His Timing Is Always Perfect
Written by Luke Hamer
It was one of those days where nothing was going as planned. The sky was overcast and we had been scheduled to fly three missionaries out to Angoram. When they arrived about an hour later than our agreed upon meeting time, we decided to follow through with the 25-minute flight. After we unloaded their gear, just as I was closing the cargo door to return to Wewak, a boat carrying four men came racing up to the plane. One of them was lying down covered in blood-soaked rags, and another was holding an upright canoe paddle with an IV bag attached at the top handle. One of the missionaries asked, “Are you expecting a patient inbound?”, and my answer was no.
They explained to me that the man had been speared in the back. Since this was supposed to be a taxi flight, we didn’t have our medical bag. By God’s sovereign plan, one of the missionaries we were transporting was a former EMT and he got to work dressing the wound. As we finished loading the patient onto the plane, we learned that his name was Gobia and one of the men was a Pastor named Gildon. We took off and headed back toward Wewak while Pastor Gildon held pressure on the wound.
Once we arrived and transported Gobia to the hospital, I asked Pastor Gildon what had happened. He told me that Gobia had been caught stealing in his village and was speared in his back. Pastor Gildon literally drug Gobia out of the fight and, with two other men, loaded him into the boat. They took him to a small clinic in the next village and a health worker set up an IV, but they still needed to get him to a larger clinic for treatment. As they began to fear that Gobia would not make it, Pastor Gildon stopped the boat and began to pray for a miracle. He recalled as he said, “amen” he looked up and saw our floatplane fly overhead and land in the next lake over. He thought, “Maybe this is God’s plane.”
They rushed toward where we had landed and got there just as I was closing the door. It was a stern reminder that God is always at work and His timing is always perfect. Had we left on time, Gobia probably would have died.
