Houston, We’ve Had a Problem

In April 1970, Apollo 13 was headed for the moon when an oxygen tank blew. Jack Swigert saw the warning light and said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The landing was off. Now the only goal was getting three men home alive. The crew moved into the lunar module and used it like a lifeboat. Then carbon dioxide started building up. There were plenty of filter canisters, but the square ones from the command module didn’t fit the round openings in the lunar module. So the team on the ground figured out how to make them fit using plastic bags, cardboard, and tape, all stuff already on board. It worked. Apollo 13 splashed down safely in the Pacific. Sometimes you don’t need new resources. You need to use what God already put in your hands.

The Milkmaids and the End of Smallpox

Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases in human history. It’s believed to have been around for at least 3,000 years and it killed millions. Then an English doctor named Edward Jenner noticed something everyone else had missed. Milkmaids who’d already caught cowpox didn’t catch smallpox. In 1796 he showed that a similar inoculation could protect other people, and the first successful vaccine was born. It took a long time, but in 1967 the World Health Organization launched an all-out push to wipe the disease out. The last known natural case was in Somalia in 1977, and in 1980 smallpox was declared eradicated. One careful observation, followed by years of faithful teamwork, ended an ancient killer.

A Ring Around Christian Eriksen

On June 12, 2021, Denmark was playing Finland in Copenhagen when midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field just before halftime. Captain Simon Kjaer was one of the first to reach him and appeared to clear his airway. Medics rushed in to resuscitate him. While they worked, his teammates did something simple and beautiful. They locked arms in a ring around him to give him some privacy from the crowd and the cameras. Many of them were in tears. Some appeared to pray. In the stands, Finland fans chanted “Christian” and Denmark fans answered “Eriksen.” He survived. One Danish newspaper summed it up: Denmark lost, but life won. When a brother goes down, the best thing we can do is surround him, cover him, and pray.

The Village That Hid Thousands

During World War II, the little French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and the farms around it became a refuge. Led by Pastor André Trocmé, his wife Magda, and his assistant Pastor Edouard Theis, ordinary church people took in an estimated 5,000 refugees, about 3,000 to 3,500 of them Jews fleeing the Vichy government and the Germans. They hid people in homes, hotels, farms, and schools, and guided some of them about 300 kilometers to the Swiss border. These were descendants of persecuted Protestants, and they remembered what it felt like to be hunted. After a mass roundup of Jews in Paris in 1942, Trocmé said in a sermon that “the Christian Church must kneel down and ask God to forgive its present failings and cowardice.”

Everyone Off the Plane on the Hudson

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York. About two minutes later it flew into a flock of birds, and both engines lost almost all their power. There was no runway close enough. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles brought the Airbus down onto the Hudson River. All 150 passengers, including a baby held on a lap, and all five crew members got out through the forward and over-wing exits. Rescue boats were close by and came fast. Investigators later credited the crew’s decision-making and teamwork, the flight attendants’ fast evacuation, and the quick response of the boats nearby. Every person on board survived.