Rockfest Day 25 - Choices

The world waited and watched. With great anticipation people the world over sat riveted by TV screens and live steaming computers watching as the impossible became reality. 33 men pulled up one by one from deep within the earth in a capsule – Phoenix 2 – built in a Chilean Navy workshop just for this rescue. But while the men reached the surface beginning on October 12, 2010, their rescue began more than 69 days earlier, on the day of the mine collapse August 5.

The San Jose copper mine near Copiapo, Chile trapped 33 of its miners inside when a huge wall of rock collapsed sealing off the only exit. For 17 days no one in the world knew if the miners were dead or alive. Know one except the “Los 33.”

When the rocks came crashing down and cut the men off from the rest of the world there would be no quick fix, no easy way out. The men had some choices to make and they didn’t have long to make them. We know they had some equipment still at there disposal, some rudimentary medical supplies and a few meager food stuffs. To survive 69 days more than 2,300 feet below ground first the 33 had to survive long enough to be found alive.

As I watched that tiny capsule pull these men from what easily could have be their grave it was remarkable what was already known about them. Because the men had been found on August 22 and several shafts drilled to send in food, water, fiber optic camera cables, etc we had been able to see the men and what their existence looked like. It was easy to forget that for 17 days – 2 and a half weeks – the men lived completely cutoff from the world. Not knowing if people were ever going to find them or even be able to reach them in time.

Was it really true they resorted to drinking water from the trucks’ radiators? How did 33 fully grown miners survive on a teaspoon of tuna every other day? How did they handle the constant 90 degree heat and humidity? How did they handle the thought of never seeing family and loved ones again? How did they maintain hope? Did they ever give up? How did they keep going in the face of such impossibility?

Very little is known at this point about what those men endured during their days trapped underground. The men have entered into a pact not to speak about their ordeal until the time is right and then do so as a group. They want their story told the right way. But we do know one thing – their choices kept the men alive.

The 33 men faced choices, daily choices and their decisions made the difference in life or death. The decision to ration food, the decision to gather up the equipment and supplies at the beginning to see what was usable and how much battery power and light they had, the decision to allow one of the men to be their leader and follow his instructions, and a thousand other big and small decisions they made individually and as a group kept them all alive.

The 33 all made it out alive because they made the decision to stick together. No doubt there were times when some gave up hope but that is when others would encourage them, play jokes on them, console them or just sit with them and pass the hope along. The choice that lay before them – to live or die – was never really a choice at all. It was a challenge that these men would fight tooth and nail to make sure ended in life.

It is a choice we are all given. Everyday choices are laid before us – to choose between helping others or being selfish, to take action or to be lazy, to gossip or to speak kindly of others, to worry or to trust, love or hate, between indifference and compassion, and the list goes on and on. We are given the choice a thousand times a day between life and death and God calls us to “choose life.” (Deut. 30:19).

I am convinced the reason Los 33 survived 69 days is because of the choices they made those first 17 days. 17 days in which no one in the world could see them, hear them, help them or even knew if they were alive or dead. But their Father knew and He saw the choices they were making. When we make the right choices in secret our Father rewards us in the open. (Matt. 6:4)

Have you ever seen anything greater than what the whole world witnessed in the Chilean desert earlier this month? One by one the 33 were brought free from their entrapment, out into the open and back to their life. Can there be a greater reward?
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