An Angel Provided A Safe Place to Stay

God's care and protection is abundantly clear while traveling in South Africa.

By Sue Oakes, ME

When our family of five was living in Africa while my husband taught at the University of Botswana, we were often in areas that weren't the safest. I worked a lot with the 91st Psalm. In general, you don't travel after dark in Africa because of the animals in the road and other safety considerations. But one time in South Africa, we ended up still traveling after dark because it took much longer to get through a mountainous region than we expected. We couldn't find where we were going. How grateful I was for the Bible and for all the stories of protection! I knew I could turn to God. All around the hillside were the little fires of people cooking their evening meals. Seeing this provided me with a sense of oneness with God's creation rather than a sense of fear. When we finally found the place, there was an absolute deluge of rain. We got out of our truck to set up our tent and found one of the tent poles had broken. So we crammed ourselves into the back of our truck to try to sleep. We were all lying down on top of all of our gear with barely enough room, praying and knowing God was with us. The next thing we knew, there was a knock on the outside of the truck, and this man said, "I wondered if you'd like a place to stay tonight?" He had a lovely stone cottage not in use. Though we had stopped right by it, we hadn't seen it in the dark. They didn't usually rent it, but we were welcome to it for several days. It was much nicer than our tent, with a kitchen, too. I felt like an angel had knocked on the door and shown us the way.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. (Ps. 91:1, 2, 11)

Topics