The Unhelp of the Lord

Global Rescue extracts people from life-threatening situations. Why doesn’t God do the same for us? 

When the Arab Spring uprisings exploded in Egypt in late January 2011, 24 students from Vermont’s Middlebury College were caught in the crossfire. They were in Alexandria for a study-abroad program. It quickly became clear that they needed to leave the country — the sooner the better. 

The school’s insurance provider was supposed to take care of such things as emergency evacuations. But they fumbled the ball. So the college contacted an agency called Global Rescue which specializes in getting people home from difficult situations.  

Within two hours, Global Rescue had personnel on the ground, and shortly thereafter, the agency brought in a plane from Prague, on which they flew the students out. 

We’ve all seen movies about emergency extractions. The 2003 film Tears of the Sun is one. The 2008 Rambo movie (the fourth of the films in the Rambo series) is...