Based on The Ordinary Times
Juliette Alvey
Once upon a time, a family of beavers saved a big city!
It all started when these beavers mysteriously landed in a big park with lots of good trees and plants, and most importantly… a creek! They looked around and thought, “Yes… this will do… this is good.” They got to work right away chewing down trees and building their dams. The water started to pool just where they wanted it. One day it started raining, and their pool grew even bigger. Soon new neighbors started to move in: freshwater shrimp, various birds, bats, and even a rare type of butterfly!
The beavers’ new home was so beautiful that even the humans came to look at it. One day they overheard a couple of the humans talking. One said, “This is amazing! Can you believe we’re in the middle of a big city? I feel like we’re out in the wilderness.” The other one replied, “I know! And the way these beavers have saved our station from flooding is unbelievable… MUCH better than a big concrete levy! Shhhh, look! There’s one of the beavers right there!” The beavers didn’t quite understand what the humans were talking about, but it sounded like they had saved the day and built a wonderful home at the same time!
No, this is not the plot summary of the movie Hoppers… this is a TRUE story (besides the parts about what the beavers were thinking… I’m not an animal mind reader). West London's Greenford Tube station used to have a problem with flooding whenever heavy rains came, and experts thought they would need to build an expensive levy. But instead of more concrete, they brought in a family of beavers to an urban park near the station, and because of their damming of the water, the station is not in danger of flooding anymore. On top of that, other diverse wildlife has moved in because of the desirable habitat the beavers have cultivated. Now people in London visit that park and go on beaver safaris to witness these hard-working creatures.
This recent news story* stood out to me because it is actually good news! This is rare in today’s news climate. For the most part, the latest stories are thrown in our faces through digital means (online news, short videos, or worse… social media). Headlines are meant to be alarming and get more clicks, not to inform. And when we do read the full story, chances are we end up with more questions than answers. It feels like the point of news these days is to confuse and divide, not inform or inspire.
It feels like we have lost the art and beauty of a good story.
At StoryMakers, we are not giving up on telling good stories in creative and hopeful ways! There is a brand new resource called The Ordinary Times that is notable because it is so different from the way we typically get news. First, it is actual paper, which is refreshing to hold between my fingers again. Second, it is filled with GOOD news, fun activities, and beautiful artwork and comic strips. And lastly, it is telling an old, old story, not current events, but somehow it is still relevant and new each morning. That is the power of God’s story. We can retell it over and over again, and it still affects us because it is “alive and active” (Heb 4:12).
Not only does God’s living word speak to our daily lives, but there is something that sets it apart from every other story—it is eternal. All other good stories stem from the root of God’s original story about his creation, redemption, and promises.
This is a story that our kids and teens need to hear repeated in their own lives because then they can see how their own stories are grafted into God’s eternal story. Whether it is the story of creation from Genesis, like this first edition of The Ordinary Times, or Jonah, or Elijah, or the Israelites in the desert… they will see how all of this points to God’s original and perfect plan in Jesus, our rescuer. One of the back pages of The Ordinary Times says it like this:
“Wow! The beginning of the book of Genesis sets up the rest of God’s story. When you read the whole Bible, you see how God keeps moving toward creation, even when humans reject his love and forgiveness. Some may think Jesus was Plan B… but from the very start, the human story would need a hero, one who would do what we could never get right on our own.”
God’s story never gets old. It continues to grow in depth as we grow in age. It is how we find meaning in every other story we will ever tell or hear in our lives. Jesus sheds light on both the good news and the bad in this world and reminds us that “heaven and earth will pass away, but [his] words will never pass away” (Matt 24:25). Eternity is in his grasp, and so are we. That is a story worth passing along!
*https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5738979/beavers-britain-climate-change-flooding
