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July 26, 2002
The most recent Canvasback dental
mission came with much excitement--some of
it unexpected--for three Canvasback families.
Everything was going well until it came time for
the team to return home. It
was midnight on July 4, but America and
all of it's Independence Day celebrations seemed
impossibly far away. Two weeks of hard work in the Yap
clinic had left the dental team feeling satisfied and
grateful, but exhausted and ready to go home!
Now at the airport, however, the
team's hopes were dashed when they are told that their
flight had been cancelled. A typhoon raging in the area
had already hit Chuuk, 950 miles to the east, and
mudslides had tragically killed at least 48 people and
left hundreds more homeless or seriously injured. A second tropical storm was
pelting Yap and in Guam, 100 mph winds
had knocked out
power and grounded all planes.
At the same time, over in
Pohnpei, a young dentist from a previous Canvasback team had failed to return
from a small outer island. When the rest of the team
went home, he chose to stay on and travel with the local
pastor to a distant island
called Sapwaufik. Now he and
the pastor were stranded on the island by a gathering
storm, and the only way back was the way they came,
across 100 miles of roiling ocean in an small open boat!
Back at mission headquarters in California, a
day of celebration became a day
of worry over the safety of
the volunteers. Of
particular concern was the dentist on Sapwaufik
because small outer islands are
especially dangerous places to be in a storm. With the
ground only a few feet above sea level and all shelter
constructed of plywood and tin or thatch, these idyllic
islands are easily washed over or turned into death
traps by flying sheet metal and debris.
Repeated calls to Pohnpei fail to go through. Over in
Yap, the dental team was relatively safe, but discouraged
when told that it would be another two weeks
before they could leave the
island!
With each tick of the clock, the winds mounted, the
waves surged, and
worries over the safety of our volunteers grew. Would
God keep them safe? With nature's fury
ruling the day, prayer was not just the best option; it
was the ONLY option . . .
. . . The next day's news brought great relief and praise
to God! The pastor and young dentist returned
safely to Pohnpei and the dental team was placed on the
very first flight into Guam, only 30 hours after their
original flight was cancelled! Guam
was still without
power (and would be for another week) and mop-up
continued in Chuuk and other places devastated by the
typhoons. But all of the Canvasback missionaries
returned home safe and sound and with great stories to
tell about God's faithfulness through the storm.
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