Chapter 1: A Burning Desire (Audio)

An old friendship. The first-grade class sits on the merry-go-round on the playground at Hartville Christian School sometime during the 1969-1970 academic year. In the background, Sister Sommers watches over her charges with a smile. In the foreground, the author sits in the center, third from the right, his eyes closed as he faces Dave Schlabach, who would shortly move to Traverse City, MI. Almost fourteen years later, the two boys reconnected at Maranatha Bible School, restoring their friendship. Photo sourced from The Lantern yearbook.

When I wonder, as I sometimes do, how it was that I fell in love with reading; when I consider, as I sometimes do, why I have been God-haunted across the six decades of my life; when I contemplate, as I sometimes do, what is the birthplace of my passion for the rhythms of the written word, I think about a welcoming classroom in Northeastern Ohio. There I was taught by Sister Edna Sommers, a Conservative Mennonite woman who decided the classroom was fa…