By Kirk, CBF field personnel
I recently shared about our education work at the World Literacy Summit at Oxford University. Held every two years in the Oxford Examination Schools (just across the street from C.S. Lewis’ Magdalen College), the summit attracts hundreds of participants from around the world.
This year, the most celebrated address came from an unlikely source: a man named “Jelly Roll.”
I must confess that, having served overseas for the last 30 years, I was not familiar with Jelly Roll. A quick google search revealed that he had grown up in Tennessee, dropped out of high school and ended up in jail. Now he is a heavily tattooed musical sensation, with multiple hit songs and music awards to his name.
Jelly Roll shared how he developed a love of reading while in prison. He now supports prison literacy programs, including an innovative project where prisoners make videos of themselves reading books for their children, as a way of maintaining familial connection during hard times. Very cool!
Even more amazing was what Jelly Roll had to say about faith. There, in front of 500 teachers and researchers from 89 countries, he told the story of a man named Saul who was on his way to do bad things when Jesus met him and changed his heart. “The same thing happened to me,” he said. “I don’t want to be the guy that keeps cramming my faith down y’all’s throat…but God had a bigger plan than even I did…”
Indeed, God has a bigger plan than any of us. Big enough to grasp a scholar like Lewis, a singer like Jelly Roll and everyone in between.