We have greatly appreciated the
prayers and encouragement of those who have been aware of the
unexpected change of ministry plans we had to make this summer,
and the various trials and challenges we have been through.
In early spring 2007 we had
announced plans to go on the road "full time" with an RV. George
would do his "day job" of insurance audit reviewing over the
Internet, and we would be free to travel around the country
throughout the year. In June we got a very good deal on a used
conversion van that we expected to use to pull a 27-foot
trailer. The van is nicely outfitted with stove, refrigerator,
bed, sink, and tables. And we actually put down a deposit in
July on a new 27-foot trailer that we felt would meet our needs.
And then life threw us a curve.
At the time we lived in Babylon.
Well, on Babylon Road in
Allegan, Michigan anyway.
We are now living in Rome.
Rome,
Georgia, that is, about 60 miles north of Atlanta.
Between the deposit and the purchase of the trailer, we became
aware that my aging parents were going to need some significant
help if they were to continue to live in a home of their own.
Both turned 85 this past year. Mother had a massive stroke in 1986,
which left her paralyzed on one side. Years ago she was still
able to get around the house independently with a leg
brace and cane. But a couple of nasty falls over a decade ago left her with no
confidence at all to walk without someone constantly by her
side. And for the past few years she gets around only by
wheelchair, only taking a step or two to transfer from chair to
bed or toilet. Dad took care of her after the stroke and
nursed her back to much more health than the doctors expected,
but in 1989 he had a heart attack and five bypass surgery.
George and I moved in with them to take care of Mother while he
convalesced. But within six weeks he was right back to caring
for her by himself, which he has done ever since.
Dad is a World War II Marine, and extremely self-sufficient and
stubborn, so he has resisted until now all attempts to get them
to move closer to us so we could help him. Besides, he hated
living in Dayton, Ohio, where they had a small apartment,
because of the bitter winters ... and he couldn't imagine moving
to Michigan where it is even worse. He desperately wanted to
move south. Earlier this year, he lost his confidence in his
driving, and let his license lapse and sold his car. (Unfortunately,
a
wise move, as his hearing and slowed reaction time made driving
in big city traffic dangerous.) He struggled for months trying to get by with
visiting helpers from some agencies for grocery shopping and such.
But when we could see how frail he was becoming, and how
difficult that was for him, we tried one last suggestion, and he
accepted.
New Plans
We shifted our plans and offered to help them move south, and
we'd move too. At one point Dad mentioned in passing an article
in a retirement magazine about Rome, Georgia, being a good
destination for retirees. I looked it up on the map, and
discovered that it is wonderfully central to a number of
locations where we have Church of God friends, as well as
congregations that have expressed interest in having us come and
speak. There are many people and places we could get to all over
the southeast with
just a day or two trip from Rome. It also got rave
reviews on various web sites on all sorts of qualities for a
small city of 35,000, including top-quality health care. So I
suggested to Dad that we go have a look and see if it would meet
their needs and ours.
In July we took them to Rome for a week. Indeed we were all
favorably impressed, and through some really neat miraculous
interventions, we ended up finding duplex apartments right
across the street from one another in a lovely area just on the
outskirts of the city. We signed the leases before the week was
over and came back home to pack. In mid-August, we took our own
possessions down to Rome in a U-Haul and stored them in one of
the bedrooms of my parents' duplex, as our rental wasn't
available until almost six weeks later. We then returned to Ohio
and got a motel near my parents' apartment and got busy helping
them get ready for the moving van, which was due August 24.
On the Road Again
At 11 AM August
25, the four of us left the Super 8 motel in Miamisburg Ohio. We
had had car problems the night before, so I was real pleased
when the car started up immediately and acted great.
Twenty minutes
down the road, it stopped. Cold. George pulled off to the side
of the road and was able to coast along until we just got under
an overpass for shade. It was sunny and almost 90 degrees
outside.
About that
time, an Ohio State Trooper passed us with lights flashing,
chasing a car weaving in and out of traffic. They stopped about
a quarter mile up the road. George got the cellphone out to call
AAA, I got out of the car and started briskly walking to the
trooper's car, hoping he had to do a lot of paper work on the
bad guy. I arrived in time. Trooper Mike Steele of the Ohio
State Police (pray a special blessing on that angel!) was
immediately attentive to our situation and did everything he
could to see we got help fast, especially with my folks in the
car in the heat, and mother unable to walk. He called a tow
truck, and arranged for us to get a room at a motel in a nearby
town.
Meanwhile it
dawned on us that we were only a few miles north of where our
friend Jim O'Brien, pastor of the Cincinnati Church of God,
lives. But I didn't have his cell phone number with me, and
figured he'd be at church that afternoon so we couldn't get him
at home.
I called our
daughter Ramona back in Michigan, and she put out an All Points
Bulletin on the Internet for his cell number--and had it within
minutes. Someone on the CEM forum spotted her request and
relayed it to Jim, who called Ramona, who put him in touch with
us while we were still out on the highway! Miraculously, Jim
just "happens" to have a friend that is the manager of a Chevy
dealer in Cincinnati, who lived two minutes from the motel we
were headed to. And within minutes that friend called to offer
his services. Which were monumental.
The tow truck
arrived. George and I rode in the truck. Mom and Dad got a ride
in the trooper car, where he regaled them with cheerful
teasing, offering to take them along on a highspeed chase,
just like on reality TV.
Our car was
towed to a closed Chevy dealer that wouldn't be open until
Monday. The driver and trooper took aboard our most immediate
needs from our luggage and took us to the motel.
Within minutes,
Jim's friend was at our motel, took us to get a few more things
from our car where it had been warehoused, and then took us to
his dealership in nearby Cinci, while my parents napped in the
air conditioned motel room. He arranged to have the car towed
there, where it would be repaired on Monday ... and loaned us a
brand new Chevy Trailblazer to drive as long as we needed it, to
get to Georgia in time to meet the moving van. He then led us
back to our motel as we drove the new car. And the next morning,
we were on our way again. My parents, who are not used to the
concept of divine intervention, were very suitably impressed!
New Settlers
We finished the
trip to Rome, and moved into the bedroom of my parents' home for
the next few weeks, piling all our worldly possessions around
our queen size air mattress, and setting up our computers on
folding tables. (We had wisely left most of our furniture in
Michigan with our daughter's family, planning to buy whatever we
needed after getting to Rome.) We were grateful to move into our
own duplex just three days before we had to leave for the Feast
of Tabernacles.
There have been numerous health
crises for both Mom and Dad since we arrived, and it has been very
helpful that we are so close by, and that all of their doctors,
specialists, and a major hospital are barely five minutes away.
Mother has had a serious injury to a tendon, followed within
weeks by a life-threatening internal infection in her leg that
took two regimens of antibiotics of increasing strength to
resolve. Dad has had a heart catheter and a stent placed in one
of his arteries. He has a surface skin cancer that will need
removal in coming weeks. He also has an upper G-I
exam and a "throat stretching" procedure scheduled. He is almost
deaf, so getting some hearing aids is also a priority in coming
weeks.
But in spite of all of that, we
were able to take them along with us to the Christian
Educational Ministries Feast of Tabernacles site in
September. They had never had any exposure to our "church world"
and "church friends" before, and were very impressed with the
extremely warm welcome and attention they received.
New Routes to the Same Goal
Although we will be unable, for
the foreseeable future, to travel as widely as we had
hoped earlier this year, we have no plans to slow down our
ministry efforts. We just need to adjust how we accomplish what
we do.
We plan to visit congregations
and families throughout the southeast over weekends in the
coming months. My parents are fine home alone for a few days.
They know their neighbors, and have help for emergencies.
We were able to participate
actively in the annual Lexington Winter Tournament Weekend
sponsored by the Cincinnati-Lexington Churches of God from
December 21-24, 2007. I presented a seminar to a general
audience, as well as a special one aimed specifically at teens
and young adults. Both were extremely well received. Click here
for information on ordering a free
DVD that includes both seminars.
We plan to be involved as
facilitators for the teen/young adult retreat in the Gatlinburg
area in February, also sponsored by the Cinci-Lexington
churches.
We will be an enthusiastic part
once again in the planning and organization of activities at the
annual CEM Memorial Day Weekend Family Retreat in Paris Landing,
Tennessee, for 2008.
Click here for
details on the weekend from the CEM website
.
I expect to give two
seminars there, and George plans once again to coordinate taping
almost all the seminars and most of the weekend activities. All
of that will be turned into a DVD set and made available via
this website. DVD sets of the 2007 Memorial Day/Pentecost
Weekend activities are still available.
Click here for ordering information.
I continue to write lesson books
for the Christian Educational Ministries YEA program, and am
currently also working on two short books with CEM's founder Ron
Dart.
I also am associate editor and an
author for the Faith Networks magazine sponsored by the Cinci-Lexington COGs. Click here for
an online archive
of past issues of that publication and information on
subscribing.
We are currently working on plans
to produce a series of short "tract size" booklets on various
basic doctrinal topics, to be used as tools of evangelism and
discipleship by individuals and groups. Along with that we hope
to create a number of YouTube video shorts, featuring teens and
young adults in creative skits, addressing some of the same
topics in an engaging way that will attract the attention of the
younger generations.
And my latest project is creating
a book on the doctrine of an ever-burning Hell, tentatively
titled Hell--The Unthinkable Paradox. For more
information on that, request the DVD
of my To Hell and Back seminar from the Winter Tournament.
