Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Write in the HISTORICAL genre (05/03/07)
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TITLE: Who, What, Where, and Why? | Previous Challenge Entry
By theodore jedlicka
05/10/07 -
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“Wasn’t it just last year when so-and-so passed away?” I asked myself. No, no one ever remembers the dates for sure.
All of the best articles in the newspapers are usually the bad ones. By bad, of course, I mean depressing, heart tugging and blood boiling.
I was looking through newspaper clippings on the internet. Ok, so they’re not technically clippings. Anyways, I fumbled through the obituaries, maybe looking for something, I’m not quite sure. And then I found it, My Grandfather’s obituary. A flush of emotion filled my heart. Careful attention to detail exposed my frailty. I slowly exhaled as if I were an aged pane of glass, waiting to be shattered, and began to read to myself, “Whew!”
Thankfully, the pieces that I broke into more closely resembled tears than shards of glass. I couldn’t help but recall the first thing my mother complained about when she read the obituary. It was the date. Which date? I don’t remember exactly. Maybe it was the date that my grandfather graduated school, or came to the United States as a missionary with the Salvation Army after the war. There was also the date he died, two months after contracting an unnoticed cancer. It wasn’t the date that he had married my Grandmother, because they hadn’t mentioned that. Nor the date that he escaped the Nazi’s, he could never remember that one. It could have been the date that his church, long running in the red, was finally bought out by apartment developers, but who knows. Either way, it occurred to me that my Grandfather wasn’t someone who could be mis-represented.
Maybe all of the dates were wrong, but the headline still read “Home With Jesus”. The body of the text still talked about a man and the perfect God that he clung to. In reading his obituary, I felt that I was being asked a question, a question that solemnly pierced through my distraction and tears. I’m not sure how it originally sounded in my mind, just that it was God’s question revealed to me through news print.
“Where is your home, my child? Will YOU be coming home to me?” He asked.
I read the article aloud this time, gasping in between tears,
“Home with Jesus.” It read.
“Jan Jedlicka passed gently into the Lord’s presence with loved ones by his side August 12, 2005.” Somehow it didn’t feel as real when I was there as it did now.
“Born and raised in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Jan was devoted to his family and their work as leaders in the Salvation Army and running shelters for men and women in Prague.” Another breath,
“Jan was taken from his family as a youth by the Nazi’s and endured digging trenches for Soldiers in a forced labor camp.” And another,
“After World War II, Jan’s family was among only a few to meet the train that brought Jewish holocaust survivors to Prague, many infected with disease and tuberculosis. They were welcomed with loving arms. Later Jan’s family fled communism by escaping Prague to Switzerland, and eventually to America. Through Christ, Jan overcame his fears of war, bombardment, separation from family, fear of death from the Nazis, and...”
One of his favorite verses appeared below the text,
“…we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37
“Jan came to America to the Salvation Army Training College in 1952. He had graduated from Prague University in 1944 and Asbury Theological Seminary in 1963 with…” It missed no detailed of his education, before continuing on to his career,
“Jan served Christ as a pastor for 20 years in America, 15 of those in Scotts Valley, California at the Free Methodist Church. He greatly enjoyed serving the Lord in an evangelistic surfing ministry while being a pastor. For over 30 years, Jan shared his faith in Jesus Christ with anyone who would listen, among the surfing community at Steamer’s Lane and beyond. Jan’s life passion and life’s work was to tell others all about what he had experienced, trusting in Jesus Christ, and following Him…”
Finally, it talked about his family.
“10 surviving Grandchildren”, it said, and I was one of them…
After reading the article, two things stood out in my mind.
First:
That God has no Grandchildren; we have to choose him for ourselves,
And,
Second:
When God asks you a question, He wants an answer.
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