Man finds comfort in his faith after the tragic loss of his family

The wall of water slammed into the van with Robert Rogers and his family inside.

Pinned against a concrete median and with water up to the seats, he and his wife, Melissa, sought God for help.

And they recited Scripture, “We will not fear, though the earth give way ... though its waters roar and foam ....”

Five years later, Robert Rogers knows what it’s like to go through the deep waters of suffering.

To lose his entire immediate family.

And yet to be filled with peace and strength from a loving God.

Rogers, who lives in Fort Wayne, Ind., will speak at two Fremont churches on Sunday. During that time he’ll tell how a flash flood in Kansas took the lives of his wife and all four children. But he also will share how God sustained him -- and about his ministry which has reached out to thousands. Rogers has told his story more than 400 times and to more than 120,000 people personally.

“The message seems to transcend time and denominations, and every time I share it, it’s different. Even if someone knows of the story, the Holy Spirit, I believe, will custom-fit it to their hearts and situations.”

Rogers’ story begins in 1990 when he was an engineering student in Boston, where he met Melissa. A self-described geek, Rogers was quite taken with the beautiful blonde.

“I was playing piano at a sidewalk cafe. We shared our first bowl of ice cream and quickly fell in love,” he said.

They married a year later, then moved to the San Jose, Calif., area. But life wasn’t easy. Melissa was molested as a child and although she was able to forgive the perpetrator, the repercussions lasted throughout the Rogers’ marriage.

“From the beginning, we were learning the stepping stones of faith and to trust God through difficult ordeals,” he said.

God blessed the couple, however.

“We had a wonderfully rich marriage and a romantic relationship,” he said.

The Rogers wanted a big family and -- after a difficult two days of labor -- their first child, Makenah was born. She was a peaceful child and Daddy’s little girl. She and dad had tea parties and even built a bird house together.

When Makenah was about a year old, Melissa became pregnant. But one day, Melissa collapsed. Roger rushed her to the hospital, where they learned she’d had a ectopic rupture, which required emergency surgery.

“We lost the baby and if I hadn’t been home that morning, I very likely would have lost my wife,” he said.

God blessed them with another baby after they moved to Kansas City, Mo., in 1997. This time, the birth went smoothly.

But little Zachary had Down Syndrome and many health-related issues. Zachary was autistic and had a cleft palate. He needed a colostomy bag for about six months and many types of therapy and surgery. Family members learned sign language to communicate with him.

“Once again, we had to trust God,” Rogers said.

The family came to cherish Zachary.

“He was a bucket of fun. He savored life to the fullest. When he played, he got covered with mud and when he ate, he got covered with chocolate cake. We’d give him about three baths a day,” Rogers said.

Nicholas was born in 1999 after 36 hours of hard labor.

“He was all boy -- a Huckleberry kind of kid. He always wanted to be a policeman -- be the good guy and get the bad guy. He could make a gun out of a piece of pizza,” Rogers said.

After another miscarriage, the Rogers decided to adopt.

They learned about a special needs, orphan girl from China, who had a heart defect. They brought her home and named her Alenah.

“She was as cute as a button,” Rogers said. “She was one of the gang right from the start.”

By the summer of 2003 the Rogers were flourishing as a family. They enjoyed campouts and picnics -- “simple, mundane things that to us were like miracles,” he said.

Melissa called it the best summer she’d ever had with her family.

One August evening before they were to attend a wedding in Wichita, Kan., the family had a movie night with their standard fare of popcorn, pizza and ice cream.

“I played the piano and the kids ran around the piano and danced. It was a beautiful, typical evening in the Rogers’ home,” he said.

But that year, the Midwest had suffered a terrible drought.

“We were all praying for rain and suddenly that weekend we got all the rain at once,” he said.

The next day, the family drove through rain during the three-hour drive from their home in Liberty, Mo., to Wichita. They had a great time at the wedding and reception -- after which they went out for ice cream and had “a fantastic time with relatives.”

It was black outside and raining, when the family left at about 8 p.m.

Melissa wanted to drive during the first half of the trip.

“She was a marvelous driver,” Rogers said. “She did a great job of navigating through the downpour.”

But without realizing it, the Rogers’ van went into a river that had formed across I-35.

“The water was up to our bumper when we hit it,” Rogers said. “It was so dark we couldn’t see it coming with the rain pounding down.”

An estimated 6 inches of rain fell between 8 and 9 p.m. -- the time the Rogers were making their way down the highway. On the prairie land in that stretch, there was nowhere for the water to go -- except for a dip in the roadway where it had collected.

Within minutes it seeped into the van, up to the seat cushions, and the engine stalled.

Eye witnesses described a 7 foot wall of water crashing across the freeway, consuming everything in its path. The water rushed toward the Rogers’ van immobilizing it against a concrete median.

The Rogers recited Scripture. They began calling out “Jesus save us” and lastly sang a song of praise, “Lord I lift your name on high....”

In a last ditch effort to save his family, Rogers kicked a window out of the van.

“The pressure of the water flushed everything and everyone out of our van that wasn’t tied down -- including me and Melissa and Makenah, who were out of our seatbelts,” he said. “I was tumbling like a rag doll in a washing machine. Completely helpless.’

Even so, he felt God’s peace.

Somehow, his head bobbed above the water. He gasped for air.

“I don’t know how but I ended up on the left-hand shore. There’s no way I could have gotten there on my own against the force of the current. I’m a strong swimmer, but not that strong,” he said.

Crawling on his hands and knees, he cried out to God and began searching desperately for his family. He went for help and found a state trooper. Authorities began searching for his family and Rogers was taken to a hospital.

At about 5 a.m., an officer and a chaplain came into his room. They’d found the van, upside down, 1 1/2 miles from the freeway. They needed him to identify the bodies of his three youngest children.

“I collapsed over each one. I groaned and wailed and cried from my gut and threw up,” he said.

Later that morning, Makenah was found, caught up against a barbed wire fence, 1/4 mile from the van.

Three days later, they found Melissa, two miles away in a retention pond.

Rogers credits God for helping him get through the identification process �” surrendering his family.

“I put one hand on each one of them ... and said, ‘Into your hands, I commit their spirits,” he said. “I couldn’t have done that on my own. I couldn’t have done that without God.”

God would sustain him in the days ahead -- times when he melted into a puddle. He cried many tears.

“Our tears are precious to God. He counts every one. He’s very close to those whose hearts are broken,” he said.

Rogers said he intentionally spent time praying, reading Scripture, singing songs to God and thanking the Lord for the time he had with his family.

“I found his strength to wake up the next day and put my feet on the floor and keep living,” he said. “I found that life is still worth living because Christ died for us and rose that we might live again.”

Rogers realized he had a choice to make.

“I could be bitter or I could be better,” he said. “I could be a victim or I could become a victor through God’s power. It was a daily choice of my attitude.”

People began asking Rogers to speak at their churches, telling how he lost his family, but didn’t lose his faith.

After a year, he established the Mighty in the Land ministry, a nonprofit organization.

“My challenge is for others to know God personally and to live a life of no regrets,” he said.

He also established the Mighty in the Land Foundation with the plan of sponsoring five orphanages on five continents in honor of his five family members. The Melissa Home has been established for two years. Funding recently was sent to Rwanda, Africa, for the Makenah Home.

Eventually, through mutual friends, Rogers was introduced to Inga Fisher.

“The first time I saw her, she was eating a bowl of ice cream,” he said.

She went to the flood site with Rogers and helped place roses at the spots where each of his family members were found.

“We said a prayer and sang a hymn and commemorated their lives,” he said, later adding, “Death is not the end. It’s part of life and my family didn’t leave home, they went home.”

He and Inga married in May 2006 in Fort Wayne, Ind. They now have a son named, Ezekiel; the name means “God is my strength.”

Another baby is due in December.

These days, Rogers strives to give hope to people and remind them that life is fragile and short.

For those who’ve lost a loved one he says, “God has a wonderful plan for your life. He is a God of happy endings and a God of new beginnings. He can take any kind of a mess and turn it into a miracle if we just place all of our trust in him.”