Duck Rescue! or A Children's Story for Church

“Quack, quack,” said Mama Duck as she took her babies for a walk, “you stay with me.” She led her young ducklings out of the pond and down the street toward the lush green lawn of a nearby house. The babies followed obediently after her, one after another after another.

All of a sudden one duckling disappeared and then another and another until all five were gone!

What Mama Duck didn’t understand was that she had led her ducklings across a storm drain and the little babies had fallen in through the cracks.

When Mama Duck heard the pitiful little peeps coming from her babies stuck in the storm drain she quacked in reply. She walked around the storm drain, quacking and quacking trying to encourage her babies to come out. But the grate was in the way and the walls were steep and the poor little babies couldn’t get out. They needed help. Oh what was Mama Duck going to do? Mama quacked and quacked and quacked. She didn’t know what to do except one thing; she was not going to leave her babies.

All at once a strange being appeared. A boy came over to see what was going on. He saw the Mama Duck quacking and thought she was injured, that she couldn’t fly. Mama Duck wouldn’t leave her ducklings even though she was afraid of this boy. All at once the boy dashed off.

Soon more people came. They looked down at the storm drain and saw the babies. Mama wasn’t sure what was going to happen. She had to protect her babies, so she opened her beak and squawked. One person carefully reached between the gaps in the storm drained and brought up a baby duckling. Oh, Mama was happy! She quacked and the baby peeped. She started to lead her baby away. But before she could get very far she saw that another of her babies was rescued. She quacked at her second baby and he peeped. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?” She seemed to ask.

“I’m OK, just scared,” her babies seem to reply.

She now led her two rescued babies away from the awful storm drain and toward a thick tree nearby. But she still had three trapped babies.

The people seemed to keep working. They reached, they peered, and they even got a big, orange bucket. Then, Mama Duck noticed a person was coming toward her with that big orange bucket. Inside she could hear a “peep, peep!” It sounded like “Mama! Mama!” to her.
She came out from under the tree just in time to see her third little baby scurry toward her just as fast as he could waddle. She met her little baby, nuzzled him with her beak and brought him close to her.

Then she started off with her three rescued babies across the street back toward the pond. Soon the person brought her number four. She was grateful and tried to say thank you with her quacks.

But where was number five? She got her four rescued ducklings back to the pond and into a safe spot under some overhanging trees.

But back at the storm drain the people had problem. The number five duckling was so scared and so shy that every time he saw someone reach for him he jumped into the pipe at the bottom of the drain. He would eventually climb back out and peep for all he was worth. Could number five be rescued? Was he a lost cause? The humans questioned how long they would have to work to get number five out or if they should just give up. The humans saw the mama duck head back to the pond with her four rescued ducklings. They thought that perhaps she was giving up on number five. She had four, and, besides, what do ducks know about counting their babies?

Suddenly number five climbed out of the pipe and onto a pile of leaves close to the top of the storm drain. With one more cautious reach the person caught number five and put him in the bucket. How he peeped and cried for his Mama! Two people had just taken the first steps of taking him back to the pond when a lone female duck come flying back toward the storm drain. She landed on the road and looked, wondering what the humans were doing. The human reached into the bucket and took out her lost little duckling! She earnestly quacked and the little duck peeped. She quacked again and this time lost little number five jumped from the hands that held him and scurried over to his mama.

Mama and number five waddled together back to the pond. It was a precious sight to behold; the Mama Duck quacking at her young baby and he peeping in return.

As I watched this precious moment, I thought of something; while I was willing to forsake the little duckling who wouldn’t come up out of the storm drain, the mama duck was not going to forsake her little one.

It reminds me of a text in the Bible that says “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5b) Did you know that is a promise from Jesus to us today? He will never leave us or forget us. And, when we are in danger, he will rescue us and lead us to safety.