A pastor and truck driver found himself in exactly the right place at exactly the right time when a handcuffed young woman ran into traffic on a rural South Carolina road desperately trying to escape the man who had just kidnapped her.
We leave our homes with a plan. Maybe it’s for shopping or for work or just running an errand. We don’t expect anything more than what’s already on our schedule.
But sometimes God quietly reroutes us for something that’s not in our plan but for a greater purpose. That Friday morning in Aiken County, Anthony Moore was just doing his job driving his usual truck route when God had something else lined up for him entirely.
She Was Handcuffed and Running for Her Life
Anthony Moore, a 53-year-old pastor at Amazing Grace Ministries in Denmark, South Carolina and a 27-year Army veteran, was driving his usual truck route through Aiken County on a Friday morning when he noticed a young woman running across the road with a car following close behind.
“I noticed someone ran across the road and a car was following them. I’m wondering, well, maybe that’s a couple that got into it,” he said. But this was something far worse.
The woman had been walking to her mother’s house that morning when a man pulled up behind her in a green Cadillac claiming to be law enforcement. He showed what looked like a badge, handcuffed her, took her phone her Social Security card and her diploma and forced her into the backseat. She had just graduated the day before.
A Remarkable Escape
When the man pulled onto an isolated road and headed toward the trunk of the car she saw her chance. With her hands still cuffed behind her back she climbed over the seat pushed out the driver’s side door and ran straight into traffic.
Moore watched the car swerving across both lanes trying to cut her off. “She would run to one side of the road, the car would go over there. She would run to the other side of the road, the car would go over there.” She finally reached his truck. “She said, ‘Please help me. He’s trying to kidnap me.'”
The man, later identified as 39-year-old Jonathan Willard of New Ellenton, pulled up beside Moore’s truck and claimed to be a police officer. Moore wasn’t convinced. “I thought it was strange that he’s in a teal green Cadillac with a busted-out window with plastic on the back of it.”
A second driver stopped and called 911. Willard sped off. He was arrested the next day and charged with kidnapping and impersonating a law enforcement officer.
Investigators found a cut chain on a fence at the scene and it told them everything they needed to know about what Willard had planned. The lieutenant told Moore directly there was no doubt in their minds that Moore had saved her life.
He Called It a Divine Assignment
Moore didn’t see himself as a hero at all. “I just see it as a divine assignment from God. It was another assignment from God, a special assignment from God. That a life needed to be saved.”
Moore also said his dashcam footage ended up being crucial evidence. “Had not I been there with the dashcam, they probably wouldn’t have caught the footage that needed to be catched.” He called it “delayed divine timing” and said “there is an appointed place for us to be at an appointed time.”
So many of us have had moments where we were delayed for no clear reason or felt led somewhere we hadn’t planned to be. We don’t always understand it in the moment. But stories like this remind us that God sees far ahead of what we can see and he moves people into position long before the need even shows up.
Because of one truck driver who chose to stop and respond, that young woman made it home. Willard didn’t get the chance to hurt anyone else. We may not face a situation like this but when we see someone in need may we take it as an assignment from God just as Moore did.
WATCH: Young Woman Fleeing Kidnapper Runs to Pastor’s Truck for Help
