Mules to the Rescue
God’s “beasts of burden”
can still handle situations
man’s technology cannot
The catastrophic damage to portions of Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina from Hurricane Helene last weekend is as heartbreaking as it was shocking. With roads destroyed, emergency vehicles could not get into the many remote areas where people were stranded without water, food, first aid, and supplies. And with power out, most could not use the internet or phones to call for help. What to do? Send in the mules!
Mules Deliver Helene Aid to Isolated Areas of N.C. (30 Sept 2024, NewsMax). Reporter Kate McManus tells about an ingenious solution that local outfitters came up with to help their neighbors.
The North Carolina Emergency Management Agency has advised that roads in mountainous western North Carolina remain closed to non-emergency travel. To help reach isolated communities, Mountain Mule Packers, a local organization, has stepped in with their team of mules to deliver essential supplies. The mules can navigate difficult terrain that vehicles can’t access.
Dr Duane Gish on mule in pack train in the Grand Canyon, 1987 (DFC)
Some day inventors may perfect robots that can navigate difficult terrain, but will they be able to power themselves with grass and leaves on the way? Mules have what it takes, McManus writes, for situations like this. She quotes one of the mule packers:
Each mule can carry up to 200 pounds of supplies, according to trainer Mike Toberer.
“They call them beasts of burden, we call them our beloved mules. They are capable and willing to work in many conditions most won’t,” Mountain Mule Packer Ranch wrote in a Facebook post. “From hauling camping gear and fresh hunt, pulling wagons and farm equipment; to serving in training the best of the very best of our military special forces, carrying weapons, medical supplies, and even wounded soldiers.
“This week, they are ready to work with us to HELP many in need after the devastation of Hurricane Helene.”
A mule is, of course, a cross between a male donkey and a female horse, so it is not species capable of ongoing reproduction. But the hybrid combines the strength of the horse and the agility of the donkey, so humans have bred mules for millennia and used them productively in many situations.
Donkeys in a corral near Jerusalem, Israel (DFC)
There are 16 mentions of mules in the Old Testament, beginning with Absalom (son of King David). They were used during the times of the kings of Israel and Judah before and after the Captivity. Nehemiah had 245 mules in Jerusalem during the rebuilding. Mules are also mentioned by the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, of course, so it is possible that mules played significant roles in Bible times prior to the period of the kings, and in the New Testament as well.
Donkeys are mentioned dozens of times beginning with the lives of Job and Abram into the time of Christ, who rode on a donkey colt into Jerusalem at the Triumphal Entry. Job had 500 donkeys early in his story, and twice that many after his period of suffering.
In Job 39, God teaches Job lessons about the unique qualities of his creation, the wild donkey, also known as an onager:
5 “Who has let the wild donkey go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
6 to whom I have given the arid plain for his home
and the salt land for his dwelling place?
7 He scorns the tumult of the city;
he hears not the shouts of the driver.
8 He ranges the mountains as his pasture,
and he searches after every green thing.
Tourists feeding wild donkeys in Death Valley (DFC)
Even today, wild donkeys do remarkably well, surviving and bearing their young in desert wastes where it seems improbable that such a furry mammal could eke out a living in the heat. Burros have long been part of the classic image of the Death Valley miner with his pick, shovel, pan, and donkey. They roam the highways of Death Valley even today, amusing tourists as they seek handouts from the windows of their cars.
If inventors ever come up with a mechanical robot that can eat grass, find its own water, and mate with another robot to make baby robots that can grow from a microscopic cell, they might have something to boast about.