Trapped 12 Days Without Water in Eritrea — Jesus Gave Me Living Water!

The air in that cell still burns in my memories. It wasn’t just the heat.

There was something heavier, more suffocating, as if the Aratrian desert had decided to lodge itself inside my lungs and never leave.

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My name is Samar. I am 29 years old. I was born in the highlands of Asara.

But for the last 3 years, I have lived in a small village near Gashbarka.

It’s not a place that appears on tourist maps. It’s dust, stones, skinny goats, and mud houses with zinc roofs that creek under the sun.

Yet for me, that place was sacred. There, amidst the imposed silence, and constant persecution, we gathered weekly to pray.

We had no temple, no official name, only faith, Bibles hidden in flower sacks, silent hearts, and the Holy Spirit moving among us like an invisible wind.

I led those meetings not because I was special, but because someone needed to.

And in some way, I still don’t fully understand. God chose me for it. That July afternoon, the sky was completely clear.

I remember feeling a strange unease, as if the absence of clouds were a warning.

The sun scorched the dry hills and the wind carried that smell of scorched earth, a harbinger of trouble in the region.

I was walking to the house of an older brother, Tesie, who lent us his backyard for our gatherings.

My Bible was wrapped in an old cloth hidden away. For some reason, my hands were trembling.

It wasn’t fear. It was something more subtle. An inner voice whispering, “Don’t go.” I ignored the voice, convinced it was just anxiety or heat.

I told myself that God was waiting for us there. That the others would arrive soon.

When I arrived, six people were already sitting in a circle on straw mats, older women with headscarves, a young man carrying shopping bags, a mother with her teenage daughter.

We greeted each other in silence with hugs and glances that spoke louder than words.

Desve closed the wooden door behind me, locking it. It was part of the protocol.

We began to quietly sing old hymns in Tina, the ones our grandmothers had taught us.

We prayed for the families, for the sick, for those who had been taken away by the authorities and never returned.

I read a passage from Psalm 121. I lift up my eyes to the mountains.

Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

That’s when we heard the banging. It wasn’t ordinary banging. It was military boots pounding against the door, firm and merciless.

A sound that leaves no room for choice. We froze. Every heart racing, every soul silent, aware that nothing would ever be the same again.

The older sisters held hands, drawing courage from one another. The young man let the Bible slip to the floor without reacting.

Tessvi looked at me, his eyes a mixture of terror and resignation. We knew somehow that this moment could come.

We always knew. The door exploded with a single blow. Three soldiers burst in.

Rifles raised. Orders were shouts in Arabic and Tigrina mixed with the confusion of bodies being dragged.

We got out one by one with no time for goodbyes, no time to pray aloud, just shouts, shves, and clouds of dust rising beneath our feet as they threw us into a military truck.

I fell to my knees on the hot metal. Someone called my name, but I couldn’t see who it was.

The engine roared, the doors slammed shut, and the vehicle began to move forward.

The dirt roads battered our bodies against the metal walls. Time slipped away between sun and dust.

Perhaps an hour, perhaps three. When the truck finally stopped, we were dragged out roughly toward a low, gray, windowless building.

It looked like an abandoned warehouse, but the air rire of old sweat, urine, and accumulated despair.

A scarred policeman shouted, his words incomprehensible, but the message was clear. There was no mercy here.

We were led to a cell at the end of a dark corridor, small, about 4 m x 4, without windows, just a metal door with a tiny crack at the base.

Other prisoners already occupied the space, men, women, some too young to fully understand what was happening.

Empty stairs met ours, each carrying the certainty of the approaching suffering. The door slammed shut behind us with a bang that echoes in my nightmares to this day.

And there, as the heat enveloped us like a serpent, I realized that something terrible was about to happen.

Sometimes I think about that afternoon and that moment when I chose to go to the meeting, even though I felt the warning deep in my soul, I wonder how many have ever had a moment like that, knowing that something bad is about to happen, but still choosing to trust.

If you’ve ever felt that way, you understand why I didn’t run away. Faith doesn’t always protect us from danger.

Sometimes it leads us straight into it. The first blow of reality came in silence.

When the door closed, we ceased to be people. We became numbers. Bodies piled up in a space that should never have harbored life.

There were 17 of us in total. I counted several times to make sure. 17 trapped souls without air, without natural light, without hope in sight.

The smell was unbearable. A mixture of fear transformed into a liquid that clung to the skin and wouldn’t go away.

The walls were damp. The cracked cement floor exuded something I preferred not to identify.

There was no bathroom, only a metal bucket. The room was already full. I sat leaning against the back wall, hugging my knees.

Next to me was Asraa, one of the sisters from the meeting. She was about 50 years old, her hands calloused from working in the fields, and her faith had always seemed unwavering to me.

But there, in that suffocating cell, even she wept silently. I held her hand. It was cold despite the stifling heat.

What are they going to do to us? As Mea whispered, her voice barely a whisper.

I didn’t answer, not because I didn’t want to, but because there was no answer.

In Eratraa, when you are taken away because of your faith, the options are scarce.

Either they force you to renounce Christ and sign documents denying your beliefs, or you simply disappear.

There are camps in the desert from which no one returns. Some speak of forced labor until bodies give out.

Others tell stories of torture that break the spirit before the body. Time seemed not to exist.

But the heat, the heat was palpable, increasing with each hour, transforming the metal of the ceiling into something almost liquid.

The cell became an oven. We sweated in a way I never imagined possible.

Clothes stuck to us. Mouths dried out. Lips cracked. As night fell, we heard footsteps outside.

The crack at the base of the door creaked, and something was shoved through. Two jugs of dirty water and three flat loaves of bread, hard as stone.

17 people, two jugs, three loaves of bread. A silent calculation began. An older man, with a gray beard and deep set eyes, took the lead.

He dispensed the water in tiny sips. When it was my turn, the liquid barely moistened my tongue, tasting of metal and chlorine, but it was the most delicious thing I’d tasted in hours.

We broke the bread into small pieces. My portion was the size of a coin.

I chewed slowly, trying to trick my stomach, but it didn’t work. I tried to sleep that night.

The heat was relentless, and the space was so cramped, I couldn’t stretch my legs without touching someone.

Groans, dry coughs, muffled sobs echoed all around. A boy of about 12 trapped along with his father was crying for his mother.

The father held him silently, jaw clenched, eyes closed. I prayed softly without elaborate words, just fragments of despair.

Lord, help us. Lord, don’t abandon us. Lord, show yourself. I didn’t feel an immediate response.

There was no peace that descended like a dove. Only the heat, the smell, and the sound of the collective breathing of people beginning to give up.

On the second day, the routine repeated itself. Two jugs, three loaves of bread, but now the thirst had turned into physical pain.

My tongue swelled, my throat burned as if I had swallowed glass, and each breath felt like it was scraping my lungs.

As Mea could no longer speak, she could only stare into the void with trembling lips.

Wounds began to bleed. The young man carrying bags at the market had convulsions. We held his body until it passed, helpless.

On the afternoon of that second day, the guards returned, but without bringing water.

They opened the door, and two of them entered, sticks in their hands, shouting for us to get up.

Some couldn’t. We obeyed as best we could, knowing that any resistance would only bring more pain.

The officer in charge, the same man marked by deep scars, stared at us as if we were wasting the air we breathed.

He spoke slowly in a tigrinia with a cruel calmness that only increased the weight of each word.

You are traitors. Traitors to the nation, traitors to unity. Your god is not here.

No one will come for you. If you want to leave, sign the documents and renounce your madness.

Otherwise, he paused for a long time, tilting his head as if savoring the moment, then finished with a smile that still makes me nauseous.

Then they will learn what true thirst is. There was no response. Nobody picked up a pen.

Nobody even moved. He stormed out, slamming the door shut. And that night, when the time came for them to usually push water through the crack, nothing happened.

No noise, no pitcher, just a suffocating silence. We’ll wait 1 hour, 2, 3, nothing.

It was there that I understood that this was no longer a detention. It was a method of execution.

Slow, invisible, no court, no record, just disappearances pushed into nameless cells. I huddled in the corner and prayed with the intensity of someone teetering on the edge between life and death.

It was no longer about beautiful confidence or quiet faith. It was about survival. And for the first time, I didn’t know what God’s answer would be or if there would be one.

I [clears throat] don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a moment when the only thing you can say is, “God, if you really exist, don’t leave me here alone.”

No poetry, no pretty words, just pure despair. I was there. And what happened next changed everything I thought I knew about divine provision.

On the third day, we lost the first one. There were no shouts or goodbyes.

At dawn, the oldest man, the one who shared the water between us, simply wasn’t breathing anymore.

He was sitting, leaning against the wall, his eyes half closed, staring at some point that only he seemed to be able to see.

His son tried to wake him several times, calling his father’s name, shaking his shoulder, pleading, but nothing happened.

We banged on the door, shouted for help, but no one came. The body remained with us for hours.

The smell changed. Heavy, dense. Some were crying. Others stared at the ground as if avoiding eye contact was a way of denying reality.

Only at nightfall did the guards enter. They said nothing. They simply dragged him out as if he were an empty sack.

They closed the door again. Now there were 16 of us. And deep down we knew that when the sun rose again, there would be fewer of us.

The headquarters was no longer just headquarters. It was a living monster. >> >> Something noded at me from the inside, consuming every part of my body.

My tongue seemed too big for my mouth. My lips were so cracked that when I tried to speak, I could taste my own blood.

My hands were parched as if the life was evaporating from within them. The fourth day dawned with two more who never got up.

One of them was Asera, my sister in faith, the one who held my hand and told me that God was still with us.

She passed away while I slept beside her. When I woke up and saw his head slumped over his chest, his mouth slightly open.

Something inside me collapsed. I didn’t cry. There were no more tears. I just stared at her, trying to believe that this was really happening.

Holding her cold hand, I asked myself why God had allowed Asraa to leave and not me.

What did I have that she didn’t? Why wasn’t her faith enough to keep her alive?

These questions haunted me for hours, perhaps for days. Time no longer existed. All I knew was that each time I closed my eyes, I saw faces.

Faces of people who were alive yesterday and who no longer breathed today. The 12-year-old boy was still fighting for his life, but his father didn’t survive.

The young man carrying shopping bags had succumbed to silence. Even Tofi, the brother who lent us the yard, stopped responding when we tried to talk to him.

On the fifth day, there were 11 of us. On the sixth, nine. On the seventh, seven.

I was still alive, but I didn’t understand why. My body should have given up long ago.

Science says someone can survive 3 days without water, maybe four under favorable conditions. But 5 days inside a metal furnace without a single drop, impossible.

And yet there I was, weak, confused, exhausted, but alive, breathing with my heart beating, even when everything around me seemed to be crumbling.

I noticed strange things about myself. While the others were delirious, talking to shadows or shouting names into nothingness, my mind remained clear.

Their eyes, deep and lifeless, resembled skulls. Mine could still focus. While the skin of others dried completely, mine remained moist, strangely alive.

I thought I was hallucinating, inventing sensations to deceive myself. But deep down, I felt that something real was happening.

During those nights, the fifth and sixth days, my prayers changed. They weren’t ordinary please.

They were sincere, almost confrontational conversations. Lord, why am I still here? What do you want from me?

If you’re going to take me, do it now. But if you’re going to let me live, then show me why.

No voice answered. No vision came. But something began to settle inside me. A stillness, small, fragile, but firm.

A silent certainty. I’m not finished with you yet. The seventh day was the crulest.

Of the 16 who entered, only five remained. Me, a young man I barely knew, a pregnant woman captured in another attack, an old man murmuring psalms in Aramaic, and the 12-year-old boy, now curled up in a fetal position, breathing irregularly.

The heat was unbearable. The midday sun turned the metal roof into a living furnace.

The air was so thick that each breath seemed to swallow smoke. >> >> My companions no longer spoke, only groaned.

Some convulsed, others were motionless, as if awaiting the inevitable. I crawled to a corner, away from the bodies, and closed my eyes.

In my mind, I remembered a verse my grandmother always repeated. “The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”

At that moment, even surrounded by pain, hunger, and thirst, something within me found hope.

Faith had not disappeared. It breathed with me. Even when everything around seemed dead. He will guide his flock.

I whispered the verse in an almost non-existent voice. Still waters. Lord, where are your waters?

And then, in that absolute darkness, on the seventh day, without a single drop of water, something changed.

It wasn’t a vision, nor a miraculous noise. It was a presence, silent, gentle, real.

It was as if someone had entered the cell and sat down next to me.

I didn’t dare open my eyes. I just stood there motionless and murmured, “And you?”

No voice answered. But something far stronger than words filled that space. A profound peace, a calm that didn’t match the torture we were living through.

And within my spirit, a phrase came as clear as cool water slipping through my hands.

I am your living water. I couldn’t comprehend that with my mind. I was too exhausted, too dry, too broken.

But my spirit understood and accepted. And something inside me realized that what would come next would be beyond human explanation.

When the eighth day dawned, only three of us remained. The young man who had been delirious the previous night did not survive.

The pregnant woman was still breathing, but her body trembled uncontrollably as if she were fighting alone to keep two lives alive.

The 12-year-old boy was still there, but so frail that at times it seemed as if his chest had stopped beating.

And only after a few seconds would a tiny sigh reveal that he was still with us.

And then there was me, conscious, lucid, scared, not of dying, but of still being alive.

Nothing made sense. Every manual, every medical explanation, every research study, everything said it was impossible.

Without water, the body fails. The kidneys collapse. The brain shuts down. The heart simply stops.

But I was there. Yes. With chapped lips. Yes. My throat is scratchy. But I didn’t feel that maddening thirst that takes over people’s minds.

I didn’t have those desperate urges to drink something, to lick sweat, to lose my sanity.

It was as if a space inside me was full, satiated in a way that didn’t come from anything external.

The sensation was strange, but more real than anything he had ever experienced. On the morning of that eighth day, I leaned against the warm wall of the cell and closed my eyes again.

This time, I didn’t ask for water. I didn’t ask to leave. I just whispered, “Lord, if it is you who are doing this, continue.

I don’t understand anything, but I trust.” And it was at that exact moment that I felt it.

It began right in the center of my chest, like a hidden fountain that suddenly opens up.

A warm, gentle, flowing wave, like water rushing through me. The sensation rose in my throat, went down my stomach, spread through my legs, my arms, to every inch of my body.

It was like drinking without drinking. It was as if there was a secret spring inside me finally released.

I opened my eyes suddenly. I looked around. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation had changed.

The cell continued to be an oven. The bodies remained lying there. The boy was still trembling with fever.

But I I was different. Not strong, not full of energy, just sustained, contained by something bigger than me, something that didn’t come from this world, something that couldn’t be denied.

Jesus words echoed in my mind as if they had been written for that moment.

Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst again. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a living being.

For years, I thought I understood that verse as something metaphorical, something spiritual. I never imagined it could touch the body’s thirst, the flesh’s thirst.

But there, sitting in that cell, exhausted, parched, and almost without strength, I began to realize that perhaps God didn’t separate the spiritual from the physical so rigidly.

The ninth day dawned unchanged. No one opened the door, no food, no water, only the crushing heat and the oppressive silence, broken only by the weak breaths of those still trying to resist.

At midday, the pregnant woman stopped breathing. She was there beside me when her body gave way.

I took her cold hand, closed her eyes with trembling fingers, and whispered a prayer for her and for the baby who would never see the world.

Then I turned away, unable to stay. The boy, frail and exhausted, held on until the 10th day.

Each breath was an effort, each sob a reminder of life’s vulnerability. He called for his mother with broken words, “Mommy!

Mommy. My heart broke. I crawled to him, wrapped him in my arms, and softly sang a lullaby that my own mother used to sing to me as a child.

I don’t know if he heard it or felt any comfort. But when his breathing finally ceased, I could assure him that he hadn’t died alone.

On the 11th day, I was the only one alive. 17 had entered the cell with me.

Only I remained. The silence was suffocating. Nothing prepares you for being surrounded by bodies and knowing that you should be one of them.

Survivors. Guilt is not just a concept. It’s a physical weight that tightens in your chest and won’t let go.

Why me? Why not them? What do I have that they didn’t have? I sat in the center of the cell, surrounded by death.

And for the first time in days, I truly cried. There were no tears, only dry sobs that trembled through my body.

And in the midst of that waterless weeping, a question was born in my heart.

Lord, why do you keep me alive? The answer didn’t come in words. It came in a vision, clear and silent.

I saw myself leaving that cell, telling my story. I saw attentive faces listening, hearts renewing their faith, lives being touched by what I had survived to witness.

I understood in that instant that I hadn’t survived by myself. I survived because there was a testimony to be told.

Because God sometimes keeps someone alive simply so that others know he still fights for his own.

The 11th day turned into night. I remained seated in the dark, surrounded by silence.

But I was not alone. The presence I had felt on the seventh day had not abandoned me.

It was there, constant, firm, like an invisible anchor that held me to life when everything around seemed to want to lead me to death.

I didn’t sleep. I just prayed, repeating a single simple phrase endlessly. Thank you for not letting go of me.

Thank you for not letting go of me. And as I repeated it, I felt that inner current again, that invisible river flowing within me, sustaining me, giving me the strength to continue.

It wasn’t a figment of my imagination. It wasn’t delirium or despair. It was real, as real as the cold ground beneath me and the warm air I could still draw into my lungs.

When the 12th day dawned, I heard a sound that almost made me doubt myself.

Footsteps. Firm footsteps coming straight to the cell door. Almost two weeks without hearing anything but groans and silence.

And now that sound felt like an earthquake. The lock snapped shut with a crack so loud it echoed off the metal walls.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t call for help. I simply remained seated there in the back, legs crossed and hands resting on my lap, watching the door slowly open.

The light that entered hit my eyes like a blade. And for a few seconds, everything turned white.

After so many days immersed in darkness, the light even felt like an assault. Two guards entered first.

One of them covered his face with a cloth, trying to block the heavy smell that filled the cell.

The other held a flashlight, moving the beam of light from one body to another.

When he realized how many were there, lifeless, his expression changed. It was as if suddenly the reality of what they had done came rushing back upon them.

1 2 3 He counted in a low voice. 16. And then the flashlight beam stopped on me.

He stood completely still. The hand holding the flashlight began to tremble as if my mere breathing defied some law he believed to be immutable.

The guard behind him approached. And for a second, I saw something I never imagined seeing in those men.

Fear. She is alive, the first one murmured. That can’t be, said the other, taking a half step back.

They approached slowly as if they had something supernatural before them. The one with the flashlight bent down and illuminated my entire face.

I blinked, bothered by the light, but I kept looking at him. How many days?

She asked in Tigrina, her voice choked with emotion. 12? I replied, almost in a whisper.

12 days without water. Absent. He stood up suddenly, breathing deeply as if he had seen something forbidden.

They exchanged a few quick words in Arabic. I only understood fragments. Witch, curse, demon.

They were afraid. Not of me, but of what it meant for me to be standing there after what they knew they had done.

Because that wasn’t detention. It never was. It was execution. And according to any human logic, no one should have survived there.

Get up, ordered the second guard. I tried to obey. My legs protested, trembling as if they were relearning how to exist.

I braced my hand against the wall and climbed slowly, hoping my body would finally collapse, but it didn’t.

I remained standing, staggering, yes, but firm enough for them to see that it made no sense.

They exchanged a long, confused look, and for the first time since the day of our capture, touched me without brutality.

Each one held one of my arms, but not aggressively. It was almost cautious, almost respectful, as if they were afraid of breaking something invisible around me.

I was led out of the cell. The corridor was narrow and stuffy with doors closed on both sides and groans so low they barely sounded human.

As we walked, I noticed that none of the guards said anything. They seemed cautious or perhaps frightened.

At the end of the corridor was a cramped little room that served as an office.

And inside, seated behind a scratched metal desk, was the man with the scars. The same man who had laughed at us and called us traitors.

He was puffing on a cigarette when he saw me come in. And for a second, the cigarette simply froze in midair.

His eyes narrowed as if trying to decipher a riddle. “Is that you?” He murmured.

“Not to me, but as if asking his own understanding. I didn’t answer. I just stared at him in silence, aware that at that moment, my life no longer belonged to human logic.”

He stood up from his chair and began walking around me as if examining an inexplicable phenomenon.

His eyes were fixed on mine, filled with a mixture of disbelief and anger. “Everyone’s finished.”

“Everyone except you,” he said, almost as if repeating it to himself. I swallowed hard.

My throat was still dry, but it didn’t hurt like before. And somehow the words came out more easily than I expected.

“No, I’m not thirsty,” he frowned, clearly confused. I repeated firmly, looking directly into his eyes, because he had just offered me water.

I’m not thirsty. The silence that fell afterward was heavy, almost suffocating. He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, not knowing what to do with me, he shouted orders to the guards. They grabbed me, but this time not with extreme violence.

They simply dragged me quickly out of the office, taking me to another room.

This time, there was a small window that let in natural light. The door remained closed, but unlocked.

In the center of the room was a chair. I sat down exhausted and for the first time in 12 days I allowed my body to relax without feeling death looming so close.

A few hours later the door opened and a woman entered with a picture of water and a plate of Ingera, the traditional Aratrian bread.

She placed them in front of me without a word and left. [clears throat] I stared at the water and even though I knew my body needed it, I felt no urgency.

I took a small sip, then another, and another, each bringing freshness and relief.

I ate a piece of the angera and my stomach miraculously accepted the food without protest as if my body had been sustained in a way that defied any medical explanation.

That night they let me sleep there. I don’t know why. Maybe fear, maybe bewilderment, or maybe simply God was orchestrating everything behind the scenes in a way I couldn’t yet understand.

The next day, the policemen returned, this time accompanied by another man of visible authority.

They asked one question after another. How did I survive? What kind of spell did I use?

Who helped me? I told the truth repeatedly. There were no tricks, no magic, just faith and prayer.

A silent, invisible miracle that manifested itself within me when everything around me said there was no hope left.

They didn’t believe me. Or perhaps they did. And that left them even more confused, bewildered.

3 days later, I was released. No explanations, no charges, no papers to sign. They simply took me to the gate of the complex, returned my Bible wrapped in an old cloth, and let me go.

I walked under the scorching sun of the Eratrian desert, my legs trembling, but my feet firm.

Hours later, I arrived at the nearest village. A family welcomed me, gave me water, food, and a safe place to rest.

That night, lying on a thin mattress under a tin roof, I looked at the starry sky through a crack.

For the first time in weeks, I smiled. It wasn’t a naive smile of happiness.

It was the smile of someone who had hit rock bottom and discovered right there the presence of God.

A smile of someone who realized that their own life no longer belonged to them.

That it had been preserved by a miracle. And I understood this miracle wasn’t just about surviving.

It had a greater purpose, a testimony that needed to be told. Living proof that even in the most utter despair, God continues to fight for those who seek him.

I’ve told this story very few times, not because I’m ashamed, but because I know how it sounds.

I know it seems impossible to anyone who has never experienced anything similar. And honestly, if I were hearing it for the first time, I might also be looking for a logical explanation.

But those who have seen God act when no one else could. When science said there’s no way, when everything around them screamed that it was the end, these people don’t need proof.

They simply know. The days after my release were strange, almost too silent. There was no celebration, no crowds embracing me.

No one asked me to tell them anything. There was only an emptiness, as if my body had left the cell.

But my soul was still trying to understand what had happened. The family that took me in were Christian hidden believers like so many in Aratria.

They didn’t ask questions. They just gave me water, food, and rest. They cared for me with the kind of gentleness that only those who carry their own scars know how to offer.

I slept for days. I slept like someone sinking. And yet, dreams pulled me back to the cell.

I saw the faces of those who stayed behind as Mea holding my hand, the child calling for its mother, the suffocating heat of that place.

I woke up with my heart racing, smelling the burnt metal, even under a safe roof.

One afternoon, I sat outside, watching those dry hills that seemed endless. The oldest lady in the family approached slowly and sat down beside me.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just sat there breathing the same air as me.

After a while, she asked, almost whispering. “Do you intend to tell what you experienced?”

I looked at my hands. They were still marked, the skin rough, the nails broken.

“I don’t know if anyone will believe me,” I replied. She looked at me with a serenity that only comes with age, and said, “It doesn’t matter if they believe.

What matters is that you speak up because someone somewhere needs to know that God still performs miracles.

That he doesn’t forget his own, that he remains faithful even when everything seems to fall apart.

Her words disarmed me. I was afraid to tell the story meant reliving everything to reopen wounds that had only just begun to heal.

But it also meant honoring those who died in that cell. It meant giving life to what God made.

Weeks later, when my strength returned, I went to another region, not where I had been captured, but nearby, where groups of Christians met secretly.

I began to tell my story in small mud houses with locked doors and covered windows.

Always at night, always at risk of being discovered. And every time I told my story, the same thing happened.

First silence, then disbelief, then tears. Because in the end, my testimony wasn’t about me.

It was about every person who has ever wondered if God still saw their suffering.

About every believer who has ever doubted if he was still near. An elderly lady came to me after hearing every detail.

Tears streaming down her face. She placed her hands on mine and said, her voice faltering, “My son is in prison.”

The elderly lady hugged me tightly as if she were holding a piece of hope in her hands.

Her voice trembling, she said, “I haven’t heard from my son in months, but now I know that God can sustain him, even though I can’t do anything for him.

Thank you. Thank you for reminding me of that.” Soon after, a young mother whose husband had also been taken away by the authorities, rested her head on my shoulder, and whispered, “I thought God had forgotten us, but your story reminded me that he is still here.

Even when we don’t feel it, he remains close.” Those words confirmed what I had already understood inside that cell.

I didn’t survive just to stay alive. I survived to remind other people that God hasn’t stopped working.

I survived to be proof that the impossible still happens. But as time went on, I realized something even deeper.

The real miracle wasn’t just surviving. The real miracle was choosing to trust when everything told me to give up.

It was deciding to believe when my body screamed that it was the end. That small choice, which at the time seemed like nothing, opened the way for God to act in a way I could never have done on my own.

And no, that doesn’t mean faith is a formula or that prayer is a guarantee that everything will turn out well.

I would never say that. As Mea prayed too, the little one also cried out and they didn’t leave that cell with me.

I don’t have the answers. I don’t know why God let me live and not them.

But I learned something true, even if painful. God didn’t save me because I was stronger, holier, or more worthy.

He kept me alive because there was a specific purpose at that moment that belonged only to me.

And perhaps, just perhaps, their purpose was something else. Perhaps their testimony lay in faithfulness, not in mere survival.

Perhaps the faith they carried until their last breath is still echoing in places where my voice will never reach.

Months after being released, I returned to the place where I was imprisoned. I didn’t go inside.

I couldn’t. But I stood before that gray windowless building and prayed. I prayed for every person inside.

For every life fighting its own battle at that very moment. And on that day, I offered a different kind of prayer.

Lord, may they feel your presence. May they not feel alone. And may they in some way receive the miracle that you have for them, whatever it may be.

Because in the end, the real miracle isn’t always about surviving. The real miracle is knowing that he is there in the darkest valley when we understand nothing.

When it hurts, when it seems like there’s no way out. Today, I still live in Eratraa.

I still meet with other believers in secret. I still pray and whisper so as not to be heard.

I still take risks. But I do this because I have learned that the faith worth having is the one for which we are willing to pay a price.

Sometimes people ask me if I’m afraid of being captured again. And I answer honestly, I do, but fear no longer controls me because I understood that God doesn’t always pull us out of the fire.

Sometimes he just goes in there with us and that’s enough. If this story touched your heart, if it reminded you that God still works where no one else can reach, share it with someone who needs to hear that they are not alone.

Because miracles are not meant to be hidden. They are meant to be experienced and then shared.

And who knows, maybe your testimony is exactly what someone needs to believe for one more day.

Years have passed since those 12 days, and my body has recovered. The cracks in my lips have disappeared.

My skin has come back to life, and the hair that had fallen out has grown back.

On the outside, nothing shows what I went through. But inside, everything has changed.

Because when you witness a miracle of that magnitude, you can’t go back to being the same person.

>> >> I learned that faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is deciding to trust even when fear is overwhelming.

Even when everything around seems to say there is no way out. I learned that God doesn’t always respond with grand and visible rescues.

Often his answer is silent, internal, invisible to human eyes, but no less real for that.

I also learned that suffering is not a sign of abandonment. Sometimes it is within suffering that he manifests himself in ways we would never see in times of comfort.

It’s easy to believe when everything is going well. It is in chaos that faith becomes real.

When your body and mind beg you to give up, that’s when true faith reveals itself.

And miracles aren’t always just for us. Often they’re for those who come after, for those who hear the story and find strength in it to continue.

God wastes nothing, neither pain nor loss. Everything has a purpose in his hands, even if we don’t understand it immediately.

There are days when I still feel the weight of survivors guilt. And the memory of the faces of those who are gone haunts me again.

But on those days, I return to the truth I learned in that cell. It’s not about deserving.

It never was. It’s about grace, about a God who acts, not because of who we are, but because of who he is.

If you are facing your own cell right now, let me tell you something. Your battlefield may not have chains or guards, but it is real.

It may be a relentless illness, a corrosive loneliness, a devouring anxiety, the loss of someone you love, or a crisis that seems endless.

But the same God who sustained me in the ariththran desert, who transformed my body into living proof of his provision, is with you.

He sees you, knows you, and is by your side even when you don’t feel it.

Especially when you don’t feel it. In these 12 days, I learned something I will never forget.

God doesn’t expect perfect faith. He doesn’t expect you to stop doubting or to be strong enough.

He acts in the midst of our weakness. He manifests himself when we have no strength, when we reach our limit.

So, if you hear this today and feel you can’t go on, know this. It’s okay not to have all the answers.

It’s okay not to understand why. It’s okay to be afraid, but it’s never okay to give up.

Because even in the darkness, he is with you. And sometimes the miracle isn’t being pulled from the fire.

The miracle is feeling his presence as you walk through the flames. Crying is not a sign of weakness.

Screaming, trembling, feeling fear, all of that is part of being human. But in the midst of all that, cling to God with everything that remains within you because he has never let go of your hand.

After I left that cell, one verse became like a safe haven for me.

Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the deep waters, I will be with you.

And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.”

Notice that it doesn’t say if you get through it, but when you get through it.

It’s a certainty. Life will bring moments that will hurt us, test us, bring us to our knees.

But God doesn’t promise to deliver us from every flame. He promises to walk with us through them.

And that’s exactly what I experienced. I was not spared prison. I was not spared thirst.

I was not spared seeing 16 lives end before my eyes. But even there, God was present.

He did not erase the suffering. But his presence transformed it. And that presence is what kept me alive.

Today I wanted to invite you to pray with me. Not with pretty words, not with rehearsed phrases, but with sincerity.

Lord, teach me to trust in you when everything around me crumbles. Help me to see you even when everything is dark.

Sustain me when my strength runs out. And if my story can touch someone, use it.

Don’t let my pain have been in vain. Amen. I am alive because he chose to show his strength precisely where I was weakest.

And if this story has reached you today, it’s no coincidence. It’s a direct reminder to your heart.

Hope still exists. God still sees. God still cares. God still performs miracles even in places where no one imagines anything good could happen.

If you can, please share in the comments which country you are listening from.

I want to see how far God can take this message. How far faith can travel even amidst fear.

Because when we share our testimonies, something supernatural happens. Faith spreads, hope is reborn, and the kingdom of God advances one heart at a time.

No matter how dry your desert may be, how deep your well may seem, how impossible what you face may appear, he remains the God who makes water spring forth where there is none, the God who transforms valleys into paths, the God who gives living water to the thirsty heart.

And I am here before you as proof of that. His promises are not poetry.

They are anchors that sustain lives when everything around them falls apart. May he hold you today in the same way he held me.

And may you feel even in the midst of your own battles that you are not alone.

You never have been.

Trapped 12 Days Without Water in Eritrea — Jesus G...

Trapped 12 Days Without Water in Eritrea — Jesus Gave Me Living Water!

Trapped 12 Days Without Water in Eritrea — Jesus Gave Me Living Water!

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