The Birds, Their Carols Raise

It was August of 1960 and nine year-old Kyle Dexter couldn’t wait for the new school year to begin.  It would be a season of adventure – long division, cursive writing, ink pens, flutophone lessons, and new friends.  As a pastor’s kid in Nacogdoches, Texas, Kyle enjoyed a life of privilege and ease. Not half a mile from Kyle’s home, Jasmine Washington was not nearly as excited.  Life had dealt her a bum hand and had, in the process, fashioned a young girl who was most sensitive to all of life’s injustices. For both Kyle and Jasmine, the last months of 1960 would become months of revelation and awakening.  These two pilgrims would encounter racism, hypocrisy, poverty, and shame; but they would also encounter kindness, grace, forgiveness and moments of life-changing beauty. In a small East Texas town, in a season of social unrest, God would weave together the lives of two very different people and two very different families into a single, stunning strand of grace.