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WE NEED HOPE

Someone has said that if you could convince a man there was no hope, he would curse the day he was born. Hope is an indispensable quality of life.

Dusk was falling on the Saturday before Christmas in 1927 the S-4 submarine (S-class submarines, were the first class of submarines built to US Navy design) was conducting trials and tests was rammed by by a USCG ship and quickly sank into 100 feet of water. The entire 38 crew members were trapped in its prison house of death. Ships rushed to the scene of disaster off the coast of Massachusetts.

A diver tapped out a question asking how much oxygen on board would last. Two days was the max. A nor'easter was upon them, and treacherous underwater currents thwarted the attempts to rescue the remaining six trapped survivors. The last tapped out a question in the dots and dashes of the Morse Code. "Is ... there ... any ... hope?" The storm raged for 62 hours all had perished.

When helpless, we need hope.

(Source: from a sermon by Ralph Andrus, "Liberated by Hope" 7/14/08, SermonCentral.com)

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