A blue boat sped toward us from the shore as our bamboo chinock pulled by a canoe with an outboard motor drifted down the murky river. A chinock is a fishing raft with long bamboo poles fastened on top for lifting fishing nets out of the water.

In less than a minute, the boat pulled up to our chinock. It was the police. As the officer boarded the makeshift raft and began inspecting it, Abdulla, our captain, became fidgety. I knew what the policeman was looking for, and so did he. With a practiced handover, Abdulla pressed a few dollars into the hand of the official and gave him a polite farewell. The policeman slipped the money into his pocket as nonchalantly as if receiving change at the market, said a few parting words, climbed down into his speedboat and headed back to the shore.

This ritual would have been repeated several times if it hadn’t been for Abdulla’s advance planning. Before setting out, he had paid off all the officials scattered down the riverbanks by buying them credit for their cell phones. Somehow, this policeman had slipped his mind. Abdulla smiled at us in resignation, typical of the attitude that comes from living in a culture of bribes and corruption. “I’m not going to make much money on this trip,” he said with a wistful chuckle.

Joshua Hooker and I had asked to tag along with Abdulla, the husband of our house helper, after hearing he was planning to transport bamboo from our village to another town about 40 miles down the great river. I had been keen to experience a river trip for some time, and Josh is always ready for adventure.

It turned out that we were transporting more than just bamboo. Our bamboo raft turned out to be a chinock complete with thick pillar-like posts forming a frame over the bamboo pontoons and several yards of rough-cut lumber decking lying on top. This very sturdy chinock was looking suspiciously more and more like the basic ingredients for a house. In this country, all cutting and transporting of lumber is illegal. The more Josh and I examined our raft, the more we realized why Abdulla had taken care to give gifts to the river police.

With few police interruptions, most of our trip downriver was quite relaxing. We enjoyed talking with our friend who is normally too busy to spend much time with us. Since we are in the midst of doing our culture study about our people group, I used the opportunity to ask him a few questions. “What sins are considered unforgivable to a Muslim?” I asked him.

“You can never make and worship an idol. This is an unforgivable sin,” Abdulla replied.

“How about lying?” I probed.

“Well, you shouldn’t lie to your family or friends. That would be sinful. But lying to an official is fine.”

“How about merit?”

“We believe people with a lot of merit can share some of it with their relatives after Judgment Day. If you have a lot of merit but your relatives have little, then your merit can be used to help them escape hell sooner.” It was nice to be in a setting where Abdulla could let down his guard and express what he really believed.

As the sun sank over the horizon, Abdulla slipped away to another part of the raft for sundown prayer. Facing Mecca, he prostrated himself in the normal Muslim fashion. As he repeated the various prayers and verses from the Quran, I couldn’t help but admire his dedication. But I wondered how satisfying his religion really was to him. Did his faithfulness in performing the ritual prayers bring him into contact with God, or was it just ritual? For most of our people, it is just a way to make merit so they can convince God to let them into heaven. I longed for an opportunity for Abdulla to experience God in a personal way. As it turned out, God provided an opportunity sooner than I expected.

As darkness descended, the outboard motor spluttered, coughed and died. A few unsuccessful pulls of the cord by our friend in the canoe revealed that we had run out of gas. In the dark silence, we began to drift with the current. Without power in the middle of the great river, we could continue to drift downstream for miles. Abdulla reached for his phone and called his friends who were waiting for us at their riverbank village somewhere in the inky darkness. It was no use, though. It would be next to impossible for them to see us in the middle of the river with no lights to speak of. And if they did see our small flashlight beam, what was to distinguish it from the lights of other craft?

The wind began to pick up, and occasional flashes of lightening revealed that rainclouds were coming our way fast. As the rain began to fall, we huddled under the shelter of the bamboo and palm-leaf thatching Abdulla had put over the raft to provide shade. It was a poor rain barrier, and soon we were soaked.

Here we were, two Muslims and two Christians, huddling together in a little bamboo shelter, rain dripping all around us, all wondering where we would end up. We were vulnerable and in need of help that only God could give.

God, is this the time for Abdulla to realize You are a loving, personal God? I thought. “Why don’t we pray?” I suggested. Our Muslim friends nodded. “Dear God,” I prayed. “Thank You that You love us, and thank You that You protect us. Please help us now. Amen.”

By this time the rain had subsided, and the wind had died away to a gentle breeze. We stepped out of the little shelter. Not more than 10 minutes later, we heard voices in the darkness. They were Abdulla’s friends, the very ones we had come downriver to meet. Soon they were towing us to the safety of the riverbank. How did they find us in the middle of that huge river in pitch darkness?

Late that evening as we ate supper in the home of our rescuers, Abdulla told his friends about how we had prayed for God’s protection. His mother related the same story to Hope a couple of days later. She was very impressed with how God had heard our prayer.

I thank God that Abdulla is beginning to see that God was the One who came to our rescue. I hope and pray that someday he will realize God not only wants to rescue us from storms but to bring us into eternal communion with Him.

• Twitter