This week has been a wet one with plenty to do. I just finished reading Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate. It’s hard to think that such terrible things escaped the attention of the people who should have known better. My review is below.
Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was very well researched, but tells a very sad story. It also wasn’t very well known outside of this book before the authors’ fiction novel “Before We Were Your,” which I plan to read in the future. Georgia Tan ran an orphanage in Memphis, TN illegally. She lied and manipulated the law; allowing an unknown number of children in her care to die. It was very uplifting to hear the stories of survivors – some of whom were able to find blood relatives. Definitely a five star book.
Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society
Before We Were Yours – I haven’t read this, but it’s the fiction novel that inspired a reunion of the real survivors.
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Meanwhile, my Bible reading has been encouraging, as always. I’m reading a chapter of Italian (Leviticus 5 speaks of guilt sacrifices offered when Moses led the Jewish people), a chapter in Spanish (Isaiah 35 speaks of the glory and majesty of Zion) and a chapter in an English Chronological Bible each day (King Rehoboam just took power in 1 Kings 14). A friend gave me a Chinese Bible and that’s what I’ve been taking to church each Sunday. Familiarity with the Word helps with understanding and deciphering the characters – or at least starting to. I’m in different chapters in each version because I started reading them (or re-reading them in the case of Spanish) at different times. I’m not reading to learn these languages, I’m reading to maintain them. The Chinese/English version is a parallel Bible because I’m still learning Chinese (and probably will be for a while). I chose to start in Genesis. I love the history and background of the Old Testament and how it leads up to Christ’s death and resurrection in the Gospels.
Faith’s sermon this past Sunday was over the second half of Philippians (verses 15-23), so I feel like I have a nice variety, both of languages and sections of Scripture.
You can read books that you don’t have an English translation for just to improve the flow of your speech and less for comprehension. I chose the Bible because I know it well, but you can really do this with any book that’s available in different languages – fiction or nonfiction.
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