She Missed Flight 17 Because of the Sabbath Frieda Souhuwat-Tomasoa tells why she changed her ticket from the flight shot down over Ukraine. A Dutch Adventist woman who nearly flew on the Malaysia Airlines jet that was shot down over Ukraine said she changed her ticket at the last minute because she didn’t wish to travel on the Sabbath. Frieda Souhuwat-Tomasoa, 67, had booked a ticket on the July 17 flight to make an emergency visit to Ambon, Indonesia, where a major conference that she was organizing was on the brink of collapse. But three days before the flight, Souhuwat-Tomasoa realized during morning worship with her husband, Max, that her itinerary meant that she would end up traveling on Sabbath, July 19, to reach her destination. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by a missile last Thursday as it flew over rebel-held eastern Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people on board the plane died. “On Friday, when I heard about the accident, I cried during my phone call with Max and said to him, ‘God is good and great to His children,’” Souhuwat-Tomasoa said. “His Spirit spoke to me during our devotional on Monday morning and told me, ‘If you take this route, you will travel on the Sabbath. Don’t.’ “God still speaks to us every single day if we are only quiet and willing to listen to His voice,” she said in an interview. “I still thank Him every moment of the day for His guidance and blessings.” The Indonesia Connection Souhuwat-Tomasoa, who has been a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church since her baptism at the age of 20, said she has never flown on the Sabbath during her many trips for UNPO, a Hague-based organization that seeks to find nonviolent solutions to conflicts that affect indigenous peoples, minorities, and unrecognized or occupied territories. “In all of my UNPO missions, no matter where I’ve gone, I have kept the Sabbath and not once set foot on an airplane,” she said in the e-mailed interview in Dutch. The interview, given from Indonesia, was translated into English by the church’s Netherlands Union Conference. Souhuwat-Tomasoa, a member of the Netherlands Union Conference’s Executive Committee and an elder at her local Rotterdam-North church, retired from a career in Dutch government service but remains active with UNPO, which she joined in 1991. She serves as a representative of the people of the Maluku Islands, where a conflict erupted between Christians and Muslims in the regional capital, Ambon, in 1999. The sectarian violence, which saw entire villages burned down, raged until 2003 and killed an estimated 10,000 people. Souhuwat-Tomasoa was present in Ambon during the violence and used her position with UNPO to steer shiploads of food and clothing from ADRA, the Adventist relief agency, to those who needed assistance. She also helped facilitate a peace agreement that ended the fighting and has engaged in efforts to rebuild the shattered region, again working with the Netherlands branch of ADRA. She said the four years of fighting left many orphans and people with post-traumatic stress disorder. When a multiyear study found that the Maluku Islands are the second poorest of Indonesia’s 33 provinces and its inhabitants are among the least educated in the country, UNPO decided to organize a major conference to create understanding and insight into local problems and to help shape the province’s policy. Souhuwat-Tomasoa set to work organizing the conference with Ambon’s three largest universities. “Unfortunately, it’s been a long and difficult road due to many different factors, including objections by the central government in Jakarta and the local government,” Souhuwat-Tomasoa said. “What further complicates matters is the large-scale corruption in the province.” The Days Before the Crash Last month, everything appeared to be in place. The conference program was finished. The time schedule and speakers had been arranged, and the event was scheduled to take place Aug. 1 to 5. But on July 8, Souhuwat-Tomasoa received a phone text message from Ambon: The conference would have to be canceled. Leaders at the three collaborating universities were being threatened with dismissal. UNPO held an emergency meeting on Sunday, July 13, and decided that Souhuwat-Tomasoa should return to Ambon to look for a way to save the conference. At the meeting, Souhuwat-Tomasoa agreed to take the July 17 flight on Malaysia Airlines. “When I came home, I told my husband, Max. He answered, ‘It is your duty, and you have to do this,’” Souhuwat-Tomasoa said. But after their morning devotional the next day, she told her husband that she would rather leave a day earlier, on Wednesday, July 16. “If I were to leave on Thursday, I would spend the Sabbath traveling to Ambon, and I have never journeyed on a Sabbath in my life,” she said. She and her husband have no children. With her husband’s support, Souhuwat-Tomasoa immediately contacted a travel agency and booked the new flight on the Emirates airline. “I normally fly Malaysia Airlines or KLM,” she said. “I even traveled on a Malaysia Airlines flight in June.” She informed UNPO about the change on Tuesday, confirmed the new flight the same day, and left Amsterdam on Wednesday. What happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight stunned and saddened her. “I am here to witness that God has spared me because I need to continue my mission here in Ambon and be available to aid people in our world who need help,” she said. “At this moment, I’m still working relentlessly to solve the problems concerning the conference and will continue to listen to God’s voice, no matter what the outcome. His will be done, not mine.”
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 06:59:27 +0000
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