Philip Was Born With Down Syndrome And As An ...

Philip was born with Down syndrome and as an eight-year old, had a hard time finding acceptance, even in the Sunday school class he attended. Through some creative intervention, though, Philip began to be accepted by his classmates, for the most part. One Sunday morning, just after Easter, the Sunday school teacher gave her students a plastic, hollow egg and instructed them to go outside and find symbols of new life and place them in the egg. Afterwards, they would share what they found with the class. The children ran about the church property in a fury to find an appropriate item. They then returned to the classroom to share their finds. One by one, the teacher opened their eggs and displayed the symbol they found: a flower, a leaf, even a butterfly. The class responded to each with “Ooos” and “Awws” until the teacher opened the last egg. Instead of a beautiful flower or leaf, the egg was empty. “That’s not fair,” one boy spoke up, “somebody didn’t do it!” Philip spoke up in the egg’s defense, “That’s mine, I did that”. Annoyed the other boy retorted, “Philip, you don’t do anything right! There’s nothing there!” Philip responded “I did do it! I did! It’s empty! Just like the tomb! The tomb was empty!”