The Caleb Collection by Ted Dekker

Author:Ted Dekker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2006-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

40

Three Months Later

JASON SAT ON THE KNOLL overlooking the small village and watched Caleb picking through the rubble that was left of the monastery he’d grown up in. Leiah sat beside Jason, her hand in his. A light, cool breeze off the Simien Mountains to the south lifted her hair. The small stone house fifty yards behind the construction sight would be their new home for a few years at least. A poetic conclusion, he thought. They’d met divided during the monastery’s destruction; now they would live united during its rebuilding.

Only one road led into the Debra Damarro—the same one he’d navigated the Jeep over just four months ago. The authorities had agreed to restricting access on the road during the monastery’s rebuilding—two years at least. They’d put a manned gate where the dirt road met the main road leading to Axum. One day they would open the monastery to the public, but the reconstruction would allow a buffer, so to speak: a few years to take a collective breath. Countless thousands would make straight for the boy, given the opportunity. But the time for multitudes had passed. Caleb was a child, and it was time for him to live like one. Perhaps one day he would emerge again.

Jason’s mind drifted back to the weeks following the event at the Rose Bowl. It had taken a month to sort out the details, but in the end they were quite plain: God had reached out to the world in a unique way that had even the most ardent skeptics tossing and turning at night.

The Rose Bowl meeting had continued until daybreak. Nothing more was said from the platform; no more spectacular healings or earthquakes or winds followed; no light shows or fireworks. Just the wonderful, heartbreaking, overpowering sound of wailing and laughing and abandoned worship that took on a life of its own. It could easily have been a crusade under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jason had walked around in a sort of stupor, alternating between tears and wide smiles. When he asked Leiah if he’d said the right things, she just hugged him around the neck and whispered in his ear, “I’m not sure you said anything. God was speaking.”

Of course he knew that, but hearing her say it made him laugh, and he hugged her until she gasped for breath.

Caleb was most definitely alive. There was dried blood in his hair and on his cheek, but a doctor examined him and pronounced to the cameras that he couldn’t find a scratch. And yes, the blood on the platform was real blood. Caleb’s blood. When they found the bullet lodged in plywood at the back of the stage, they found the boy’s blood on it as well. And practically the whole world had seen the impact of the bullet itself, replayed a hundred times in slow motion. A week of forensics put the last doubt to rest. The bullet was real; the footage was real; Caleb had been shot through the head with a .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.