In the country of Indonesia there is a small group of islands called the Sangir islands. The largest island in the group is called Great Sangir.
Our story takes us back about 150 years ago. On this small island was a village by the seaside. The Chief of the village was named Meradin, and his faithful medicine man and witch doctor was named Tama. The two worked closely together to keep the villagers healthy and happy.
Across the bay was a large volcano that was quite active. Every day it rumbled a little and spewed out some rocks and a little lava. The chief had considered moving his villagers to another part of the island for safety, but the villagers did not want to move. This was their home and their livelihood. Besides, that volcano had been rumbling a little for many years, longer than any of them remembered, so they sensed little danger. Besides it was far on the other side of the bay, at least four km distant.
One day, as the monthly supply ship came to deliver goods, a Christian missionary and his family arrived on the ship with all their belongings. The chief was not happy to see this strange white man. Communication was quite difficult as neither spoke each other’s language; however, the chief understood that the man wanted a piece of land to build a house. Chief Meradin did not trust this man and refused to give him any land. The missionary, with his wife and two children, simply then went and built their house on the sand. They built a nice stone wall around the house. They also built a trough around the house which they lined with rocks and filled with soil so that they could plant a garden.
Every morning and evening the man and his family gathered for worship and they loved to sing. Their singing could be heard in the village. This singing was new and strange to the villagers, but it had a beautiful sound and it made them feel peaceful and happy.
As time went on, the missionary slowly learned the language of the villagers and began inviting them to join them in their worship. Many of the villagers came, including the Chief’s son, Satoo. This made the chief and the witch doctor very unhappy. The missionary taught them of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He encouraged them in healthful living, and leaving off with evil habits. The chief did not like these new ideas as it was changing the customs of the people. No more feasting, dancing and drinking. Also, people were going to this missionary for their health concerns instead of to Tama, as they had done in the past. This made Tama even more angry.
Tama and Chief Meradin had to think of a plan to get the people away from the missionary as it seemed the missionary was not going to leave. The chief was most upset that his only son, the future chief, was fully involved with the Christian missionaries.
They came up with the idea to bring some Islamic teachers into the village so that the people would follow the Islamic faith and keep their customs, and stop going to hear the Christian missionary.
The plan partially worked. Many villagers went to join the Islamic teachers, but several families remained with the Christian missionary, including Satoo. It was noticeable that the Christians always seemed happy and the followers of Islam were often angry.
Tama himself noticed the difference and he was torn between the two. He had been enchanted by the little missionary girl. Marta was about five years old and very innocent and had been so kind to Tama that his heart softened towards her. He had a great battle raging in his mind. Tama even had a dream one night that Marta was calling him and there was light all around her. It filled him with peace. There was something beautiful about her faith, but Tama resisted still.
One day the volcano started to become much more active. The heaving, writhing volcano was like a gigantic animal dying in agony yet roaring and thundering and reaching in its torment to pull everything and everyone after it.
The villagers became worried. No one had slept for a few days now. Each moment the awful thing they waited for drew nearer, yet no one could say when it would arise and devour them.
Chief Meradin feared the worst and encouraged the villagers to leave the village for higher ground. However, he left the Islamic teachers in the village and told them to prevent the Christians from leaving the village. They must remain. This they did, and Tama also remained with the Islamic teachers. They looked with scorn on the little group of praying Christians in the missionary’s garden. Tama, alone of the whole group, tried to weigh the danger and hoped that nothing bad would happen to little Marta.
From the village Tama could hear the sweet singing coming from the Christian missionary’s house where all the Christians were gathered to sing and pray to God for protection. Marta, Marta, he could still see her among those singing people down there on the sand. Something drew him toward the house on the sand, but he resisted. A couple of days before he had been sure that he would follow the God of heaven. Now his mind filled with doubt, and his heart ached with sadness. The tempest in Tama’s mind threatened greater calamity to himself than the volcano.
The thunder under the ground suddenly rose in a tremendous roar. Every face grew pale. At that instant the solid earth of the mountain blew apart. Tama saw the whole northern half of the volcano explode into the sky and settle with a crashing hiss into the sea. He then took off like a flash running down to the Christian missionary’s house. The only thing he could think of was to save little Marta. Even as he ran he saw the ocean sucked back almost to the base of the volcano. Then a mighty wall of water piled higher and higher and rolled toward the shore. A mighty Tsunami threatened the Christians on the sand.
“Run! Run!” he gasped with his last breath as he reached the house. Couldn’t they hear? Couldn’t they understand? Oh what madness!
He grabbed Marta and clutched her to him. He turned to the low rock wall. Could he make it back up the hill to safety?
No, it was too late. The big missionary laid a heavy hand on Tama’s shoulder and drew him into the midst of the group of singing people, just as the enormous wave broke with deafening thunder on the beach in front of the little house on the sand.
Even as the wave struck, the words of the song lifted about Tama:
“A mighty mountain is our God,
A wall that will not falter. . . “
Tama shut his eyes and clutched the child in terror. Thunder crashed overhead, and then he looked. “The wall!” he cried. “The wall that will not falter!”
The mountainous wave suddenly divided just below the gate of the missionary’s garden and passed by on both sides outside the low rock fence. It stood up to heaven, surely the height of three palm trees, a green wall filled with fishing boats and huge driftwood logs, strange sea creatures, shells, and snarled tangles of seaweed.
The wave united into one just behind the teacher’s garden and Tama could not see how far it washed up the hill. In an instant it surged back into the ocean, and when the following wave came it reached only to the front gate of the garden.
Tama still held Marta in his arms, but weakness overcame him now and he sank to the salt grass and closed his eyes. Then Satoo, the chief’s son bent, over him. “Ah, Tama, God has saved you.” The boy’s voice broke with gladness. “God lifted up His wall and saved us all.”
Then all the Christian people gathered around him. Tama could see that they regarded his presence among them as a miracle equal to the miracle of the divided water. They looked up on him with love, and as they sang and praised God for the mighty deliverance, Tama knelt with them.
All around the missionary’s garden the wreckage of the tsunami was piled high, much higher than the whitewashed rock wall. Driftwood, seaweed, shells, and broken pieces of the houses from the slope of the hill mingled with sand, rocks, dead sea animals, and scraps of fishing boats. When they went to look, there were no houses left in the village, but most of the coconut palms still stood. Nothing remained of the Islam teachers’ houses and garden. Only the people who had fled to the high hills in the middle of the island survived and the little group of Christians who sang and prayed inside the teacher’s low rock wall.
Early the next day the village people came straggling back from the hills, but Tama and Satoo had already climbed the trail. They saw the chief round the bend in the path where he could see the destruction of the sea. He stood there like a man whose life had ended, although his body still stood upright and moved.
“My father, my father.” Satoo ran to him, and the chief’s arms went round him. He thought that both Satoo and Tama had perished.
Come, come and see!” Tama’s voice broke with joy and wonder. Tama explained all the events to Chief Meradin.
When the chief had seen all, he understood how the great wave had divided and destroyed everything, even the Islam missionary’s houses on the higher slope. He then called all the people who remained of his village and all the part of the island to see the miracle that the God of heaven had done.
“Listen to me,” he said. “This mountain and this wave were controlled by the God these people worship. The Islam teacher are swept away. Tama is here because he loved the missionary’s little girl.” “There is no god like their God, who is able to deliver him from the anger of the volcano and the great wave. So I make a proclamation that from this day we must follow this teaching and our children will follow after us. I, Chief Meradin, have spoken.”
Tama became the missionary’s helper from that very day and was stronger from God than he had been for the old witchcraft.
The villagers rebuilt their village and the volcano was silent and the ocean’s green water lay smooth and deep, deep as the peace that had come to Sangir, deep as the everlasting mercy of God.
When the villagers offered to clean up the debris from the sand around the house of the missionary, the missionary refused. He said he wanted the debris to remain as a memorial so that all will remember the mighty miracle that God performed on the day that the volcano erupted.
Years afterward, when Satoo was chief of the village and Tama an old man, scientists from Europe came to see the spot where the tidal wave had divided. These men from the big cities did not believe that such a thing had really happened, but when they saw the drift that remained on the sand, they knew that this story was true.
The God who divided the Red Sea and the Jordan River is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is still able to lead His people to victory through songs of praise ever as He did the armies of King Jehoshaphat in ancient times.
“A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing…”
Note: “Sangir Besar . . . is an island in the Sangir Islands group. Its Indonesian name literally means ‘Great Sangir’ . . . It was the scene of the violent eruption of Gunung Awu volcano in 2 March, 1856.”