Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CALL (01/14/16)
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TITLE: The Yellow Van | Previous Challenge Entry
By Rachel Varghese
01/21/16 -
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Lakpahana is an Adventist boarding School in the small island of Srilanka. The school had just moved from a place called Kottawa to a mountainous area called Mailapitya. As soon as they moved to this new place the school officials decided to buy a van, as they were far away from the city. There was great excitement in the school the day that the van arrived. Students wanted to take a ride in it, teachers wanted to drive it, the villagers came to take a look at it, as it was one of a kind and everybody made a big deal of it!
Principal Jurianz, decided to take some of the staff and their families to Kandy for Perehara, which is an important festival. Decorated elephants, dancers, stilt walkers, fire eaters, and a host of artists take part in the festivities. My father was the school treasurer so our family was invited to make a trip to the city along with some others. As my baby brother was only a few days old my mother did not come but my four-year-old brother Robert and I who was six went with my father. There were two other teachers and their children and we all got into the back of the van.
Well, everything went fine for a while and I enjoyed looking at the huge rocks from my window seat. All of a sudden I felt myself falling and my Dad holding me and my brother tight, and people around me rolling and screaming. Then it felt that there was a huge bump. The van stopped, but it was standing in an angle. People were jumping out of the back door. I was at the front corner and some of the kids were on top of me crying for their parents. I saw my dad jump out with my brother. He shouted back to me to stay in the same place till he comes. I slowly made my way to the door of the slanting truck. It was then that I saw that we were not on the road anymore and there were a lot of people around us. My dad stretched out his arms to lift me but the truck moved again as the stone on which it was resting rolled off.
Dad left my brother there and ran behind the truck that was heading towards a river. I was so scared, and I tried to climb back but I could not from the slanting truck that was racing down. Dad was shouting "Rachel, Rachel” but I couldn't climb up. I could hear my brother crying and calling my name too.
The truck finally stopped rolling as it hit a tree just at the edge of the river. Dad ran to the truck and I managed to climb to the top of the tilted truck and he got me out. I did not know how we got to the bottom of a hill from the road. The only thing that mattered to me was that my dad was with me and my brother and the truck did not fall into the river. Later my dad explained to me that a bus tried to overtake the yellow van on a narrow road. It bumped the van on the side and it turned off the road and started to go down the hill. I did not think much of it then but something else that my dad told me stayed on with me all my life. He told me that as he saw me at the top of the tilted truck; it moved again. The only thing that he could do was just call on the Lord to save his daughter. And I kept on calling, "Jesus please help me", as I was the only one inside. Dad told us that many of the villagers who came to help us told that they had seen so many accidents happen on that road; all the vehicles rolled over and people had died or had severe injuries. This was the only one that just came down without rolling over the steep hill. I also remember what those Buddhist people told us, “It was your God who pulled the vehicle down to safety and no one is hurt.”
Psalms 50:15, “Then call upon me when you are in trouble and I will rescue you and you will give me glory.”"
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