“The Lord’s faithful promises are your armor and protection.” ~ Psalm 91:4
It was December 1941; America’s isolation from war just ended.
For the young men from a little church in the tiny town of Seadrift, Texas,
something truly miraculous was about to happen.
When World War II
began, fifty-two men (one-fifth of the village’s entire population), joined the
service to defend both the United States and our allies from the Axis powers.
They served in combat divisions in every WWII theatre. Every branch of the
military was represented.
Pastor Robert Caddell,
along with the mothers, wives, and those too old and too young to enlist in the
military, started a prayer meeting every Tuesday at 10:00 am. The weekly prayer
meetings quickly turned into daily prayer meetings.
The parishioners,
including the children, drew comfort from the 91st Psalm, reading it
aloud at each meeting. It reminded them that God was ultimately in control of
the situation and the circumstances of every person involved in the war effort.
Mothers and fathers
prayed for their sons, wives for their husbands, brothers and sisters for their
siblings, and thus the name, Seadrift Intercessors. Some participated in D-Day,
the rescue of the Philippines, and island hopping across the Pacific Ocean. Heartbreaking
rumors and stories surfaced about the conditions of war, but that only
strengthened their resolve to fervently continue praying.
Take, for example, the
Gaines brothers - Lonnie and Ora, whose young faces smiled from the prayer
collage. Lonnie's ship had one of the most heart-rending jobs in the Pacific -
searching for survivors of ships sunk in battle. Prayer did see him through.
"We never lost a man off our ship," he said, "but we came damned
close."
Meanwhile, his brother
was on a huge tugboat that sank quickly off the Alaskan coast. Seadrift
intercessors were praying for him that day too. They all managed to escape the
frigid North Pacific waters unharmed. “God spared our lives that day,” he said.
“It’s the only reason we survived.”
When Germany
surrendered and Japan was defeated, every Seadrift soldier returned home alive
and uninjured, even though hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed on
those battlefronts.
The little church
continues its prayer mission to this day. The picture collage still hangs on
the church’s wall in Seadrift, reminding them that God still hears and answers
prayer.
Men from this same
church served courageously in every major military conflict since then: Korea,
Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and the Liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Each time, the
church prayed. God responded. And they all came back home safely.
