Tasman Island, Australia

The window of the Tasman Island lighthouse opened and a dozen pigeons flew out, each with a tiny satchel attached to one leg. Each satchel contained a message.  ‘Send help. Need doctor.”

An accident had occurred at the remote lighthouse, and the only way to summon help was with homing pigeons. The keeper and his family prayed the pigeons would be strong enough to fly the 133 miles to the loft on shore and not get lost or attacked by predator birds.

From Australia to Maine to the offshore lighthouses of the Florida Reef, homing pigeons were the main means of communication for many isolated lighthouses from the 1950s until radios were installed.

Used especially for emergencies, lighthouse pigeons sometimes conveyed other news – need for supplies as well as conversational messages to family members on shore. In addition, the pigeons returned to the lighthouse with news of local or world events. In 1918, a pigeon returned to the Bird Island Lighthouse at South Africa with the announcement that World War I had ended.

What would you do if your lines of communication were gone, if you found yourself in a remote place away from civilization? Perhaps you do feel that way sometimes. Can anybody hear you? God does.

“Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice.” Psalm 55:17