Extraordinary Ordinary!Sample

History tells the account of a woman who was overweight and never married, although she longed for a home, a husband, and children of her own. She lived at home with her parents and older sister while working in the family business.

The one bright spot in an otherwise mundane week was teaching the special needs Sunday school class at church. Although this spinster never gave birth to children of her own, her delight was to teach these little ones who were never able to sit still and would never be accepted into a university. The dear, special-needs children began to disappear out of her Sunday school class. They were being taken by the government from their parents and placed in state institutions.

Shortly after the children began to disappear, the ten Boom family built a hidden room upstairs in their home. The ten Boom family was joining the ranks of hundreds of others who were assisting the Jews.

By the end of World War II, this one family had saved over eight hundred Jews, as well as hundreds of Dutch underground workers.

The ten Boom family was betrayed and the Gestapo took Corrie’s family to prison. Although the Gestapo ransacked the home and searched everywhere, they never found the secret room where six Jews remained in hiding. These Jews were rescued nearly forty-seven hours later.

Everyone in Corrie’s family, except Corrie, died in the concentration camps. She was the sole ten Boom survivor and came home alone to live again. Corrie’s life-long ministry began and she testified everywhere she traveled:

“There is no pit that God is not deeper still.”

“God gives us the love to forgive our enemies.”

“Jesus always wins the final victory!”

Corrie knew how to embrace the life that Jesus promised in John 10:10. She could have been a depressed, lonely woman lacking any true purpose in life. But instead Corrie gave all she had to give, loved when others hated, and gave cup after cup of cold water in His name to the children under her charge and to a war-torn world.