A card Koyce received from Neva in Texas said, “Life’s Essentials… and then you open it up it reads, “…a little black dress, and one great friend!” Then she wrote, “Dear Koyce, This card just shouted to me of you! I would love to be with you for a visit. We could just enjoy a “chic day!” I am reading Ann of Green Gables and am feeling and thinking very imaginably. I hope your nursing is going well. I am so thankful that you have so many to help you during this time out. I am even looking to Hawaii for you! (Oh, just a dream). We love you and are praying for you, Gene and Neva.

",,,and there great friends God give you too."

A family with two teenagers in our church sent me the neatest card. First, it started out by saying “There are greater things than you can IMAGINE ahead of you—and there’s a great God walking beside you. When you open the card, a song starts playing ”How great is our God.” The lady of the house quoted Psalm 19:14-16 that says, “Because he loves me, ‘says the Lord,’ I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.’” Then she wrote “We thank God that you are in his care…the Great Physician. And what a story, you will have to tell! Can’t wait for your first Sunday back.”

Their college age son wrote, “I appreciate the time and effort you put in to the church. Can’t wait to have you back.” Their high school daughter wrote, “Pastor, we are praying for you. We appreciate all you do for our church.” Dad wrote, “Thank you for being such a great example to all of us. You are as much of an inspiration to us there in a hospital bed as you are here in our church. But we look forward to having you back with us soon.”

"An Important Lesson and a Good Story"

My dear friend Ruth Matthews made this card and sent it. There is a lesson here. Her card reminded me of this story by Max Lucado.
Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before—such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.

People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. “This horse is not a horse to me,” he would tell them. “It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend?” The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. All the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever hope to protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been too high. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”

The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?”

The people contested, “Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.”

The old man spoke again. “All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?”

The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had alwaysthought he was fool; if he wasn’t, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, an old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.

After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. “Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”

The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of a phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase?

“Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is a fragment! Don’t say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.”

“Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned with one horse. With a little bit of work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.

The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgements.

“You were right,” they said. “You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.”

The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”

It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.

“You were right, old man,” they wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Yours son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”

The old man spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”' Isn't that a grest story? You see, we don't know whether what happens to us but the child of God knows that God works all things together for good to those that are called according to His purpose.

A Little Wobbly

Hey, once they let me out of bed, they gave me a physical therapist to help me. Shortly, I was told that I needed a Cain since my balance was not all that good. Over three years ago, the chemo fried my feet and my balance has not been all that great. Now it is worse. Also, they wanted me to walk with someone. I suggested my wife and they said, “No, if you fall, you will crush her.” So they gave me a person to work with—a trained physical therapist. She was from Persia. See the picture and tell me that if I had fallen, I wouldn’t have crushed her!” She was much smaller than my wife. However, I never did fall and I am still working on my balance.

Friends Stay in Touch

Today, a friend of mine sent me a nice thing to view. You can view it too at:
http://www.lshs64.com/enjoytheride.html

Just copy and paste. It has a saying on it that reads, "Your job will not take care of you when you are sick, though I am thankful for the people of our church who are taking care of me. Then, it goes on to say, "Your friends will stay in touch."

How true this is. I can't list the friends who have stayed in touch with me. Some calling from out of the country no less than once a week, a lady in our church who sends me a card weekly, friends that will drive over to Stanford and bring you whatever you need, pictures that people have taken and put into cards, people who from time to time send cards that really have meaning and were well thought out, people who sent me their written prayers, people who came and cleaned our house when we came from the hospital and those who picked up the load at the church, who sent me 3 Griffey posters (eat your heart out boys) and there was much more. Yes, I have been touched by my friends. (The above picture is Dr. Dick and Sherrill Christen serving in Bermuda at the moment).

When I Thouhgt it was over, a Team said, "You have some Infections."

I thought that it was about over and in a few days would be going home. Instead, they found three infections, one in my lungs, one in my catheter which they took out and another in my digestive tract. Now it is fun to see the nurses try to find my veins to poke as my veins are hard to get to try and kill the infections. I was treated as an outpatient while we lived in a hotel in Palo Alto. However, I was put back into the hospital and eventually was allowed to live back in the hotel near Stanford with Koyce boiling my water, eating only certain foods.

Finally, I came back to Concord with treatment everyday for about three hours in Kaiser Walnut Creek. Now, it appears that the infections will be gone.

At present, my energy level is low. They tell me to expect this for up to six months to recover from the treatment. So far, the doctors are encouraged by my progress but to me, it seems so slow.

I Met a lot of Nice Friends

I was told from the get-go that I would have a hard time concentrating so reading was out. I could do puzzles and scrapbooking but that was really not my thing. But I tried to figure out a way to reach out to my nurses and nurses’ aides to hear what I wanted to share about Christianity. I soon discovered that these workers were from different countries. Four were from Persia, several from the Philippines one from the Caribbean, another from Ethiopia and a number from India. And the list went on.

I started with those from Persia and asked them if they had ever heard of the Magi? None had. Then, I mentioned the Wise Men at Christmas time. They had heard about this. That opened the door to telling them how Persia got the Christian message about Christ.

I had fun with a number of other countries such as India. Having been there on four different occasions, this opened the door. Then I told them some things that I had found in Don Richardson’s book, Eternity in their Hearts. Don is a former missionary and a cultural anthropologist. He says,

“Evolutionary theorists hold that the concept of one Supreme Being was reached only after proceeding through more lowly beliefs such as fetishes, nature gods, and polytheism. They now find evidence of the exact opposite, i.e., that the more ‘primitive’ tribes have more advanced ideas about one true God—monotheism! Thus, despite scholarly views to the contrary, historical and other records reject animism as the ‘original’ religion and they indicate that people have known of the one true God from the very beginning.” This is contrary to everything we are taught in our culture and most cultures like India!

One example. Let’s go back to India to Hindu writings. Now can you imagine any system more different to Christianity than Hinduism? We believe in one God and classical Hinduism believes in over 300 million gods. We believe in one life and they believe in reincarnation. We believe in grace and they believe in karma. But is it possible that even in Hinduism there is some reference to one true God and a coming Messiah? Well, if we look back far enough, this is exactly what we find. Hindu scripture is made of several different types of writings and in the oldest of their scriptures is the Vedas. And in the oldest of the Vedas are the Rigvedas, in fact, they are the oldest surviving writings on earth. And before them are the Upanishads, the very oldest of them and the very oldest of the Vedas are not polytheistic at all! They are monotheistic! They believe just in one true God, the God of creation.

But, there arose in India a priestly caste that ended up with just a bit of power. And as we all know, power tends to corrupt. And these leaders wanted absolute power so they devised a system where they could control people—rather than just than letting them go to God and trust him for salvation. And so they told the people that they needed to rely on them to tell them what to do to get God to smile upon their lives. And they said that when you die, you don’t go to heaven immediately. Instead, you advance through a series of lives and if you are good enough in this life and you give us, your priests, enough money—then maybe you will be good enough to get to heaven. And this is how they were able to control the people and this is how their ancient system of religion was corrupted. And one can see this pattern over and over again in all kinds of ancient cultures.

So, I just hinted at this stuff in various cultures that I had learned from this book and at this point, I had their interest, got their email addresses and told them that I would write to them with more specifics of their country whether in Africa or China. It was fun and I enjoyed my attempt at sharing Christ so very much and made over a dozen friends in the process. So, what did I do in the hospital, I tried to be like Paul in prison, sharing Christ as the opportunity arose.