Christianity Oasis Forum

[saint701]

Hello All,


Blessings!

Put Christ back in the classroom? Really?
We believe that there are some in St. Louis that support causes on Facebook. One circulated into our zone a few days ago entitled, Allow God in School.

[momof3]

Loved this post!!!! Thanks for posting it brother!

in Jesus,
luv momo

[saint701]

Hi Momo,


Blessings!

Thanks for the reply. Am happy the post stirred you up, for such gives glory to God that we love Him enough to lay our lives down for Him.


Blessings!
Love ya! Den.

[momof3]

have to tell ya a lil story. my mom got a call from school one day asking her to come to the school for a meeting. I was in big trouble. I was in first grade and the school principle said that if i continued to bow my head to say grace before eating lunch, they would have no choice but to expell me from that school. Seems i was intent on having everyone at the table bow their heads and say grace too .....the sad thing was it seemed the only people who had a problem with it were the adults who were watching!

[saint701]

Hi Momo,


Blessings!

How very, very precious you must be in the sight of the Lord. Did you find that episode in your life leaving you a tad bit perplexed about adults and their beliefs versus their hypocrisy? Do you still let that small child in you be a part of your conscious living?

After I was babtized at age 10 some strange things happened to me, 3 very specific incidents I remember. First, my 2 best friends tied a two inch piece of heavy metal tubing to 4 foot piece of rope then called me out to play with them. As soon as I got within striking distance one of them began twirling the device around and smacked me with it upside the temple then went away laughing.

Then, while visiting another neighbor boy he brought his bb gun and shot me in the thigh a couple of times. I just stood there and took it as such was to me the turning of the cheek.

Not long after that I had a birthday. My parents gave me a cool play gun as a gift. I knew of a really poor family that lived in a shack kind of separated from most. To get there I had to go through a small forest, pass over a highway, and go down into a valley. It was about 3 blocks or so. I took my birthday gift with me. When the boy came out to play I have him my birthday gift, played with him a while, then went home.

My parents noticed that I didn't return with the gun and asked me where it was. I told them I had given it to that poor boy living down in the valley. Of course my parents didn't realize my giving was an outcome of Christ within me at work. Instead of reinforcing the way of the Lord, they made my older brother go to the boy and take my gift back. I was heart broken. But what I didn't understand that there really is a profound difference between children of the world and the children of God, and it is Satan motivating those of the world to harm us. Later my dad asked me if I remembered speaking in a foreign language in my sleep the night before. Of course I didn't.

20 some odd years passed before I found the Lord again, and then for only a short time as I wasn't genuinely repentent, but at age 28 fresh out the Navy, I repented, was revived, filled with the Holy Spirit with the accompanying gift of speaking in tongues. Such was already inside me from age 10, but pretty much stifled by the world. I felt the same spiritual essence inside me that I felt at age 10.

Shortly afterward I took a job as a small elementary school principal. I was immediately befriended by the school counselor who had become like me. Unfortunately said counselor, John Maloney, had gotten himself into trouble with quite a few of the community for praying with one of the school board member's sons. I began attending the weekly bible study meetings he held at his house and quickly got on the "to be axed list" he was on, you know, guilt by association. The teacher's under me changed their demeanor from warm to cold instantly, just like my neigbors had when I was 10 years old.

Now John had a loving wife and 3 children and it became obvious he was concerned about providing for them when the axe fell. I encouraged him to pray about his situation in tongues. That helped him lots as a stronger anointing came upon him and he began to manifest more gifts of the Holy Spirit in our bible meetings.

I took a different course. It was my job to teach my students world history, and since curriculums were not set at that time I chose to delve into the history of man after the flood of Noah. I made a map of the migrations of families after the Lord scattered during the day of Nimrod.

This really irritated my subordinates, and, all alone as I was out in the countryside where the school was, my nightly praise and prayer sessions with the Lord brought unseen hands from wherever that attempted to strangle me as I lay down to sleep. This happened several times.

I assumed such was an attempt perhaps of a witch or witches in the area attempting to scare me enough to make me close my mouth. It didn't! It only made me bolder. I could see it wouldn't be long before I would be put on administrative leave, so I determined to see how many students of mine would make a profession of faith. 7 rose up in a strong way.

Of course that was the last straw for some parents as their children went home and insisted their parents begin taking them to church. The next afternoon the school superintendent showed up in my office and said, "Mr. Cook, there are several men waiting outside in their trucks to beat you up if you don't promise me you will stop teaching Jesus and all else out of the Bible to their children. They are very upset that their children insist they start attending church now."

Since John Maloney had his own set of problems to deal with, I had pretty much been left alone to fight my battles with evil from every direction. it had raged for about 4 months. I was exhausted.

I said, "No, Mr. Boger, I will not stop teaching the Bible as history, and I will not stop declaring that Jesus is Lord and no other."

"Well then," he said, "I have no choice to put you on administrative leave for the remainder of the school year." (it was April)

"Fine," I said, "but according to school policy my pay and benefits must continue until the end of my contact period. I want you to write that on that letter you have there placing me on administrative leave."

He did.

Three years later I was in the boiling pot again, not because I was defending the faith, but simply providing a smigen of background for one of Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt's speech on 4 of the freedoms we Americans enjoy, as my principal had given me the assignment to have my students write 5 part themes to be entered into a city wide contest held by one of our city's club's, (optimist, rotary, 4H, or whoever. I don't remember). One, of course, was freedom of religion. (You know we had that in our schools until June of 1962 when the supreme court took it away from us along with our freedom of speech, and, based upon the wording of Amendment #1 of our Constitution, that same Supreme Court made essentially a law that was forbidden to made by #1 of our Constitution).

Regarding freedom of religion, I said, "the devil won't like me saying this, but God is truly the only reliable source that can be counted on to make this country great."

Of course the next day the superintendent was in my classroom. The first words out of His mouth were, "you're fired! You know it is illegal to talk about God in the classroom!"

I said, "Dr. Slaughter, you cannot fire me as I was following the directions of my principal, Mrs. Betty Moore."

"Humph," he said, and took off to see my principal. She basically told him the same thing I told him.

He wasn't satisfied though, and began calling my students out of my classroom one by one in an attempt to find witnesses that would attest that I had overstepped my boundaries. He found zero.

Amazingly enough Vic attended the same church my mother and I did. Actually he was a non'Christian humanist hypocrite, and quite the schemer. (My mother was a retired teacher.) He along with the president of the school board had hatched a plot to take health insurance away from retired teachers in our school system. Such, of course, would be catastrophic for my mother and many other retired teachers in the area as their meager retirement income would not allow them to afford good health insurance.

They foresaw that I might be a problem for them after they passed the resolution to remove health insurance from the system's retired teachers as such would be an attack on my mother and I would come out against them no matter what the consequences would be for me.

Since the 4 freedom thing didn't get me axed they came up with another scheme. They called it the 3rd year teacher review. This resolution went into effect a few months before contract time the following year. It was designed to weed out those teachers they did not intend to give tenure to, which in the state of Missouri was after the 5th year. Amazingly, "gee," there was only me.

With me out of the way there wouldn't be anyone to stand up for the retired teachers. Of course they succeeded removing health insurance and getting rid of me, but there was such an outcry as other schools followed suit and horror stories began to reach the state legislatures ear's. They passed a law forcing all school districts In the state of Missouri to keep retired teachers on their health insurance policies.

Of course Vic Slaughter and Jeff Carr made sure I would be personna non grata in Missouri so my next stint was out on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico. I was welcome there as a Christian and viewed as a shaman by my students. I was given great respect and outstanding evaluations.

Well, I've rambled on long enough. I began writing a rough draft of the trials and tribulations I've been through because of my testimony of Jesus our Lord on C.O. last summer, but the Holy Spirit took me off that assignment and put me on another one. I hope to get back to that soon.


Blessings!
Love ya all, Den.













I said. "No, Mr Boger, I will not quit teaching the Bi