Unthinkable Courageous Stories

Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 1Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 2Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 3Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 4FamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Out of the Depths Day 2 of 4 Guest:                           Ed Harrell From the Series:         Mercy at Sea________________________________________________________________ Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell was afloat in the Pacific.  His ship, the cruiser USS Indianapolis, had been sunk by Japanese torpedoes.  Many of the crew members had not escaped. Those who had, found themselves battling for their lives on the open seas with no help in sight.  What was in sight were sharks. Ed:                  You can't imagine, and I can't explain, you know, the feeling that you have.  You know that at any moment that the shark could get you, and you wonder, you know, am I going to be next?  You know, you pray and you pray more, and you pour your heart out to the Lord, and just hope and pray that somehow, some way, that He will be faithful to the promise that you feel that He's made to you and that you'll be able to endure. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 2nd.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll hear a powerful story today of courage and faith as we speak with one of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  I somehow missed this in my study of U.S. history.  I don't know that I ever was aware that on the night of July 30, 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II, a Japanese submarine, I-58, launched a spread of torpedoes at the USS Indianapolis in the Pacific Theater. Two of those torpedoes found their mark and, in less than 15 minutes, this cruiser sank in the Marianas, and there were almost 1,200 men on board the ship.  More than 800 of those men did not survive the attack or the days that followed that attack.  And I don't know, Dennis, that I'd ever heard about that battle or about the sinking of the ship, but it's truly a compelling story, especially when you consider that some 300 men were rescued days later. Dennis:          Yes, and we have one of those men who was rescued back with us.  Ed Harrell joins us again on FamilyLife Today.  Ed, welcome back. Ed:                  Thank you. Dennis:          I want to express my appreciation for you, as a veteran, just for serving our nation and also for coming here on our broadcast and telling the story, a dramatic story, of what has to be one of the most phenomenal survival stories, really, Bob, in all of the World War II and maybe in the history of the United States.  I mean, what you had to endure and go through.  But we'll get to that in just a moment.                          Ed is a businessman, was on the board of trustees of Moody Bible for a number of years.  He and his wife Ola [ph] have a couple of children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he is a survivor of the USS Indianapolis.  Ed, I want you to take our listeners back, because you shared earlier the story of standing on the deck of this boat – this great, massive boat, over 600 feet long, at midnight as it's sinking in less than 15 minutes.  What were you hearing at that moment?  It's pitch black, there's a little bit of light from the fires that are burning midship, but what was the sound like?  Was it of screams of people?  Were there explosions? Ed:                  There were still explosions going on for a good while.  In fact, when the ship actually went under there were still explosions that were taking place below deck.  I don't know that I'm waiting to listen to see what might be taking place.  I am eager to get off, and I make my way, then, to the port side and hung onto that rail and said my prayer before I entered into the water, and I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the Lord had, through the Spirit, was bearing witness with my spirit that He was with me and that I would make it, somehow, some way.                           I know, later on, when I was interviewed, they asked me, "What were you thinking out there?  Did you think that you were going to make it?"  And I said, "I thought of the 30-day leave that I would get for being a survivor and be able to go home," because I hadn't been home for a good while, and I was thinking about going home, frankly. Bob:                You had one what you've described as a kapok jacket, a life preserver, is that what that was? Ed:                  That's right. Bob:                And I guess I'm wondering – were there lifeboats on board the ship?  Were there inflatable rafts?  Was it "man the lifeboats?" Ed:                  No word of that kind was given.  In fact, you didn't have time, they didn't have time.  I could look up and see life rafts hanging, and those kapok jackets hanging, but no word was given to cut those loose, and I never saw a life raft.  There were floater nets, likewise, that later floated up, and they spread them out, and boys could somewhat stand in those – not completely, but at least it would keep the sharks from coming up through after them.  And then the life rafts, then, some of those floated loose, but I never saw a raft, I never saw one in the water the whole time. Dennis:          That first moment you hit the water, you burst through the surface, you got clear of the oil so you could breathe.  Did you begin swimming away from the sinking ship at that point?  I mean, again, to those of us who are laymen, a ship going down is supposed to create some kind of vacuum or – and suck survivors back down after it.  Did that occur? Ed:                  That was my thinking, and I was I a rush – not necessarily a good swimmer, but I was in a rush to get away from the ship, and I got away from it maybe 50 yards, then, to turn, then, to...

Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 1Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 2Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 3Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 4FamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Out of the Depths Day 3 of 4 Guest:                        Ed Harrell From the Series:       Survival in the South Pacific ________________________________________________________________  Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell was one of a few hundred men floating in the Pacific following the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.  In the four days that he was afloat, Ed saw some of his fellow sailors drift away from the group to be eaten by sharks.  Some who tried to swim toward an imaginary shore who never came back.  For Ed, the memories are vivid. Ed:                  I can see it today, and I think maybe I'd like to look at it and say that the Lord reminds me, even today, of those incidents, and as He reminds me of those, then they help to strengthen my faith and my resolve to live a life for Him today. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 3rd.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Where did Ed Harrell's hope come from when it appeared all reason for hope was gone?  Stay with us.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  You know, we've heard a story this week, Dennis, about a ship under attack.  And then we've heard about the ongoing horror and terror of living in the middle of the ocean, bundled up with your buddies, hooked with your lifejackets to one another as the sharks encircle you in the waters and wondering, "Does anyone even know we're out here or will we die at sea?"  No food, no fresh water except for a thundercloud that comes by and gives you a little bit of a rain shower.  You hear a story like this, and you wonder where does the will to survive in the midst of that come from?  I think of myself and think, "When would I just lay my head back and say, "Okay, I'm ready to die.  I'd rather do that than keep living like this." Dennis:          Yes, in fact, there's a story that Ed Harrell, who joins us again on FamilyLife Today.  Ed, welcome back to the broadcast. Ed:                  Thank you. Dennis:          There's a story you tell, Ed, of a Marine buddy who was ready to do the very thing Bob was talking about.  He was ready to quit, and you kind of – the picture I had from reading your book was you kind of grabbed him by the life jacket and looked him in the eyes, and you gave him a reason to believe. Ed:                  I pretty much gave him an ultimatum, really, in that he had tried to convince me that he was going to commit suicide.  He'd gone into the water head first and all of that oil in his eyes and then, you know, you can imagine – you take your hand, and you try to rub that oil out, but the more you rub your eye, you're rubbing salt in, and you're kind of taking that salt that's in the water, you're grinding your eyeballs with that.  And then the sun then, you know, beaming off of that water, then through the daytime.  By the second day, Spooner was determined that he was going to commit suicide, and he mentioned that two or three times.                         Anyway, I recall that I just got ahold of Spooner, and I turned him to me, and I kind of looked him squarely in the eye, and I said, "Spooner, there's only two of we Marines out here, and whenever a sailor is gone, there's still going to be two Marines, and you're going to be one of them with me," and I kind of turned him to me, and I fashioned – hooked his lifejacket then onto mine, and I swam with him then through that night, and then – it was sometime then the third morning that he wanted me to release him, and he made a vow to me that he would fight for life as long as there was breath in him because of him being able to survive as long as he had through that night, and I released him, then, the next day. Bob:                You and some 300 of your shipmates survived in the waters in the Pacific from the time that your boat was attacked just after midnight on the 30th of July in 1945 when the Indianapolis went under in about 15 minutes.  You survived for a period of, what was it, four days, five days? Ed:                  It was four-and-a-half days, yes. Bob:                And you survived that, as you've already shared with us this week, there was – was it just a single rain shower that passed over that gave you a little bit of water? Ed:                  Right, that's all the rain that we had the whole time I was out there, that's right. Bob:                So you're in salt water, you had a few tablespoons of fresh water in a four-and-a-half day period – any food? Ed:                  Well, let's come to the next day.  The third day, when there were 17 of us, and we had literally had a prayer meeting.  I mean, nearly everybody prayed. Bob:                You'd started with 80, and now you're down to 17. Ed:                  Right.   Dennis:          The sharks had picked off that many? Ed:                  That's right – well, sharks and – you mentioned somebody giving up – you know, I saw any number of boys that maybe at one minute you'd think, "Well, they're still alive," and just a little bit later you'd see that they just all of a sudden – seemingly, they just allowed their head to drop into the water, and they didn't have the energy to raise up, and they didn't care.  I recall that third day that we had had a prayer meeting, and everyone nearly was praying, and some would ask that you would pray for them, you know, they had – some had some children back home that they had never seen, and so on, and they were desperate to make it.  And, you know, "If you make it, and I don't make it, will...

Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 1Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 2Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 3Stranded in Shark Infested Waters - Part 4FamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Out of the Depths Day 4 of 4 Guest:                            Ed Harrell From the Series:         Ducks on the Pond: Rescued at Last________________________________________________________________ Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell and a number of other sailors were pulled from the Pacific.  They had survived four-and-a-half days afloat after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.  It's four days that, as you might imagine, Ed Harrell has never been able to forget. Ed:                  I have not had nightmares.  I've had many times that I've awakened and have a vivid scene of the happenings, and yet I think my counteraction to that is "Thank you, Lord, for sparing my life and for bringing me through all of this." Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 4th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll hear how God spared Ed Harrell's life today, and we'll hear a remarkable story about a rescue in the middle of the Pacific.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  You know, Hollywood has told some tales of castaways left on a desert island, folks surviving in the middle of nowhere, and I've seen some of those movies, and you watch them, and they're interesting.  They have never come close to telling the story that we've heard this week. Dennis:          No, I agree, Bob.  Ed Harrell has been with us all this week and has told a story, a compelling story of how God enabled him to survive an ordeal at sea after being a crew member on the USS Indianapolis, which was sunk on the night of July 30, 1945, by a Japanese submarine, and, Ed, I want to thank you again for your service as a veteran, but also for writing this book and for taking us there and giving us a greater appreciation not just for veterans and what they've done to protect our freedom as Americans but also for taking us there and showing us what tough-minded faith in Almighty God looks like.  Because time and time again you've taken us to vivid scenes where you've been at a fork in the road where you've had to trust God, and you'd been at sea for four days in a life jacket.  You'd only had a few tablespoons of water.  You had some rotten potatoes that had come after you'd prayed for some food; been separated from your buddies, and on the fourth day you are virtually alone. Ed:                  No question.  Even with my buddy at the time and, in fact, there were three of us at the tail end there that fourth day and the one then dropped his head in the water, and he's gone, and then it's just McKissock and myself.  And my mind, by now, is beginning to fail me somewhat in that – McKissock, I know, would say to me, "Hey, Marine, you ever been to the Philippines?"  And, "No, I've never been there."  Well, he had, and he promised to kind of take me under his wing when we got there.                          And yet I knew him.  I knew who he was.  I'd served under him, and he was a peach of a guy, and yet, to me, he was Uncle Edwin, and I called him Uncle Edwin.  I had an uncle two years older than me.  I guess I was thinking of the good times in my mind with someone back home, and yet McKissock was Uncle Edwin to me.                                                And then it was sometime then that afternoon, you know, we had seen the planes, heard them at 30,000 feet, and I say to McKissock, "I hear a plane."  And he said, "I hear one, too," and if you can imagine somewhat that you hear a plane, and you know that it's somewhere coming closer, and yet you don't know which direction it is.  And we began to look all around and, finally, we could detect that it's coming from that direction. Dennis:          Was it coming toward you? Ed:                  It was coming toward us, and it was flying about 8,000 feet and, well, what do you do?  I tell you what you do.  You scream, you splash water, you make all kinds of contortions there in the water, hoping and praying that he can see you.  But here he is flying over us, and had he come any further, he would have gone over us, but when he got, like a quarter of a mile or so out here, flying at 8,000 feet, he headed it straight down toward us as if he knew we were there.  But he didn't know we were there – impossible for him to see us.  If we'd had on deer-hunter orange, and he knew we were there, he could not have seen us.                         In fact, the pilot that later picked us up, he said the possibility of him seeing you would be the equivalent of taking the cross-section of a human hair and looking at the end of that human hair at 20 feet.  He said impossible for him to see us. Dennis:          So why did he go into the dive? Ed:                  Why did he go into the dive – that's the miracle of the angel coming for us, and that is the end of the fourth day.  Well, I've talked to Lieutenant Guinn [ph] at different times, and … Bob:                He was the pilot? Ed:                  He was the pilot, and he was flying out of Pulau, and he was flying a land-based plane, something like a B-20, a twin-engine plane, and as he was flying, he had left out that morning, and he had a problem with his antenna that kind of trails at the back of that aircraft.  And the stabilizer on that antenna had come off, and they had put something on, and he went out and tried it, and it didn't work.  They came back in, and then they put something on, and here they go again.                         So as he is flying over us, and here, as I mentioned, here he's coming just at a point that he could nearly dive right down to us, at that point he had gone back to the bomb bay door, a...

I Survived My Suicide - Part 1I Survived My Suicide - Part 2I Survived My Suicide - Part 3FamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Life in Spite of MeDay 1 of 3 Guest:                           Kristen Jane Anderson From the Series:         On the Edge of Hopelessness________________________________________________________________­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Bob:  Kristen Jane Anderson was 17 years old and was ready for life…to be over.  When she heard a ‘Freight Train’ approaching at the park where she was sitting; she decided to lay her body across the tracks. Kristen:  When the train stopped I wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead.  I remember just opening my eyes and unclenching my fists and starting to look around because I didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know what it was like to die!  Obviously I just had no idea what to think.   When I was looking around, I looked behind me; to my right…and I saw my legs about 10 feet behind me on my right.    Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, September 8th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife and I am Bob Lepine.   Kristen Jane Anderson joins with us today to share a remarkable story of survival and of faith. And welcome to FamilyLife Today!  Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. We are going to hear a remarkable story today.  A story of where there is hope!   Actually to start things off, I want to read a Bible verse.  This is one of my favorite Bible verses. Dennis:  I would feel better if you had a real Bible opened; I mean, instead of reading it off your iPhone. Bob:  I love carrying this around. Dennis:  You do!  You really do!  You get a grin on your face when you scroll down to the passage Bob: It is a little awkward when I am up front in my church reading from my iphone, but it is…. Dennis:  You do it there too?  Bob:  Yeah!  This is the way I read my Bible now.  And I love it!   Dennis:  Okay!  Bob:  1 Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen race a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession …. ‘(And this is the part that I love)’ …….that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” I think the story we are going to hear about this week is one of those out of darkness into marvelous light stories. Dennis:  I think you are right, Bob, and I think that our listeners; regardless if they are dealing with something troubling or challenging in their lives right now or rather if things are going well, they need to hear this story.  It is the story of a young lady who joins us on FamilyLife Today, Kristen Jane Anderson, joins us today on FamilyLife Today.  Kristen, welcome to the broadcast! Kristen:  Thank you for having me on. Dennis:  Kristen is a graduate of Moody, almost; right?   Kristen:  Right!  Dennis:  Almost a graduate of Moody Bible Institute!  She is a popular speaker to college students and women’s events all around the country.  She has been featured on Oprah, which we had some fun talking about before we came on the air here. Bob:  She was comparing you and Oprah …wasn’t she? Dennis:  She was!  She was! She was…. And you actually asked her, “which was a bigger treat, to be on our broadcast …… or her (Oprah) TV program? Bob:  And let’s move on shall we? Dennis:  She has written a book called, Life In Spite of Me.  I am just going to cut right to the chase here.   Kristen, I am going to ask you to take us to January 2.  You were in a park and it was dark and it was icy cold there and it was the most dramatic day of your life. Kristen:  Yes!  I was at the park and I was there because I didn’t feel like I could go home.  I didn’t want to go home.  I didn’t want to get in trouble and I thought I was going to disappoint my parents again.  I was at the park just kind of trying to waste time and to figure out what I was going to do next and I was swinging on the swings and as I was there I started to think about why I was there.   Why did I feel like I couldn’t go home?  Why did I feel the way that I did inside?  I was struggling and then I remembered that in the park that I was in that you were supposed to be out of the park after the sun goes down.  I knew that the police come and patrol the park and if you’re in the park after dark they make you leave.   The reason I was there is that I didn’t want to go home, so I looked around to see where else I could go and I saw that there had been a set of train cars parked on the edge of the park.  I knew that they had been there for about 3 weeks.  I walked over to the train cars and I sat on one of them.  Then I started to think about a thought process that I had had about 3 months beforehand.  It was after one of my friends had taken his life.  He had taken his life by hanging himself in the cemetery. Dennis:  You were 17 years of age? Kristen:  Right!  I had no idea how to handle it and I didn’t understand it.  I remember thinking, “I don’t know how he could ever do that.  How could he ever take his life?”  And then I thought, “I don’t know how he could do it the way that he did it, especially that way.”   But then my thought process changed and I started to think, “Well if I was ever going to do it, how would I do it?”  I went through a lot of different things in my mind that I had heard about in school or on TV; different ways people try to end their lives and none of them seemed like they would...