Testifying of God's protection

as i was chatting with mich last night, somehow i mentioned that i was shot in 1996. she said she's never heard me talk about this before. i said there was no opportunity, but thought i should record it down as a testimony of God's protection for my life.

it was july of 1996. i was on the thai-myanmar mountainous border teaching as a way of short-term missions. (the mentioning of the region's name or the people group might be sensitive so i won't mention the specifics) i started to go there in 1995 and went about 2~3 months every year until 1999. it was a boarding school made up of many orphans and child soldiers. that region has never been very stable with lots of wars and fighting. i think at the time we had about 1,000 students in the school.

i remember it was an afternoon after the students have taken their mid-term exams. many kids were playing outside of their dorms. i had just finished grading exam papers and was walking back to the teachers' dorm from the classroom area. i had to pass a little hill where the students' dorms are. as usual, i stopped to chat with the kids. i peeped out the corner of my eye and saw one of my 4th grade students holding a pallet gun (since they also hunt for birds, small animals and for the protection of the school in case of fighting). i joked with him: "what are you doing? going to shoot me?" then carried on talking to the other students.

all of the sudden... "bang!" everything went grey before my eyes. i fell to my butt and there was a loud ringing in my head. i felt warm liquid coming out of my head (not realizing it was blood). i was carrying a backpack so everything was flowing down between my shirt and my bag. they didn't realize how much blood i was losing until they took off my backpack. students rushed over. soon, teachers came also. everything was in a mess... i was shot by the small iron pallets that actually scraped thru the lower right of my head.

very quickly, they brought the stretcher. 4 or 6 of the older and stronger students carried me by foot to the local hospital (not like our modern hospitals but of mud floor and grass or tin roof). even with the half running/walking thru the small hills, they made it there in about 20 min. but... the missionary doctors from taiwan were not around. they had gone to a new place to explore the possibility of building a newer and nicer hospital.

my fellow teacher friends started praying... please bring the doctors back quickly.

in my mind, it seemed like 5 minutes, but people told me afterwards that it still took them maybe 30 minutes before the docs came back. once they were back, they put me in the very simple concrete made operation room and sew up the wounds. i think there were 7 some stitches.

i was also told afterwards, if the shot had been lower or more to the left, or if the docs didn't come back as soon as they did, i would have died.

the strange thing is... i felt a lot of peace all through out the event while others were more worried for me.

after i recovered, i've asked God many times "why?". one night about a month after the accident, as i was having prayer and devotional time with some students (from that same dorm), i felt rather frustrated with the naughty students still not paying attention in classes. i told them i don't know why God spared my life and let me endure the difficulties i continue to face. i would rather die and be with the Lord. they cried. so as we read "our daily bread" for that day, the passage mentioned was Phil 1:21~26. i could identify with paul's longing to depart and be with the Lord, yet at the same time, the Lord was keeping him on earth in serving Him and His people.

looking back, i'm thankful of God's protection and know that He has a purpose in keeping me on earth, right here, right now. i'm also thankful of all that i've experienced, learned, grew since then. i believe God has more in stored in the days to come...