Awesome God.

The following story was passed on to us via Father Prakash Tuscano, S.J., of St. Ignatius Church, Mumbai, India. It is told by Bill Hekman, Pastor, Calvary Life Fellowship, Sumatra, Indonesia.

Medan -- We serve an awesome God, don't we? We know that 80% of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh was destroyed by the tsunami waves and 80% of the people also died. This is one of the towns that was hit the hardest. But there is a fantastic testimony from Meulaboh. In that town there are about 400 Christians. They wanted to celebrate Christmas on December 25 but were not allowed to do so by the Muslims of Meulaboh. They were told if they wanted to celebrate Christmas they needed to go outside the city on a high hill and there celebrate Christmas. The 400 believers left the city on December 25 and after they celebrated Christmas they stayed overnight on the hill.

As we all know, on the morning of December 26 there was the earthquake followed by the tsunami waves, which destroyed most of the city of Meulaboh; and thousands were killed. The 400 Christian believers were on the mountain and were all saved from destruction. Now the Muslims of Meulaboh are saying that the God of the Christians punished them for forbidding the Christians from celebrating Christmas in the city. Others are questioning why so many Muslims died while not even one of the Christians died there. Had the Christians insisted on their rights to celebrate Christmas in the city, they would have all died. But because they humbled themselves and followed the orders of the Muslims they all were spared destruction and can now testify of God's marvellous protection. ([e-mail])