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Desert Encounter

By Rev Chris Shreeve

I was brought up as an Anglican, spending the first twelve years of my life regularly attending a local Sunday school. When I was about twelve, all of my family except my father became members of the Mormon Church [more properly called ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’]. I attended their services each Sunday, and was a fully committed member when I joined the Royal Air Force in 1964.

I maintained my church attendance during my early years in the RAF until, shortly after being commissioned, I joined the Boy Scout movement. I was soon wholeheartedly involved. I still went to church, if scouting permitted, but that wasn’t too often. Meanwhile, a number of doubts and questions began to arise. These questions became stronger and stronger, especially when I went to non-Mormon churches, or talked to people with different backgrounds of religious faith. I fought shy of answering such questions as: What did I want from life? Where was I going? Were all men equal? Was I good?  At the time my work, plus active involvement in both scouting and amateur dramatics, occupied me enough to keep me shielded from such uncomfortable thoughts.

In 1973 a signal arrived at my unit asking for volunteers to serve with the Royal Saudi Air Force. I did not meet any of the stringent criteria required for the duty except that I had the specialist aircraft engineering knowledge. I applied, and to my delight was accepted and sent to an RSAF base in the middle of the Saudi Arabian oil fields. My friends all warned me there would be no opportunities there to continue in the activities I was used to.

Within seven days of arrival, I was the deputy scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America troop at the local oil company base, and a member of the local expatriate 'underground' Christian group. My lifestyle changed to suit the climate. In that autumn, the Arab nations declared war on Israel, in what came to be called the 'Yom Kippur war.' When that crisis passed, life became settled again.  I could get on with my job—which I thoroughly enjoyed—and with my off duty activities.

In March 1974 my boss went on leave and left me his company car—a real bonus. Now I could go off into the desert and take part in a scouts' camp for the first time since I had joined them. I had to have my own transport since they went out Wednesday night and my duties meant I couldn't follow until Thursday afternoon. The day came, and I set off to find the boys and the other leaders.  I had clear instructions to follow.  It was not easy to navigate in a desert, so markers were erected at major road junctions and communities to help travellers. However, someone had built a new road, which meant that when I should have turned third left to find the scouts, I turned second left—and got lost! What is more, I got lost in a car without a shovel, sand tracks or any safety kit except enough water for about eight hours and food for a day. In trying to locate the campsite, I not only became lost, I left the hard track and drove into the desert proper. Once I was clear of the track, and behind a sand dune, I bogged the car in up to the floor of the body. I realised my predicament after vainly trying to free the car. It was Thursday evening, the night before Friday, the Islamic day of prayer. We all had that day free, so no one would even start to look for me until Saturday. No one knew where to look as I was truly lost. I had enough water to last eight hours in the shade of the car. I had no map or compass to try to walk out by night. Result—PANIC!

When I came to my senses, I decided to pray for help. So I sat in the car and asked God to help me. I don't know why I prayed, or whether I thought I would be instantly rescued, but I prayed. As clearly as if someone was speaking to me, a voice told me that if I really believed in prayer, I would get out of the car, kneel down in the sand and pray. My rationalist mind refused to accept this, and I was amazed to find I was afraid someone might see me! Eventually I climbed out, knelt down and prayed for help, promising I would do whatever God expected of me in return. (Perhaps a "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" approach!)

After a while, an elderly Arab man came up behind my car, tutting and saying “This is bad!”   My limited Arabic knew those words!  He turned and called, and two younger Arab men came around the sand dune. They helped me recover the car back on to the hard track amid much “tutting.” When I tried to discover why they had come, one explained that “something” had told the old man [their father] to go out for a drive, which led them to drive along the track, and then to stop, and to walk around the sand dune. They refilled my water bottles, jumped into their car and drove away. I checked my car over and, finding nothing wrong, drove back to base and went straight away to see the minister serving our Christian group. He listened to my report of my experience, loaned me a Bible as I didn't have one, and sent me home to think about what I was doing with my life.

When my fellow Scout Leaders and I next met, they offered to take me out to dinner as compensation for missing my camping trip. They and their wives invited me for Easter Sunday night at the oil company restaurant.  Easter arrived, and I lived through the Easter story from Palm Sunday, through Gethsemane and Calvary with my new Christian friends. It brought home to me that I thought I knew what it was all about but had never joined it all up before. Easter Day came, and I met my friends for dinner. To my private dismay, when we reached the restaurant, it looked like everyone else had the idea of eating out as the queue went around the block!  I was worried about offending or embarrassing my hosts, but that night I got the conviction more and more that, whatever happened, I must go to the church service which started at 7.15 p.m. Eventually we got inside the doors at about 6.30 p.m. and I was really torn between being rude to my friends and not going to church.  At 7.00 p.m., as our meal arrived, I excused myself and started to run to where we held our church services.  I arrived in time to take in the whole service, which was about the experience of the two men on the road to Emmaeus.  They journeyed with Jesus, yet didn't recognise him for who he was. Our minister spoke about the one who “died that we might be forgiven” as God's gift to us, and ended asking if anyone there now realised that they had been journeying with Jesus but hadn't recognised him? As the meaning of that sank in, I went to see our minister after the service and asked him how I could give my life to Christ who had died for me. He explained, and that evening I handed over my life to Christ in the dressing room of the cinema/theatre we worshipped in, in a country where public Christianity was forbidden!

Note: During my time in the mid 1970s in Saudi Arabia, there was an unwritten acceptance that expatriates could live out their Christian faith privately, although very strict rules prevented any contact with the majority Islamic population. The situation for Christians—both indigenous and expatriate—in Saudi Arabia is very difficult now (2004]. The Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq, Al Queda and the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism has led to the Saudi authorities to severely restrict any form of Christian worship or fellowship for expatriates. For indigenous Christians, their lives are at risk. Therefore, I have minimised references to the country to a minimum as I would not wish any person there to be harmed by any follow up to my testimony.

© The Reverend Chris Shreeve July 1977 and January 2004

Now published in

This work is in effect a sequel to Touched by God: Testimonies of Christian Power, which brought together seven inspirational stories of God’s supernatural intervention in the lives of Christian believers—testimonies that presented extra-biblical proof of God’s divine power and love in the lives of Christian believers.