Second Semester Begins

We are excited about the second semester of classes that started on January 15th. Brother Justin Surface preached in the opening chapel service and he brought a fine message on “Wholesome Words.” Brother Justin travels each week from southern Indiana to teach Speech.

The semester began with a challenge for us to be faithful to Christ.

What a privilege it is to serve Him!

Reading It Right

A fascinating story comes from our area around the college, at Hopewell, Indiana.

One hundred and sixty years ago, Billy Davis was a 23 year-old soldier fighting for the Union cause in the Civil War. When he departed his church and friends at Hopewell, a Miss Jenny had promised to write.

Miss Jenny had written him three times, all in friendship. As he got to the close of the last letter, he read this line: “but I must close lest I love you too much.” In his journal, Billy Davis wrote: “When I read that it almost took my breath for a minute. ..I at once left the tent and went up the side of the mountain where I read the letter again and again especially the last sentence.”

Private Davis pinned the letter over his heart, and sought a quiet place to read it every day. “I had never before received a letter of that kind....Everything appeared in a new light to me. The mountains never seemed so beautiful...I wished the war would close so that I could go home...And thus ten days passed; ten days of some delightful dreams, along with puzzling questions.”

The day came to reply to Miss Jenny. “Sitting at our little improvised desk in tent number ten, I read the letter again, and when I came to that line I stopped suddenly; scales must have surely fallen from my eyes; for I saw clearly that what had been LOVE to me, was really the word BORE. I sat dumb, even to myself, while the air castles which I had built tumbled into one heap and vanished.”

The young soldier managed to compose himself, and then write back a friendship letter as he had before. (Davis, William. edit. Richard Skidmore. The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis. Greencastle, IN: Nugget Publishers. 1989 [pp. 83-84])

Billy Davis survived the Civil War and returned to Hopewell. He later became a missionary, starting some 200 Sunday Schools across the western states.

Too Soon to Quit

One hundred and fifteen years ago, on February 21, 1910, Douglas Bader was born in London, England. He was from a modest military family, and Bader excelled both academically (if he wasn’t bored) and especially in sports. He tried out for everything, and he would master it.

At 18, Douglas Bader joined the Royal Air Force and learned to fly. He became such a good pilot, that he was selected as part of an RAF Acrobatics team three years later in 1931. That same year, while flying a new plane, tragedy struck when his wing clipped the ground during an acrobatic maneuver. Bader survived the crash, but he ended up losing the lower part of both of his legs.

Bader took his injury in stride, and soon learned to walk with two artificial limbs. Pushing forward, he took his first return flight less than a year later in 1932. To his dismay, the RAF, none short of manpower and suspect of a double amputee pilot, released Bader from the service in 1933.

Then came WWII in 1939, and England needed fighter pilots to defend the homeland. Bader was offered a chance to come for training. He showed up at the airfield the next day, and in three months he had passed all the training to fly the famous British Spitfire fighter.

In Douglas Bader’s original biography called Reach for the Sky, the famous pilot’s story is told. During the Battle of France, in June of 1940, Douglas Bader shot down his first enemy plane. As the Battle of Britain began, Bader’s totals increased, and by a year later, he had shot down 22 enemy planes, and himself become a Wing Commander in the RAF. This while using artificial legs.

Douglas Bader was finally captured by the Germans in August of 1941, when he had to bail out over enemy territory. Still the disabled pilot would not give up. He escaped or attempted to escape so many times over the next few years, that the German High Command finally shipped Bader to Colditz Castle, the maximum security prison for Allied officers. After three years in prison, he was finally liberated by the U.S. 1st Army on April 16, 1945. His next request - to fly as a fighter pilot against the enemy...a request that was strictly denied to the hero.

Although Douglas Bader’s step father was a minister, I can only wonder about his eternal state. Douglas Bader has been dead now for 42 years.

Still, I love the persistence of the famous English pilot. He would not give up.

Douglas Bader’s determination to keep on going is an encouragement for anyone when faced with adversity, especially a Christian. We need to trust God, and not quit.

The Price of Freedom

On February 5, 1860, the preacher stood before his Brooklyn congregation with a dramatic plea. Next to him, stood a nine year-old mulatto slave girl who was destined for the slave market.

The request that day was for a love offering from the congregation to purchase the freedom for this girl...a kind of reverse slave auction.

Henry Ward Beecher led his large congregation in giving. He had long promoted freedom, encouraging his sister, Harriett Beecher Stowe, as she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin eight years before.

The congregation went wild with emotion, and gave over $1,000 worth of cash and jewelry. After the gifts were received, the preacher reached down into the pile, and pulled out a gold, ruby star ring. Rev. Beecher placed it on the child’s finger and lovingly said, “Now remember that this is your freedom-ring.” (Applegate, Debby. The Most Famous Man in America. New York: Three Leaves Press. 2006. pp. 316-317)

America’s famed genre painter of that age, Eastman Johnson, captured the sacredness of the emblem in his painting “The Freedom Ring.”

The Bible tells us that we were slaves to sin, and we were helpless to pay. But Jesus Christ made that payment with his life’s blood, and the Bible record’s His words: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John 8:36.