Good Friday Bad Friday on the Swakopmund River

Good Friday was yesterday and it was almost Horrible Friday.

The Swakopmund River normally only flows once every 5 or 10 years and has pretty much been just a dry river bed. This year, Namibia has seen more rain than has ever been recorded in history. As a result, the Swakopmund River has been flowing down into the sea and many people are taking advantage of this for fun and recreation. We have done this also, almost to our undoing.

Because of my trip to Windhoek I had so much work to yesterday (Good Friday). Breanna and her friends wanted to go tubing down the swakopmund river which is now flowing into the sea. I had been a couple weeks ago and it was a nice, comfortable ride, so I gave her permission. She went out with 5 of her friends and they took inner tubes with them. Kim dropped them off at the place where the road goes to Walvis Bay.
The road was closed because the river was flowing over the bridge. That should have told us right then and there that the current was too dangerous. I should have really been with them, or at least insisted on life jackets, but I was so busy,having just returned from Windhoek and now having to catch up on emails and other things. I was too busy, and so I didn't give it much thought. I had only thought about the river as it had been when I was on it.
A few hours went by and I received a call from Kim saying that Breanna had almost drowned. They had been going down the river by the pumping station and there is a man made drop off there. When they went over it, they lost their tubes and the water coming over the wall caused a backflow that if you were to get caught in it would be pretty catastrophic. Well, the teenagers did get caught in it. Breanna told me that she couldn't get out and she yelled for help a couple times before going down. She said the force of the water coming down was just too much for her and she couldn't escape. She had actually come to the place where she didn't have any more strength left and had given up and she really thought she was going to die. And then a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her up.
When the teens went down the river, there were two rather large Afrikaans guys that had decided to float down the river as well, and they decided to all go together. If it weren't for those two guys, the teens that got stuck in this backflow would have drowned. It was indeed a very, very scary experience, and when I heard about it, I was so upset with myself that I had let them go tubing without actually checking the flow rate or the level of the water myself. Even a couple weeks previous when the river was low and we had come to the pumping station, we decided to get out of the tubes and climb down, instead of going over that man made wall. It was just too dangerous. If I had been there, and had decided that it would be ok to go down the river, I would have never allowed them to go over that pumping station wall.
Sometimes as parents we make mistakes. Huge mistakes. It's a wonder that our kids survive and turn out the way they do in spite of us. It's the grace of God. We can't be there all the time, and sometimes when we are there we make foolish decisions. If it weren't for the grace of God, what a mess our lives would be. It is very important I see then, that we keep a humility about us and maintain a God-fearing, repentant attitude so we can walk in the fullness of this grace.
This will be a very special Easter. I woke up this morning, walked downstairs, and looked at my daughter who was peacefully asleep.

O thank you God.