They Were in God's Hands

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, at twelve forty
five in the afternoon, Father Oscar Huber, a sixty nine
year old Vincentian priest of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church
in Dallas, Texas, arrived at Parkland Hospitals Trauma Room ie.
He was summoned there by the wife of a man
who'd just been murdered in broad daylight, fearful that the

(00:21):
failure to administer the sacrament of extreme unction and a
conditional absolution might rob her husband of a place in heaven.
Father Heuber performed the sacred last rites over the lifeless body.
When he finished, Father Hoober and the grief stricken wife
shared a brief prayer. As he turned to leave, she
took his hand and thanked him, and then asked, was

(00:42):
God in the bullet that struck my husband? Why no,
My dear missus Kennedy consoled Father Huber. God is in
you and in every living being who from this day
forward will be inspired by his life and yours to
serve God. You will find the only sense in the
senseless act comes from that and prayer. One hundred people

(01:04):
were killed by a raging flood on Friday night early
Saturday morning along the banks of Texas's Guadalupe River, Mother
Nature poured enough water on it to lift the river
twenty six feet in forty five minutes, sweep any object
large or small into a swirling death, in some cases
miles away. Many of the lost were pre teenaged girls, who,

(01:29):
like four generations before them, summered at Camp Mystic, a
Christian themed retreat above the Guadalupe whose list of alumni
includes the daughters and granddaughters of President Lyndon Johnson, governors, senators,
oil barons. One summer sixty years ago, a shy future
librarian from Midland, Texas named Laura found her voice at Mystic.

(01:54):
Armed with a new self confidence, she later became the
beloved First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush. At Mystic,
these daughters and granddaughters learned to follow Christ, write thank
you letters in cursive sing hymns, say I Love you
to both themselves and the other. Campers, engage in friendly,
healthy competition, but mostly live the motto be ye kind

(02:19):
to one another. Well. Only in the most graphic of
nightmares might apparent, imagine Camp Mystic, unsafe for their precious
child was God in those raging floodwaters. No, he was
too busy holding the hands of eleven year old Brook
and thirteen year old Blair Harbor of Dallas. They and

(02:40):
their grandparents were asleep in a cabin along the Guadalupe
one hundred feet below the cabin owned by their parents,
RJ and Charlene Harbor. When RJ was shaken awake by
the pounding of the water and the collapse of thunder,
the flood had already reached their front door. RJ and
Sharpe Lean then hustled up the hill to three other cabins,

(03:03):
pounded on the doors, warning perfect strangers to get out,
literally saving their lives safely at higher ground. He started
back down the hill to Brook and Blair's cabin, got
close enough to see before the raging waters slammed him
against a pole. His flashlight delivered a grim view. Brooke

(03:24):
and Blair's cabin and everyone in it were gone. Back
up the hill, he went, assisting the other families hike
to a safe home across Highway thirty nine, where another
family took them in. It was three forty five am.
RJ's phone pinged odd usually sell service in this valley

(03:44):
was impossible. It was a text from Brook and Blair
that read I love you time stamp fifteen minutes earlier.
By morning, rescue personnel found theirs and grandfather's lifeless bodies
twelve miles away. As of yesterday, Grandma was still missing.
How can a loving, forgiving and merciful God tear the

(04:06):
heart out of r J and Charlene Harbor. You'll likely
only find the answer in prayer, But maybe this is it.
Before this flood, only friends and family knew of Blair,
Brook and their heroic father. But now the whole world
knows them, And maybe this true story of a daughter's
love for their dad and the sacrifice he made to

(04:28):
save others will inspire a similar random act. Maybe when
the flood came deep down, R J. Harber's knew his
little girls were safe in God's hands, so he needed
R Jay's for something else.