Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: ARROW (11/17/22)
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TITLE: The Daycare was called Arrows. | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gloria Pierre Dean
11/22/22 -
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In a culture where over 80% of parents had to work, daycares needed to be reliable, accessible, and affordable. At the core of Arrows was the passion of its founders. They both grew up in orphanages and foster homes, so what their childhood lacked, they were determined to inject into their young clientele.
Ann remembered the Christian foster parents who took her to church and exposed her to the love of Jesus. Andrew had a similar childhood and had begun to drift into petty crimes when he met Ann when they were teenagers.
The verse that strongly impacted them was “Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. {Psalm 127:3-4}.
In quiet moments, Andrew thought of arrows and of the warrior men who created them and then shot them at targets. Arrows had to be made of strong yet pliable wood. In his mind, children could be strong and were pliable. The persistent yet gentle work of the creator would result in an effective instrument. Passion flowed through the creator’s hands as he pushed and carved this raw product into an object of form and usefulness.
Ann and Andrew would speak of the wisdom of that verse. It spoke about the way that warriors; who they identified as parents and teachers, gently and persistently worked with children, purposefully, to create beautiful humans. The hands of the warrior were the hands of the people who imparted in the children’s lives at home and in the daycare.
The effort required to 'train up a child’, is like the creation of an arrow.
“Start with the straightest piece you can find, and gently peel off the bark with a knife. Rub it down with some form of oil or fat, and then hold it over a fire. Your goal is to warm it to make it more pliable so you can work it straight. The oil helps the wood heat without drying out and keeps it pliable. Gently heat your arrow shaft, and work it against a convenient surface (table or a sharp rock) until it’s completely straight. This is by far the most time-intensive part of arrow making”.
{https://practicalselfreliance.com/make-primitive-arrows-basics/}
The instruments used in creating arrows are oil, heat, and a sharp object; like a knife or stone. To train up a child, tools are also used. Love of God, prayers, and the loving persistence of others; others meaning parents, teachers, and neighbors. Even the government policies play a part. Oil soothes, heat softens and sharp objects remove what is unwanted.
The target for these young arrows was the world. The Arrows, they hoped, would help lay the foundational characters of happy well adjusted citizens who were children of God.
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