by Carole Adams

It was 1977. Miss Hall sat in the armchair by the fireplace, a sixty-something lady in grandma shoes and a cardigan sweater buttoned over a sensible dress. “What does God require today of the American Christian parent in educating the child?” Another rhetorical question, in a flight of similar, ponderous questions had my head spinning and my heart pounding. She reached for the shelves behind the sofa and pulled out a huge, facsimile copy of Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation. I was later to discover that the shelves behind the sofa held nothing less than a sacred trust—the writings of those who over centuries sought truth and faithfully recorded it for generations to come. She read from the copy of the original in Bradford’s own hand, the most impressive tome I had ever seen: “They knew whom they had believed, and trusted His providence, though they themselves be only stepping stones to others . . .” This is how my journey first began, with a visit to the San Francisco Foundation for American Christian Education on a quest to solve the dilemma of how to educate my own children where those words from William Bradford, “though they themselves be only stepping stones to others . . .” brought me to this page today.

To be continued . . .