Edition #67 | The Little Ships | Tuesday, May 26, 2026

The British army was trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. The large destroyers could not get close to shore because of shallow water and German fire. On May 26, 1940, the Admiralty sent a simple order to the ports and harbors of England: “Send every vessel that can cross the Channel.”

Let's get into it.

Hundreds of ordinary men answered with the boats they already owned. Fishermen left their nets. Yacht owners fueled up. Lifeboat crews volunteered. One of them was Charles Lightoller, a survivor of the Titanic sinking. He took his 52-foot private yacht, the Sundowner, across the North Sea. Under air attack and with the constant threat of mines, he made the crossing and pulled 127 soldiers off the beach.

The smallest boat to make the trip was the Tamzine, a 15-foot fishing boat. It made multiple runs. In nine days, the little ships and the Royal Navy together brought 338,000 men back to England. The operation was called Dynamo. The civilian part of it was not planned. It was simply men looking at what they had and deciding it was enough to try.

The fishermen and boat owners did not wait for someone with a bigger boat or a uniform. They saw the need and the means they already possessed. The verse does not say "when it is convenient" or "when someone else should do it." It says when it is in your power.

Coach Wooden won ten national championships at UCLA, but he spent his life teaching that character is revealed in the unseen moments. He drilled his players on the little things that no crowd would ever cheer. The men who took their own boats to Dunkirk were not looking for repayment or recognition. They simply had something that could help, and they used it.

This week, with the young person in your life, find one real need where the only tools available are what you already have. Your truck. Your skill. Your afternoon. Your phone list. Say yes to it together. Do not hand it off to an organization or "someone who should." Let them see what it looks like when ordinary people answer the call with what they already own.

Forward this to a parent, coach, pastor, teacher, counselor, or mentor who is teaching the young people in their life to stop waiting for the perfect organization or the right person to handle it, and to simply answer the real needs in front of them with what they already have.