The Rogue Wave & the Lost Boat | Ep. 70

0:02Speaker 1:We fished for about an hour or so, and the waves just continued to get worse and worse as the hour went on. We decided this was not worth it. Let's turn around and go in shore.

0:14Speaker 2:The three brothers began packing up and turning the boat toward shore.

0:18Speaker 1:And not thirty seconds later, everything changed.

0:22Speaker 3:There was no warning.

0:24Speaker 2:A huge wave coming from the side violently slammed into their boat, a rogue wave. Before Kyle could even take a breath, his body was hurled into the deep, churning ocean, his ears filled with muffled sounds as he clawed at the water, desperate to reach the surface.

0:52Speaker 3:This is the Miracle Files.

0:54Speaker 4:I'm Emily Jones and I'm Holly Worthington, where two sisters who love a captivated true story. But we're also seeking more light in our lives.

1:03Speaker 2:So we're on a mission to find and share unforgettable, uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us on this journey.

1:15Speaker 4:Welcome back to the Miracle Files. We have a great story for you today. And if you remember our Mystery Boat episode, if you love that one, you're gonna love this One's day.

1:24Speaker 2:Yeah, Yeah, this is another story where you can just practically feel something swimming under your feet as you listen to it.

1:31Speaker 3:It's really good.

1:31Speaker 4:Yeah, kind of a scary thought, So enjoy and we can't wait to discuss this one afterwards.

1:40Speaker 2:At first, to Kyle, willis nothing about the morning felt foreboting. That's how so many of these stories begin not with danger, not with fear, but with something ordinary. It was November twenty fifth, two thousand and seven, the sunday after Thanksgiving. Kyle headed out for a day of deep sea fishing with his twin brother Kevin and their older brother Michael, who captained an eighteen foot seacat. The sky was mostly clear, and though the water held a restless edge, the two foot waves didn't feel like a warning of things to come.

2:17Speaker 1:The fishing trip was something we did often whenever we were in town from college, and we went out about six am off the coast of Boyton Beach, Florida, which is in South Florida on the Atlantic side, and typical morning we went out to get our bait and from there we went out about four miles off the coast. Typically that's where about six hundred feet of water hits, so that kind of depth is where we found usual success in fishing, right along the weed line. They're about four miles off the coast.

2:50Speaker 2:Their older brother, Brian, was also supposed to go out with them that day, but he'd been called into work, and Michael's wife at the time, Amy, had also decided not to go at the last minute. She was seven months pregnant and wasn't feeling up to it on this particular morning. The three brothers were still happy to be out there, enjoying.

3:11Speaker 3:Each other's company.

3:13Speaker 2:They fished, they waited, they adjusted lines, but after a while it became clear the ocean wasn't cooperating. The bites weren't coming. Though the forecast had promised calm, the water slowly began to change. The ship happened so gradually it was hard to notice at first.

3:35Speaker 1:And so we fished for about an hour or so, and the waves just continued to get worse and worse. As the hour went on.

3:42Speaker 2:The three brothers hoped the waves would settle, but they didn't. Instead, they grew higher, rougher, more aggressive. With each passing minute, the boat began to rise and fall more sharply, its movements less predictable.

3:56Speaker 1:Now and then my twin brother was getting seasick. He had actually been so sick that he was thrown up overboard. So we decided this was not worth it. Let's go ahead and pack everything up and turn around and go inshore.

4:12Speaker 2:It was a simple logical choice, the kind that should have ended the story before it ever had the chance to begin. But you know what they say, even the best laid plans can go wrong. The three brothers began packing up, securing gear, and turning the boat toward shore.

4:31Speaker 1:And not thirty seconds later, everything changed.

4:35Speaker 2:There was no warning, no time to react. One moment, they were heading back toward shore, cresting over a wave. The next, a huge second wave coming from the side, violently slammed into their boat.

4:50Speaker 3:A rogue wave.

4:55Speaker 2:Before Kyle could even take a breath, his body was hurled into the deep, churning ocean. His ears filled with muffled sounds as he clawed at the water, desperate to reach the surface. When he finally broke through, he took in a gulp of air, but there was no time to recover.

5:15Speaker 3:As he bobbed in the swell, his thoughts.

5:17Speaker 2:Turned immediately to his brothers. He spun scanning the water heart pounding for a moment there was nothing but waves, and then relief washed over him. There they were, both Michael and Kevin. But what about the boat?

5:39Speaker 1:And we thought when we popped up out of the water, the boat had capsized, But as we got our bearings together, we realized the boat had not capsized.

5:50Speaker 2:Worse than capsizing, the boat had thrown them overboard, then uprighted, and was now disappearing into the distance.

5:59Speaker 1:And unfortunately the boat was still full throttle and it was moving away from us in a fast way.

6:06Speaker 2:Kyle felt the raw panic of seeing his only means of safety vanish into the horizon. There was no possible way to catch it. He looked around at his brothers. Like Kyle, they had no life jackets on because they had all been actively fishing and moving around in the boat, and the jackets were stored below. In fact, just before they were thrown overboard, Kyle had mentioned grabbing the life jackets.

6:32Speaker 3:The thought had come only seconds too late.

6:35Speaker 2:Now the boat was gone and the three brothers were alone in open water, four miles off shore and caught in a current that was dragging them even farther out to sea. No one knew of their predicament, and they weren't expected home for hours. Together, the brothers made some quick decisions.

6:55Speaker 1:I mean, it was a strong current, and we decided we were going to stick together and separating and trying to see if we could find help. And we decided to get as much weight off of us, so we got our shoes and most of our clothes off. We had tore up our shirts in the water, trying to figure it if somebody might come by, we could try to flag them down in some way.

7:18Speaker 2:Their first instinct was to try to swim. They strained against the current, but instantly realized the attempt was futile.

7:26Speaker 1:We tried to swim a little bit and within thirty seconds just completely exhausted, fighting the current but also the waves.

7:34Speaker 2:Kyle's twin, Kevin, was in especially bad shape. Already drained from seasickness. He struggled to keep himself afloat. As Kyle battled the waves, he did everything he could to lift Kevin just enough to keep his head above the surface. Too. Every minute in the water was work. Every breath had to be managed, every movement had to be measured slowly, steadily. Kevin regained enough strength to keep himself from sinking. The three brothers tried to flow on their backs whenever possible in order to conserve energy, but the sea would not allow even that small.

8:13Speaker 3:Mercy for long.

8:14Speaker 2:The swells had become so rough that each time the brothers tried to rest, waves broke over their faces and filled their mouths and throats with salt water.

8:24Speaker 1:And that was probably the worst part, just because then you'd have to pop up and continue treading water. Thankfully, we were all really good swimmers, but out with no life jackets, tread and water it was hard.

8:41Speaker 2:Michael, the oldest brother, became the voice of hope in the water.

8:47Speaker 1:My oldest brother, Michael said, Hey, we're gonna be fine. We're going to drift in inward to shore, even though he knew that we weren't drifting towards shore. I think it was more of him trying to keep us positive.

9:07Speaker 2:The brothers were now about two hours into the ordeal, and their situation was becoming worse by the minute.

9:14Speaker 3:They were growing tired, losing strength.

9:18Speaker 2:Just then, the three brothers saw something that made their hearts leap two helicopters hovering.

9:24Speaker 3:In the distance.

9:26Speaker 2:Maybe, just maybe someone had found their boat. And help was on its way. But even if that were the case, they knew the odds of anyone finding them, and the immense ocean were impossibly slim, like trying to find a single grain of sand on an endless beach. Still, as they battled the waves, they held onto hope. They kept their anxious eyes on the distant helicopters. After about thirty minutes, Kyle noticed that one of the helicopters seemed to be getting closer and closer.

9:59Speaker 3:It flew straight toward them.

10:01Speaker 2:It was near enough now that the pilot had to see them.

10:05Speaker 3:This was it, This was their chance for rescue.

10:09Speaker 2:Kyle and his brothers waved their torn shirts and shouted with everything they had left.

10:15Speaker 1:They came within It felt like one hundred yards from us, and we were waving and screaming, and they passed right over us. And then they kind of came around, and we were, at that moment thought they found us.

10:29Speaker 2:But something was wrong. The helicopter swooped low, then passed by them, then left gone. It was like a bullet of acid hit all three men's stomachs at once, and that's when reality really started to sink in.

10:47Speaker 1:They couldn't see us. We were so small in the water, and the waves had just gotten worse, about six feet or so at that time.

10:55Speaker 2:Up until then, there had been hope, the sense that rescue was possible and perhaps even close. But watching the coastguard come that near and still miss them forced a terrible realization to crash over them, like the raging sea around them. Rescue might be impossible, it might not come at all. Fear hung over Kyle and his brothers like a dark shadow. None of the three brothers wanted to make the others more afraid than they already were, so outwardly they kept speaking in steady, hopeful tones, but inwardly, something deeper had begun, and that was the moment Kyle turned to God, I think.

11:37Speaker 1:It's totally we're all feeling that fear, and I mean, we're such a small speck in the water at this point. So that was the I think the moment it panic began to set it in, and deep sense of prayer and crying out to the Lord.

11:56Speaker 2:Treading water there in the ocean, the bottomless feeling beneath his feet, the overwhelming fastness threatening to swallow him and his brother's hole. Kyle knew he was nothing without God. The relentless waves stripped away any illusion of control, and in his helpless state, Kyle was no longer speaking about God from a distance. He was calling on him, not out loud, but from deep in Kyle's soul, asking God to be near and to help Kyle and his brothers in a way they had never needed before. Facing an uncertain future and possibly even death, Kyle laid his soul bare before the Lord.

12:39Speaker 1:It was just recognizing my own sin, I think was a huge piece of that, Like really understanding the depth of my sin and what I needed in order to be right before him.

13:00Speaker 2:Three and a half hours had now passed since Kyle and his brothers were thrown into the ocean. Even though this was Florida, the late November water was cold enough to completely drain their energy, leaving their bodies heavy, shivering, and exhausted. Kyle continued to plead with God as they drifted, no one speaking. The only sound came from the roar of the crashing waves around them. Then, breaking through the monotony, came a new sound. Faint at first, a distant, familiar, chopping sound. It grew steadily louder and Kyle's heart raced as he saw a helicopter flying through the sky toward them.

13:44Speaker 3:Once again, the.

13:45Speaker 2:Brothers yelled and waved their shirts, doing everything.

13:48Speaker 3:To be seen.

13:50Speaker 2:For a moment, it felt like rescue was finally within reach, But just as before, the helicopter passed overhead, leaving as quickly as it had around.

14:01Speaker 3:Still, Kyle kept praying. Then unexpectedly, the.

14:07Speaker 2:Helicopter turned it circled back towards them. The brothers looked pleadingly at the sky, their faces filled with urgency and hope. This time felt different, This time felt like an answer to prayer. The helicopter slowed as it approached, flying lower and closer, until at last it hovered directly above them.

14:32Speaker 1:We didn't think they saw us, but they did circle back, and they did in fact find us. It was the US Coast Guard, and they jumped out of the helicopter. One of the gentlemen swam with us, made sure that we were all okay. They called in for a sheriff's boat to come pick us up, so that sheriff's boat arrived about thirty minutes later, and we just swam with this Coastguard and then we got on the boat, and even that boat, which with a much larger share his vote, that was getting rocked around quite a bit.

15:04Speaker 2:Finally, the three brothers were taken to the shore. When they made it back, they were not only met by medical personnel and news cameras, but by their families, who had spent hours not knowing whether they were alive or dead. Kyle, Kevin, and Michael were checked medically, given fluids, warmed up, and released soon afterward. They were sunburned, shaken, and cold in a way they had not expected cold to feel in South Florida waters. But they were alive. Their gratitude was overwhelming.

15:38Speaker 2:But there was still something Kyle and his brothers didn't know, and this is why Kyle still speaks of that day with the kind of awe reserved for things that defy explanation.

15:49Speaker 1:What we found out was the boat actually had gone perfectly straight into shore, nobody steering it. It could have gone out to sea and ran out of fuel down a Cuba, and it could have gone anywhere. But it had gone perfectly straight in the shore where it crashed four miles out. And it was somebody else out on the water who had just been a little bit closer to shore when he saw this boat full of fishing gear and nobody driving it, and he was the one that alerted the authorities.

16:21Speaker 2:Kyle and his brothers couldn't believe it. Almost like Glassie the dog, their boat had motored straight into the shore as if to get them help. The brothers knew it was more than luck. It was more than a boat running ashore. The brothers knew it was divine intervention. And as they thought about the miracle they'd experienced, the timing of everything felt impossible to dismiss. Too many precise things aligned at exactly the right moment. As soon as the authorities were alerted, they contacted Michael's wife, Amy, Amy and Michael had previously gone fishing together, many times, returning to their favorite spot without fail.

17:02Speaker 1:She was actually supposed to be with us that day, but she was not feeling well, so she decided to stay home, which we look back was a miracle because she knew where we fished. She was able to tell the authorities, and that helped them in that search process.

17:18Speaker 2:Had Amy gone with the brothers that day as planned, no one would have had a clue where to look for them. And not only that, imagine if Amy had gone treading water for three and a half hours, had already pushed three healthy men to their limits, for someone seven months pregnant, the outcome could have been very different. And that was only part of the miracle. Because the boat had gone straight to the shore and was discovered so quickly, helicopters were deployed while there was still daylight, and after missing the brothers once, the coastguard came back and found them in a sea vast enough to hide them forever. Kya later found out that when the authorities had called his twin brothers family, they had immediately contacted Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and.

18:08Speaker 1:They had a prayer hotline, and so one of the first things they did was call and have a team of people praying for us.

18:17Speaker 2:So many prayers had led up to this rescue. But for Kyle, the miracle was not only that he survived. It was what had happened to him while he had been waiting to be found out there in the deep, turbulent sea.

18:32Speaker 1:What happened in that water for me personally was even more significant. I had been in a season of deep discipleship at my church with our pastor or associate pastor. He had been pouring into my life in a really special way. In some weeks we would be together seven days a week just doing life together, discipleship, Bible study, and I would say would have said I was a Christian at that moment. I think from my lips I would have said that. But it was in the water that went from my lips to my heart to truly surrender my life to him. And that was a transforming day for me. And out of that committed my life and service to him in ministry. And so now almost eighteen years later, I've been serving with Wickliffe Bible Translators, and yeah, it's been amazing.

19:25Speaker 2:God was not finished with Kyle that day.

19:28Speaker 1:He had a greater purpose for me in my life to serve him, to glorify him and what I would do following that accident.

19:36Speaker 2:And God wasn't finished with his brothers either, because the rescue didn't only spare their lives, It changed them. It strengthened their bond as brothers, It deepened their faith. It turned a fishing trip into a testimony none of them could have imagined. And this is the part Kyle never gets over not just that they survived, but that mercy seemed to move toward them from every direction at once, through timing, through people, through prayer, through the unexplainable path of an empty boat cutting straight toward land, and in the middle of the waves, when fear was deepest and hope was smallest, that mercy became personal. Because the greatest miracle for Kyle that day was not simply that his body was rescued from the sea. It was that, in a moment of utter helplessness, his soul was rescued too.

20:35Speaker 3:Wow.

20:35Speaker 4:Such an amazing miracle story in so many ways. And I feel like they need to name this boat Lassie after this.

20:43Speaker 3:I think that's pretty fitting.

20:45Speaker 4:And if kids don't know who Lassie is long ago, I think it was like our parents' generation. I used to watch Reasons of It, but was a TV show about this dog that would always save the day, go get help. Last right, Yeah, Timmy's in the well, Lassie you'd be like rough and go get to me.

21:02Speaker 2:But it is very fitting because they would always send Lassie out to go get help.

21:05Speaker 3:And that's exactly what this boat did. I mean the boat did.

21:08Speaker 2:Yeah, it's incredible, Like you think about if the angle had just changed even slightly from four miles out, who knows where this boat would have gone.

21:16Speaker 3:Who knows how this would have ended.

21:17Speaker 4:So true.

21:18Speaker 3:But something else interesting.

21:19Speaker 2:We didn't mention in the story is that when this boat shows up on shore without anybody on it and it's very unusual, at first, they didn't know what to think other than maybe this is a crime scene.

21:31Speaker 4:Yeah, we actually have a SoundBite from Kyle about that, so let's play that, okay.

21:36Speaker 1:We later found out that when they found it, they treated it as a potential homicide case, so they didn't want to enter the boat and move anything around before they could find out what was going on. So they did finally enter the boat. They found our cell phones, probably flip phones back in two thousand and seven, and called our family members and called my mom first and said, hey, we found your son's boat. Everybody, but he's missing. And that's all they told my mom. Three of our four boys were missing.

22:04Speaker 3:Oh.

22:05Speaker 4:I can't even imagine a phone call like that. And I am so relieved for this mother, oh that she didn't have to lose her boys.

22:12Speaker 2:I know I have four kids too, and I cannot imagine losing three of them, it would be so tragic, so awful, and yet because of God's mercy, they were actually able to turn this into something really positive for their family. Kyle said, they're all a lot closer now than they were before this experience, and I mean it completely changed the trajectory of his life.

22:33Speaker 3:Dedicated his life to God. Yeah.

22:35Speaker 4:And if you don't know what Wickliffe Bible Translators is, it's an organization that translates the Bible into languages that don't yet have access to it. So here's Kyle talking about it.

22:47Speaker 1:Our founder was in Guatemala as a Spanish Bible salesman, and he quickly realized that people didn't speak Spanish. And it was one gentleman from that community that said, if your God is great, why doesn't he speak our language? And that totally rocks him. I had no idea the scale of how many languages there were in the world and little to no access to God's word. And so our founder went on to actually translate this Bible was the ketchikw Bible in Guatemala, and then later after that found it Wickliffe. And there's over seven thousand languages in the world. Today, and there's still thousands that don't have the full council of God's word. And so if you don't have a Bible in your own language, a language that you think and you dream and you pray, and it's hard to fully understand it and then fully see that transformation.

23:44Speaker 2:Wow, that is crazy. I didn't even know there were that many languages. I didn't either, And what a cool mission to be able to bring the Bible to all of these people who would never be able to read it otherwise. Yeah, and you think about it, like Kyle may not have even gone into this career if it hadn't.

24:00Speaker 3:Been here that day in the water. It's just amazing how God works.

24:04Speaker 4:Yeah, and let's talk about what happened in the water that day, because first of all, I'm so glad Amy didn't go into that water with those guys.

24:13Speaker 2:I know, you think about her morning, she wakes up sick. She was probably super disappointed that she couldn't go. She had to miss out all the fun. But if she had gone, oh my goodness, Like I've gone swimming when I was pregnant.

24:26Speaker 3:It is not as easy.

24:27Speaker 2:Yeah, No, I imagine treading water and somebody hands you a bowling ball, like, yeah, seriously, it's so hard.

24:34Speaker 3:It would not I don't know, it would not have turned out well.

24:38Speaker 4:Yeah, And I was thinking about that, and I thought, you know, we can kind of all learn from that, because how many times do you have your day planned out or your life planned out?

24:47Speaker 3:Yeah, and then God.

24:49Speaker 4:Has a different idea of how things should go, or things just don't go the way you think they should go, and pretty soon you look back at it.

24:56Speaker 3:Sometimes it takes a few years and you can see why.

24:59Speaker 4:But in high yeah, you can see God's plan all along and see how he guided you and helped you the whole time.

25:04Speaker 3:Right, And like, think about these brothers.

25:06Speaker 2:They're like out in the water probably thinking like why is this happening? Why would God allow this to happen? And yet they received this amazing miracle.

25:14Speaker 3:I mean the.

25:14Speaker 2:Fact that these helicopters found them with this choppy water, there were all these white caps.

25:21Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not like it was hey.

25:23Speaker 4:Yeah, and Kyle even mentioned that it was a blessing that he happened to have a bright red shirt.

25:28Speaker 3:On yeah at day.

25:30Speaker 2:Yeah, you think about like a gray shirt or brown, Yeah, and.

25:34Speaker 4:You combine all of that with the boat right, and when you just look at all of it together, it's impossible to not see this as a miracle.

25:41Speaker 3:Absolutely a miracle.

25:43Speaker 2:You know. I have gone deep sea fishing one time, and there's a reason I went.

25:47Speaker 3:One time.

25:48Speaker 2:We were in the Dominican Republic and we went deep sea fishing and they called U the day before and said, hey, we need to cancel and postpone U till later than the week. The waves are too big. And we're like, okay, well, our only available day is tomorrow. And they thought about it for a minute. They're like, okay, we could do that. Well, I didn't realize that no one was supposed to go out the next day. But they didn't want to lose their money. They knew it was then or not never. Yeah, and they didn't tell us that, so they took us out deep sea fishing. Oh my goodness, these waves were massive and everyone in the boat was throwing up and it was just so terrifying and we were just like, take us back, this is awful.

26:26Speaker 3:We get back and they're.

26:27Speaker 2:Like, oh, hey, somebody died here. Their boat capsized yesterday.

26:32Speaker 3:Right there in that same dan.

26:34Speaker 2:They're like, yeah, body washed up yesterday, boat just like capsized and we're.

26:38Speaker 3:Like, oh, that's horrible, Oh my gosh, it.

26:40Speaker 2:Was so tragic, but experiencing what it feels like to be among those massive waves, yeah, I don't know how they swam through that, especially without life jackets. Yeah three, and.

26:52Speaker 3:They don't either.

26:53Speaker 1:Yes.

26:53Speaker 4:And by the way, Emily, you could have been on the Miracle files, So don't.

26:57Speaker 3:Do that again. I'll try not to. I don't want to be on the Miracle file. No, you don't. Probably.

27:03Speaker 4:I mean, the miracles are amazing and people are always grateful for what they go through. But yeah, let's try to avoid situations like that anyway. But I also wanted to say that there are lessons in every one of our stories for people to learn, and I hope our listeners are listening for those, because, for example, in this story, I think there's a clear lesson where your life jackets?

27:26Speaker 3:Where are your life jackets?

27:27Speaker 2:So so, Anna's so interesting that Kyle mentioned that right before their boat capsized, he had this thought, we need to get our life jackets, and then he just waited. And it's like, if you get those properties from.

27:40Speaker 4:The hotels feeling act fast act and not wait.

27:44Speaker 3:Yeah, Yep, it's true.

27:46Speaker 4:Well, thank you everyone for listening today, and thank you so much to our listeners who have reached out to us through social media or email. Don't hesitate to reach out to us because we love it. We love getting to meet you and you do. As always, please leave us review if you'd be so kind, and make sure to share this podcast with your friends and family and have a wonderful week. Thank you for joining us. If you have a miracle to share, contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media.

28:16Speaker 3:We release new episodes each Monday. Yes, so don't forget Miracle Mondays.

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28:27Speaker 4:Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles, and don't forget to look for His light in your own lives.