Bridges in the Desert
“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided.” [Exodus 14:21]
When people think of the London Bridge, they generally think of fog and cold, not cactus and sand! But today, the 140-year-old London Bridge resides in the middle of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. In 1963, chainsaw mogul and entrepreneur Robert McCulloch purchased 8.5 square miles of property in western Arizona and promised to develop it into Lake Havasu City. But McCulloch had a dilemma – how would he interest home buyers in relocating to a small town in the remote Arizona desert?
At the same time, the London Bridge was sinking into the clay of the Thames River. The famous bridge, built in 1831, was the victim of its own immense weight. London officials decided they’d have to replace the old bridge. Instead of simply tearing it down, they decided to sell it! In 1968, McCulloch purchased the bridge for $2.46 million – the highest price ever paid for an antique at that time.
Over the next three years, workers disassembled the five arches of the 1,000-foot-long and 50-foot-wide bridge in London. Each of the granite bricks were numbered to help with reassembly. Then, the granite bricks were shipped to America, where they were hauled to the brand new Lake Havasu City. The pieces were reassembled over land, and then a canal was dug out underneath, turning a peninsula into an island. The reconstruction cost an additional $7 million and the bridge was ready for business in 1971.
The unique purchase paid off for McCulloch. Pretty soon, tourists started showing up and eventually folks who came to see the bridge bought homes and decided to stay. Today, hundreds of thousands of people come every year to see the oddly placed landmark. By 2010 Lake Havasu City had grown to a respectable 52,000 residents.
Usually a bridge is built to cross a water barrier. In this case, a water barrier was dug in the desert to accommodate a multi-million-dollar bridge to nowhere! The Bible tells of a different sort of bridge in the desert. When the Israelites found themselves trapped by the Egyptian army on one side and the sea on the other, God miraculously created a dry-land bridge through the Red Sea. Truly, there is no dilemma too difficult for God!
