January
2006
Dear Ministry
Partner,
It is reported that the ad in the newspaper read, "Men
wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months
of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor
and recognition in case of success. Sir Ernest Shackleton."
On August 8th, 1914, Ernest Shackleton set sail from England on
his South Pole scientific expedition to make a transcontinental
crossing of Antarctica with 27 other men whom he had selected
from the hundreds who responded. (He had previously made two attempts
to be the first to reach the South Pole for the English, but Roald
Amundsen succeeded in planting a Norwegian flag on the South Pole
a couple of years before this trip.) On November 5th, 1914, the
team arrived at the Norwegian whaling station on South Georgia
Island just above the Weddell Sea of Antarctica with a crew of
27 men and 69 sled-dogs. Their ship, the Endurance, was a three-masted
boat especially designed to break through ice, and after stocking
up on supplies they headed south on December 5th.
As the ship plowed through
the Weddell Sea towards its landing point, it had to pick its
way through 1,000 miles of unusually heavy pack ice with dropping
temperatures over a six week period. When they were 100 miles
from the solid land of Antarctica, an intense gale drove all the
pieces of that pack ice into one giant mass, trapping the Endurance.
For 10 months the ship sat as if set in cement, and the men maintained
morale by organizing soccer matches, theatrical evenings, and
haircutting tournaments (much of this in the sunless Antarctic
winter).
With temperatures regularly
below zero, it became clear that the seasonal weather had not
broken the ice pack apart to free the Endurance, and preparations
began to be made to abandon the ship and drag its three 20 foot
long life boats to open water and try for inhabited land. This
plan was executed just in time, as the enormous pressure of the
ice pack broke the Endurance apart and she sank into the Antarctic
Ocean below their feet on November 21st, 1915. Now there was only
48 inches of shifting ice between where they stood and the bottom
of the ocean 1,000 feet below.
They had little to eat and terrible
living conditions as the men dragged the heavy life boats with
their supplies over the pressure ridges and difficult surfaces
of the pack ice which was starting to break apart. One night,
the ice split apart directly through the middle of their camp
dropping one man in his sleeping bag into the water below. Shackleton
reached down and grabbed the man's sleeping bag, pulling him up
out of the water just before the ice closed back over where he
had just been.
The men finally reached enough openings
in the ice pack that they could float the boats and navigate the
water on April 9th, 1916. They decided to make for the closest
landfall they could see, a pitiful pile of rocks called Elephant
Island far from any shipping lanes. This was a difficult sailing
accomplishment but they did reach the island in a short time.
Half starved, they at least had a monotonous diet now of penguin
and seal, and solid land under their feet.
However, there was no chance of rescue.
No ships passed that way. No radio at that time was capable of
summoning help. Further, they had no real shelter other than their
boats turned upside-down, and no building materials. Realizing
they would eventually die on that island if they did nothing,
Shackleton decided to take one of the three 20 foot boats, named
the James Caird, and five hand-picked sailors, including a mutinous
carpenter, and set sail across about 800 miles of thrashing sea
for the closest inhabited land (which was the South Georgia Island
they started from). They expected to encounter waves up to 50
feet tall from tip to trough (called "Cape Horn Rollers")
in their relatively tiny boat. Their navigation was by a sextant
and a chronometer of unknown accuracy, and they were dependent
on sightings of the sun which could sometimes not be seen for
weeks in the overcast weather so characteristic of those southern
latitudes. The man they were depending on for guidance, Frank
Worsley, had been the official captain of the Endurance, and they
were now depending on him for their lives — because if Shackleton
missed South Georgia Island 800 miles away, they would be lost
at sea in the currents of the unpopulated south Atlantic ocean,
leaving the crew left behind to perish.
On April 24th, the six men launched
out in the 20 foot James Caird from Elephant Island leaving the
rest of the crew there in survival mode — their fate resting
on the success of Shackleton to reach the South Georgia Island
whaling station and find a ship to return to rescue them. Shackleton's
sailing progress was slow and the ocean was rough, but they were
making progress at about 2 miles per hour. The sea was constantly
spilling into the boat, so two men were always bailing the water
out, one man was manning the rudder, one was navigating, and two
men would try to sleep in the bottom of the wet boat which was
filled with rocks for ballast. Ice built up on top of the boat
to a depth of 15 inches, threatening to capsize them from the
weight. Worsley was only able to take a total of four navigational
sighting in 16 days at sea when the sky cleared enough to see
the sunset and stars with his sextant. The rest of their navigating
was just being led by the spirit.
However, they gained sight of South
Georgia Island, but were blown back out to sea twice. Then on
May 10th they were able to land in a small bay. They were on the
uninhabited west side of the island, and the whaling station was
on the east side. No one had ever crossed the 22 miles of snowy
mountain range, glaciers, and crevasses that divided the island,
but that was the only hope Shackleton had. They rested and regained
some strength for a few days, then Shackleton selected two of
the strongest men with him and set out across the mountain range
for the east side. On the cold frozen mountains with no tent or
sleeping bags, Shackleton knew they would freeze to death if they
slept, so they just kept climbing and hiking for 5 straight days.
They eventually had to wade down the length of an icy stream waist
deep, and let themselves down by rope through a 30 foot snow-fed
waterfall soaking wet, but they walked out within sight of the
whaling station on May 20th, 1917, over a year and a half after
they left.
Having arrived, Shackleton was able
to use a large boat the next day to rescue his three men left
on the opposite side of South Georgia Island. However, it took
four attempts over several months before Shackleton succeeded
in reaching Elephant Island in an ocean going vessel to pick up
the rest of his crew on August 30th, 1916. The men there had survived
over two years in the most miserable conditions imaginable, yet
not a single man died of the original 28 that began the expedition.
This was one of the most incredible examples of endurance and
survival in history. (These facts can be verified through www.CoolAntarctica.com
or an encyclopedia.)
Now by comparison, whatever difficulties
you and I are going through seem fairly small. Shackleton's expedition
ship was aptly named the Endurance. Shackleton was very concerned
for the lives of the men depending on him, and he never gave up
— he endured hardship and was able to save all the lives
entrusted to him and counting on him.
You and I are modern day Shackletons.
There are many lives depending on us — perhaps our spouse
or children, perhaps other relatives, perhaps employees, neighbors
or fellow church members. The unbelievers around us may not realize
they are depending on us to be "saved", but being saved
to them is more than being rescued off Elephant Island —
it is being saved from "Hell Island" — and we
may be the only ones who can reach them. And to do this, we need
to have endurance — endurance to put up with persecution,
rejection, divorce, loneliness, sickness, disease, injuries, hard
times financially, crop failures, investment losses, business
reversals, layoffs, misunderstandings, lawsuits, wrongful accusations,
threats, intimidation — all realities of living in a fallen
world. You have endured through many of these yourself and have
demonstrated endurance or you would not be here. God appreciates
your endurance! He has addressed this in His Word. "You
have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of
God, you may receive the promise" (Heb. 10:36).
"Let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us" (Heb. 12:1). You will never regret
finishing the Christian journey of endurance, and standing before
Jesus to hear, "Well done
thou good and faithful servant." Your
life is important, and we need your part in the work of God on
the earth.
Encouraging Christian endurance,
Dale & Judi Leander |