GOD SEES
Missionaries Ken and Sarah Beckley live in Dire, Mali in West Africa. Although they live in the Sahara desert, a few times a year, they are hit with a tropical storm. Ken relates an amazing story of how God not only protected a church member, Hamadoun Maiga, during the storm, but also how they were able to recover his possessions, buried in the shifting Sahara sands the next day.
This fall a monster storm blew through here. We don't know the wind speeds but they seemed to be hurricane-force! Trees and telephone poles went down and lots of grass mat huts were destroyed. In the process, we got 3/4" of rain in less than an hour, which is HUGE for one rain out here. Out in the bush, church member Hamadoun Maiga was on his way home. He teaches in a small bush village and had been in to Niafunke for a meeting of all the teachers in the area. He had a couple of cartons of new textbooks on the back of his motorcycle. When he saw the huge dust clouds rolling in from the east, he immediately stopped and buried the two boxes of books in the side of a large sand mound to protect them from the rain. He then continued to Dire, hoping to recover the books the next day.
When the sandstorm hit, he had to slow to a crawl. He could barely see where he was going and sand got in his eyes. Once the rain hit, he could see a little better, but now the mud plains were covered by water and slick mud, and he was doing more spinning and sliding than moving forward. Even when his rear tire went flat, he continued trying to make progress. ... His bike and tires became caked in mud, and he realized that his bike wasn’t going to get him home. So in the middle of nowhere he left the bike and continued on foot. It was now dark.
In the bush at night there is absolutely no light, and there was no moon. After hours of wandering, he arrived at a small town a few kilometers from Dire where a kind person allowed him to spend the night. At daybreak he set out for Dire, arriving about 8:30 and called me to see if I could help him find and recover the motorbike and the cartons of books. I have to say I was not too excited about the prospects of finding those things, and driving in the bush after a big rain is always risky, but we didn't have a choice.
Although I knew the road well in the direction we were headed, I couldn't follow it because it was covered in water, so we headed cross country on the higher sandy places. There were a couple places where we had to go through some large sections of water and mud. In one water hole, the car almost bogged down when I was able to climb onto a small sand mound in the center which I believe the Lord had put there for us! It gave the car the traction and speed to make it through the second half of that water hole!
We made it to the plain where Hamadoun had left his bike. It was a vast area, dotted with bushes and some trees. The bike could be anywhere. As we drove across the plain I realized we could be looking for hours. I prayed the Lord would lead us to the bike. Less than a minute later, I saw it about 100 yards ahead! As we pulled up to the bike, a man walked up to greet us and offer his help. Here we were literally in the middle of nowhere, and right at the moment we found the bike, the Lord provided another person to help us lift it into the car! After getting large chunks of mud off the bike, we loaded it and headed off to find the buried books.
We drove on across the vast expanse and stopped several times to find the buried cartons. Hamadoun then saw a very large tree (unusual for the Sahara) and said, "I was passing this tree when I saw the storm approaching, so we must have passed where I left the books." I turned around and as we did, we saw something shining very brightly. The wind had uncovered an edge of one of the cartons, and the sun was reflecting off the glossy paper on the side of one of the cartons. We loaded the cartons and were relieved to find that although a little damp they were still in good shape and useable.
Hamadoun and I drove home rejoicing with his bike and the books and praising God! He saw that bike and the cartons of book in the storm and in the darkness of the night and then He showed them to us! Thank you Lord!
Ken and Sarah Beckley serve in Dire, Mali. Ken grew up in Mali, the son of EBM missionaries Harold and Jean Beckley. The Beckleys have 4 sons.
