Forethought

While many cities and villages along the Indian Ocean suffered catastrophic losses from the December 2004 tsunami, the port city of Pondicherry, India, and its 300,000 inhabitants were spared. Just beyond city limits, 600 people were killed by the devastating tidal wave, but Pondicherry withstood the tsunami. Why were they protected ?

The answer began 250 years ago when France colonized the city. The French built a massive stone seawall. Year after year, the French continued to strengthen the wall, piling huge boulders along its 1.25-mile length.

The French stopped building Pondicherry's seawall in 1957, but their work prepared them for a disaster that would occur five decades into the future.

Eleven miles off the east coast of Scotland, in the North Sea, stands the Bell Rock Lighthouse. It has endured the ferocious onslaught of the North Sea's violent storms since 1811. It rests upon less than one acre of solid rock. That small reef is covered by seawater for 20 hours of every day. The builder of the lighthouse, Robert Stevenson and his band of 65 skilled artisans, had only four hours each day to chink away the stone and gouge a foundation in the rock. As a result of this painstakingly patient work, the 115-foot-tall lighthouse is still in use today.

In a similar way, parents have a short period of time in which to build their children's lives to withstand the storms of life. Parents must take advantage of that window of opportunity and carve out a foundation for them on solid rock.

The Hibernia oil platform in the North Atlantic is 189 miles (315 kilometers) east-southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. The total structure, from the ocean floor to the top of the derrick, is 738 feet high and cost over $6 billion to build.

Unlike the fated Ocean Ranger, a platform that sank in 1982 with all 84 men aboard lost at sea, the Hibernia's design incorporates a GBS (gravity based structure) which anchors it to the seabed. It is fastened to the ocean floor in 265 feet of water.

The structure does not move. It is stationary because it sits in the middle of "iceberg alley," where icebergs can be as large as ocean liners. Sixteen huge concrete teeth surround the Hibernia. These teeth were an expensive addition, designed to distribute the force of an iceberg over the entire structure and into the seabed, should one ever get close.

Hibernia's owners take no chances. Radio operators plot and monitor all icebergs within 27 miles (45 kilometers). Any that come close are "lassoed" and towed away from the platform by powerful supply ships. Smaller ones are simply diverted using the ship's high-pressure water cannons or with propeller wash. As rugged and as strong as this platform is, and as prepared as it is for icebergs to strike it, the owners have no intention of allowing an iceberg to even come close.

But the big one will come, and Hibernia is designed accordingly. It is built to withstand a million ton iceberg, with designers claiming it can actually withstand a 6 million ton iceberg with reparable damage.

What's amazing is that a million-ton iceberg is expected only once every 500 years. One as large as 6-million-tons comes around once every 10,000 years.

That's what I call preparation and vigilance.

To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.

No one can be caught in a place he does not visit.

The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.

One New Year's Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.

Often, Christians neglect their spiritual maintenance, and though they are "clothed with power" (Luke 24:49) find themselves out of gas.

Whoever intends to enter married life should do so in faith and in God's name. He should pray to God that it may prosper according to his will and that marriage may not be treated as a matter of fun and folly. It is a hazardous matter and as serious as anything on earth can be. Therefore we should not rush into it as the world does, in keeping with its frivolousness and wantonness and in pursuit of its pleasure; but before taking this step we should consult God, so that we may lead our married life to his glory.