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It had been a long day of meetings, and a group of scientists were returning from Manila to Los Banos in the Philippines. I, an American, sat with four Filipino men on the forty-mile trip. The driver, a young man called Cata, began to tell a story. It was an amazing story of survival in the mountains of northern Luzon during a typhoon. I listened with rapt attention.

"We were coming down the mountain road when suddenly the mountainside slid across the road, blocking us," Cata said. "It was dark from the rain and strong wind. We stopped just short of the mass of sliding mud and rock. The driver began to back up when we discovered a slide behind us. We were trapped!"

Cata went on to tell how they sat for three days on that mountainside without food, drinking water from the rain that beat against them. The typhoon pounded the vehicle and they wondered when the mountain would slide down on them. Finally, after three days and nights in the vehicle, Cata and a sixty-year-old man decided to go for help.


"We climbed the mountain, above the slides, and planned to cross the mountain beyond the slides and then go down to the highway below," Cata told.

"As we were traversing the side of the mountain, through the broken stones and mud, my foot became trapped and I fell down. I heard a rumbling and looked up at a huge boulder rolling directly at me. I was in complete panic. I struggled to get free, but without success. I screamed at the top of my voice, 'Jesus, help me!' Just above me sat a grapefruit-sized rock. The boulder rolled to a stop at that rock, and the old man jerked me loose as the boulder rolled right over the spot where I was trapped."

Being a Christian, I was spellbound by this story of calling on Jesus. Chills ran up my back and arms as he continued to talk.

He said that he and the old man continued to grope their way across the mountain, stumbling and shivering in the cold fifty-degree temperatures of the storm. The winds, he said, were brutal, the rain pounding them unmercifully. After miles of walking, and at times almost crawling, the old man called to Cata, "I can't go any further. Leave me here. I'll just have to die on the mountain. I'm too weak to go on."

Cata said he once again cried out as loud as possible, "Jesus, help us!"

He then said that he turned his head to see a small "Japanese-looking" woman coming out of the pounding storm. She walked to the old man and took him by the arm. She asked for his pack and said, "Trust in Jesus and follow me."

The old man stood and had walked with her for a short distance when she said to him, "Take off your shoes, it will be easier."

"My feet are sore now. They'll be cut to shreds on the rocks if I take off my shoes," the old man said.

Gently the woman affirmed him, "Trust God and take off your shoes."

I was chilled at the story, listening with excitement.

Cata continued, "The old man walked with a new vigor as the woman led the way down the mountainside, right to a waiting rescue crew. When we arrived at the highway, the old man told me to give the woman some money. I reached in my wallet and turned to give it to the woman, but she was nowhere to be found. It had to be an angel," Cata said.

We drove on into Los Banos and parted, my head full of this "fanciful tale."

A day or so later, I sat at the desk of another scientist at the Forest Products Research and Development Institute in Los Banos, talking to him about a scheduled trip that I had, to go to the Mountain Province in northern Luzon.

Felly said to me, "I had quite an experience up there a couple of months ago in a terrific typhoon."

He began describing exactly what Cata had told a few days before, down to the smallest detail. He told of hearing Cata scream out of the howling wind when he was trapped in the rocks, and how the boulder stopped for an instant after Cata called on Jesus for help. Then Felly grew very quiet and began relating how he knew that he was going to die on the mountain. He said his feet were aching, his legs had lost all strength, and his will was gone. When Cata hollered the second time for Jesus' help, Felly said he had given up hope. Then, to see this woman coming out of the misty storm, he thought he had already died. He told how the woman touched his arm and strength returned to him immediately.

"This little woman, who was smaller than me [Felly stands about five feet tall] lifted me up, taking my pack. She seemed immensely strong. We walked a little way when she said to me, 'Take off your shoes, it will be easier.' "

"My feet are sore now. They'll be cut to shreds on the rocks if I take off my shoes," I replied.

She told me, "Trust God and take off your shoes."

"I did, and I walked without any problem. Over rocks that had even cut into my shoes, I walked without cutting my feet. It was almost like walking on air," Felly said. "When Cata, the woman, and I got to the road, there was a rescue party. I turned to Cata and told him to give the woman some money, because I didn't have any with me. When Cata turned to give the woman the money, she couldn't be found."

Felly looked at me, I suppose wondering if I believed him. Then he said, "I believe that the woman was either Mary or an angel."

Coming to Los Banos a couple of days earlier, I wasn't sure I believed Cata, but now there was no doubt in my mind. The details were exact, the whole story was exact.

Later, as I was on that trip to the Mountain Province, the driver stopped on the rugged, steep mountainside and told me how he, Cata, Felly, and another man were trapped for three days before Cata and Felly left for help. He said that he and the other man stayed in the vehicle for another day and a half before the rescuers arrived. He also told, with detailed exactness, how it all started and what Cata and Felly had told him. "They were saved by an angel. We were all saved by an angel!" he said.

I walked to the edge of the road and looked down, perhaps a thousand feet into the valley below. Then I turned and looked up at the rugged, slide-ridden mountainside above, where, in a blinding typhoon-driven storm, two men experienced God's shared power and mercy.