October 13 | Moments Almanac | Cave

Welcome to Moments Almanac for October 13th, and today we commemorate and celebrate a miraculous rescue. It all began on August 5th, 2010, deep beneath the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The earth began to move. 33 miners were working nearly half a mile underground in San Jose Mine when suddenly the mountain collapsed around them. A massive wall of rock sealed their escape. The lights went out. Dust filled the tunnels, and thirty-three men found themselves buried alive. Above them the world continued turning. Cars moved along the highways, children played in schoolyards, families prepared supper, but far beneath the surface, thirty-three men wondering if they would ever see another sunrise. Their emergency shelter had food intended to last only a few days. They rationed what little they had: a spoonful of tuna, a sip of milk, a few crackers, and they waited. One day passed, then two, then ten, then seventeen. Above ground, rescue teams drilled desperately into the mountain searching for some sign of life. The odds were terrible. The mountain was unstable. The men were buried more than 2,000 feet below the surface, and no one knew whether they would still be alive if they were ever reached. But the rescuers kept drilling. And then on August 22nd, something extraordinary happened. A drill bit finally reached the chamber where the men had taken refuge. When the drill returned to the surface, the rescuers discovered something attached to it. A small piece of paper, written in red ink, were seven Spanish words. Translated, We are well in the shelter. The thirty-three. All thirty-three were alive. Can you imagine that moment? Seventeen days of silence, seventeen days of uncertainty, and suddenly, from the depths of the earth, a message. We're still here. The news swept across Chile and around the world. Families wept, strangers embraced, church bells rang. But the celebration was only the beginning because finding the miners was one thing. Getting them out was something else entirely. Engineers designed a narrow rescue capsule, barely wide enough for a grown man to stand inside. They called it Phoenix, a fitting name for something that would rise from the depths. Teams worked around the clock, drilling a shaft large enough to bring them in to safety. Meanwhile, the miners established routines underground. They organized themselves, they exercised, they communicated with loved ones through small supply shafts, and they prayed. One miner, Jose Henriquez, became known as the spiritual leader of the group, helping organize prayer and Bible readings. In a place where the sun never shone, faith became one of the ways they held on to hope. And finally, after 69 days underground, the moment arrived. On October 12th, the first rescuer descended into the mine. Then, just after midnight on October 13th, the first miner began his journey upward. His name was Florencio Avalos. He stepped into the narrow capsule, closed the door, and slowly began rising through more than two thousand feet of solid rock. For several agonizing minutes the world waited, and then the capsule emerged. The door opened, and a man who had spent sixty nine days beneath the earth stepped into the cool night air. He embraced his young son, he embraced his wife, and a nation erupted in celebration. One by one the miners came home. Two, three, ten, twenty, thirty, and finally thirty-three. Luis Urzua, the shift supervisor who had helped lead the men through the ordeal was the last miner to emerge. By the end of October thirteenth, every single one of the thirty-three men was safely above ground. Not one had been left behind, not one had been forgotten, not one had been lost. Sixty-nine days in darkness, and now at last daylight. You know, there's a verse in the Psalms that comes to mind when I think about these men. Psalm 40, verse 2. He brought me up from a desolate pit out of the muddy clay and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure. David wasn't writing about a collapsed mine in Chile. He was writing about the faithfulness of God, about being rescued from a place where he could not rescue himself. And I wonder how many of us know something about that kind of darkness. Not the darkness of a mine shaft, but the darkness of grief, the darkness of depression, the darkness of a diagnosis, a broken relationship, a terrible mistake, or a season of life that seems to have no end. Sometimes the hardest part of being in the darkness is wondering whether anyone knows you're there. Whether anyone hears you, whether anyone is still looking. And maybe that's what makes these seven words from beneath the Chilean desert so unforgettable. We are well in the shelter of the thirty-three. They were still there, still breathing, still hoping, still waiting, and someone was still searching. October thirteenth, twenty ten. Thirty-three men emerged from the darkness, and the world was reminded of something extraordinary, that human beings can endure more than we imagine. That hope can survive in the most unlikely places, and that even when we cannot see the light, it doesn't mean the light has disappeared. The miners had not seen the sun for sixty-nine days, but the sun had never stopped shining. It was there all along. And that's a good thing to remember when life takes us into dark places. The darkness may be real, but it doesn't have to be the end of the story. And that's Moments Almanac for October 13th. Let us remember on this October 13th that there is a difference between being in the darkness and being forgotten. And sometimes the most beautiful moment in the story is when someone finally steps into the light. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.