|
|---|
There is no explanation for it, except that God looks after him.
Doug is a dentist. Possibly the best-known Seventh-day Adventist dentist in Australia. Whereever he goes, the rain virtually never falls on him.
Every year Doug does volunteer missionary work in the Solomon Islands. The tropics are known for their heavy rain. Doug has treated many thousands of patients in the open air there. But it has never rained on his work.
However, there was one significant exception to this. One day the seas were too rough for the boat carrying Doug to land at the village where his next dental clinic was scheduled. While Doug was on the boat offshore, it started to rain.
This time the rain helped. It flattened the seas, and the boat was able to land for him to run the dental clinic.
No rain on church building
Doug was the senior elder at Boolaroo Seventh-day Adventist Church, a church in the suburbs of Newcastle, Australia's sixth largest city. Doug and his church members decided to build a new church.
The members worked on that new church building every Sunday morning for many months. During that extended period, never once did it rain on them.
Sometimes it rained before they started work on the building. Sometimes it rained after they finished. And sometimes while they were still working, it rained in adjoining suburbs. But never did it rain at the building site at the times when Doug and his fellow church members were building.
Cancelled for cyclone
Probably Doug's most amazing rain experience was when a cyclone was threatening the Solomon Islands. It was a time that he was scheduled to be there and run his outdoor dental clinics in village after village across the islands.
The cyclone obviously meant it was going to be very wet. So Doug delayed his annual missionary trip that year.
When he later arrived in the Solomons, locals asked him why he hadn't come at the scheduled time.
"Because of the rain from the cyclone," he replied.
"It never rained at any of the places you were supposed to be at the times you were supposed to be there," they told him.
That was good enough for Doug. It was clear to him then that even the rain from a cyclone was not going to stop him from running his outdoor dental clinics.
From that time on Doug went for his annual missionary trip to the Solomons -- rain, hail, or cyclone.
He continued holding his free outdoor dental clinics for many years, never collecting one cent for his work.
And in return, it seems, he was paid by the knowledge that God was so much with him in his efforts, that it wouldn't even rain on him.