My ChristianityAuthor: David.M.Clark Published: Mon Apr 22 18:00:09 EST 2002 Notes: How small is our Christian world In 1991/1992 my wife and I lived in Melbourne for a few months and we moved back to Queensland in July 1992. During our time in Melbourne we went to the Kenneth Copeland Ministries Convention to meet up with some friends who had come down from Queensland and were on staff for Kenneth Copeland Ministries here in Australia. While sitting in the cafe during one of the convention breaks I looked up and saw a young man with his wife sitting at another table - he was an old school friend of mine from grade 7 - he hadn't changed a bit. I went across the room and said, "Hi Desmond, you won't remember me but I was in your class in grade seven." And I went on to speak with him briefly and then went back to our table. You might say, "Well so what, people bump into each other all over the world every day." And you would be very correct, however, there is more to this than a chance encounter with an old school chum from a different state to the one I then lived in. Desmond was the kind of kid in class who always got caught by the teachers - the kid who wasn't necessarily naughty but got caught when others didn't. He got caught for talking even though he wasn't the only one talking; giggling at something that someone else had said; skidding along our classrooms polished wooden floors in his school socks (we all loved doing that). Because he always got caught he earned the reputation as the class clown. To this day I can hear our teacher calling out his name and hurling chalk-board dusters across the room at him. But I knew him better than that. He had a deep love for medicine and wanted to be a doctor when he grew up. We used to talk about the human body and the various ways it worked. We both did medical lectures in front of the class about the heart, lungs etc and Desmond really knew his stuff. What struck me all these year later was that even though he was a real joker and seemed to be at the centre of all class mischief, he had the aspiration to heal people one day. Even though he never became a doctor, he now helps our Lord mend people's lives and souls as a pastor. He certainly became a doctor - just a Different Doctor. |