Ridgeway cited the tragedy that had befallen the Welsh coal-mining village of Aberfan in 1966 when spring rains saturated and unsettled a large slag heap and sent it sliding 700 yards down a mountain, engulfing a school in mud, sludge, and rubble, killing 116 children and 28 adults. The reverend described how one American reporter looked on the devastation and said, “I cannot believe in God after seeing this.” A Welsh farmer searching for his own son said, “Friend, the God I know is here weeping with us. Don’t ever forget one day He lost His child too.”
