When I was a child growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s, there was this man named Brother Michael. He was some sort of missionary but I have no idea what denomination he was. He drove around neighborhoods sharing the gospel. He drove a truck that had all sorts of prizes for the children and the parents for memorizing Scripture. He would give out these little red booklets that had Bible verses in them. We would choose our memory verse to recite to him when returned usually a week or two later. I chose Matthew 4:4 “But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
I remember my parents helped me to memorize that verse and when Brother Michael returned I was able to say the verse perfectly. But I have no idea what prize I won. I don’t remember if I won a doll, some other toy or what. Anyway I was sad when we moved and didn’t get to see Brother Michael again. My parent memorized scripture and got prizes like The Last Supper, Bibles and paintings of an artist idea of what Jesus might have looked like. I think that painting was in many homes back in the 60s and 70s. We had at least two of tthem if memory serves me right. The Last Supper painting always confused me as a child because it looked to me like the people in the painting were complaining and I thought one was a lady who fell asleep!
Sadly a man like Brother Michael couldn’t go into such neighborhoods now. You see Brother Michael was white and our neighborhood was predominately black. Back then we didn’t care that he was white and sharing about God. We wanted to learn about Jesus and why He died for our sins. I miss those days. I really do.😢
