Famine

Chapter Sixteen

                                                                                                            August 1, 2029

Dear Jonah,

   So often I have thought about you over the years, and so I sorely miss you even more today.  At first I didn't believe cryonics possible.  Of course, I knew you were frozen near death, but it seemed that your body would be nothing more to researchers than a tough steak.  But the research advanced along with microelectronics, and it occurred to me that you might indeed have survived immediate death in the twentieth century.  I hope you haven't taken too long to find my hidden message.

   By now you at least know what happened to the world we once knew together.  I suspect that things are even more unbearable in your time.  Had you been perfectly happy in your new life and had forgotten me, you would never have found this letter.

   How often I have prayed for you and will until I die.  That may be a few years off yet, but I pray that you will continue this struggle that I am reluctantly leaving to future generations of Christians.

   As you and I saw when we were young, Madelyn Murray O'Hair sued over prayer in Baltimore City Schools and won in the Supreme Court.  She didn't stop there.  She joined with the ACLU to destroy Christianity in the public places.

   They followed through with banning a moment of silence in schools.  Schools then our of fear censored nearly all references to Christianity in books.  No child growing up in school today has any idea the founders of our country were mostly Christians.  It became a liability to be Christian since then.

   The federal government eventuall barred Christians from using public facilities.  Chaplains were forced to retire from the armed services.  Radio and TV no longer aired programs of a religious nature.  Christian students were denied Federal Aid. "In God We Trust" disappeared from our coins.  Each change in our society was by decree by some public official and hostile to Christianity.

   Christian and Jewish holidays disappeared from the calendars.  No longer were Santas ringing bells in the streets and wishing Merry Christmas.  The Easter Bunny was changed to the Holiday Bunny.  The name of Christ was no longer heard on the squares of America.

   Churches were then required to pay exorbitant property taxes.  Religious literature was then forbidden to be sold across state lines.  Within the states Bible production was further restricted.  Eventually printing Bibles and religious literature was against the law.

   The next phase, the one I am currently experiencing, bars Christians Christians from government employment.  Known Christians in business have to pay a special subversive tax.  Compensation for the terror that Christians might commit.  Jews, who believe in the Sanai Covenant, have likewise fled to Greenland, Australia, and even to Israel.

   Now we must wear armbands identifying us as Christians.  Only then can we carry Bibles and get into our churches.  Even if we are allowed to worship, we may not take our children to church, run our Sunday schools, or send our children to private schools.  The youth of our country, like the old Soviet Union, may not receive religioius insructions until age eighteen.

   Beginning July 1, of this year no new believers may be permitted to join churches, Christians must turn in their old armbands in order to be issued new ones with numbers.  After that, new believers will be arrested if found in Churches or among Christians or among in public without their numbered armbands.   Roving gangs of O'Hair Youth often beat up Christians on the spot.

   I have held secret conferencs with some believers whom I trust.  We are setting up an underground network with safehouses, secret meeting places,  and methods to avoid detection from the new Committee on Social-Environmental Ecology.

   One small package within your box contains your Bible that you often read with me.  It contains further instructions as to how to secure other items in your supposed grave.  I know the world is not likely to have changed back by now, but you need guidance.

   I know that you will find real, unapologetic faith in this world so sorely in need of it.  I have spread the word among the undreground cells to watch for your return over the coming generations.  Some know what you look like already.  Someone may contact you soon if it has not happened already. 

    They need your help to continue the Church in the world, and to practice our faith in God as we know him.  I have faith that you can do it, and I have assured future generations that you will come through for them when it counts.  They and I are depending on you to do the right thing.  If we cannot bring America back to its Christian roots, we may be able to secure our freedom of worship like the Russian Orthodox Church did after over seventy years of oppression.

   We discussed in a secret conference how to hide our cache containing even more boxes of extra Bibles and other writings for future use.  While I left some work of mouth instructions with believers for you to look here, we realized that that knowledge might get lost.  So we also posted the incorrect scriptue on our tombstone to attract your attentioin.  If you suspected something, you might just dig, I hoped.  We tried to position this so you would find this first.  The extra supplies will enable you to carry on among local cells for another generation or so.

   As for me, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."  One more thing, Jonah.  I have loved you so much all the years and always will--both as your wife and a Christian.

   All my love in Christ.

  Michelle

   Jonah felt good for the first time in a century,  He looked over the instructions and then sat down in the grass.  He opened his Bible, the one Michelle had given him so many years ago.  It's good condition was remarkable.  He read all afternoon right there in the cemetery until it got too dark, forgetting to eat again.

   That night he returned home and passed the night in peaceful sleep.