I love true stories about explorers and survival in harsh
environments. One such story is that of
Sir Ernest Shackleton and his expedition, which departed for Antarctica in
August 1914. After their ship The
Endurance was crushed by ice, Shackleton and his crew abandoned it and
survived by camping on the ice. They
then used three salvaged lifeboats to find land, the barren and frigid Elephant
Island. Because Shackleton cared about
the lives of each of the other 27 men with him, he was determined to find a way
for all of them to be rescued. He and
five others sailed a lifeboat 800 miles to South Georgia Island, the nearest
human settlement. Once on this island,
three of their party traveled 36 hours over mountains and glaciers to reach the
whaling station. From there a Chilean
boat was used to rescue the men stranded at Elephant Island. Not one man was lost.
I first learned
about these events from a video documentary, and I felt as though there was
part of the story left untold. How
could these men march so long over a trackless wasteland to reach help? How could all 28 men on this expedition
survive when their resources were so limited?
I sensed there was a faith angle overlooked by the video.
By reading
Caroline Alexander’s book The Endurance I found what I was looking
for. Shackleton wrote about this trek:
“it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterward
Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was
another person with us.’ Crean
confessed the same idea.”[1]
At times
when our human resources have reached their limit, God can show up in a
dramatic way. His providence can lift
us up in the most dire of circumstances.
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