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"Dad, do you think God is trying to tell you something?" I asked as we prepared to go moose hunting early one cold November morning.

Things hadn't been going well on my family's northern Alberta pig farm, and Dad's office job with an airline just wasn't fulfilling. It seemed he was doomed to struggle at everything he tried. Either that, or God had something in mind that Dad didn't want to consider.

"I don't know, April," was his guarded reply. But I pressed on.

"Do you think he wants you to go back into the ministry?" There, it was out. Mom and I had talked this over numerous times and agreed that he was a gifted pastor. Nevertheless, he'd been out of the pastorate for 10 years and out of full-time ministry for two.

My question provoked only silence. I knew I'd pushed far enough. The topic never came up again.

The following week, back at Mountain View Bible College in Didsbury, I prayed earnestly and often for Dad and Mom. "God, please direct them in the way you want them to go. Please get Dad's attention."

This is your answer, God?
The next Friday morning, November 11, one week after Dad and I had been hunting, my voice lesson was interrupted by a knock at the door. Two professors and a counselor walked in and surrounded me. I instantly felt sick.

"Your dad has been in a hunting accident." I looked into each face as they watched the horror spread across mine. "He's in the Athabasca Hospital. They have to rush him to the city (Edmonton)." They began praying as I stood there in shock.

How bad was it? I had to know more. How? Where? Why? I couldn't concentrate. I just needed to get to my dad. They finished praying, and I scrambled for the door. "I have to go. I need to pack".

I tried to push past, but Carolyn, the counselor, took my arm and led me to the dorm. An announcement over the campus loudspeaker stopped us mid-stride: "April, you have a phone call in the Administration Building." I ran as fast as I could to the secretary's desk.

As I was handed the phone, my own fears mounted as I listened to the fear in my grandmother's voice. "How are you doing, honey?"

"Grandma, where's Dad?"

"He's on the way to Edmonton by ambulance."

"Is he going to live? How bad was he hurt?"

Silence.

"Grandma?"

"He was shot through the chest. It's really bad." I screamed and collapsed on the floor. My father was a dead man. No one could survive a high-powered rifle shot through the chest. "Who shot him?"

"Roy."* The anger and pain was so tight in my chest I couldn't breathe. Shot by his own friend? I didn't understand.

"Aunt Janette is coming to pick you up. We'll see you when you pick us up. Pray as you come. He's in God's hands, so we must pray."

Praying! That's the cause of this mess. I prayed to get Dad's attention, but this wasn't much of an answer. You can't get someone to listen if they're dead.

But as I left the office, in between the questions in my head, I did pray: "God, where are you in this? Please, you can't take him, not yet!"

Mistaken for a moose
The drive north to Edmonton took almost three hours, including the stop to pick up my grandparents. The car was so quiet. No one said Dad would be okay, and I knew why. No one expected him to survive. I noticed Grandma was praying, and I desperately began bargaining with God.

As we walked down the corridors of the city hospital, I felt like I was about to be read a death sentence. Finally, I saw my mother. We ran to each other, embraced, and cried. She'd been crying a lot, I could tell. But she also had a peace I could sense but couldn't understand.

"Mom, what's going on? When can I see Dad?"

"He'll be in surgery for at least four hours. You won't be able to see him until after that." She then told me the story.

Dad and Roy had split up to flush out moose on our property. Roy thought he saw one in the willows as he headed back to the meeting point around daybreak. He observed the movement for several minutes, believed it to be a moose, and fired. He hit my father, who'd been hiding in the heavy brush.

When Roy found him, Dad told him to get the three-wheeler (all-terrain vehicle), which Dad then rode to the truck. They headed for the local hospital, where he received blood transfusions to stabilize him before being sent to Edmonton. It was too cold (below 0 degrees Farenheit) for the emergency helicopter to fly, so he was taken by ambulance. On arrival he went immediately into emergency surgery.

"April, honey, God has given me peace," Mom said. "Now we must pray he'll give you peace no matter what happens."

As soon as we started praying, an overwhelming peace did fill me. I knew my dad would be okay. It was as if God said, "You put your Dad's situation in my hands, now don't try to take it back." Even my anger at Roy dissolved, and just in time.

Minutes later, Roy walked through the door. His fear and anguish were obvious. I hadn't considered how he must have felt after shooting his friend. And now he was facing his friend's family. How courageous! God's strength enabled me to walk up and hug him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in my ear. "I just … "

"It's okay. Everything will be okay. We are going to witness a miracle," I said.

Miracle man of Edmonton
The operation lasted five hours. The doctors didn't offer any hope and were surprised he made it through the surgery. The surgeon spoke of complications, tremendous blood loss, damaged liver, pancreas, and gall bladder. The first 24 hours were critical.

By 9 p. m., I was looking at my father's swollen face. He was barely recognizable from all the tubes in his body. I sobbed as the reality of it all hit me again.

The next morning I sat by his bed and held his hand. His eyes opened to narrow slits.

"Hi Dad! You're awake! How are you?" I asked without thinking how dumb a question that was.

His eyes blinked intentionally and I realized he was trying to communicate. "Dad, are you trying to talk?"

His eyes blinked again, slowly and painfully, but purposefully. "Dad, I'll say the alphabet, you blink when I'm right."

I grabbed a pen and slowly went through the alphabet. Soon I had a word written: p-e-p-s-i. "Dad, you can't have a Pepsi," I laughed. He spelled out another word: d-i-e-t. My heart sang. My dad was alive, and he had his sense of humor.

From that moment on, we watched the miracles happen. The doctors said he would be in intensive care for two weeks. He was out in three days and walking in five.

A few days before his release, Dad's surgeon came to visit. "You've beat every odd possible," he said. "I've called you my miracle man all along. There has to be a God, because someone has been looking out for you."

My whole family praised God for his recovery, and I soon discovered God was answering my prayer through the accident. As my dad lay bleeding, thinking he would die, he felt as if he were going to be meeting his Lord with empty hands, he told us later.

So he told God that if he saw fit to get him out of this mess, he would fully dedicate the rest of his life to the ministry. He'd told my mom this at the hospital in Athabasca, making him accountable to her as well.

In 1990, about two years after the accident, my father volunteered as a youth pastor. A year later, he became pastor at Cremona Evangelical Missionary Church in southwestern Alberta, a position he's held ever since. His life is a living testimony that there's nothing God cannot do.

Editor's note: Unfortunately, April's father, Steve Budd, contracted Hepatitis C from tainted blood he received in transfusions after the accident. He was diagnosed in 1999, and will be taking a leave of absence from the pastorate to go through a tough, year-long treatment.

"I don't know what the outcome will be, but I know God has been good to me the last 10 years," he says. "If I go before him this time, I won't feel like I'm going before him with empty hands."

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