Rewind thousands of years. An Egyptian pharaoh is having one craaazy dream. In the pharaoh’s dream, seven fat cows graze along the Nile. Then seven ugly, skinny cows come along. They gobble the fat cows up!
Do you remember this story from the Bible? God used the Hebrew Joseph to tell Pharaoh what the dream meant. Joseph said seven years of good crops would come to Egypt. But afterward, seven years of famine would swallow the good years up.
That’s when Pharaoh gave Joseph an important job. He had to save food for the future. During Egypt’s “fat” years, Joseph stored extra grain. Then when famine came, people had something to eat. Does that story remind you of something? How about what the scientists are doing at the Svalbard Seed Vault?
Usually, it is easy for us to remember to take care of our daily needs. When we wake up in the morning, our grumbly stomachs remind us it’s time for a bowl of cereal. Our chilly toes tell us we need to put some socks on. But it can be a lot harder to think about our needs far in the future. It can be especially hard to think about the future needs of everyone in the world!
The scientists working at Svalbard know that people will need a variety of plants for many years to come. Someone has to grow the seeds that turn into grain that turns into your breakfast. Someone will have to plant the cotton seeds that turn into your cozy socks. Because teeny-tiny seeds can be easily destroyed, scientists have to plan carefully for the good of everyone—just like Joseph did.
This planning is especially important for poorer countries that have only a few kinds of crops. If war or disease destroys just one crop, people in such places can starve. That happened in Ireland in the mid-19th-century. Back then, people in Ireland depended mostly on one crop: the potato. When blight killed the potato crop, more than a million people died. Millions more had to leave Ireland. Like Pharaoh’s Egypt, Ireland needed a backup plan! Would the doomsday seed vault have helped?
One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much. — Luke 16:10
