Pam Padgett ... teacher
My older sister had been at college two years when I started attending
the same school. She dated a man who was a member of a fraternity, and
had been invited to become a member of the fraternity's "women's
auxiliary", assisting with fraternity social functions. She was very
excited for me to join the social circles she was in, and especially
wanted me to meet members of the fraternity.
The first week of school she invited me to go to a student bar where
many of the fraternity guys gathered on Thursday nights. I went, but
found what was going on there to be so bad (lewdness, drunkenness, etc.)
that I was unable to stay and walked back to the dormitory.
A week or so later my sister asked if I'd go to an outdoor luau with one
of the freshmen "pledges" at the fraternity. The luau site was about
20 miles away near a river, and there would be a campfire. The setting
was very appealing to me, plus I was excited about having a date, and I
agreed to go.
Then, a few days before the luau, my sister told me that arrangements
had been made for one of the other fraternity guys to take me to the
luau because my date would be spending the day at the luau site building
a hut for us ... a young man I had never even met was building a hut "for us"!
Suddenly the reality of this luau became very clear to me.
This was not going to be people sitting around a campfire roasting
marshmallows. The lewdness and drunkenness I had seen at the student
bar was probably mild compared to what would be going on at this luau
... and I wouldn't be able to walk home.
I told my sister that I couldn't go along with this and did not want to
go, but she kept insisting that it was too late for me to back out, that
it was too late for this guy to find another date.
I turned very strongly to God, asking Him to somehow get me out of this
situation, but there seemed no way out. At one point I asked God to
let me have appendicitis, preferring to be in a hospital having surgery
than to go to this luau.
The morning of the luau I woke up and checked to see if I might have any
pain that might indicate appendicitis, and was disappointed that I felt
fine. I kept praying for God to somehow work this out. Time was
really running out! When I looked outside, it was raining a little, but
not much. However, the rain became heavier and heavier as the day went
on.
Around 2 pm I received a call from the fraternity guy who was going to
take me to the luau site. He told me how sorry he was to have to tell
me this, but the luau had to be cancelled. The luau site had been
totally flooded, washing away all the huts that had been built, this would include the hut my date had built for us..
He told me how many years the luau had been held at this same site (a
lot of years), and that nothing like this had ever happened before.
I rejoiced, knowing that God had delivered me!