God’s Protection During Tsunami

You aren’t going to believe this. I just got an email forwarded to me from a friend in my church. The email describes an amazing account of God’s protection over his people in Indonesia. The question remains, though, of whether this account is true. Here it is as I received it.

God Protects His own!

We know that 80% of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh was destroyed by the Tsunami waves and 80% of the people also died. This is one of the towns that was hit the hardest. But there is a fantastic testimony from Meulaboh.

In that town, there are about 400 Christians. They wanted to celebrate Christmas on December 25th, but were not allowed to do so by the Muslims of Meulaboh. They were told if they wanted to celebrate Christmas they needed to go outside the city of Meulaboh on a high hill to celebrate Christmas there.

Because the Christians desired to celebrate Christmas, the 400 believers left the city on December 25th, and after they celebrated Christmas, they stayed overnight on the hill. As we all know, in the morning of Sunday, December 26, 2004, there was the earthquake followed by the Tsunami waves destroying most of the city of Meulaboh, and thousands were killed. The four hundred believers were on the mountain and were all saved from destruction.

Now the Muslims of Meulaboh are saying that the God of the Christians punished us for forbidding the Christians from celebrating Christmas in the city. Others are questioning why so many Muslims died while not even one of the Christians died there. Had the Christians insisted on their rights to celebrate Christmas in the city, they would have all died. But because they humbled themselves and followed the advice of the Muslims, they all were spared destruction and can now testify of God’s marvelous protection.

This is a testimony of the grace of God and the fact that as believers we have no rights in the world. Our right is come before God and commit our lives to Him. Our right is kneeling down before the Lord Almighty and commit our ways to Him. He is our Father and is very capable to care for His children. Praise the Name of the Lord.

Bill Hekman

Pastor, Calvary Life Fellowship in Indonesia

There doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence to the truth of this claim, but a quick search on the Internet reveals…

• Snopes.com claims it’s a hoax.

It is a wonderful story, a parable for our times. Unfortunately, the facts do not support it.

• Calvary Life Fellowship, Indonesia claims that it’s true.

We have confirmed the story via phone and email with Bill Hekman and through an Indonesian pastor who has heard the story from several persons with firsthand knowledge, as follows…

The first post about this story was sent to an Indonesian language yahoo group called jesus-net.

I don’t know if the story is true or not, but it is a shocking reminder nonetheless of our need as Christians to be humble before the world and to trust God during uncertain times.