Check out the featured post and read more here: https://www.crosswalk.com/headlines/contributors/guest-commentary/australian-teen-rescues-family-lost-at-sea.html
If you were given the opportunity to risk your own life for the sake of saving others, would you? For 13-year-old Austin Appelbee, this was a no-brainer. Absolutely.
After seeing his family lost at sea, Appelbee swam through 4km of ocean to help rescue his mom and two younger siblings. What started as a fun day kayaking and paddle-boarding on the ocean quickly turned deadly when the waves flipped their boards and dragged them out further into the sea.
Despite fear, Appelbee said that Christ and his family got him through his fears. As he swam, he kept thinking to himself, “I’m going to make it through. I was thinking about all my friends at school, and friends at my Christian youth,” he said.
Diving headfirst into the tumultuous sea with just his life jacket, Appelbee eventually threw it off to swim quicker and with more ease. Even in exhaustion, he said the exhaustion didn’t faze him: “I was very puffed out, but I couldn’t feel how tired I was.” Running on fumes and fight or flight energy, Appelbee kept going: “I just said: ‘Alright, not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going.’” And that’s exactly what he did.
“At this time, you know, the waves are massive, and I have no life jacket on. So anyway, I just keep swimming. I do breaststroke. I do freestyle. Survival backstroke.”