Unexploded

Did you know that there are approximately 80 million landmines that are lying around the world active and unexploded?[1]  Did you know that in Tanzania APOPO is a charity that trains rats so that they can detect landmines?  Meet Magawa.  This African Giant Pouched Rat is larger than the average rat but light enough to walk over a mine without setting it off.  It took nine months to train him in the art of detection before shipping him to Cambodia. ​

In the 1970s Pol Pot’s regime cruelly caused the death of millions of Cambodians.  Between 4-6 million landmines were sewn across the countryside with at least 3 million still unfound.  Those mines continue to explode on unexpecting victims costing the lives of over 64,000 people and maiming over 40,000.  Magawa has worked in this struggling nation for over five years.  He ignores scrap metal and zeroes in on landmines by the chemical scents they give off.  He alerts his handler so the mine is safely unearthed and destroyed.  Magawa can search a tennis court-sized area in about 30 minutes.  It would take a person with a metal detector four days to search the same amount of space.

Magawa won the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) Gold Medal for his work in discovering 39 land mines and 28 other unexploded ordinances.  This was amazing because their top civilian award did not go to a person but to a rat.   
            
Meditation 
Job 12:7--But ask the animals, and they will instruct you; ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
 
Job let his friends know that even the animals could instruct them to God’s actions.  It was an interesting insight and one cannot help but wonder what animals he was thinking about with skills of perception.  Randy Alcorn noted in Heaven, “The Bible tells us that animals, in their own way, praise God.” How amazing are the abilities that God has given animals!  It stands to reason that we are only scratching the surface of what His creatures are capable of doing.  Who figured out that an African Giant Pouched Rat could be trained to detect mines?  Incredible.  Man created mines to kill. God designed rats to save.  The lesson is don’t put your trust in man, put your trust in the Designer.  He knows what He is doing.  And may those unexploded mines be found before more lives are tragically lost in this planet that cries for redemption.
 
Inspiration
If you want to find out why something was created, then you must consult the maker of the thing, not the thing.—Curtis H. Tucker in Majestic Destiny
 
[1]https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/animal-awards-programme/pdsa-gold-medal/magawa  The remainder of the information about Magawa and mines was taken from this source.  

  
©2020 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.    
  
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)