Three Missing Boaters Say Prayer Helped Them Survive!!!!!

The power of prayer should really be the message taken from the story of the three missing boaters who were lost at sea for over a week!That is what kept hope alive for them.These men were strong spiritually & physically.After their boat capsized during a fishing expedition,the men had to survive.And with the help of God,they did.

Here's more on this inspirational story from CNN:

"They kept their bodies alive with rationed crackers, bubble gum, beer and three gallons of water. But spiritually, the three men lost at sea for eight days had something else to keep them going.

"We just kept praying, and we kept hope alive," rescued boater Tressel Hawkins told CNN on Monday. "Even though hope had managed to thread down to a little bitty string, I mean, that little bitty string could be just as strong as the rope you hung on to the first time you got started."

What was supposed to be a fishing expedition to catch swordfish and marlin became instead a test of survival.

Hawkins, 43, and his fellow boaters, Curtis Hall, 28, and James Phillips, 30, set out on August 21 from Matagorda Bay in Texas and went about 100 miles south. Their first night in the Gulf of Mexico almost proved fatal.

While Hawkins was sleeping, he said, he felt the bean bag he was resting on floating. He awoke to find water in the 23-foot catamaran knee-high. The water extractor had malfunctioned. He woke up Hall and Phillips and they tried to stop the flooding but it was too late, Hawkins said.

As Hall had the radio in his hand to call for help, the boat capsized, Phillips told CNN affiliate KHOU-TV. They were "shocked," Phillips said.

Hall was responsible for rationing the food they had on board and the fresh water that sat in a tank on the boat, Hawkins said. They didn't like it, but they had to follow his rules to survive, he said.

"And being that you don't really know when you're going to get rescued, you have to ration it down to the bare essentials, and he stuck to his guns on that," Hawkins said.

And with only those bare essentials, they waited and they prayed but they didn't give up."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.