Arley woman relies on faith when abducted, shot

She had one foot on the ground, getting out of her car, when a man approached her with a gun. He told her to move to the passenger seat, and as she slid across the seats, she thought this couldn’t be happening to her. 
   
But it was. Amy Rogers and her family were about to have their faith tested.
   
Rogers, a member of First Baptist Church, Arley, in Winston Baptist Association, was working on her master’s degree at the University of Montevallo. To keep from making the long drive from Arley to Montevallo several times each week, she stayed with her sister in Homewood on the days she had classes. She was in front of her sister’s apartment in late July when she was confronted by her abductor.
   
“He asked for my cell phone and any money or credit cards. After I gave him those items and we started driving, I felt a peace. I knew God was in control of this situation,” Rogers said.
   
While the two were still in a residential neighborhood, the carjacker told her that she would have to get in the trunk and asked if she knew where the woods were. “I thought to myself, ‘There is no way I can get into that trunk. It’s July … I’ll die and they will never find me.’”
   
She decided to jump out of the car and began to pray that God would show her someone in a yard or nearby car who could help her when she jumped out. When the car slowed at an intersection in nearby Hoover, Rogers saw both a person in a yard and a car close by.
   
She looked into the eyes of her abductor and jumped from the car. Once on the ground, Rogers felt “a really weird pain” and looked down to see blood spreading on her white shirt. She had been shot.
   
Her husband, Adam, was driven to the hospital by his father, Jerrell Rogers, minister of music at First, Arley. They had no knowledge of her condition — they only knew that she had been shot. At one point, Adam Rogers called his wife’s sister, asking, “Is she alive?” She was but Bart Box, pastor of First, Arley, said, “It was the grace of God that she wasn’t killed.”
   
Detective Sgt. James Evans of the Homewood Police Department, who worked the case, agreed. “Her faith is why she is alive.”
   
The bullet traveled through her body from the back, damaging her spleen, left kidney, pancreas and diaphragm but missing her spine, ribs and heart. Doctors removed her spleen and kidney and later placed a drain in her back to combat fluid buildup that appeared to originate from an infection in her pancreas.
   
“God guided that bullet through my body,” Rogers said. And she’s convinced that He guided her recovery, too. “I was off the ventilator in a day and a half, when the doctors thought it would take much longer. God was definitely in control of my survival and recovery.”
   
Her family’s calm assurance that God is in control of the situation was apparent from the first, according to Evans. “From working cases like this, I can tell a lot about a family in just a few minutes,” he said. “The atmosphere in the waiting room was calm. They were praying.”
   
Box reported that the church’s faith has grown through watching the faith of the Rogers family during the ordeal. “It has been a blessing to see them approach this with an attitude of faith — the attitude that whatever God has for them is best. I’ve tried to lead the church in that direction.”
   
Rogers is now well on the road to recovery. She recently had the drain removed from her back and is increasing her activity each day. Her emotional state is improving, too.
   
“I still have a few fears,” Rogers said. “But I know that God is going to calm those fears.”
   
Evans reported that three suspects were arrested for this incident and other carjackings and robberies in the area. All remain in jail. 
   
Rogers has no bitterness toward them. She recalled lying on the ground after she had jumped from the car and praying that God would forgive the man who had just shot her. “Although we want justice to be served, my husband and I are praying for their salvation and that God will transform their hearts.”