A kidnapped 16-year-old girl in Michigan silently mouthed the word “help” to a sharp-eyed gas station clerk in Detroit, and his quick thinking saved her life.
Have you ever been in a place so hard that you couldn’t even find the words to say it out loud? Maybe you didn’t want anyone to know what was really going on at home, at work, or inside your own heart.
You wanted to pray, but the words wouldn’t come. All you could do was cry out to God and hope He was listening. Do we need the right words to let God know about our situation? Absolutely not. He even hears the tiny whispers of our heart. And He already knows when His child needs help.
This teen was kidnapped, and we know how panicked we would be in a moment like that. Most of us would barely think about praying. But God knew exactly what she was going through, and He placed a stranger in her path who could see it too.
The kidnapping happened around 7 a.m. near Edwin and Brombach streets in Hamtramck. The teen was waiting for her school bus when a stranger grabbed her at gunpoint.
Hamtramck Police Chief Hussein Farhat said the two had never met. “This is a random incident. This suspect could have driven anywhere, saw the opportunity and took advantage of it,” Farhat said.
About 30 minutes later, the man walked the girl into a Sunoco station and told her to buy him cigarettes. That’s when clerk Abdulrahman Abohatem noticed something felt off.
“When he ask her to pay for the cigarettes, I stop and go there’s something wrong. And she mouthed talked to me, like with no sound, ‘help,'” Abohatem said.
He stepped out from behind the protective glass, got between them, and moved her to safety. “I go out, I kick him out, I ask the girl go behind me,” he said.
Meanwhile, her friends at Frontier International Academy had pulled up her location through a phone app and passed it to police. Officers arrived just as Abohatem walked the suspect outside. “I see the police outside. I point to him. I go that’s the guy,” he said.
Mayor Adam Alharbi said the suspect had a history of rape charges. Please pray for this young girl as she heals, and thank God for every person He placed in her path that morning.
WATCH: Gas Station Clerk Saves Kidnapped Teen After She Mouthed “Help”
