An outbreak of baby cobras alarmed Beulah Fernandez, director of Sunshine Children’s Home and School on a Seventh-day Adventist campus in Bangalore, India. She had good reason to be worried. Five years earlier, a boy had been bitten by a cobra while chasing a calf through a mango grove. Even though he had been rushed to the hospital, he had ended up undergoing several operations and a year of complicated treatments before recovering. 

Now baby cobras seemed to be everywhere on the 10-acre campus: on the road, in the garden, under the car, and even outside the door of Beulah’s house. 

“O Lord!” she prayed. “This is supposed to be a safe place for children. Please help!”  

Snake-catchers were called, but they were accustomed to catching snakes in city buildings and closed spaces. It was a difficult task to find the baby cobras on the large campus of trees bearing mangos, bananas, jackfruit, sapota, papaya, custard apples, avocados, coconuts, guavas, figs, passion fruits, and soursop.  

Staff members and children prayed earnestly.  

Then a staff member spotted a peacock on the campus. Could it be? A peacock on the campus in the middle of a big city? Peacocks are known to eat venomous snakes.   

A short time after that, another staff member saw a second peacock.  

A few evenings later, staff members and children were treated to a majestic display of a peacock and his female counterpart, a peahen, majestically strutting around the garden. Everyone watched in wonder as the shiny blue peacock fanned out its long, brilliant tail feathers marked with eye-like designs. 

After that evening, the baby cobras disappeared.  

Even though the snakes were gone, the peacock and peahen remained on the campus like stately guardians to the children and staff members. Even today, someone screams out almost daily, “Peacock!” — and the children run out to look at a beautiful bird.  

Beulah believes that the peacocks were the answer to their fervent prayers. In the 45-year history of the school and children’s home, no peacocks had ever before visited the campus. 

“We believe that God sent the peacocks,” she said. “God indeed does love and care for His children and can still amaze us with beautiful solutions to all our troubles.” 

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