Recently I received the miracle story below from my friend in India, Jayakumar Ramachandran. Jay leads Bible Believing Churches and Mission in Bangalore, S. India. He is an engineer by background, not given to believe or relate every supposed miracle story he might hear. I trust Jay and thought that this week while I’m on vacation with Carolyn, you might enjoy reading Jay’s recent miracle story
Jayakumar Ramachandran (Jay)
On 22 April I landed at Imphal city, the capital of Manipur state. The purpose of this visit was to speak in an alumnus conference of a seminary and to give the keynote address at their graduation ceremony. This seminary serves the community at a hill town called TAMENGLONG which is the headquarters of the district.
The President of the seminary came to pick me up from the airport, and informed me about a storm that had hit the town on the 20th of April, due to which the hill town that I was heading to had lost all electric and telephonic connection, thereby disconnecting itself from the neighboring areas all the way to the plateau.
Within 30 minutes of entering into my host’s home, I began to hear thunders and it started raining again with heavy lightening. It would be very hard for you to believe if I told you the amount of rain water I saw that day. My friend said that he had never seen such rain in all his life of 43 years.
On 23rd morning as I was getting ready for the conference I heard that most of the plateau and all the valleys were flooding. Since all the alumni had arrived before my arrival – our conference wasn’t disturbed. It went on well with the support of a good power generator. The Graduation also went on well the next day.
As planned, I was about to leave for Imphal on 25th in order to fly back to Bangalore. The first challenge was the unknown condition of the route as a result of the flood’s impact.
Since there was a wedding I had to solemnize at Bangalore on the 27th could not be postponed, I was not in a position to do alternate arrangements too, so I was compelled to leave on the 25th.
Network disconnection made all my efforts in contacting others futile. These factors led me to undertake the risky travel on 25th by 4.00 PM.
I just said – “Lord you know my commitments and situation – please make my way back home to fulfill my commitment and so that the wedding will go on well with no interruption.”
The first setback was a Bolero van which was fixed for my travel had some issues and thus became unusable. They found another one. There were two ways to reach Imphal from Tamenglong – one was a longer route while the other was a shorter one. The shorter one passes through a thick jungle and narrow roads.
There were two underground outfits that have their strong influence in this part of the region as well. These outfits are well known to hijack and use strangers for ransom. The driver opted for the second one, which is shorter in spite of my hesitance. I could not communicate to him my dislike for his route option as we had a language barrier between us. My journey in an unknown road thus had started. On the way, I realized to my dismay that I did not even carry a bottle of water with me.
After we crossed around 5 kilometers, I began to doubt the driver’s skill at driving as he looked drunk. I also noticed the damages incurred due to the flood such as landslides. As we were driving on, we had a downpour again—it was partly hailstorms. Exactly at the 15th kilometer the driver slipped away from the road and ran over a pile of stones and as a result, the van got stuck between the stones.
It was early evening but darkness had already begun to hover around. The temperature outside was around 16 degrees Celsius [61 degrees Fahrenheit]; no light, hailstorm, and leeches all around. The driver asked me to get down and push the vehicle along with his helper. I did it – but in minutes, I jumped back to the van as I could not stand the conditions outside.
Alas, we were able to clear the stones and pushed out the van. Again after another 10 minutes the driver drove the car into deep silt. The sediment was from a nearby flow of water from a hill. All the four wheels were covered by the sediments within a short time.
We were sure that this time we can’t do anything to restore the van. The Driver muttered something which communicated to me that he was helpless. He said he would need 15 people to take the van from the sludge. He and his helper pulled out a tarpaulin and covered themselves by it and within a moment they were fast asleep.
This is where Jay’s miracle story gets really interesting!
I was sitting in the car with just a thin slack shirt on me. My shoes were full of mud. I was freezing. I thought that it would be my last night alive. I even made a calculation and thought that I would possibly survive until 11.00 PM that night. I wanted to hear my wife but no network; thirsty no water; I could sense my blood sugars rising. What else could one do in this atmosphere – other than falling at the feet of the Lord?
At that moment I prayed this – “Lord, do something – I have no hopes whatsoever – you are my only hope now – do a miracle (I repeatedly said that many times) – I do not want to die with pastoral commitments undone – do a miracle.”
After a few minutes, I literally began to experience warmth around me. I could not believe it. The van was in a jungle, surrounded by pouring rain with heavy sleets, extremely cold weather around, pitch dark, driver and his helper finely insulated with tarpaulin – but here I was sitting with a thin slack on me – but experiencing God sent warmth. His warmth continued till I got out of the van. I was covered by His warmth for a total of 12 hours.
By 5.00 AM, the driver and his helpers left me alone and got out of the van in order to search for people to come and push the car out of the mud. By this time, the silt got collected and covered up to a quarter portion of the van door. I was totally helpless; did not know if I would reach Imphal.
The second miracle followed by 6.00 AM. I saw another van coming behind. The one who was driving got down from his van in order to see my van. He saw me but I did not intend to get out as I did not know him.
Then to my surprise, he said loudly, “Sir, is it you? How come you are here?” Then he came toward my van and understood my helpless condition. He stretched out his hand and helped me in transferring me and my bag to his van. It was surprising as he was heading toward Imphal too.
I later came to know that, he is also a pastor working for the Manipur Baptist Convention. He recognized me as I had ministered in one of their mission conferences in 2008. I shared the whole story to him. He and his wife were so thrilled to hear that I was able to survive the whole night, in spite of extreme cold, by the gracious provision of God’s warmth.
I was with them in their van now and another challenge came before me. There was a huge landslide that had jeopardized our travel again. Soon I saw few other vans stopped behind us as we were detained. My eyes were searching for a sip of water; as my stomach was growling since I had not eaten for the past 18 hours.
From one of the vans a young man got down and walked toward me with a friendly smile. I then came to know that he was a sibling of a graduate at the seminary, where I preached earlier that week. By that time, the one who was driving my second van, the pastor had decided to detour to Imphal, as he found no possibilities of the road being cleared in the immediate future.
This young man as he was leaving took two bottles of milk and gave it to me. Provision of ‘milk’ in the midst of the jungle! – unbelievable. The Pastor’s wife gave me two slices of bread, which she had left over in her basket. I was strengthened a bit after this. After 8 – 9 hours of a detoured drive, I was able to reach Imphal on the 25th around 11:00 PM.
Undergoing this rich experience with God, my faith and commitment was strengthened again. I want to testify the following.
Pillars of cloud and fire sent to Moses and to his people are true – God is able to do it.An invisible air-cooler set around Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were in the fiery furnace is true – God is able to do it. He can change the nature, systems, and even science if He intends to do. He is immutable; He does miracles even today; He cares for His children; His ears are attentive to hear from His people.
What is my challenge to you?
Make God “your Hope” as and when you reach hopeless situation of life. Your hopeless situation is to teach you to put your hope in Him. Be sensitive to your commitments; be ambitious to fulfill them – do not be negligent. Tell him your problems and wait for His ways and time. Practice hospitality to strangers. Be sensitive to your phone rings. Someone may want to speak to you before his or her last breath. Do not use phones for selfish purposes as many business minded people do. Remember you are an ambassador for Christ.
Thank you, Jay, for this inspiring miracle story!
For another wonderful miracle story, see The Oranges by my friend Jim Carpenter.
For the true story of my great grandfather and a shipwreck rivaling the Titanic (not a miracle story, just a fascinating story) click HERE.