In the spring of 2003 fourth-grade students in Portland, Maine, carried out a novel experiment.  Their teacher was teaching the kids about the ocean, specifically about the Gulf Stream that flows along the East Coast and then turns toward Europe.  According to Reuters, she had the kids put messages with their addresses in empty wine bottles, and then a fisherman took the twenty-one bottles away from shore and threw them into the ocean.  They hoped that some of the bottles might drift to England.

 

Three months later, two bottles washed up in Canada.  The class heard nothing else and assumed that the rest of the bottles were lost at sea.  Two years passed.  Then one of the students received a surprise letter from a girl in Pornichet, France.  She found one of their bottles while walking with her father on the beach.

 

Our efforts at telling others about Jesus are often like tossing a bottle with a message into the ocean.  We share the gospel with others however we can – giving them a piece of literature, a personal testimony, a prayer with someone in need.  We see no response and think our message is forgotten, “lost at sea.”  But years later we learn that the Spirit of God – like the mighty Gulf Stream – has carried our message to its destination.

 

Blessings for the day and God Bless America!

CH Mike

 

Michael L. Raymo

CH (LTC) US Army Retired

Staff Chaplain

Birmingham VA Medical Center

700 S. 19th Street

Birmingham, AL 35233

205.933.8101 ext 5522

 

To Heal Sometimes; To Restore Often; To Comfort Always