Minister gets hard drive back thanks to determined airline employee

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    ASHEVILLE, NC (WLOS ) — A mountain minister credits a combination of divine intervention and someone just doing the right thing for the return of a lost hard drive.

It began on a plane almost three months ago and ended with a phone call that came out of nowhere Thursday night.

The Delta flight that arrived at Asheville Regional Airport in December brought local pastor home after a trip to Oklahoma.

When Anthony Craver got off the plane, he had no idea something very important had been left behind.

“Apparently, I dropped it (the hard drive) on the plane in Asheville before I deplaned,” Craver said.

Craver, the lead pastor at Upward Christian Fellowship in Flat Rock, said he feared the hard drive had, which had not been backed up, was gone for good.

The hard drive, he said, contained important church documents.

“We had old pictures here, old documents, really our church history’s on here,” Craver said of the hard drive. “I really prayed. I said, ‘God, please bring this back. I really need this hard drive.'”

Almost three months later, his prayer was answered in a voicemail.

“Mr. Craver, hi, I’m calling from Asheville Airport, Delta Airlines. I wanted to call to let you know we do have a hard drive, a backup storage drive of yours,” the voicemail said.

Craver said a Delta employee named Thomas left the message. He said Thomas told him he spotted the hard drive buried in lost and found on Thursday night. It was close to being recycled.

But Thomas snagged it and did a little detective work.

“He searched me on social media. He found me. He found out I was the pastor of the church here, went on the church website, found our phone number and called me and left me a message here at the church last night.”

To say the message was a surprise would be an understatement.

“Oh, it was sweetest sound I’d ever heard,” Craver said. “I think God often answers prayers in the form of people who do the right thing, and Thomas was that to me. He’s an answer to prayer and a guy who did the right thing and really helped me out.”

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