Sailor Sam Diamond Anniversary

I do not have exact beginning and ending dates for SAILOR SAM. From What I do have though, I believe that Sailor Sam first aired just a few months before RANGER BILL began production. It appears that SAILOR SAM was first broadcast in January of 1950. The Ranger Bill Fan Club is beginning to celebrate Ranger Bill's 60th anniversary. So it seems proper that we should also celebrate the diamond anniversary of Sailor Sam's first broadcast. Let's celebrate the 60th Anniversary for SAILOR SAM!!!

Share a Sam CD with your church or your city library. Give a Sam CD as a gift to a child. Contribute to Moody to support Moody Audio and Sailor Sam.

Moody Audio (http://www.moodyaudio.com/) sells Sailor Sam individual mp3s as well as mp3 CDs of all the Sailor Sam stories. Radiotime lists a handful of stations that still broadcast Sam. Harbour Light is the only station that I know of that broadcasts on the Internet.

If you do a search for "Sailor Sam" you will get several pages of hits. But most of those hits will direct you to sites selling two different books for children and are not connected in any way to Moody's Sailor Sam, Olie, and the Porpoise. One book is The Adventures of Sailor Sam, about a cat named Sailor Sam who lives on a ship. The other Book is Captain Dan and Sailor Sam. Again this is a book for children and not connected to our Sam.

The Bible's Troublesome Twins

Sailor Sam isn't the only one who has had to deal with children that needed to be tamed. Almost from page one of the Bible, we can find difficult, even terrible children (and possibly even worse parents).
Genesis beginning with chapter 25 deals with the Bible's most famous (or is that infamous) twins Jacob and Esau. These two fought with one another even before they were born! Jacob bought (try "stole") his older brother's birthright with a bowl of soup! Then Esau hated Jacob and Jacob had to run for his life. The two later reconciled, but Esau ignored God and became the father of all the unbelieving nations of the Middle East.
I skipped over Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous that God preferred Abel's offering over his. Cain killed Abel in his jealousy.
And going back to Jacob, who didn't learn to raise his sons better. Jacob spoiled his son Joseph with the lavish coat of many colors. Joseph's ten older brothers became jealous and wanted to kill him. Instead they sold him into slavery. Yet God used Joseph as a slave to save Jacob's whole family from starvation during a long worldwide famine.

SS-04 Taming the Twins

Sam and the crew have been asked to transport two American boys - "The Twins" - back to the USA. Their parents were both killed in an elephant attack in India. These boys lack a lot in the way of good behavior and Sam has been asked to try to make Christian gentlemen out of them in the process of taking them to the USA. They pull one stunt after another until they come face to face with something they never saw before... themselves for who they really are. But is it too late to show Sam and the crew they mean business? Tune in to see how the love of Christ bears fruit in the hearts of two boys as the crew try to share the gospel with them.

Following "The Twins," Sam and the crew set out to find the ancient "Temple of Isis!"

Have a great week!
Randy

Riverboat Disaster Worst in History

The worst maritime disaster in US history occurred on the wooden-hulled steamboat Sultana. Just days after the assassination of President Lincoln the Sultana was headed north up the Mississippi, severely overloaded with Union soldiers. The soldiers had just been released from Confederate prison camps. In the early morning hours of April 27, 1865, at least one of the four steam boilers powering the paddle wheel exploded ripping the ship apart and setting it on fire. 1,400 of the 2,400 passengers on board that night died in the explosion, in the many fires, or by drowning. The Sultana's legal passenger limit was only 400.
Greed and negligence appear to be the main reasons for the Sultana disaster. One of the boilers had been leaking. The ship was not docked long enough for a safe repair. One of the ship's owners was a Union soldier who was fighting a court martial for stealing money from the army.

Steamboat Notes

Did you know that Mark Twain [Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910)], who wrote about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi in his younger days? Yes, Mr. Twain in his early 20's was a "cub" (an apprentice) riverboat pilot in and around Hannibal, Missouri, in the years just prior to the Civil War. By the time he wrote the book Life on the Mississippi in 1883 the days of the steam boat were coming to an end. The railroads had taken over both passenger and freight traffic in the US. Life on the Mississippi is a great look into life on the Mississippi prior to the Civil War.
During that time prior to the Civil War, there were roughly 11,000 steamboats in service. Many of those were paddle wheelers like the River Shark. There are still stern-wheel paddle boats in service today. Most are along the west coast of the US and near the Mississippi delta. Two boats are the Belle of Louisville owned by the City of Louisville, KY, and the Delta Queen moored at Chattanooga,TN. The Delta Queen is a mostly wooden ship and is not allowed by law to carry passengers for fire safety reasons. These two ships often race one another just prior to the Kentucky Derby each year.
The worst maritime disaster in the US occurred just after the Civil War when the paddle wheel steamship the Sultana exploded while carrying Union soldiers home from prison camps in the South. Most of the 2400 passengers and crew on board were killed on April 27, 1865.

A Devotion

Sailor Sam reads his Bible daily and spends time each day in study, meditation, and prayer. He thought you might enjoy something he found in his devotional time.
The Bible's New Testament was probably written in the later half of the first century A.D. The Holy Spirit moved men, such as Paul and some of Jesus' disciples, to write the New Testament in the common language of the day, Koine Greek.
Because of that there are differences in the way words are used. A good example of this today is the difference between the English and Eskimo languages. When the weather gets cold around here, we say the white stuff coming down as precipitation is snow. An Eskimo would have to say that a bit differently because, I believe, there are 7 words for snow in Eskimo. Some of those Eskimo words for snow mean things like new-fallen snow, wet snow, icy snow, and more.
In Greek there are three words that we translate as "love". They are philos, eros, and agape. Philos is brotherly love. Philadelphia means the city of brotherly love. Eros means romantic love. And agape means unconditional love, and that is the word the New Testament uses for God's love. That's why God wants us to call Him father, because His love for us is unconditional, total, complete, never-ending, like the love of a father for his child.
Think about God's agape love today and thank Him for it, especially that He would give His only son Jesus do die so that we can live with Him forever.

Happy Birthday to the Clermont

Harbour Light couldn't have picked a better time to air Sailor Sam's current adventure 'The River Shark." This week is the birthday of the Clermont, the first steam ship. The Clermont was the creation of Robert Fulton. It was launched on August 7, 1807, which will make this the 202nd anniversary of it's maiden voyage. The Clermont traveled at a whopping 5 miles per hour.
Fulton's next steam ship the "New Orleans" was launched in 1811 and did 8 mph. By the way, Fulton also successfully sailed a submarine he named "Nautilus" in 1801.
There are some very interesting sites on the 'Net devoted to the history of steam ships. Also read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi for some great reading on this subject.