Visiting Piney Woods

I just returned from a very successful research-trip to the Piney Woods School in Mississippi. After two days spent in the museum and archives, I am overwhelmed by the amount of history that has taken place... and the number of lives that have been changed... in the 100 years since Professor Jones began teaching three boys how to read by sitting on a pine log beneath a cedar tree and huddling around a bonfire to keep warm.

The class quickly grew to 30 and eventually moved into a nearby sheep-shed for the winter. I stood in that same sheep-shed this week. The same sheep-shed that had originally housed slaves before it held sheep. The same sheep-shed that was a makeshift classroom before the first real school building could be built. The same sheep-shed where Dr. Jones hid out during the storm that crippled that first building during its construction. The same sheep-shed that served as a "honeymoon cottage" for Dr. Jones and his wife Grace when they were first married.

The shed is so small that I can only stand up straight at the very peak of the roof and the rafters are at shoulder-height. It's hard to believe that this is where it all began.

While there, it hit me that God has been calling people to Piney Woods for almost 100 years now... and I'm just the latest of these. He called Professor Jones there in 1909. And over the years, God has called many administrators, teachers, donors, and students to this same quiet spot in the woods of Mississippi.

God has also called scholars, journalists, dignitaries, and celebrities to visit. And every person who was called, regardless of whether it was for a day or a decade, was changed by the experience.
I am just the most recent visitor to that quiet spot in the woods... and I won't ever be the same either.