Word attack to God's Word

 At the RJC, I've been working with Cedric, a 30 year-old cousin of Billy, who recently was transferred to Shelton.  Billy introduced me to Cedric who has a heart to grow spiritually.

Cedric struggles with reading--both word attack and comprehension.  He asked me to help him learn to read more effectively while he is trying to prepare to take a GED.

In school, he was a special education student and did not graduate. We read the Bible together out loud and I provided a small, powerful book called "Prison to Praise."  He gets most of it but stumbles a great deal.

So, he doesn't get it.  He understands that and wants to learn.

I collaborated with Judy Roberts, the Kent School District teacher at the RJC to work on a third grade-level packet which was too advanced to build on. So, she provided a solid, more basic packed on syllables and word parts.  Excellent!  We'll see how far he gets over this weekend.

Consider Eric Liddell, the famous Scottish Olympian celebrated in the film "Chariots of Fire."  Liddell became a missionary in China. For ten years he taught in a school, and then went farther inland to do frontline evangelism.

Here is D. A. Carson's account:

The work was not only challenging but dangerous, not the least because the Japanese were making increasing inroads. Eventually he was interned with many other Westerners.

In the squalid camp, Liddell was a shining light of service and good cheer, a lodestar for the many children there who had not seen their parents for years, a self-sacrificing leader. But a few months before they were released, Liddell died of a brain tumor. He was forty-three.

In this life he never saw the youngest of his three daughters: his wife and children had returned to Canada before the Japanese sweep that rounded up the foreigners. Didn’t the Lord withhold from him a long life, years of fruitful service, the joy of rearing his own children?

Perhaps the best response lies in Liddell’s favorite hymn:

Be still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.