Last night I witnessed what I can only call a miracle…
But let me start from the beginning.
But let me start from the beginning.
Yesterday was our final night of ministry with the Bagot community and it started out fairly typical. Callie and I headed out to the water park to do food prep. and set up for the kids club we do there every Friday night, while Tye and Chelsea B. headed to Bagot to pick up kids in the church vans. All things considered the entire evening went fairly smooth with only a regular amount of confusion, chaos and only one poisonous snake.
Then the real craziness began as all of the kids piled into the different vans at the end of the night ready to get dropped off. A typical ride home with the Bagot kids is accompanied by arguments, cursing, some kind of scuffle, kids switching seats, kids yelling directions and the usual number of kids in one van generally far exceeding the number of available seats. Yesterday was fairly typical except I ended up in the front passenger seat because an adult volunteer from Bagot decided to sit in the back and keep the kids quiet.
All things considered when we left the ride actually was reasonably quiet. Kids were sitting still although there were several children sitting on the floor and leaning against the door of the van. It was good. The smoothest ride I’ve been on with the Bagot kids so far. And then this little girl in the seat closest to the front, says really loudly that she wants us to stop the van, she wants out. A boy sitting close by said something to her (I didn’t catch what exactly it was that he said but it made the girl scowl) and she once again said “I want to get out.”
I asked her why, what’s going on? And no one would answer me, they just got really quiet. I turned back around and then a minute or two later when the two of them started to argue again I looked back. The girl kept saying, “I want out. I’m getting out.” so I asked what was going on again, both of them ignored me. Then she said, “I’m opening the door, I’m getting out”, stood up and threw open the van door…
I couldn’t do anything but tell Tye to stop, I mean we were in the front seat, we couldn’t reach anyone and we were going about 70-80 km/hour down the highway. I seriously thought that that little girl was going to throw herself out of the van and probably take all of the kids leaning against the door with her. Somehow no one fell out and one of the boys ended up being able to slam the door closed again.
Through out this entire ordeal both Tye and I remained completely calm. Tye was even wise enough to keep going and not slam on the break causing the kids to lose balance and tumble out. The whole thing was crazy and it didn’t hit me until after we were safely home from Bagot just how scary what had just happened actually was.
Something or someone held those kids in and I would also say that the Holy Spirit gave the boy who slammed the door shut the strength to do it because that door never closes easily.
It was scary. I don’t know what else to say. I guess it’s just a really practical demonstration of the power of God in that community. Crazy, dramatic stuff like that happens a lot in Bagot and God is there intervening through all of it.
