I wonder if there was any way she could have known what an impact she would make on so many lives. It was the time of the Civil War. My Great Grandfather, just a boy from Alabama, joined up at 14 or 15 years of age. (Family historian still out on exactly the age.) His time in battle was cut short at a battle at Chattanooga. Samuel Jordan was captured and sent to Philadelphia where he spent the duration of the war imprisoned. She made the decision to go down and visit the prisoners. I wonder why? The prison couldn't have been a nice place for this woman, Bible clutched to her breast. She somehow found my Grandfather and passed a Bible through the prison bars to him. She was God's messenger. My Grandfather found Jesus in prison. When the war ended he made his way back to Alabama and found some whom he could share in this belief with. He later founded a Christian college. At his death, his will revealed the love and friendship shared between my Great Grandfather and a black man who worked for him. This man's name was Joel and was instrumental in the raising not only of my Grandmother but my Mother. Samuel Jordan did something unusual, for that time, when black and white were separate and certainly the black man was undeserving of anything. Samuel Jordan willed acres of land to Joel, a black man. To this day Joel's descendants live on that land. A picture of "Uncle Joel" hangs on my family picture wall, in my home. Needless to say, a few visitors have had some questions.
My Grandmother went on to marry an amazing man. He was a preacher in Alabama. My Mother remembers playing under the trees in Tuskegee as her father would visit with George Washington Carver. She said she remembers looking up and seeing them come out arms around each other's shoulders talking. She said she remembers thinking.."Oh they must be friends." My Mother is a Christian, I am a Christian, my children are Christians, my sibling's children are christians.
Is all this the dominoe affect from an unselfish act as a woman slips a Bible through the bars, to a prisoner of war in Philadelphia?...yes.
So many missionaries, messengers of God, go unnoticed....but I think that's okay with them.

posted by Beverly at 3:07 PM