A jukung is a traditional Indonesian boat.

The jukung in this story looked like any regular jukung. It wasn’t a special color. It wasn’t a special length. It didn’t have a special engine.

But it had a special passenger.

Pastor Eduard saw the jukung arrive at the island where he lived. He saw government medical workers get off the boat and visit his village. Then he saw the medical workers preparing to leave on the jukung. He asked where they were going and learned that they were traveling to an island where he wanted to go. On the island lived three Seventh-day Adventist families who didn’t have their own church. They also didn’t have their own boats to travel to an island with a church. They met in one of their homes to worship on Sabbath. But now it was the end of the quarter and they wanted Pastor Eduard to come and worship with them.

Pastor Eduard didn’t have a boat of his own, so he asked the medical workers if he could travel with them on their jukung to the island.

They agreed, and the jukung set off on Friday afternoon.

Roooooooooaaaaaarrrrrr! The jukung sped across the surface of the water. The wind felt good on Pastor Eduard’s face. He looked forward to worshiping with the villagers.

But then a storm struck. The rain fell hard. The wind blew fiercely. But the boat kept speeding through the rough waters.

Roooooooooaaaaaarrrrrr!

Suddenly the Roooooooooaaaaaarrrrrr! stopped. The engine fell silent. Pastor Eduard and the medical workers and the boat captain looked at one another. All they could hear was the pounding of the rain and the howling of the wind.

The boat captain yanked on a cord to try to restart the engine. Nothing happened. He tried again. Yank! Yank! Nothing happened.

The jukung stopped speeding across the water. Now it was at the mercy of the wind and the waves. It tossed back and forth like a cork on the water. An hour passed. Then two hours. Three hours. Four hours.

The medical workers were scared. All were crying. They had heard stories about boats sinking in storms, and they were afraid that they were going to die. One woman who wasn’t a Christian, remembered that Pastor Eduard was a Christian who believed in Jesus, and she begged him to pray for the jukung.

At that moment, Pastor Eduard heard a voice. The voice was soft and gentle. Yet he could hear it above the roar of the rain and wind. It said, “Tell the boat captain to connect the fuel hose to the other fuel tank.”

On the jukung were two fuel tanks, a regular fuel tank and a back-up fuel tank for emergencies. The tanks provided fuel for the boat engine to run.

Pastor Eduard was surprised to hear the voice, but he didn’t argue. He felt like he had to obey. Even though he didn’t know anything about boats, he went to the captain and told him to remove the fuel hose from the regular fuel tank and connect it to the back-up fuel tank.

The captain had already tried connecting the hose to the back-up fuel tank. But he didn’t argue. He also felt like he had to obey. He immediately pulled the hose out of the regular fuel tank and connected it to the back-up tank.

Then Pastor Eduard called the captain and medical workers to join him in praying to Jesus. The medical workers stopped crying as they strained their ears to listen to the prayer.

“Lord Jesus, our lives really are in Your hands of mercy,” the pastor prayed. “Your will be done.”

Then he turned to the captain. “Start the engine,” he said.

The captain pulled the cord to restart the outboard engine. Yank!

A split second passed, and the engine sprang to life. Chuff-chuff-chuff-rrrOOOAAARRR!

All the medical workers, including the woman who didn’t believe in Jesus, exclaimed at the same time, “Praise the Lord!”

The rain didn’t stop, and the wind didn’t die down. But the engine kept roaring, and the jukung reached the island safely.

The medical workers immediately told everyone on the island that Jesus had saved their lives.

That Sabbath was an extra-special day for Pastor Eduard. Not only did he celebrate communion on the island, but he also had his own special mission story to tell.