Our city has already “graduated” too many alleged students, for too many years, who were/are functionally illiterate. They couldn’t string four coherent sentences together to form a coherent and cohesive paragraph, if their lives depended on it; still, they got smiley faces and praise on any work they had turned in, to build their “self-esteem.” Getting out of high school and into the sends some of them into shock.

In contrast, the children we sponsor and serve know that education is going to help them get out of poverty. And as they learn and accomplish what they would never have been able to accomplish, without the assistance we, through Compassion, provide, they develop real self-esteem–especially if they have submitted to Jesus Christ.

The truth is that we have been blessed the most with freedom in this country: the freedom to own land, the freedom to build and own businesses, relative freedom from government corruption and the list goes on. Western countries have benefited the most from generations of Christianity–which is truthfully the only religion free from spiritual tyranny (barring some subversions of it).

But freedom is a blessing that must be guarded or it will disappear like a morning mist. And THAT is a most inconvenient truth that many people don’t want to look at.

Our forefathers worked to bring education to all American children, but we are always just one generation away from illiteracy. Here in Washington state, if something doesn’t change soon, we will have a generation of children from public schools who can’t do math. At least they won’t be able to do it and get the right answer. If someone knows what good getting a mathematical answer that feels good but isn’t correct does, I’d like to hear it.

So, could that be my brother or father or niece in the line? You bet, with the right disaster, it could happen in a moment. Would I help them as much as possible, of course.

There is a wall that stands between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ that can only be torn down when we come to realize there is absolutely no difference (in people)whatsoever except our geography.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:29