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Tragedy to Victory.

In 1873, a young woman named Anna Spafford and her four little girls set sail from America to France, with her husband planning to follow a few weeks later.
At two o’clock in the morning, in mid – Atlantic, their ship was in collision with another ship.
Many people died and all four of the little girls drowned.

When their shattered mother was joined by her husband in France it was to the news that their whole family had been wiped out.

With his faith in God sustaining him the husband later wrote a hymn which will be familiar to many.
It begins:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

 A few years later the bereaved parents visited Jerusalem and settled there.
Several more children were born there and half a century later one of the daughters. Bertha, went on to start the Spafford Hospital caring for very sick babies.
The work has continued to this day as the Spafford Centre where hundreds of desperately poor families can find help.
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