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The time God saved me from falling into a river.
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Remember the two sisters mentioned earlier? Here’s a story with them, a neighbor and me.

We were hanging out and walking on a sandy forest trail, when we came upon a bridge and decided to take a break there. We were looking at the shallow sparkling water as it flowed out from under the bridge.

Somehow, we got the idea to take a handful of dry sand and pour it into the creek a couple of meters below. Watching it slowly sink and being carried a little ways under the water.

One handful turned into several, and it was very fun. But our small hands could only hold so much, so we got the brilliant idea of taking off our shoes and fill them with the sand instead, as they could hold much more, and then pour the sand out into the creek.

That was even more fun, because we could pour for longer and almost make a steady sand water-fall.

And then the neighbor girl accidentally dropped my shoe.

I panicked because I was afraid my mom would get mad at me, but one of the sisters snapped me out of it by tugging on my shirt and pointed to the neighbor girl, who was silently staring out at the water, but had tears streaming down her face.

Quickly regretting blurting my concerns out loud like that, I tried to make her feel better. Telling her it was okay and that we would figure something out. She was also the youngest among us.

So all 4 of us looped around the bridge, ran down the slope and started chasing after the shoe down the creek. The water getting murkier and faster as the creek widened and deepened into a river.

Staying on land, we tried using sticks to fish the shoe in, but eventually I had to go into the edge of the water to reach at all.
(Hey, my shoe, my problem).

Caught it pretty much last second. Not too much further ahead was an iron grate. The bars wide enough for a shoe to slip through, but not wide enough for a child.

The waters were strong, so after getting my shoe flung onto dry land, we all cheered. They were on the one side, I was on the other.

But the grassy, muddy ledge gave way, causing me to sink waist deep into the water.

Now, scared and clinging on for dear life, unable to get up on my own, it took everything I had just to stay still and not slip further down stream.

Somehow, the older sister (who was still younger than me), managed to run from the other side of the river, quickly reach me and pull me up and out from the steep mud-slope.

We all took a moment to breathe, then happily gave thanks to God for making the sister fast and strong enough to save me.

We all walked back to the bridge, then parted ways to go home. Me, soaking wet and barefoot, carrying my shoes by their laces. But grateful for how things turned out.

If you’re curious, once I got home and explained to my mom what had happened, she just chuckled and said that if the shoe had been gone, it would have been gone, and that we would just have bought me a new pair. XD
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