I thought, when I walked across the stage and received my diploma – at the “mature” age of 21 - that I had accomplished whatever God’s plans were for me. Little did I know, He had only just begun.

During the decades of my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s I taught children in a variety of situations. My first real job with children came with a title! Recreational Director. How fun – huh? Not really – you see the children I was hired to play with lived in the children’s shelter where I worked. I loved my job. I hated the circumstances.

After working in the home for children I began teaching high school. I had arrived! Finally I had my own class room. Surely the fulfillment I experienced as I taught teens meant that I had reached the goal God had planned for me.

When my sons were born, I stopped teaching for a season to be a full time mom. As soon as they entered school I returned to the classroom.

Then the dreaded day arrived – I had to fulfill the state requirements or I could not continue to teach. I set out on a new adventure with a new goal – get a Master’s Degree! UGH!

God had a plan and it was not that I earn a graduate degree (although I did – I had to in order to keep my job). During the process of studying, I took a creative writing class. Suddenly, I found myself enjoying the process of writing.

So, years later, when an experience I had with my son prompted me to write a children’s book, I realized God was still not finished with me. Even earning a graduate degree had not been the ultimate goal.

I wrote my book, published it, and much to my heart’s content a few people bought it. Some of my friends encouraged me to translate it into Spanish. “No,” I thought. “The Latin American boys and girls who are bilingual like me will enjoy reading it in English.”

One recent day, after speaking at a women’s event in a Spanish church, I wandered over to my resource table where a little girl was thumbing through my book. Carina dragged her mother toward the little pile of my books and, as children do, begged for money. Her mother spoke not one word of English, but gave her daughter several bills. Carina’s English was perfect. She asked, “How much?” She gave me the money and even counted the change in English. “Thank you.” She skipped off happily.

The next thing I knew Carina gathered her friends around her. Directing them to sit and listen, she read my book to her Hispanic friends in ENGLISH! They laughed, talked about the story, and returned to favorite pictures. Their entire conversation took place in English.

Amazing! I took a picture. Joy was welling up inside me, like a full fountain, overflowing…

Consider the implications of this picture: Having begun life on foreign soil and received my earliest training teaching my neighbors to read and write, I now continue life in my own country where God continues to allow me to touch the lives of Latin American children. These children are my neighbors, but their status is no longer “poor.” They speak two languages. They write and they are reading - - - my book - - - in English!

I had to take a picture. Who would have ever thought it?

Oh- God, of course.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, though He is not far from any one of us.” Acts 17: 27

By the way, you might not know this – my book From the Pound to the Palace is the story of a little dog who wandered away and got lost. One day his master found him, unlocked the door of his desperate condition and took him home. The story of the little dog is a story that each child experiences when choosing to disobey and live a rebellious life or to obey God and walk with the Master forever.

When Carina had finished reading the book to her friends, I sat down with them and told each one, “Do you know that you are like the dog in this story? You also have a Master who loves you. You can ask Jesus to be your Master and he will always be your best friend.”

THE END or is it THE BEGINNING