The next day Nature Camp started later than usual because all the kids, along with Joe and Haley, had gone to the circus the evening before. It was early afternoon before the bus brought the kids to the farm. Once again Joe met the bus, and he had the red wagon with him. He told the kids that since their hunt for the most unusual thing in the forest got interrupted by the elephant, they were going to try again.
Some of the kids thought that finding an elephant in the forest was the most unusual thing, but they were willing to try again. Soon Haley was leading the kids down the same trail while pulling the wagon. Once again Daniel, Haley’s pet raccoon, was riding in the wagon. They did not get very far before they found something very unusual!
The elephant had knocked down several small trees when it ran through the forest. Some of the small trees had broken off near the ground, and some of them had pulled their roots right out of the ground! There was one tree beside the trail that was laying on the ground with its roots pulled out of the ground, and there was a rectangular object tangled in its roots!
The kids were excited and wanted to see the thing that was tangled in the roots of the tree! It looked like a box, maybe it was buried treasure! The tree roots on the fallen tree were higher than the kids could reach, so Haley decided to run and jump and try to knock the box out of the tree roots. Haley backed up and got a good running start. She was running as fast as she could go, and then she jumped and tried to reach the box! Her fingers just barely touched the box and scraped some dirt off the box, and then Haley started to go down. On her way down, she tripped over some of the roots landed on the ground flat on her stomach! Dirt that was knocked from the roots landed on top of her! Fortunately, Haley was not hurt, and after she got her breath back, she was able to stand up and shake the dirt off.
How were the kids going to get the box untangled from the tree roots? They could now see that the box was made from metal because Haley’s fingers had scraped some dirt off the box, and the sunshine was shining on bare metal. Daniel, the raccoon, also saw the shining metal, and he wanted it! All raccoons like shiny things, and Daniel wanted that box! He jumped out of the wagon and used his sharp claws to scramble up the mass of tree roots to the box! Daniel tried to grab the box, but it slipped out of his grasp and fell to the ground! Daniel ran down to the ground and jumped onto his box and would not let the kids get close to it!
Haley was able to get Daniel to share the box with her, but she could not get the lid off the box, it was stuck! Haley put Daniel and the box into the wagon, and they all went back to the farm. Joe was surprised that they came back to the farm so soon, but they explained what they had found and showed Joe the box.
Joe got some tools, and Haley held Daniel while Joe pried the lid off the box! There was nothing inside the box except for some acorns and an old piece of paper. Joe cleaned the dirt off the box and gave it to Daniel, then he unfolded the paper. The writing on the paper was faded because it was very old, but Joe was able to read it, and this is what it said:
“This is the record of our secret club. We call ourselves the Pigeon Club. We vow to spend the summer of 1915 searching these woods to see if we can find any Passenger Pigeons. Scientists say that they are extinct, but we think we can find some. We will bury this box beside the trail. Signed: Henry, Alden, Delmar, David, Gordon, Charles”
Joe got out his laptop computer and looked up information about passenger pigeons. He found that in the early 1800’s there were billions of these birds in North America. They flew in flocks of several million, and the flocks were so big that they would block out the sunshine and it would take a couple of hours for the flock to fly over. The noise of their wings was louder than the loudest waterfall. When the flock stopped to sleep for the night, sometimes trees would break or fall over because of the weight of the birds. Some people were scared when a flock of passenger pigeons flew over, but many people decided to hunt them and kill them. There were so many of the birds that a hunter did not need a gun, the hunter could knock them down and kill them with a wooden pole! Some people were even hired to kill as many passenger pigeons as possible!
Without the big flocks for protection and a sense of community, the passenger pigeons could not survive, and by 1900 there were only a few still alive. The last known passenger pigeon died in the in the Cincinnati Zoo in September 1914. The boys that hid that paper in the metal box in 1915 had hopes that they would find a hidden flock of passenger pigeons. For many years after that people would search forests hoping to find a few remaining passenger pigeons, but they were all gone. The species was extinct!
Joe asked the kids to try to imagine how the last of the passenger pigeons living in the wild must have felt; they would have been lonely and felt hopeless because there were not enough of them to continue their way of life, and there were no young pigeons!
Sometimes believers in Jesus can feel the same way! Sometimes it feels like there are no other believers around and that we are the only ones. Sometimes there are feelings of loneliness and even hopelessness because it seems like the whole world is against those that want to follow God. In the Bible there was a man named Elijah. He was a great prophet of God and told all the people in his part of the world the truth about God. He was laughed at, and many times ignored, and finally had to run for his life. He was alone in the wilderness and felt despair and hopelessness.
In the Bible in I Kings 19:14 Elijah pours out his feelings to God:
He replied again, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with You, torn down Your alters, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”
God patiently listens to Elijah and then gives him some jobs to do and says in verse 18:
“Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal (a false god) or kissed him!”
Elijah felt like he was alone, but he wasn’t. God had many other people who were following Him faithfully, but Elijah did not know them! It is the same for you when you feel like you are the only one in your school, neighborhood, workplace, or even in your family who is following God. You might not see any other believers anywhere, but God knows what He is doing, and He will raise up other believers.
Toward the end of the Bible in Revelation 7:9-10 it says:
After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb (Jesus). There were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a great roar, “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”
Isn’t that awesome! God has a plan, and it will not fail! Even though you might go through some lonely times on this earth, there are many believers in the world today and at the end of this life we get to go to heaven and spend eternity with that great crowd of believers from every nation and people group on this earth!
When you go through the lonely times in this life when you feel like you are the only believer around, remember another great promise from Jesus.
In the Bible in Hebrews 13:5 God says:
“I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
Jesus lives in every believer’s heart, and He has promised to go with us every step of the way in this life on this earth! We are never alone!
Believers in Jesus will never become extinct like the passenger pigeon, believers will keep increasing and multiplying because God has said so! God’s plans never fail!