Friday, 24 November, 1995
Marcus Ellington, Jr. sat at the kitchen table and blew out the candles on his eleventh birthday cake. His family gave him a big round of applause and then his mother cut the cake and served it with large scoops of ice cream on top. He ate two helpings and ended up going to bed that night with a stomachache.
As he lay in bed trying to fall asleep, his mother came in and asked how he was feeling.
“Just fine,” he said.
She kissed him on the forehead and closed his door on her way out.
He was having trouble falling asleep. It was starting to happen more and more lately. He thought he had put his childhood problems behind him, but they were coming back to haunt him. He wanted so much to tell people all about God, but he remembered all the problems he’d gotten into in the past.
One thing he knew for sure was that he was going to be a man of the cloth. At eleven years old it seemed like an eternity before he would be able to attend the seminary school, but he knew he would have to be patient. He remembered the last time he tried to tell people about God. It had gotten him thrown out of school. But that was a long time ago.
