ANGELS' WINGS
AT EACH WHEEL

  "GRANNY, please tell us a story."
"Well... let's see... because I want it to be a true story."
"Yes, yes!" "I remember something which was told us several years ago, but which proves that we must have faith in God even in the midst of very trying times. You see, Grandpa and I knew the hero of this story. He was a short man, but great in the sight of God."
"All right, Granny, tell us about him!"
"We shall call him Mr Collins. He was in the medical corps during the war and was stationed in a small place called Kumbergram, in India. In India there is a rainy season called the monsoon. It rains and rains. Some roads are covered with water, bridges are washed away, and it is not always easy to travel in the country.
"Mr Collins," came a message on the telephone, "there is a man here at the little hospital who has acute appendicitis. There are no facilities here to operate on him. He really needs to be taken to a big hospital where he can have surgical treatment. Do you think you could take him there in your ambulance?" "Yes... but you know it is already four o'clock. This means that we only have two hours of daylight left and we still have several urgent duties to perform with our ambulance. But if it must be done, it will be done! If only we had more than one ambulance here!" It took Mr Collins at least one and a half hours to see to the urgent cases, so the ambulance arrived at the little hospital at 17:30, only half an hour before sunset. When the poor man had been made as comfortable as possible in the ambulance, night had already fallen.
"Mr Collins, Mr Collins," somebody said,"do you know that you can't go along the shortest way? The suspension bridge across the river has been washed away. It is impossible for you to cross."
"Well, there is only one thing to do. We must take the patient to the hospital – we MUST – so we shall have to make a long detour, but we will do it. No choice!"
There was another elevated road. This means that the road is made in such a way that it is higher than the surrounding ground. It is made like that especially in view of the rainy season. Mr Collins did not drive the ambulance himself. He had an Indian driver, a Sikh. This is to say that he belonged to a religious group whose members could not cut their hair nor shave off their beards.
As a good Christian, Mr Collins had talked with his driver more than once about the wonderful God Who could even work miracles to help those who believed in Him.
So off they went. The headlights showed them that the road was not a straight one. It twisted and turned, this way, that way, now left, now right...
What will happen if at any place on this road we cannot proceed on our journey? thought Mr Collins to himself. It would be impossible to turn around. The road is too narrow and we would risk sliding down either the left or right embankment, and overturn the ambulance. Reverse for several kilometres? Impossible! In the dark and without lights to show us the way?
Mr Collins became a little nervous. Oh, no...what's that? A lake...? A river...? They had travelled about 30 kilometres when, in front of them, the road suddenly disappeared under the water! On the other side of that big expanse of water the road reappeared again. What could they do?
Mr Collins got out and looked at the water. Then he turned to look at the driver. The Sikh's eyes seemed to say: 'Well now, what about your wonderful miracle-working God?'
"Come," said Mr Collins to the Indian. "Would you come with me to the rear of the ambulance?"
There, in the dark, on that narrow road, Mr Collins asked him to kneel with him in prayer. Oh, how Mr Gollins prayed! He had never prayed like that before. He knew that only God could help them. He wanted to show his faith in his wonderful heavenly Father. He wanted to show his driver that there is a difference between a heathen god and the God of the Christian believer.
"Are you willing to drive through the water?" he asked the Sikh when they arose. He had complete confidence that God would never let them down. He had never before known such assurance that prayer would be answered.
"Yes," said the Indian driver, "I will do it." Through the water they went on, straight to the other side, even though they could not see a metre of the road beneath the water.
"There must have been angels' wings on each wheel of the ambulance," said Mr Collins when he related the story to us. That night they arrived at the big hospital where they had to leave the patient. "How on earth did you get here?" asked the hospital staff. "Which road did you take?"
When the two men explained to them the way they had come, the staff members could not believe it. "Now you are to spend the rest of the night here," they said. "It is too dangerous to try to go back in the dark."
"No, no!" said Mr Collins. "We must go immediately. Who knows, they might already be in urgent need of the ambulance at the airfield. No, no, we must go." So they went back to their camp by an even more round-about way, arriving when the first sign of dawn was appearing. The driver had not said anything all this time. But in the evening of that day, after a rest, he suddenly appeared at the treatment room where Mr Collins was working. His hair had been cut and his beard shaved off. He had changed his religion. Renouncing his previous one, he had accepted the God who can deliver His children in times of trouble!

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