This was in my sunday school lesson and wanted to share it. Every Friday evening before sunset Eddie Rickenbacker returned to the same old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Walking slowly and slightly bent with a large bucket of shrimp, seagulls flocked to this white-haired old man . as he fed them. It is why he did so that became the heart of The Rest of the Story on a Paul Harvey radio broadcast. Years before in 1942, Eddie had been on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But somewhere over the South Pacific his plane got lost beyond the reach of radio. As the fuel ran out, the pilot ditched the plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Eddie and his companions fought the water, the weather, and the scorching sun-and sharks-on a nine-by-five raft. But of all their dangers, the most daunting one was starvation. Their rations had either been eaten or destroyed by the salt water. Only a miracle could sustain them. . After finishing a devotional service with a prayer for deliver- ance and a hymn of praise, Eddie pulled his hat down over his eyes to doze off when something landed on his head. Peering out from under his hat brim without moving, he could see the other men staring at the seagull. That gull meant food, Eddie later explained, if I could catch it. Eddie caught the gull, its meat was eaten, and its parts were used as bait to catch fish. The entire crew was delivered from hunger-and eventually rescued-because of a lone seagull that was uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land. And Eddie never forgot, which is why he gratefully celebrated Gods deliv- erance by feeding seagulls for the rest of his life.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:02:35 +0000
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