken two hours and three tuk-tuks for the usual short and simple trip to the bus station?

“Where are you going?” the ticket seller asked me.

I was so upset that I couldn’t talk to anyone, not even to the ticket seller.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, turning away.

After calming down, I bought a ticket and boarded a minivan.

During the trip to the house of my friend’s parents, we passed a wrecked minivan on the side of the road. Our driver stopped to see if he could help. Returning to the minivan, he somberly told us that several passengers had died in the crash.

“This is the minivan that left right before us on this route,” he said.

At that moment, I realized that I should have been on that minivan. I only missed the minivan because of the many delays in reaching the bus station.

My friend’s parents were relieved to see me. They had heard about the crash. “We were so worried because we thought you were on that minivan,” the mother said.

“God is so good,” I said. Then I told my story about the delays to the parents, who were not Christians.

“The God or angel who protects you is really great!” the father exclaimed.

Yes, God loves me a lot.

Saengsurin Phongchan was principal at the Seventh-day Adventist school in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, that received part of the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering three years ago. Thank you for your offering that helped the school, Adventist International Mission School — Korat, expand into a high school at a new site.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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