Up Up and Away

Just how far do you think a drifting balloon will travel? Is it even worth the try?
My husband and I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching vacation bible school at Woodlawn each year now for several years. For 3 yrs now we have let our 3rd graders let go of balloons in a little mini-ceremony in our church courtyard. Each balloon is tied with a string that has a tag with the instructions to please call or email if found so our children will know how far the balloon may have traveled. The ABC's of how to become a Christian are also on the card A=Admit  B=Believe C= Confess, so that if someone finds the card and is not saved they may come to know Jesus. We explain to the kids why we let the balloons go and pray for whomever may find one of them.
Our balloons have traveled as far as Georgia and Tennessee and we delight getting emails all summer from our church secretaries. This year our "Balloon ceremony" was on June 29th 2010, and we received this email from our VBS director today. It gave me chills to read it and know that God's hand was already at work, even thru a small bird.
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Hi,

 My name is Dawn Doty and I live in the northern part of Durham, NC.  I am married and have two children, ages 22 and 17.  The 17-year old is going to be a senior in high school and the 22-year-old attends the School of Engineering at State.  We are a Christian family and love the Lord very much.

On July 1^st, my husband and I spotted a long, white string with a card on it in a tree near our driveway.  We could see that a balloon had popped, but the string was too high in the tree for us to reach it, even with a ladder.  We were wondering how we could get that high up in the tree when all of a sudden, a robin flew into the tree and started pulling on the string.  He sure did like that string because he came back several more times to pull on the string.  After about a half hour of the robin playing with the string, the string fell to the ground and we were able to read the card.  We were amazed to find out that the balloon had been released in Conover, NC, which is quite far from Durham! 

The fact that the balloon had been released so far away, got stuck in a tree in our yard (of all the trees and yards it could have gotten stuck in!), and a bird – the robin – helped make the string and the card fall to the ground for us to see, was evidence to us of God’s work.  What would be the likelihood of all these things happening by chance?  I think God told the robin to loosen that string so that we could read the card and think about God, and how the balloon came to us, and about the child at a vacation Bible school class who released the balloon into the air. 

 Even though there are many miles between us, this shows that those who truly love Jesus are never far apart in their hearts! 

Thank you and God bless, 

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