"So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord..." –2 Timothy 1:8

We were rancher’s kids. Our "church" was the one-room country schoolhouse where a few families held interdenominational Sunday school. My mother led the adults in a discussion of passages from the Bible, and the older children taught the younger ones.

Via mail delivery, we were privileged to belong to a special preteen club, The Challenger Club. Every month members received a list of scriptures to read and a question to answer each day. At the end of the month we returned the sheet to Chicago. We even had a theme song:

We are challengers for Jesus,

Challengers for Him each day.

Every day we read our Bibles,

And we always stop to pray.

From Genesis through Revelations we became familiar with the stories and believed the promise that, through faith in Christ, God would be with us and be our guide. Years later when I was an adult lying in Mayo Clinic facing physical difficulties after brain tumor surgery, Bible verses were clear in my mind, and I knew that the second verse of the song was true.

Won’t you join our happy number?

Read your Bible, pray each day.

Then you’ll have the victory daily

If you only stop—to read and pray.

Janet Naessig