The Lord will guard our “coming and our going,” promises the psalmist this Sunday. After narrowly escaping death and spending more than two months trapped in a collapsed Chilean mine, 33 miners emerged one by one in a rescue capsule Wednesday in dramatic scenes watched around the world.

Florencio Avalos, 31, was the first miner to make the journey from the underground chamber in the collapsed mine towards the surface. He stepped out of the missile-like rescue capsule with a broad smile on his face and embraced his family in an emotional scene. The second-in-command of the group of 33, he was chosen to make the journey before the others because he was in the best physical condition.

The last of the Chilean miners, the foreman who held them together when they were feared lost, was raised from the depths of the earth Wednesday night--a joyous ending to a 70-day ordeal that riveted the world. No one has ever been trapped so long and survived. Luis Urzua ascended smoothly through 2,000 feet of rock, completing a 22 1/2-hour rescue operation that unfolded with remarkable speed and flawless execution.

The miners were trapped by tons of fallen rock in early August. They survived by rationing limited food supplies and living on two spoonfuls of tuna and a sip of milk per man every 48 hours. No one knew if they were alive or dead until an exploratory borehole reached them and a dramatic note made its way to the surface: “We are well in the refuge--the 33.”

“We have lived a magical night, a night we will remember throughout our lives, a night in which life defeated death,” declared Chilean President Sebastian Piñera early in the rescue operation. Piñera was joined at the site by Bolivian President Evo Morales, who arrived to greet the only foreigner trapped in the collapsed mine, Bolivian Carlos Mamani. As he surfaced, Mamani pointed to a Chilean flag on his T-shirt and shouted, “Gracias, Chile!”

"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other emerged later in the evening.

Group spokesman Mario Sepulveda erupted from the rescue capsule as if he had scored a winning goal in the World Cup, hugging everyone, handing out rock souvenirs brought up from the mine, and leading the onlookers in a victory chant of “Long live Chile!” In one of many memorable quotes from the emerging miners, Sepulveda said, “I’ve been near God but I’ve also been near the devil. They fought but God won.”

Source: Article by Chris Kraul for the Los Angeles Times, Peter Hutchison, Bonnie Malkin and Andy Bloxham
for Telegraph.co.uk, Michael Warren for Associated Press, a blog post by Trevor Persaud
for Christianity Today, and an article by BBC