Adventist boys found after being lost for two days at sea

After being lost for more than 50 hours at sea, a flying search-and-rescue team located three young Adventist boys, ages 11, 14, and 16, who went missing in the waters off the Mota Lava island in Vanuatu on Friday, May 14.

The search party, consisting of multiple boats and Dr. Mark Turnbull on his Wings of Hope plane, began on Friday evening and continued throughout Sabbath and until Sunday afternoon, when searchers in Dr. Turnbull’s plane finally found the boys in the middle of the ocean.

The boys were Pathfinders from Mota Lava, in the Torba province, and had reportedly gone fishing. People across the Pacific Islands were praying for the lost boys throughout the weekend.

According to a Facebook post by Mark [and] Naomi Turnbull, the boys were found drifting east into “a place where kopra ships never go, domestic aircraft never fly, and small boats never pass.”

In another Facebook post, Dr. Turnbull, who was part of the search and rescue team, described how they dropped water bottles (half-filled so they would float), coconuts, bananas, a waterproof torch, grapefruit, and a note to say “a boat is coming” from the plane before the boats could get to their location and rescue them.

At the time of rescue, police boats were ten-to-fifteen miles off course and heading to the south in the wrong direction.

“The solemn realization has now hit us that if we had not gone way out there to the east… [where boats or planes just never fly], most likely these three boys would have been lost… maybe never to be seen again,” the post read. “I feel like saying, ‘Hallelujah! Mission accomplished!'”

This article was originally published on the website of Adventist Record