Resourcefulness

In the dead of night at the heart of the Colombian jungle, army radios crackled to life with the message the nation had been praying for: "Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle." The military code revealed that four children missing in the jungle for 40 days had all been found--alive.

The youngsters, all members of the indigenous Huitoto people, had been missing since the light plane they were travelling in crashed into the Amazon on May 1, 2023. The tragedy killed their mother and the two pilots and left the children--aged 13, nine, four, and one--stranded alone in an area teeming with snakes, jaguars, and mosquitos.

Rescuers initially feared the worst, but footprints, partially eaten wild fruit and other clues soon gave them hope that the children might be alive after they left the crash site looking for help. Over the next six weeks, the children battled the elements in what Colombia's President Gustavo Petro called "an example of total survival which will remain in history."

If there were ever children well-prepared to tackle such an ordeal, the Mucutuy family were the ones. Huitoto people learn hunting, fishing, and gathering from an early age, and their grandfather told reporters that the eldest children were well acquainted with the jungle.

Speaking to Colombian media, the children's aunt said the family would regularly play a “survival game” together growing up. She recalled, “When we played, we set up little camps. Thirteen-year-old Lesly knew what fruits she can't eat, because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby.”

After the crash, Lesly built makeshift shelters from branches held together with her hair ties. She also recovered fariña, a type of cassava flour, from the wreckage of the Cessna plane they had been travelling in. The children survived on the flour until it ran out and then they ate seeds. The fruit from the avichure tree, also known as milk tree, is rich in sugar and its seeds can be chewed like chewing gum.

But they still faced significant challenges surviving in the inhospitable environment. Indigenous expert Alex Rufino said the children were in “a very dark, very dense jungle, where the largest trees in the region are.” In addition to avoiding predators, the children also endured intense rainstorms.

John Moreno, leader of the Guanano group in the south-eastern part of Colombia where the children were brought up, said they had been "raised by their grandmother," a widely respected indigenous elder. He said, “They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is the duty of parents and the church community to train up children to survive and thrive in the hostile environment of the world. It is literally “a jungle out there” for our children and they must be prepared when they are young.

2022 saw some truly bizarre Guinness World Records, including:

• Fastest time to find and alphabetize the letters in a can of alphabet soup (2 minutes and 8.6 seconds).
• The farthest tightrope walk in high heels (639 feet, in four-inch stilettos)
• The largest gathering of people with the same first and last name (178 Hirokazu Tanakas in Japan, beating the 2005 record of 164 Martha Stewarts).
• Fastest time to eat 10 Carolina Reaper chilies.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a lighthearted look at human “accomplishments.” But it does raise the question, “What new and innovative activity can you accomplish for the Lord and his Kingdom this year? How can you use your spiritual gift to unlock new avenues of service or outreach for the Lord?”

Travel blogger Matt Karsten was sightseeing on a small dinghy during a trip to Antarctica with his wife and some friends when they happened to notice some commotion in the water. The video they took of the experience went viral.

We were heading out for a scenic Zodiac cruise between icebergs when a large pod of orcas showed up playing in the water besides us. They swam right up to the camera and said hello. Suddenly the orcas started chasing a penguin trying to eat it.

Left with no other options for survival, the penguin tried to jump into the boat. The first time it bounced off the side, but in a show of resiliency the penguin’s second attempt landed it safely inside, to the shock of everyone on the boat. The orcas gave chase for a bit, but eventually gave up and moved on. Karsten said, “After cruising for a little bit, the penguin said goodbye to the boat and hopped back into the icy water.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Often when danger rears its head, pride causes us not to take it seriously. But the enemy of our souls is just as dangerous as a hungry killer whale. There are times for careful thought, and there are times for urgent action. May the Lord guide us so that we can know in the moment which is which.

An enterprising soccer fan made heads turn when he found a way to circumvent the rules preventing him from enjoying his favorite team.

Ali Demirkaya, nicknamed "Yamuk Ali" (or "Crazy Ali") is well known in his area for his passionate fandom of the local football club, Denizlispor. So ardent was his fandom that Ali had been banned from the stadium for a year, due to a misdemeanor from a previous fan-related incident. So on the day of an important match against a rival team, Ali found a solution—he rented a crane, then lifted it high enough to see over the stadium wall.

"That match was very important for our team," he explained to local news source Yeni Asir. "I had to go to the police station to sign a paper to show that I am not watching the match in the stadium. Then I quickly went to rent the crane." Social media in the area was full of pictures of a jubilant Ali cheering from his perch.

Ultimately, police were summoned and Ali was forced to lower the crane. Nevertheless, he still ended the day on a high note. The stunt only cost him the equivalent of $86, he wasn't cited or fined by the authorities, and his team won 5-0.

Potential Preaching Angles: If it means something to you, you'll get creative to make sure you don't miss out. Sometimes God's blessing comes to those willing to go to extremes.

Every December, Slats Grobnik sells Christmas trees in Chicago. He tells the story of one year when he met a couple that was out on the hunt for just the right tree.

The guy was skinny with a big bulging Adam's apple and a small, receding chin. She was kind of pretty. But the two of them were wearing ragged clothes that looked like they'd come from the Salvation Army store. They didn't have much, it was clear. Grobnik walked along with them as they found most of the trees in his collection far too expensive.

Eventually, they settled on a Scotch pine that was okay on one side, but pretty bare on the other. And then, a little further along, they picked up another tree that was hardly any better—full on one side, Charlie-Brown-scraggly on the other.

A few days later, Slats was out walking on the street when he happened to glance up through a picture window into a ground floor apartment where he saw an absolutely spectacular tree. It was beautiful—full and thick and luscious. Then he was shocked as he saw come into the window view the couple that he'd sold the lousy trees to.

Curiosity got the best of him, so he went up to the door, knocked, and started up a conversation. He had to know where they had gotten that beautiful tree. They told him how they'd come home with the two scraggly trees he'd sold and worked them together where the branches were thin. It had been difficult to get the branches interlaced; they had to use wire to bind the two trunks together. But with time and effort and the grace of God, they found a way to overlap the branches. They were now so thick and rich you could not even see the wires.

"So that's the secret," writes Grobnik. "You take two trees that aren't perfect, that might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would want, but if you put them together just right, then sometimes you can make something really beautiful."

Dr. George Moore was a young public health worker who was among the first westerners sent to Nepal in 1952. He found a nation that was very backward. There was only one hospital, and that was for the royalty. Life expectancy was 35 years. Ninety-eight percent of the population never had any medical treatment in their short lives—no doctors or medicine, ever.

Moore and his colleague began by attacking malaria, a devastating killer, by spraying the inside of huts with insecticide. But their second major challenge, smallpox, was more difficult. Smallpox vaccine must be refrigerated, and in the early 1950s, there was no way to get refrigerators to primitive villages.

Then Moore struck on a plan. He finally got a small batch of vaccine from the U. S. and stored it in the small kerosene refrigerator at his base camp. Then, using that vaccine, he inoculated some small boys, and took those boys with him to the villages.

When someone is inoculated with smallpox vaccine, they get a very mild case of the disease—too mild to make them sick, but strong enough to give them permanent immunity. They also develop a smallpox blister at the point of the injection.

So, Dr. Moore brought the vaccinated boys with him to the villages. Then he would break their smallpox blister, dip the end of a string into the blister, and then touch that infected string to a small opening in the skin of the person he wanted to protect. And that was how the assault on the killer disease was begun.

In The Word and Power Church, Doug Banister writes:

The spring of 1940 found Hitler's panzer divisions mopping up French troops and preparing for a siege of Great Britain. The Dutch had already surrendered, as had the Belgians. The British army foundered on the coast of France in the channel port of Dunkirk. Nearly a quarter million young British soldiers and over 100,000 allied troops faced capture or death.

The Fuerhrer's troops, only a few miles away in the hills of France, closed in on an easy kill. The Royal Navy had enough ships to save barely 17,000 men, and the House of Commons was told to brace itself for "hard and heavy tidings."

Then while a despairing world watched with fading hope, a bizarre fleet of ships appeared on the horizon of the English Channel. Trawlers, tugs, fishing sloops, lifeboats, sailboats, pleasure craft, an island ferry named Gracie Fields, and even the America's Cup challenger Endeavor, all manned by civilian sailors, sped to the rescue. The ragtag armada eventually rescued 338,682 men and returned them home to the shores of England, as pilots of the Royal Air Force jockeyed with the German Luftwaffe in the skies above the channel. It was one of the most remarkable naval operations in history.

The church, likewise, is God's ragtag armada. The church is a mix of flawed individuals on a rescue operation commissioned by God.

Portland, Oregon, Chief of Police Mark Kroeker tells this story about when he was an officer in Los Angeles. A woman was upstairs in her bedroom when she heard someone breaking in downstairs. She crawled under her bed with the phone and called 911, but the emergency system was having a problem, and it gave her a menu of options. Realizing that this would take a minute or more, her mind raced for other ways to reach the police.

She devised a resourceful plan. She called the nearest Winchell's donut shop. She asked the employee who answered if there were any police officers in the shop, and the answer was, "Of course!" An officer was put on the line, the frightened woman told him her problem, he sprinted to his car and arrived in time to capture the thief.