Where the Wind Leads by Dr. Vinh Chung

Author:Dr. Vinh Chung
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2014-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

THE PRAYER

THE WOMEN DID THEIR BEST TO RELIEVE THE MISERIES of the children while the men stared blankly at the horizon, hoping to see some sign of land—but even if they did spot an island on the horizon, there was no guarantee our boat could reach it. Without power we would probably sail right past it; the prevailing current wasn’t likely to deliver us directly to a tiny spot in the middle of a vast sea. Some of the men fashioned makeshift sails from T-shirts and tarps they found on board; but there was very little wind moving, and the pathetic sails hung as limp as retired flags.

After yesterday’s encounter with the Thai pirates, no one was particularly eager to encounter another ship because there was no guarantee it would have any better intentions. Yesterday’s pirates were the most cold-blooded kind of all. They didn’t want to rob us or assault our women as did most of the predators who prowled the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea; these pirates just wanted to overturn our boat to watch us drown, and if their rope hadn’t broken at the last possible moment, they would have succeeded.

In the seclusion and anonymity of the South China Sea, the human heart was free to turn its darkest, and predators knew that even the worst atrocities could be hidden beneath the water. Those Thai pirates were trying to kill us just for the pleasure of doing it, which seems like an incomprehensible thing for one human being to do to another. But refugees were not human beings; when they left their home, no list was made of who they were, when they left, or where they were headed. No nation mourned their departure, and no country awaited their arrival. There was death at sea but no death toll; there was heartbreak but no history. Refugees were unwanted, unclaimed, and unnamed—invisible people. They were just some country’s former problem, and the moment the problem was gone, they were forgotten—out of sight, out of mind.

If the pirates’ rope hadn’t broken, we would have died; if their boat hadn’t broken down, they would have tried again. That was two minor miracles in a single day. But that was yesterday; it’s hard to give thanks for yesterday’s grace, and no one on our boat was feeling grateful today.

We were dying of thirst.

We left Malaysia without food or water, but food was not the critical concern. If necessary we could have endured for more than a month without food, but the human body requires water to survive—a lot of it. Every cell of our bodies contains it, and every day some of that water is lost. In a temperate climate the body loses between two and three quarts of water per day, but our boat was adrift just a few hundred miles north of the equator. In that kind of tropical climate, the body perspires, but sweat won’t evaporate. The body loses water but can’t cool down, and hyperthermia can occur.

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