LOST AND FOUND - Three Mexican fishermen who disappeared while on a short shark fishing trip were rescued in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, after spending 9 months on the open sea. The men said they survived by eating raw fish, ducks, and seagulls, drinking rainwater, and reading the Bible. They were picked up halfway between Hawaii and Australia after drifting 3000 miles from a fishing village north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Antonio Aguayo, a local sport-fishing guide said the men took only enough fuel for a few days and ran into an unexpected storm. He thought they might have used up their fuel traveling in the wrong direction, thinking they were headed back to shore. Aguayo said the people of the tiny fishing village are celebrating the men's survival. He said, "God is so great that he helped them all the time. Everybody is excited. They don't know how it happened that they are alive." Aguayo added, "Nobody has ever been lost for so long and been alive to tell about it. Not even Christopher Columbus stayed on the ocean so long."
What a portrait of the celebration that Jesus referred to in Luke 15 3 separate times when the lost coin, lost sheep and lost boy are found and brought home. That celebration goes on in Heaven in the presence of the Angels every time a sinner of any age on any continent comes Home to the Lord and leaves the pig pens of sin behind for the Father's House!
(Fresh Illustrations - Jim Wilson)