The Harper Family
The night the Titanic sank in 1912, on April 14th, 1,528 people went into the frigid waters. After putting his only daughter on a lifeboat, John Harper was seen swimming frantically to people in the water, leading them to Jesus before the hypothermia became fatal.
Rev. Harper swam up to one young man who had climbed up on a piece of debris. Rev. Harper asked him between breaths, “Are you saved?” The young man replied that he was not. Harper then tried to lead him to Christ only to have the young man, near shock, reply no. John Harper then took off his life jacket, threw it to the man, and said, “Here then, you need this more than I do…” and swam away to other people.
A few minutes later, Harper swam back to the young man and succeeded in leading him to salvation. Of the 1,528 people that went into the water that night, six were rescued by the lifeboats. One of them was this young man on the debris.
Four years later, at a survivor’s meeting, this young man stood up and, in tears, recounted how John Harper had led him to Christ. Rev. Harper had tried to swim back to help other people, yet because of the intense cold, had grown too weak to swim. His last words before going under in the frigid waters were, “Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
Does Hollywood remember this man? No. Oh well, no matter. This servant of God did what he had to do. While other people were trying to buy their way onto the lifeboats and were selfishly trying to save their own lives, John Harper gave up his life so that others could be saved.
John Harper knew what it meant to live life with urgency. (Credit: Pastor Danny Zorn).
Wade,
Great story. As the ship sank, I believe the band members were hero’s as they went to their death playing the song, “Closer my God to Thee”.
Of the 706 survivors and more than 1,500 that died, wonder if that song caused any to ask God for eternal life?
Wade,
The picture of the Titanic hitting the iceberg head on would not have sunk it because the damage would be ABOVE the waterline of the ship.
The iceberg had a huge amount of ice below the top of the water. (I’ll call this ice a ‘knife’.) The pilot of the ship swerved to miss the iceberg and in doing so, the ‘knife’ cut through the ship below its waterline from one end to the other. Thus the ‘waterproof’ compartments were exposed to the ocean.
I love your sense of history! You are correct about the “iceberg” and the hymn! I used the picture because it was royalty-free, which is more important to a small non-profit than accuracy. 🙂 Also, the hymn “Closer My God to Thee” is one of my favorites!
I went on a mission trip with a group from First Baptist Church in Bonham, Texas. Our leader was its pastor. We went to Kyrgyzstan that’s located between Russia and China. We flew on a large airplane to a big town, and then a short distance on a small plane. I griped that my seatbelt was held together by wire. Another said I shouldn’t grip because he didn’t even have one.
The people were Muslims. It was the poorest country in the world. The plan was for us to build a building that could show movies. The movies would be about Jesus, but the permit was canceled by the time we arrived.
A Baptist missionary family was there. He used a different building to have church services. Three weeks before we arrived, Muslims surrounded their building and whipped everyone; including children.
As a disguise in witnessing to people, we divide into two teams. One team would ‘beautify’ their park, and the other asked a university if we could help them. They said they needed more bookshelves. I was on the book-shelf team. We bought plywood from a ‘flee-market’. It was like going back in time a hundred years; the plywood was delivered in a wagon pulled by horses.
We used the missionary’s ping-pong table for a work bench and cut with a hand saw. I’d brought a battery-operated drill motor, and we used that to screw the wood together. It was fortunate their electricity was the same that would recharge the battery. The missionary appreciated me leaving the drill motor with him.
One day the young son of the missionary told him, “Rex is teaching me to play ping-pong.” (I’d previously won some ping-pong tournaments.) “REX CAN’T TEACH YOU ANYTHING!” (He was referring to their dog, Rex.)
The team that ‘beautified’ their park cut the grass ‘American style’, but the people were angry because they wanted the grass tall.
One day, too much plywood was put on the ping-pong table, and its legs pushed through the table. Pastor said, “It’s OK”. Before we left, I replaced its top with plywood.
The missionary got a Muslim 20-year-old boy to interpret for us. He told me it was against their religion to drink alcohol, but most didn’t abide by it. I told him I’d never had a drink in my life. He was shocked. Before we left, the missionary told us he had accepted Jesus.
As we were boarding the small airplane, I heard a young voice yell, “Thanks for fixing the ping-pong table.”
I (Rex Ray) went on a mission trip with a group from First Baptist Church in Bonham, Texas. Our leader was its pastor. We went to Kyrgyzstan that’s located between Russia and China. We flew on a large airplane to a big town, and then a short distance on a small plane. I griped that my seatbelt was held together by wire. Another said I shouldn’t grip because he didn’t even have one.
The people were Muslims. It was the poorest country in the world. The plan was for us to build a building that could show movies. The movies would be about Jesus, but the permit was canceled by the time we arrived.
A Baptist missionary family was there. He used a different building to have church services. Three weeks before we arrived, Muslims surrounded their building and whipped everyone; including children.
As a disguise in witnessing to people, we divide into two teams. One team would ‘beautify’ their park, and the other asked a university if we could help them. They said they needed more book shelves. I was on the book-shelf team. We bought plywood from a ‘flee-market’. It was like going back in time a hundred years; the plywood was delivered in a wagon pulled by horses.
We used the missionary’s ping-pong table for a work bench, and cut with a hand saw. I’d brought a battery-operated drill motor, and we used that to screw the wood together. It was fortunate their electricity was the same that would recharge the battery. The missionary appreciated me leaving the drill motor with him.
One day the young son of the missionary told him, “Rex is teaching me to play ping-pong.” (I’d previously won some ping-pong tournaments.) “REX CAN’T TEACH YOU ANYTHING!” (He was referring to their dog, Rex.)
The team that ‘beautified’ their park cut the grass ‘American style’, but the people were angry because they wanted the grass tall.
One day, too much plywood was put on the ping-pong table, and its legs pushed through the table. Pastor said, “It’s OK”. Before we left, I replaced its top with plywood.
The missionary got a Muslim 20-year-old boy to interpret for us. He told me it was against their religion to drink alcohol, but most didn’t abide by it. I told him I’d never had a drink in my life. He was shocked. Before we left, the missionary told us he had accepted Jesus.
As we were boarding the small airplane, I heard a young voice yell, “Thanks for fixing the ping-pong table.”
One day the young son of the missionary told him, “Rex is teaching me to play ping-pong.” (I’d previously won some ping-pong tournaments.) “REX CAN’T TEACH YOU ANYTHING!” (He was referring to their dog, Rex.)
The team that ‘beautified’ their park cut the grass ‘American style’, but the people were angry because they wanted the grass tall.
One day, too much plywood was put on the ping-pong table, and its legs pushed through the table. Before we left, I replaced its top with plywood.
The missionary got a Muslim 20-year-old boy to interpret for us. He told me it was against their religion to drink alcohol, but most didn’t abide by it. I told him I’d never had a drink in my life. He was shocked. Before we left, the missionary told us he had accepted Jesus.
As we were boarding the small airplane, I heard a young voice yell, “Thanks for fixing the ping-pong table.”
Wade,
I’ve passed out over a thousand of my father’s World War Two stories. Recently, I’ve added an unusual story:
Dad was a Chaplain and a Captain. His assistant, Jack was a Private, and had a ‘Hitler mustache’. Dad had asked him to shave it off many times since no one else had one, but he wouldn’t do it. After sleeping in ‘foxholes’ many weeks, they came to a barn full of hay. Everyone slept as dead.
Except some that resented Jack not complying to Dad’s request, got ‘droppings’ from a chicken-house next to the barn. While Jack was asleep, they smeared his mustache.
Next morning when Jack woke up, they started talking how bad the barn smelled. They were disappointed when Jack didn’t say anything, but they laughed their heads off when he went outside and said, “The whole world stinks.” (He shaved it off.)