Ediger will be featured speaker at 9/11 service

And it’s his faith in God that Ediger will talk about Sunday. “We all must realize that our hope lies in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and not in our circumstances, which are shaky at best,” he said.

Of course, Ediger vividly remembers Sept. 11, 2011.

“We had just moved to Comer,” he said. “I just hurt for the people who had experienced such loss, and I saw it as a new opportunity to rely on God’s grace.”

Ediger said he will refer his audience to Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

He said his faith comes from experiences and challenges in his own life.

After his rehabilitation, he went back and graduated with his high school class of 35, then attended and graduated two years later from the University of Nebraska. From there he went to Columbia Bible College in Columbia South Carolina and graduated from there in 1993.

“That was my first taste of the South and I loved it,” he said.

He returned to Nebraska for a short time where he served as youth pastor at the church he grew up in, before traveling with this brother to teach at a Christian school in Myrtle Beach SC. He and his brother both met their future wives while teaching at the school and got married a month apart in 1998.

Ediger and his new wife, Amy, followed his brother and sister-in-law to this area in 2001. Ediger joined them to teach at Westminster Christian Academy in Watkinsville, while Amy took a teaching position at Comer Elementary, where she still teaches first grade. They found a home in Comer and have grown to love the area.

Ediger said the people of Madison County have been good to him. A group of friends raised the money for a specially-equipped van for him four years ago that he can drive while seated in his wheelchair.

The couple has been blessed with two children, Ben, 7 and Maggie, 2.

“Because of my physical condition, we didn’t know if it would be possible for us (to have children), but again, God has blessed us,” Ediger said. He said Amy and his children are the pride of his life.

“Amy is a hard worker – she was teacher of the year at Comer last year – and she has her hands full,” he said. “She does so much that no one sees, like the things she does to care for me. She perseveres and she is phenomenal in all she does.”

Ben is a second grader at Comer this year, and Maggie stays with a babysitter during the day.

“We are surely content,” he said.

Ediger believes in sharing his testimony wherever possible and he enjoys the interaction in the classroom, where he teaches the Bible to kids in the sixth through ninth grade. “I like to hear and learn from them, it’s so rewarding,” he said.

“I know that God can orchestrate good out of evil; he is the only one who can,” he said. “That’s what I want to share.”