Brussels Terror: When 2 Missionaries Came Within Seconds of Tragedy...

BRUSSELS, Belgium – When two bombs exploded at the Brussels airport on March 22, it changed the lives of thousands. Two Christian missionaries found themselves within seconds of a disaster -- or a miracle.

That morning, Rocky Gainwright dropped off his friend, Jeff Slaughter, at the Brussels airport. He entered the arrivals hall moments before the terror attack.

"So I rolled up to the kiosk, pulled my knapsack off and turned around to pick up my suitcase when I saw a bright yellow flashing light," Slaughter told CBN News. "Then I heard a big violent boom. Then just three or four seconds later, there was another big boom and that's when the ceiling tiles began to rain around me." 

"All of the glass just shatters outward and comes hurling at everybody," Gainwright recalled. "But people were running into my car because they were not paying attention. They were just trying to get away as fast as they could."

Get Out!

"I was about 30 feet from a door and I think my mind just told my body, 'get out,'" Slaughter said. But he didn't know how bad it was.

"This lady (was) over there holding the door open," he continued. "I could see she was an airport employee. In my naiveté and shock, I said, 'Ma'am, do you think we'll be able to go back in and leave today?' She said, 'Sir, the airport is broken.'" 

Gainwright didn't know what happened to his friend.

"I just put Jeff in the building and I just couldn't imagine what I had just done. So I pull my car up and I'm thinking I may have to go in the building and just pull him out," he said. 

"You're just trying to process the fact that you went in, it happened, you got out and wow, what in the world has happened?" Slaughter said.

About 15 minutes later, they reunited.

"We found ourselves right near the triage center," Wainwright continued. "So I was just like these people who need(ed) help. So we just began to talk to this one airline employee with a cut and blood all over her face. And so I just walked up to her and I said, 'Can I pray with you? Do you believe in God?' And she said, 'Well, at this moment, I do now.'"

'What If...'

After the attack, the haunting question for many, including Slaughter, was "What if…."

"I could have easily walked down to Starbucks and then right in the middle of all that. I would have been right there," he said.

During their Easter Sunday service, Slaughter's local church prayed for him.

"We thank you for sparing his life. We thank you, Lord, for allowing him to be with us here this morning," his pastor prayed.  

"You have to think how blessed you are to not have gone through that, but at the same time it really makes you think, 'Wow, that could have been me,'" Slaughter said. "And my heart just goes out to those people, and those families who are missing loved ones. And they're in the hospitals and… are burned and hurt and their lives have been torn apart." 

Slaughter experienced the fragility of life.

"It's in God's hands and we need to trust Him through the difficulties of those times and trust that His grace is sufficient even in the darkest hour," he said. 

An Opportunity to Witness

Gainwright sees an opportunity for the Church.

"I think this is going to shake Belgium," he predicted. "I think it's going to shake our comfort zones so that we need God. We actually realize that we need God and that there is no protection outside of an eternal security that happens in your heart."

"That's what Belgium needs to know, and I want the Christian community to stand up and give that to them," he said.