ANOTHER MIRACLE

Last Sunday (13th October 2013) we enrolled 4 new Junior Soldiers (junior members of our church); my son, A, and three girls from our Sunday School who live in S,  a road that is a 20 minute walk from our church.  When I share with you this story you may agree with me that it is probably a miracle that the girls were there on Sunday.

The girls come from three different families and along with many other families they live in the same building.  Each family lives in one room that has a bed, cooker, fridge and other belongings and they all share a shower, toilet and sink which are situated in the corridor. The families pay an extremely high rent to live in this unsuitable accommodation. Next door to this building is a place that has a steady flow of young men coming to and fro from it all day long - you would probably call it a drug den. This year we have conducted open air services in this road and I have made visits to the families during the week.  Every Sunday morning two members of our Sunday School team go to S. at about 9:30am to walk the children to and from the Sunday School which begins at 10am.

Last Thursday (10th October 2013) at about 5:30pm, an hour of the day when the road is usually full of activity - Mums picking children up from school, people walking to the shops, children playing out on the road and one or two people selling things from tables on the pavement - two men, dressed all in black with their faces covered drove a motorcycle with no licence plate into the road and began shooting outside the building where our three newest Junior Soldiers live.  One mother said to me, 'God was protecting us because usually the mothers are all sitting on the doorstep but on that day most of us were inside.'  One of our oldest Junior Soldiers was standing at the door and when her mother heard the gun shots she called her inside.  All the mothers called their children into their rooms.  They said the shooting lasted 10 minutes.
Our Junior Soldiers were safe but sadly there were casualties.  One mother had been taking a shower and her two year old, who has attended our Sunday School, wandered out into the road and was shot in the neck.  He is now seriously ill in hospital.  It seems that he will survive but may have problems in the future with his voice. A 14 year old girl, who I was told was involved in drug dealing, was shot in the stomach twice and a woman who sells things on a table was also shot. 

What was the reason for the shooting?  It was reported on the UOL news website as an, 'alleged attempted robbery in the centre of the city, ' and according to the police, 'the two suspects fled the scene.'   I cannot comment on that but the people living in the road have a different point of view.
Three casualties is very, very sad, however, no-one was killed and it really could have been alot worse.

I learnt the details of this story while at our day trip with the Sunday School last Saturday and the two girls in our car gave me most of the details.   About 15 minutes later, I suddenly realised that I had once again experienced the protective hand of God on my own life. I turned to P, who was driving, and said, 'I was supposed to be there last Thursday afternoon'. You see, we needed to ask the mothers to sign a certificate to say that they gave permission for their children to become Junior Soldiers and we still had two signatures to get.  E, L and I had agreed to meet at the church at 2:30pm and walk to S and visit the families as we had done on other ocassions. However, the Sunday before, E suggested that instead of going on Thursday we could just talk to the mothers when we saw them on Saturday during the Sunday School trip. I was a little disappointed that our family visit had been cancelled and I had considered going on my own but I realised that as the girls had said their mothers would probably not be at home that E was right and it would be better to talk to the Mums on Saturday.   Even if we had gone at 2:30pm it is possible that we would have left S. before the incident happened but once again God made sure I wasn't anywhere near at the time. 
I thank God for protecting our Junior Soldiers and that the children and woman who were injured were not killed and we are praying for a full recovery of each of the victims.