A flaming miracle – Nate Bramsen

Niger: It was like any other day in Kwara Tagi, Niger. It was 9am. Warm and sunny. We had just finished our morning prayer meeting and were heading into town to drop off a mattress and go renew some government documents. So Johnson, Jonny, Justin and myself jumped in my Honda CRV (otherwise known as, “Camilla”) and off we went. Little did we know the adventure for the morning.

To give you a brief preface, this region of West/North Africa has had its share of conflicts recently (conflicts that don’t usually make Western news) and consequently, many students, of late, have been rioting over various issues.

Back to the action…

After dropping off the mattress, we continued on the Tillaberi Road toward the city center of Niamey. As we approached the Rond-Point Yantala (a main round circle), we noticed one car make an awkward wrong-way left (which is nothing new in a city with wild driving practices), but others kept going through the circle like nothing…until we pulled into the circle.

Making it halfway around, we were all-of-a-sudden jumped by a mob of approximately twenty guys, though only three were really doing the job….the rest were yelling. One young man was pointing at my face through the windshield and screaming something. All in a split second, they had thrown tires around the front half of our car (we were blocked in by cars on all the other sides), threw another tire up onto our car, and had one tire in flames ready to ignite the vehicle under us with the four of us still in it.

Knowing what was happening (that we were about to be burned alive in our car), I looked behind, but had a taxi on my bumper so couldn’t back up and wouldn’t be able to go forward without killing one of the guys. What seemed like an eternity of honking (probably three seconds), the taxi managed to back up maybe five feet, all while the mob was preparing the car for burning and waiting for it to ignite.

Five feet was enough.

(The four of us concluded that what comes next in the story was nothing short of Jason Bourne-type action) Throwing Camilla into reverse, I backed up quickly into the taxi (yes, contact with taxi–not too much…what’s a bumper for?), pulled a quick three-point-turn in the jam of vehicles, managing to squeeze between two cars, and proceeded to tear around on the sidewalk, sending three people jumping out of the vehicle’s way. (Don’t forget, the horn was announcing our arrival) Swerving between a couple cars, we careened back onto the main road heading the opposite way and into oncoming traffic (which, praise God, due to the spectacle happening was quite empty) before making it to our side of the road and veered off onto the first dirt road past the market. After making it about a kilometer down the back stretch, we pulled over and just thanked God for the miracle He had performed and prayed for the souls of these guys who were perpetuating the violence that God would bring true peace to their lives. Then we called the embassy.

This is NOT a story about heroic guys, crazy driving, or the drama happening in this region. This is a story from TODAY about God’s deliverance and protection. All four of us guys know that if we had been burned alive this morning, we were ready to meet God because of what Jesus has done for our salvation, but we are thankful to be alive and sharing this story of His deliverance.

I’m convinced of a few things. I’m convinced that someone reading this blog was praying for us at 9:30am Niamey time (3:30am EST). Let us know if you were so we can rejoice with you. I’m convinced that God still has more work for the fellowship of Kwara Tagi to do (that is what we call ourselves) in this land, and I’m convinced that Niger (more than ever) needs the good news and hope that Jesus brings.

So, how was your morning?

[P. Joseph Raju / Nate Bramsen FB]