If you were browsing the scenery at Pickering or Woodlawn Beach last Thursday or Friday you could easily spot teenagers from Wilmington “choosing life.” That was our theme verse for this school year, and it was something that they were really focused on during this overnight Biology trip. The only difference……it was for HORSESHOE CRABS.
After studying the relationship between horseshoe crabs and migratory shore- birds they felt compelled to do something to help the declining presence of both species. Thousands of horseshoe crabs die everyday in the area after being stranded on land following high tide.
This epidemic paralled so clearly with the lives of these teens, who daily see their friends and family make choices leading to despair or even death. Their response to the situation…..try to save every one of these tens of thousands of horseshoe crabs that were stranded, by carrying them back to the water. So throughout those two days, whenever they saw stranded horseshoe crabs lining the beach, they would scramble to save as many as they could. Harvey Zendt commented that “this is a great addiction for the kids to have”, referring to their relentless attempts to save all of the horseshoe crabs.
These scenarios really represented a lot of their lives. It represented how they had been written off, counted out, and in a state of despair with no hope for some. Because they had another chance through UPA, they have been “put back in the water” in a sense and have a second chance at a promising future. The rest of the Biology Trip was filled with moments to remember such as: hiking to an abandoned shipwreck, seine-netting at the beach, fishing, making/hanging around a bon-fire, canoeing, bird observing, and star gazing. What a wonderful privilege for our students to experience.
“Choose Life”
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.
Deuteronomy 30:19
Post by Jeff Thompson, Urban Promise Academy Head of School
