Kuala Lumpur November 2023 “A Lucky Strike”
04/11/23 20:56
I like to go out for a walk in the evening. It is too hot to do that during the day but as the sun goes down the temperature drops a degree or two and there is a window of opportunity to do so. However that is usually the time for rain, tropical rain not the pretendy stuff I would see in the UK but the 'real McCoy', a storm with lightning and heavy rain lasting for 30 minutes. Once that is over the temperature drops by five degrees so if you want a great walk then you wait until after the rain has finished. Of course it doesn’t always work like that and I can recall evenings when my wife and I would get caught in the rain with only an umbrella to protect us from the elements. That works well enough but not for lightning!
This evening I set off for my walk before it rained. Now I walk 3km downhill to a mini supermarket where I buy a cold drink which is fully consumed on the uphill leg back home. I had walked about half way to the shops before I heard the sound of thunder away in the distance. I count the time between seeing the lightning and then hearing the thunder. Seven seconds would mean it was a mile away (other units of measurement are available but less easy for me to visualise). A mile is also my tolerance limit, any closer and I consider I may have a problem. This evening it started at 14 seconds so I carried on walking, quickening my pace as best I could. As I started back from the shops the gap between the lightning and thunder became 10 seconds. There was no rain yet but then the gap dropped to seven, then five and at three seconds the rain started. I was praying for both protection and guidance!
It wasn’t very heavy rain but of far more concern to me was the lightning. I was only half way home and passing the house where we used to live when the gap between lightning and thunder became just one second. Obviously I have a big problem because, whilst at this point I am surrounded by tall buildings, the rest of my walk is a steady uphill climb and the lightning is hitting something nearby about three times a minute. Then, just 50m in front of me, a lightning bolt hit a telegraph pole. I was looking directly ahead when it struck and clearly saw the bright white light coming out of the sky and running down the side of the pole before instantly hearing the thunder. I froze and looked around but there was nowhere to shelter. I had a decision to make as I stood there in what was unusually light rain. I could go on, there was plenty of tree shelter but it was another twenty minute walk. I decided that was a warning not to go further and tried to find a spot as far as possible away from trees, telegraph poles and not making myself the next target by standing in the middle of the road! I phoned for International Rescue to come and collect me and in ten minutes Thunderbird One (my wife and car) arrived to take me home. Most readers will be saying to themselves "why didn't he call as soon as the thunder or rain started?" but these things happen quite suddenly here. The storm may not have been coming in my direction and it took only five minutes for the storm to close the last mile to where I was. I’ve never been that close to lightning outside a building before and I don’t want that record to be broken in the future!
Over the next few days I pondered over that experience. It could have been fatal (in which case you would not be reading this) but I reasoned that I had prayed for protection so maybe it would have been safe for me to walk all the way home through whatever storm came my way. On one of those mornings the quiet voice in my head said, "Balaam's donkey". It was no more that that but the story was quite familiar to me and is recounted in (the Bible) Numbers 22:21-39. The gist of it is that the donkey saw the danger in front of it whilst Balaam saw his reward for carrying on. I was the donkey in that story and the lightning bolt was from our Lord telling me to go no further.
This evening I set off for my walk before it rained. Now I walk 3km downhill to a mini supermarket where I buy a cold drink which is fully consumed on the uphill leg back home. I had walked about half way to the shops before I heard the sound of thunder away in the distance. I count the time between seeing the lightning and then hearing the thunder. Seven seconds would mean it was a mile away (other units of measurement are available but less easy for me to visualise). A mile is also my tolerance limit, any closer and I consider I may have a problem. This evening it started at 14 seconds so I carried on walking, quickening my pace as best I could. As I started back from the shops the gap between the lightning and thunder became 10 seconds. There was no rain yet but then the gap dropped to seven, then five and at three seconds the rain started. I was praying for both protection and guidance!
It wasn’t very heavy rain but of far more concern to me was the lightning. I was only half way home and passing the house where we used to live when the gap between lightning and thunder became just one second. Obviously I have a big problem because, whilst at this point I am surrounded by tall buildings, the rest of my walk is a steady uphill climb and the lightning is hitting something nearby about three times a minute. Then, just 50m in front of me, a lightning bolt hit a telegraph pole. I was looking directly ahead when it struck and clearly saw the bright white light coming out of the sky and running down the side of the pole before instantly hearing the thunder. I froze and looked around but there was nowhere to shelter. I had a decision to make as I stood there in what was unusually light rain. I could go on, there was plenty of tree shelter but it was another twenty minute walk. I decided that was a warning not to go further and tried to find a spot as far as possible away from trees, telegraph poles and not making myself the next target by standing in the middle of the road! I phoned for International Rescue to come and collect me and in ten minutes Thunderbird One (my wife and car) arrived to take me home. Most readers will be saying to themselves "why didn't he call as soon as the thunder or rain started?" but these things happen quite suddenly here. The storm may not have been coming in my direction and it took only five minutes for the storm to close the last mile to where I was. I’ve never been that close to lightning outside a building before and I don’t want that record to be broken in the future!
Over the next few days I pondered over that experience. It could have been fatal (in which case you would not be reading this) but I reasoned that I had prayed for protection so maybe it would have been safe for me to walk all the way home through whatever storm came my way. On one of those mornings the quiet voice in my head said, "Balaam's donkey". It was no more that that but the story was quite familiar to me and is recounted in (the Bible) Numbers 22:21-39. The gist of it is that the donkey saw the danger in front of it whilst Balaam saw his reward for carrying on. I was the donkey in that story and the lightning bolt was from our Lord telling me to go no further.