Paul on Malta

Passage: Acts 28:1-10

On September 11, 2001, at 9:45 am, Ben Sliney, in his first day as the National Operations Manager of the FAA, ordered American airspace closed for the first time in history.  There were 500 international flights inbound that were turned back or redirected to other countries.

38 jets landed in the little town of Gander, Newfoundland.  The town of 6,700 people took in 7,000 passengers for five days.  The residents quickly mobilize every available resource to provide shelter, food and clothes.  Cots were set up in school gyms and social centers.  People opened their homes to provide showers and meals.  Bakeries went into overdrive production, hospitals staffed up, school bus drivers who were on strike came off strike to transport the plane people.  One woman took on the feeding all the animals on the flights.  The passengers were overwhelmed with the outpouring of unusual kindness and generosity.

Acts 28:1-2, unusual kindness.

On a fall day 2,000 years ago a ship left Fair Havens, on the island of Crete to sail 42 miles west to Phoenix to spend the winter.  They were diverted and two weeks and 500 miles later they shipwrecked on a beach in Malta.

I am trying to imagine this scene.  276 men soaking wet, chilled to the bone, filthy, shivering, shaking, hungry and thirsty, having just crawled out of the surf, sitting on a beach in a cold rain.  Absolutely miserable.

God sends a must unusual kindness.  On this island, we see more evidence of the providence of God.  He directly carried every man out of the water to safety on the shore.  And then He sends upon them the most unusual kindness.