Little Agnieszka (ag-NESH-ka) grew up in beautiful countryside in southern Poland.

A big green forest stood on one side of her house. A green meadow with pretty white daisies and pink and purple wildflowers stretched out on the other side of the house.

Agnieszka loved nature, but she was easily frightened. She didn’t like the dark. Strangers were scary. Her family had cats, dogs, and chickens, but she was scared of them. She was especially terrified of mooing cows and gobbly-gobbling turkeys. Fortunately, no cows or turkeys lived at her house.

But a flock of turkeys did live in the yard of a farmhouse that she passed on the way to school.

Agnieszka loved school, and she loved walking to school. One morning, she skipped along the road to the village and turned the corner to school. A few steps later, she saw something that filled her with horror. She stopped in her tracks. Dozens of gobbly-gobbling turkeys were wandering on the road. The birds were enormous, and they made a loud, scary racket.

Agnieszka looked to one side of the road. A rushing stream. She couldn’t walk through it.

She looked to the other side. More gobbly-gobbling turkeys were walking in a ditch and strolling in the adjacent meadow. She couldn’t walk there.

She looked beyond the meadow. The gate to the farmhouse fence was open, and the yard was empty. The turkeys had escaped from there!

Agnieszka was trapped. She couldn’t go to school because of the gobbly-gobbling turkeys. She couldn’t go home because then she would be late for school.

She sat down on the road to hide from the turkeys. “God, help me,” she prayed.

Opening her eyes, she saw an elderly man riding a bicycle toward her. The man wore dark gray clothes and a dark gray cap. His bicycle was dark gray. He was coming from the direction of the school.

Fearlessly entering the flock of gobbly-gobbling turkeys, he energetically waved his arms and shouted, “Shoo, shoo!” The turkeys gobbled even more and made a frantic dash toward their yard. Feathers flew and the screech of the gobbly-gobbling was deafening.

Agnieszka was surprised that the stranger wasn’t scared of the turkeys. She had never seen him before, but she wasn’t afraid. He looked sort of familiar.

As the old man rode past her, he said kindly, “It’s all right now.”

Agnieszka’s mouth dropped open in amazement. She looked at the turkeys gobbly-gobbling back into their yard. She looked back at the road to wave at the old man. He had disappeared.

Agnieszka happily ran to school. She wasn’t even late.

The turkeys never invaded the road again.

Agnieszka has always remembered God’s answer to her frightened prayer. Now the mother of two children, she tells them how the stranger scared away the turkeys.

“I don’t know whether he was an ordinary man or an angel,” she says. “But I know the victory came from God. I was able to survive the turkeys with God’s help.”