Hey, sorry we haven't posted much lately...well, acctually, I guess that should be NONE lately. Sorry about that. We don't have many readers anyway, if we even have any. Well, since no one has posted, and since I had to write a paper for school, and SINCE Courtney said we could also post our school papers, I'm going to post mine.

Civil Disobedience:

Three Wrongs Make a Right

Civil disobedience is refusing to obey civil laws in order to change governmental policy or legislation. Those who employ it use passive resistance to effect change by nonviolent means. Miep Gies defied authority when she hid Anne Frank from Hitler’s death squads. In the same way but much earlier, Moses parents ignored an edict given by Pharaoh that the Israelites should drown any sons born to them. Defying civil authority, but discerning God’s will resulted in the saving of God’s people and their nation.

During the reign of either Ahmose I or Amenhotep I, the Israelites were living in Egypt. Because they honored God, they prospered and multiplied. Out of fear that the Israelites would rebel against him and take over Egypt, the pharaoh imposed harsh, heavy workloads. Israel became a mistreated slave nation. One of the Hebrew woman bore a son. Sensing he was a special child, she hid him for three months. When he was too old to hide any longer, she made a basket from bulrushes, placed him inside and laid the manger on the bank of the Nile. The baby’s sister stayed at the river to watch over him.

When the pharaoh’s daughter went to the river to bathe, she saw the basket with the baby inside. The daughter of Pharaoh had compassion on him, and kept him for her own child. Miraculously, she found and hired the child’s mother to keep and nurse him. When the baby grew older, he returned to Pharaoh’s daughter and became her son, whom she named Moses because she brought him out of the water. While she was raising Moses, the pharaoh’s daughter knew she was going against the official edict of her father.

Moses was raised and educated in the ways of the Egyptians. When he was older, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh‘s daughter. While Moses was out among the Israelites, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, another name for Israelite. When Moses saw that no one was around, he killed the Egyptian and buried him. Upon hearing the crime Moses committed, the Pharaoh ordered the death of Moses. Leaning of the Pharaoh’s plot, he escaped to Midian where he remained until God was ready to use him as his messenger to Pharaoh.

Moses the Israelite raised as an Egyptian, understood the speech and customs of the Egyptian royal court. He was perfectly prepared to be effective in delivering God’s message: “Let my people go.” The Egyptians were nature and ancestor worshippers; therefore, God used plagues touching these things to persuade Pharaoh, after the death of his first born, to free His people. Moses was protected and preserved through three instances of civil disobedience: his parents hid him, Pharaoh’s daughter protected him, and he ran from a murder. On the day God appointed to him, Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt on dry land across the sea toward freedom.

Well, there it is. I've been working on a story, but I'm really busy lately, with school and everything, so I haven't had much time to work on it. I'm trying to figure out who my characters are right now though. If I make any progress with it, I'll post the story, but for now, this is all I have.

Emily