Fifty Years Out of Jericho

To almost all Christians and Jews, Jericho was the first Canaanite city which the descendents of Israel destroyed. It's also the city which was rebuilt at the cost of the builder's first-born son. Jesus himself passed through that city of palms and healed Blind Bartimaeus.

For me, Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind was like a minimum security prison camp. I was only allowed to visit home at Christmas, summer, and three Easter holidays.

How I wished that Joshua would march around its walls and we could go home. As Joshua 6:20 (BBE) relates, "So the people gave a loud cry, and the horns were sounded; and on hearing the horns the people gave a loud cry, and the wall came down flat, so that the people went up into the town, every man going straight before him, and they took the town."

A clown visited Jericho once. After his magic tricks, he quoted John 3:16 (BBE). "For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life."

Sadly, it and the Bible stories a nurse read to me meant nothing. Like the stories we heard at the Anglican church Sunday school, those ancient tales didn't relate to us.

It was only at a vacation Bible school in a woman's basement that the Lord made the gospel personal to me. I believed in God but I never knew that I needed to repent and invite Christ into my life.

My education in secular subjects was Likewise stunted. Just as I never heard the gospel at the Anglican church, the curriculum at Jericho was a year behind that of public schools. As a result, I had to work doubly hard to get even average grades. And I had the haunting fear that I'd be shipped back to Jericho if I didn't do well.

Jericho is no more, and I praise God for that. You can read the history of that Institution here.

If Christ doesn't return on Saturday, I plan to post about being five-hundred miles from home. That's about how far from home I was at Jericho.