FREEDOM
February is the month in which we celebrate the two great presidents, Washington the Father of our Country and Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. It is a month in which we remember something of our history and our heritage of freedom. One of our readers, Pastor Gary Sheely of Lewis, IA submitted this true story about the coming of freedom in Jamaica. “In 1838, after a strong emancipation movement among blacks (then called negros) slavery was abolished in Jamaica, to take effect on August 1. On the evening of the last day in July a large company of former slaves gathered on the beach for a solemn, yet joyous, occasion. A large mahogany coffin had been constructed, and placed on the sand next to an accomodating hole in the beach. All evening the soon-to-be-emancipated slaves placed, with some ceremony, symbols of their enslavement. There were chains, leg-irons, whips, padlocks, and other similar symbols of slavery. A few minutes before midnight came the box was…
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