Sudden Death

Manning Village is on the windward side of St. Vincent, and, as a result of torrential rains in December of 2013, a landslide roared down the mountain, crushing homes. Joy, who I know very well, loves the Lord, along with her two sons. She, her two boys and her husband lived in Manning Village in a home clinging to the side of the mountain. The night of the storm she and the two boys were in the front of their small house as the rain came down in torrents and lightning flashed continually for several hours. Joy’s husband was in the bedroom at the back of the house facing the mountain. Suddenly there was a great rumble as dirt, trees and rock came cascading down on their home. Several days later I visited Joy, who was by that time staying with her sister in a nearby village. She told us that the back of the home was completely flattened, and her husband probably died instantly. The saddest part of the story is that her husband wasn’t saved. He certainly had heard the gospel from his wife and sons. I with others had visited that family on a number of occasions and always left some gospel tracts. There were gospel verse texts hanging on the wall, but as far as we know Joy’s husband had no time for Christ. It’s essential that you are like Joy and not her husband. “Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:1212Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (Amos 4:12)).