The set card

I was thinking about memorization this morning and remembered a funny story about my first days. I was in Amsterdam (Peter A was there, wow!) and this one guy had just been appointeed as the official Wordmaster, similar to the political officer in the soviet army. He would be in the front of the food line asking people for their memorized verses. No verse, no food(chuckle chuckle chuckle). As hungry prophets in the making we were faithfully memorizing our verses but the poor guy was so out of place it was obvious. He was announced (Ready was in charge of the Kerkstrassa 7 home) as some heavy duty Bible teacher and memorizer who knew almost the whole Bible by heart. He was supposedly on his way to Israel and was making a stop there until something else came together (I don't remember all the details). But the job came to him as shoes that were too long for his feet. He made for a clumsy walker. If a person would not memorize a verse he would send them to the end of the line and after a coupleof times he would allow them to pass through with a stern rebuke. His rebuke was something like a serious mean-looking face and an admonition like "Get in the spirit brother!", or "be though rebuked, sister!". It was so funny that a couple of times I acknowledged not having memorized my verses just to see that happening. Then, there was some sort of lenience if one memorized verses in a different language. So I repeated the same verse in another language until a german brother heard me and ask me if that wasn't the same verse I had given yesterday. Soon after that the whole fiasco stopped - I think it was because some of the upper class citizens got tired of having to be a good sample and memorize their verses. Ha!

(Yeah, I eventually memorized my set card. I must say it has been very helpful to me even now).