Last week Katie and I had the great fortune to help a woman from drowning. It begins with the weather changing drastically from one hour to the next as the ITCZ or the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone was very near us. This Zone is where the northern and the southern hemisphere weather meet at and can cause very unpredictable weather. It so happens for us is was one of those night where the rain was of and on but with NO WIND. This with an already 100% humidity made for very damp sleeping conditions. So this night Kate decided to have the port-hole next to our bed open for some air flow that occasionally moved thru the window. IT was in this very act which does not happen very much as its either to rainy or too much wind to sleep with when open but this night of all nights it would turn out to be life saving!
It was around 2am I couldn’t sleep due to a large side rocking action and had resorted to watching a movie with the laptop while Katie on the other hand was sleeping. While sleeping Katie dreamed that a woman was saying, “help me, help me”. Then waking and hearing the same thing was unsure whether she was awake or still sleeping. In placing her head up to the port-hole she could clearly hear someone saying, “help me”. But was unsure where it was coming from. We hear all kinds of sounds that carry across the water from shore, so many times have we gone up on deck thinking someone was just right outside only to find that it was a group on shore walking and talking. Anyway Katie got up came to me said that she was hearing someone asking for help. I immediately grabbed a flash light and turned on our overhead deck lights that lights up the boat and started doing a sweep of the boat and to my amazement there was a woman hanging on the Mooring line asking for help. Jumping into our dingy I walked it to her and grabbed her to pull her into the boat and at that moment she passed out. So I hastily grabbed her and pulled her into the dingy and as I sat her upright to check on her she looked up and said, “kommol tata, I am so cold”, then continued to point and Ebeye and said, “that is my island, and those are my people”. It was at this point I looked up and could see that on shore there were flashlights here and there and it was evident that they were looking for someone. At this point Katie went and got a towel to cover her in as she was showing signs of over exposure to the cooler waters of the pacific (at least to a people who are used to this water and air temp it is cooler than it is for us). At this point I decided it best to get her to shore where everyone was looking so they could stop looking.
We have not seen this woman since we dropped her off on shore with those that were looking for her. We have confirmed that she was intoxicated and that she had walked by a young man on her way to the lagoon and said she was going to end her life by drowning. He immediately began to try to notify individuals of what was going on but by the time they got to the water she was gone.
We are going to make contact with her and try to council her and her family. God is so good to have used us in this. God so loves this woman and wants her to find His grace and love as well.
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