I have never been one to be interested in history even though I have been to some great musuems, history just never sparked my fancy, until I came face to face with Cairo history. After 5 days of being in Cairo, us ComLifers had a fun day and our first stop was the Custom house. This was a 3 floor masterpiece built in 1867 with intensely beautiful architecture of columns, high valuted ceilings, and overwelming amount of life. The Custom House was used for trading goods during the time when ships would make their stop in Cairo. Unfortunatley I have no pictures of the beauty indoors because of specific rules. So hopefully my words will sufice in inviting you into the beauty I saw in history.

 

I already had pictures in my mind of what Cairo was before its fall so walking into this building I was covered with an immense amount of anticipation of the truth.  To see the amazing artifacts that depicted the stories of the past, such as a desk used by Ulysses S. Grant during his time spent in Cairo during the Civil War, a Lewis and Clark display depicting their stop in Cairo during their historic journey, and pictures of the Civil War riots. One of my favorite parts was on the 2nd floor because it was almost like you had lived in the 1800's. I walked through a doctor's office (which by the way had creepy looking tools), a law office with walls of books, a general store, I imagined I was the cashier and steped behind the manual cash register, a pharmacy with a wall of drugs, and even a nursery. This usually isn't interesting to me or to anyone but after seeing the state of Cairo and realizing that the now abandoned 300 buildings were once movie theatre's, hospitals, million dollar hotels, and even an opera house nearly brought me to tears.

 

I am not writing about the Custom House to give you an appreciation for history, I am writing this to give you an appreciation for Gods restoration. I am confident after spending the week in Cairo and being engulfed by so much history that God has a plan to restore Cairo to a state of hope and salvation past anything that was ever experienced in the prime days of this small city. Some may ask why would God restore a small beat up town in Illinois when there is Africa, China, etc that need restoration, but I say he does it because HE CHOOSES TO and there is no arguing with the power of the creator of the universe