Spillers Family: FBCS Kennesaw's Award Day

Let me tell you a little about William. Two years ago when his parents tried to send him with his sister Julie here to study American language and culture, he was not particularly interested in coming. That year we all learned that being accepted by a school and having an I-20 and attending an interview at the Embassy does not guarantee one a student visa. The U.S. Embassy seemed to arbitrarily deny visas to a lot of students that year.

So William came the following year. He came with reservations (meaning he was not thrilled to come--not that he had a plane ticket), and he came with his sister Julie, who stayed 6 months so she could start junior high school with her friends when school started in March.

William is not a big talker. He doesn't make a lot of noise. Sometimes you may even forget about him because he is so quiet, but he is quite smart. The first 6 months he was here, his sister Julie was here and she gave him lots of--let's say, "instructions". Julie was so good at giving her brother instructions, that sometimes I got the idea that William refused to follow them as his way of asserting his own independence. The next 3 months William had two roommates--one younger (Andy) and one older (Peter). They got along pretty well. They were always playing together. There was a little competition over who was going to be Peter's friend, but overall they all got along pretty well. I think that was a learning experience for William. It's good for a younger or youngest child experiences life as a middle or oldest child for a while. It teaches them empathy for their siblings.

Then the last two and a half months he was here he was back rooming with the big boys, David and Daniel. They all got along well. They would play like puppies sometimes rolling on the carpet and wrestling. It never got rough and they were always gentle with William. They would pretend to shoot one another and "die" play in ways you just can't play with girls.

It was in these last two and a half months that William really came out of his shell with us. He spoke to us often and with confidence. He told us how he felt about school, his friends, and thing things he was going to miss when he went back home.

As followers of Christ, we love the Bible, because we believe it is God's inerrant Word. In a world full of lies and half-truths, it is the pure Truth from Heaven that sets us free. An amazing thing happens every time kids come here from homes where there is little or no Bible knowledge. They grow a lot in confidence once they discover through the Bible the answer to the 3 questions man must deal with: 1)Who am I? 2)What am I here? and 3)Where am I going when I die? We love it when our love for God's Word rubs off on the kids who stay here. William came to us not knowing a thing about the Bible, but he quickly became someone who is thirsty for the Living Water that gives life. Before family time, he would often ask if we could play Bible knowledge games. And the last few weeks he was here, he lamented that when he got home, there would be no one to teach him the Bible anymore. I pray that he never loses his desire to study God's Word.

William took a standardized test and scored on grade level or above in every subject. The test even evaluated his Bible knowledge. The results pleased me so much I think I'll share them with you.