Thornleigh Seventh-day Adventist Church (Sydney, Australia)

Home > Online Magazine > Online Magazine: Edition 55 - Autumn (March-May) 2014

Online Magazine: Edition 55

Autumn (March-May) 2014

Welcome to the Fifty-fifth Edition of the Online Magazine of the Thornleigh Seventh-day Adventist Church.
  

Articles

  

Editorial

by John Morris

 
Wartime events and non-wartime events can be horribly wrong or occasionally utterly unbelievably fantastic, and then there can be a mixing of the two extremes. Thankfully, on occasions things positive can be generated from the unlikable.

Paul Brickhill's biography of Douglas Bader illustrates my point. Bader was flying in a Bristol Bulldog fighter attempting aerobatics that he did not want to do and crashed with a loss of both legs the final result. His life story with limitations is a positive example of getting the most out of life. Rising to the rank of Wing Commander he was shot down over occupied France, caused his captors angst, and lived  out an active life on his return to England. He remained with the RAF until, in 1946, he took a job at Shell. Later life saw him become controversial for his political interventions and forthright opinions on subjects such as apartheid and Ian Smith's Rhodesian white minority regime. Six years after receiving a knighthood on 5 September, 1982, and with a worsening heart condition, he died of a heart attack at the age of 72. (1) A positive life from a big negative.

250 personnel worked on the escape plan from Stalag Luft 111 , 76 actually escaped on the 26th of March 1944. 3 got back to the west, but so unnecessarily Hitler ordered that 50 of the escapees be killed as a lesson to remaining POW's.

Something good out of something bad. War History Online identifies the Top 10 Inventions discovered during World War 2. (2)  They are:

We could not do without them today in their peaceful usages.

Don Hansen was (now retired) Senior Lecturer in History at Avondale College for many years. He looks at the remarkable story of Nicolas Alkamade who dropped out of a burning bomber without a parachute. It had burnt. He dropped 18,000 feet and was a happy survivor. He joined a unique club of 5 persons who have dropped without a parachute and survived. Nicolas found great joy in realizing tht he was alive. Joy is relative but Don argues the case for great joy as an automatic component of the gospel.

Husband and wife George and Maye Porter writing quite separately also support the argument that the love of God is available to us and brings gladness and joy.

Norman Tew our previous editor looks at how God occasionally drops into the scene before we get there and organises life to bring us joy.

I trust you enjoy our selection this issue.

 
References

1.  http://www.thisisannouncements.co.uk/5848613  (accessed 16/03/2014)
2.  http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/top-10-inventions  (accessed 16/03/2014)

Home > Online Magazine > Online Magazine: Edition 55 - Autumn (March-May) 2014