Women Held At Gunpoint And Rescued: The Power Of Prayer

From the New Tribes Mission website:

Twelve Wusuraambyan believers—nine women and three men—tramped joyfully over the mountains on their way home from the city. Encouraged by the women’s conference they had just attended, the women chatted joyfully to each other about what they had learned. “God is a provider,” they murmured to each other, admiring the colorful meri blouses which the city believers had given each of the girls. Entering their second day of walking, the group realized that they still had two more days of travel before arriving home. As the believers steadily climbed one of the steep mountain ridges separating them and home, they allowed another couple who had been walking with them to go ahead of them. Weary from their shopping endeavour in the city, the couple carried a bilum full of possessions they had purchased in town.

"We suddenly heard screaming!" shares Daaslin, one of the believers. “We thought the couple had hurt themselves, so we ran to catch up with them.“ But the the group could not expect what they encountered next. A group of bandits who had captured the couple and taken many of their possessions now turned on the believers. "The masked men threatened us with guns and bush knives," says Kena, the wife of one of the Wusuraambyan Bible teachers. "I was so scared that I held my baby close and began shaking from head to foot; I couldn't even run."

The terrified believers began calling out to God; two of the girls bolted ahead, while the rest stood frozen in fear. One of the girls fell and got scraped up trying to escape. "We started praying silently that God would save us," admits Kena. "Something caused us to all look at each other at the same time; suddenly, we all knew that God would save us." Forced to surrender both their money and their cell phones, the believers were robbed one by one of their possessions. As they were praying for a miracle, they saw a man from a neighboring dialect approach. Seeing their peril, the man sharply rebuked the bandits. Recognizing the man from previous encounters, the bandits fled in alarm, saving the rest of the group from being robbed. Thanks to God's intervention, the believers had escaped without any physical harm. They gathered farther down the road to praise Him for sending an "angel" to save them.

"Thank you God," for saving us, they echoed each other with heart felt thanks. It had truly been Him who had kept them safe; even the other couple had been allowed to go, although they had lost most of what they had bought. Two weeks later, Jesi, the male escort, went back to report the missing possessions and was able to recover many of them, to the thankfulness of the believers. Meanwhile, the women gathered together weekly to pray together and remind each other of what God had taught them. "God could have just saved us!" relate the believers with joy. "But he did more. He gave us back our money too. He knows our every need!"