“The light and love of Jesus is the only answer for the sinful darkness of this world.”
—Tim Rumble, Akron, Michigan
We are looking for brief submissions in these categories:
Sound Bites (quotes, profound or spontaneous)
Adventist Life (short anecdotes, especially from the world of adults)
Camp Meeting Memories (short, humorous and/or profound anecdotes)
Favorite [Church] Family Photos (must be high resolution 1000 px JPEGs)
Please send your submissions to Give & Take, Adventist Review, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904-6600; fax: 301-680-6638; e-mail: [email protected]. Please include phone number, and city and state from which you are writing.
Just after school started one day the secretary burst into my classroom and asked, “Did one of your canaries get out of its cage? There’s a canary flying around in the entryway!” I glanced over at my birdcage, and both my canaries were still there. I hurried down the hall thinking that perhaps someone had brought a bird for show-and-tell and it had escaped. The principal explained, however, that as he was greeting the students arriving for school, this lovely little orange canary had come fluttering to the front of the building. He thought it looked like it wanted in, and sure enough, in it flew when he held open the door.
As we tried to catch it, the bird flew over our heads and headed down the lower-grade hall. It stopped at one window, then the next, then flew right in the open door of my classroom and onto my floor! We hurried in after it, and I instructed my wide-eyed first graders to find their seats so the little bird wouldn’t get trampled. Spying my own canaries, it again took flight and landed on my birds’ cage. It slid down the side of the cage and tried to get in the closed door. I reached out and opened the door, and in it hopped!
The whole encounter took less than two minutes, and a watching parent breathed one word: “Safety.” Of course! The little bird had somehow found its “freedom,” but it realized it was much more secure in the safety of its cage.
The little bird headed for the food dishes, devouring seed and drinking water for the next hour. Both my canaries accepted the newcomer with nary a ruffled feather. A notice on the town bulletin board produced no phone calls, and “Surprise” is now an everyday reminder of the day worship flew in!
Tania Duncan, Angwin, California
