“In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also.” ~ Psalm 95:4

“Porque en su mano estan las profundidades de la tierra, y las Alturas de los montes son suyas.” ~ Salmos 95:4

If you’ve seen photos of the Chilean miners’ rescue last month, most of the miners are wearing a t-shirt with logos from Campus Crusade for Christ on the sleeves. Several photos show the miners kneeling in prayer after their rescue. The t-shirts were a gift from Campus Crusade for Christ Chile.

Christian Maureira, national director of Campus Crusade for Christ Chile, explains what happened (text slightly edited):

“All those t-shirts are a gift from Campus Crusade for Christ Chile. In the front you can read ‘Gracias Señor, Thank You Lord’ and on the back, Psalm 95:4. Also, on one sleeve we put The Jesus Film Project image, and on the other sleeve the Cruzada Estudiantil y Profesional para Cristo (CCC Chile) image.

“The idea was to glorify our Lord with all this and also to express our love and concern for them by giving them the audio version of the Jesus Film and the Bible in audio through the MP3s.

“They received many gifts but they decided to wear our T-shirts and we praise God for this. When I saw the miners on TV [wearing the shirts], my heart was like this … really fast. I was really excited because a lot of people around the world were looking at that. [The miners] gave the glory to God–wow!

“… the Chilean TV says that 1,000,000,000 of people were watching the rescue as it happened.

“…The rescue of the miners is an historical event without precedent, which brings to mind Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He gave His life as a ransom to rescue humanity, and has demonstrated that He is an expert at freeing souls that are trapped in the depths of the abyss. This is corroborated by the testimony of Jonah at the bottom of the sea; by Daniel in the lions’ den; by the transformation of millions of people throughout history; or by the statement of Mario Sepulveda: ‘I was with God and I was with the Devil. They fought over me and God won. I held onto the best hand and I was never afraid that God wouldn’t get me out of this.’

“… it was humble men, who had no public or media relevance before the collapse of the mine, who installed the quote of the event onto the front pages of newspapers, on live television, in the internet, Facebook, Twitter, and all the different media platforms all over the world. I suspect that ‘Thank you Lord!’ was the general feeling of the entire Chilean population. It was a muffled scream since the day we found out that they were alive. We were all tuned to the same frequency—presidents, artists, actors, scientists, religious leaders, singers and so many others.”

• Read more about Jose Samuel, the spiritual leader of the miners, and how God answered their prayers in the mine (They ran out of food at one point and had prayer services at noon and at 6 pm.)

• Read the report from the CNN Belief Blog.

• Again, the link to the dramatic photos from the Boston Globe. Many photos show the men in their t-shirts and several are praying after their rescue.

Click for a larger image of the photo of Christian Maureira, courtesy of Baptist Press.