Cave Rescue: Parents Of Trapped Boy Share Beautiful Message – Newlife- Australia’s Christian Newspaper

‘AND THUS IT WAS THAT ALL CAME SAFELY TO (THE OUTSIDE) LAND’

Compassion, one of the Church’s largest welfare societies through which many Christians sponsor needy children in the developing world, was deeply involved in the effort. The world waited and watched for good news after the 12 young members of the Wild Boar football team were trapped by floodwaters deep inside a cave in Thailand. After the team was found alive, the parents of the Compassion‐assisted trapped boy had a special mes‐ sage to share: ‘Thank you so much for all prayers and all the encouragement. Thank you to God. I’m really thankful that they found my son and all 13 are alive,’ said the boy’s mother. ‘I’m so happy and so thankful to see my son again. Thank you so much to everyone that has been praying for us and the boys and helping us; thank you. Praise God who helps us, and there’s nothing He cannot do.’

Compassion supporters prayed fervently and on Monday 2 July, rejoiced as rescuers finally made it through the tight, twisting passages and murky floodwaters to reach the team, who were weak, malnourished but alive. They rejoiced again when the news broke late on Tuesday 10 July that the entire soccer team had made it out safely. Compassion is thankful to all who answered the call to pray for these precious young lives!

One of the boys is Adul Sam-on, a Compassion sponsored child. It was Adul Sam‐on who played a crucial role in the rescue attempt. Being the only one who spoke English, he was the interpreter between the English‐speaking rescuers and the boys and their coach.
But there was Christian involvement far beyond that. Outside the cave, Compassion’s local church partners teamed up help to help the rescue effort. TH0356 Baag Jong Church hosted the Thai Air Force team, providing food and accommodation for 20‐30 people. Every day church members volunteered to cook meals and clean for the Air Force team as they rotated on and off duty, sleeping and eating at the project. The church also hosted visitors who dropped by to pray for the 12 boys and their coach. Church members donated their homegrown

vegetables, fruits, pineapples, drinking water, other drinks and whatever they had to provide for the rescue teams.

Eighteen-year-old Surayut Puengpadung, another Compassion beneficiary and member of the Chiang Rai Rescue Academy Team, was one of the first to report the boys missing on Saturday and one of the first to enter the water to search for the boys. ‘Pray for all the rescue operation teams to make progress,’ Surayut said. ‘They are working very hard through this weather, and it’s very dangerous. The water runs fast and there are strong currents.’

Adul Sam-on has never been a stranger to peril. At age 6, Adul had already escaped a territory in Myanmar known for guerrilla warfare, opium cultivation and methamphetamine trafficking. His parents slipped him into Thailand, in the hopes that proper schooling would provide him with a better life than that of his illiterate, impoverished family. But his greatest escape came last Tuesday, when he and 11 other members of the Wild Boars soccer team, along with their coach, were all finally freed from the Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand, after an ordeal stretching nearly three weeks.

The operation to save the boys and their coach captivated the world. Members of the Thai navy SEALs and foreign divers squeezed through miles of tunnels, risking their lives to find and carry the young players through an underwater matrix that daunted the British specialists brought in to help. The leader of the operation called it ‘an impossible mission’.

For ten days, Adul and his fellow Wild Boars survived deep in the cave complex as their food, flashlights and drinking water diminished. By the time British divers found them on 2 July, they looked skeletal. That was when Adul, the stateless descendant of a Wa ethnic tribal branch once known for headhunting, played his critical role in the rescue, acting as interpreter for the British divers. Proficient in English, Thai, Burmese, Mandarin and Wa, Adul politely communicated to the British divers his squad’s greatest needs: food and clarity on just how long they had stayed alive. When a teammate piped up in broken English, ‘eat, eat, eat,’ Adul said he had already covered that point. In images released by the Thai navy SEALs, he had a huge grin on his gaunt face.

Newlife- Australia’s Christian Newspaper