A group of teenage boys was standing near a pond at Beacon Hill Country Club in the Atlantic Highlands in Middleton, New Jersey, when they heard a man shouting, “Hop off, hop off!”  The man was the father of two children, Olivia (age 8) and R.J. (age 4), who were sledding together down a hill.  The sled hit a patch of ice, careened over a snow-topped ridge, and landed in a partially frozen pond.

When the teens saw what was happening, they ran to the pond to help.  The children’s parents were also running down from the top of the hill.  One of the teens, Kiernan Foley (age 14), jumped into the water and began pulling the children out of the icy water.  His friends, Drew Scalice (14), Joseph Dietrich (14), Tyler Armagan (14), and Ryan Day (15), assisted him in getting the children safely to shore.

"Kiernan, I give him all the credits, he jumped right in there without any hesitation," Day said in a video interview. "All of us were a great team, we all tagged along and saved those kids."

Stephanie Irlbeck, the mother of Olivia and R.J., hailed the boys as heroes in a post on Facebook.  “Before they could even reach the pond, the boys were running for them (so were my husband and me, but we were at the top of the hill).  Keirnan grabbed my 4 year old handed him off to another boy, who handed him up to me, then pulled my 8 year old out… Not only did they stop a potentially catastrophic situation, they didn’t even want anything in return.”

Foley told children’s charity Kids Who Kare during a video interview that the boys were “just at the right place in the right time, I guess.”  “We hope anyone else would do the exact same thing that we did,” Scalice said.*

When we were drowning in our sins, Jesus came to our rescue.  Jesus had to die to save us, for only the death of the sinless Son of God could pay the price for our redemption.  Jesus “gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4 NIV).

If we will accept His offer of salvation, He will give us eternal life (Romans 6:23).

God will save and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

Just as those boys came running to rescue Olivia and R.J., Jesus came “running” to save us.  In the words of Phillips, Craig, & Dean:

Mercy came running
Like a prisoner set free
Past all my failures to the point of my need
When the sin that I carried
Was all I could see
And when I could not reach mercy
Mercy came running to me **

Won’t YOU, through your trusting obedience, embrace the Hand that is reaching out to save you?

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “New Jersey teens save children who fell into frozen pond while sledding” by Stephen Sorace, www.foxnews.com.  ** Song lyrics from “Mercy Came Running” by Phillips, Craig, & Dean and songwriters, Don Koch, Dave Clark, and Dan Dean.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org