By Beverly Lomosad
I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. – Isaiah 46:9-10
The morning of April 13, 1998 began as a beautiful, calm spring day for Capt. Eric Bingham and first mate Johnny Savage. That day they were to set sail 350 miles from Key West, Florida to Isla Mujeres, located eight miles off the Caribbean coast of Cancun, on the Anhinga, a 56-foot sports fishing boat. Seas were tailing and light with no indication of an impending weather shift when they headed out before sunrise, aiming for a pre-sunset arrival at their destination.
But about 90 miles into their daytime crossing, at about 9am, the unthinkable happened. A colossal “rogue wave” struck the Anhinga in calm-weather conditions, breaking the vessel in half from the impact of the drop and sending it to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in an instant there hadn’t been time for a distress call, life raft, or emergency beacon. And, in the blink of an eye, Eric and Johnny were in the water, searching frantically for something to grab on to that would help them to stay afloat. What followed was a series of miracles that ultimately kept Eric and Johnny from sinking to their deaths into the abyss.
Items stored in the boat and floated to the surface proved to be precious lifelines. The first one – the first miracle, according to Johnny – was an Igloo bait cooler. As Eric and Johnny both grabbed the cooler’s handle, they spontaneously burst into The Lord’s Prayer. They said it once – and again, and again. If, indeed, prayers change things, Eric and Johnny saw the evidence of it when the surfboard Johnny had packed at the last minute popped up. Johnny swam through diesel fuel to get to the surfboard, hopped on it, and went out looking for the life raft and the EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon). They were nowhere to be found, so he paddled back to where Eric was. And, lo and behold, Eric had life jackets on. As it happened, the life jackets had floated right where Eric was. And so did the twist lock flare kits.
When a plane came into view, they tried signaling, using smoke flares but to no avail; it simply flew by. Then, at about mid-day, they spotted a cruise ship on the horizon. They sent up flares, but it just went past them. As a storm began to brew, death seemed inevitable.
Suddenly, Eric screamed, “It’s a fish boat. It’s a fish boat!” But, while their eyes were fixed on that little fish boat, a 72-footer named The Ditch Digger, came up right behind them. Apparently, the storm had caused The Ditch Digger to change course, putting it directly in the path of Johnny and Eric.
“You couldn’t tell me God wasn’t real,” said Johnny, who was raised in the pews of a Christian church in rural Virginia Beach, Virginia. “People need to know that, no matter how bad things look in front of them, they can have hope, that it’ll work because God has a plan” (Romans 8:28).
CALL TO ACTION
A life with God starts with a relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
- PRAY OUT LOUD: “Father in heaven, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins. I ask you to forgive me of all of my sins. I believe in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Savior and Lord. Amen.”
- WHAT’S NEXT: Be part of a good, Bible-based church.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the New International Version of the Bible.