This June, Sam drove to visit his mother who lived in the countryside. When he set off for his home, Sam’s mother looked at the dark sky and noticed the sign of a coming storm. Worried about her son’s safety, she told him to drive as carefully as possible on his way home and he promised to give her a call upon his arrival.

With his mother’s words in mind, Sam approached and drove on the main road carefully. Soon, it started to rain heavily. Eager to get home, Sam began to drive faster. Two hours later, he came to a bumpy (崎岖不平的) mountain road that had been flooded by a creek (小溪). Sam, driving a heavy truck, figured that he could get through the water. At that moment, he didn’t realize that such a thought would be a big mistake.

It was halfway across this part of the road that an unfortunate incident took place: The rushing waters grabbed hold of his vehicle, pushing it off the road and sending it down to a rocky creek bed. The truck finally stopped some 80 feet away. Sam’s problems only grew from there as the water had somehow positioned the truck into the creek bank at a 45-degree angle, making it difficult for him to open the driver’s side door. Injured and trapped inside with the muddy water rising quickly, Sam was certain that he was going to die. Shaking with fear, he was at a loss about what to do.

On the road right behind Sam were a delivery worker named Hans and his nephew Martin, who were on the way to deliver furniture to customers in the countryside. They witnessed the horrible incident, and when Sam’s truck came to rest in the middle of the overflowing creek, Hans quickly began to take action. First, he grabbed a rope from the back of his vehicle and used it to ensure he could safely approach the truck.

One never knows what one is going to find when one steps out into the world. Even something as simple as a walk through your neighborhood can result in either mild excitement or unusual adventure if the cards are right.

On a sunny afternoon, Mike journeyed into the construction site near his home. Suddenly, he heard something coming from around the side of a nearby building. It sounded like the whining(悲嚎声)cries of an animal. He curiously turned the corner, only to see a small dog standing on its back legs and wagging its tail pitifully. He then noticed that the poor thing seemed to be stuck at the waist between a small concrete wall and an even smaller broken wooden fence.

The poor animal's difficult situation was pretty obvious and Mike knew that if he did nothing and left the dog there, it might not survive. He had no idea how long the animal had been there up until that point. It might not have eaten or drunk anything in days. Determined to help, he looked around to find a stick, proceeded to climb up onto the cement slab and pointed his stick back at the clog. He was trying to pry(撬动)above the animal by insert the stick between the cement wall and the smaller, broken wall, but the terrified animal obviously didn't know his intention and attempted to bite at the tool and barked at him fearfully. The fright in its eyes said everything.

After at least a minute or so of trying to free the dog, Mike found his plan much more difficult in practice than it had stayed inside his own head. The hot sun was beating down. Drops of sweat running down his face, Mike sat clown on the ground and scratched his head with annoyance, thinking about what in the world his next move was going to be. Beside him, the dog curled up into a ball, whining miserably.

Then Mike went around to the other side of the wall and grabbed hold of the stick.

Eventually, with the few well-positioned pieces of wood, Mike managed to insert his stick in the right way.

In March of 1994, I was 25 years old, poor and pregnant. It was 10 days past my due date. I was dependent on public transportation to get to my prenatal (产前的) appointments. That day I was going with my husband to the hospital for an ultrasound (超声波) scan.

We were excited and happy, thinking a new life would come into our world soon. To reach the bus stop, we had to cross a busy street. While we were standing on the opposite side of the street waiting for a break in traffic, we saw the bus coming. There was a huge rush of traffic just then, and no way to cross the street in time.

We began shouting loudly and waving wildly trying to flag down the driver. But the driver didn’t notice us, since her face wasn’t turned toward us. She drove quickly past the stop and down the street. Traffic cleared up immediately after this and we were able to cross the street. But it was a moment too late.

We were very anxious because this was the last bus we could have caught to get to my appointment on time. The hospital was very strict about its appointment policy— if you were ten minutes late, you had to reschedule. Rescheduling meant I had to wait a day or more. I was close to tears, about to say “Let’s go home” when a police car stopped in front of us. The officer had apparently seen the whole process, and said with a smile “Hop in- let’s catch the bus!”

We’d never been in trouble nor were we thieves, but we naturally felt uneasy about most authority figures like policemen. So it was a shock to receive this offer of help from an unlikely source! Should we accept such help? We hesitated for a second. Then we got in the car, and the officer sped toward our runaway bus.