While we were interpreting in Guatemala, I traced the temple theme throughout the Old Testament. Guatemala was a great schoolroom for studying the parallels between Eden and the Garden-of-Eden-like tabernacle and temple. Like Eden and the Guatemalan sky, the tabernacle and temple had curtains of blue, purple, and scarlet. Like Eden, the Guatemalan landscape glowed…
As captain of the Beagle, Robert FitzRoy wanted to bring the gospel to the Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego. FitzRoy had encountered the Yaghan on the Beagle’s first voyage. He had gone back to England with three Yaghan youths he wanted to disciple then return to their home as missionaries. Darwin was on the…
When friends moved to an unnamed North African country, they urged us to read Patricia St. John’s Star of Light—which is set in an unnamed North African country—to help us understand our friend’s new environment. I was charmed by its characters: dimply Kinza and courageous Hamid. I was also intrigued by the way St. John…
When I was in first grade, we were asked to write a story. I scrawled sixty-some pages of stories, and crayon illustrations. My teacher wrote her only comment on the last page, “I don’t think all of these are completely original.” Obviously, she had never heard of mimetic instruction. In my ninth-grade world civilizations class,…
When I was six, my mother had a stroke and lost the ability to move and speak. She regained her abilities, with only the slightest slurring of her speech in times of stress. When our first child was born, my mother had cancer. For five hours, surgeons removed malignant tissue from her tongue, jaw, and…
