Why We Should Celebrate the 4th of July

     In the past week, while celebrating and meditating on the 4th of July, I read many tributes.  But none were as good, in my estimation, as the sermon posted by Wallbuilders.com.  It was given by the Rev. Joseph Lathrop on July 4, 1794, preached in Mass.  It goes through the history of the Revolution, how it came about and the justification for it biblically.
     For me it revealed so much.  I love history, especially American history.  I believe it is so important for us to know our true history because it is rewritten almost every generation by men and women with an agenda to promote.  That's why it's important to get as close as we can to the "original" sources.  This Pastor preached this sermon in 1794, very close to the Revolutionary War.  He saw the war.  He probably lost loved ones in the war.  He may have even fought in it.  Because of that we can believe his report.  You can't get much closer to an "original source"

Old North Church
Boston, Mass.

     As we get farther and farther away from the teaching of our true history in our schools, I encourage you to read this sermon and other original documents and teach them to your children. If you wish to hang on to them philosophically, intellectually and spiritually, they need to know the truth.  They won't get it in school.  Even many of our Christian schools are weak in this area.  It's our responsibility as parents and grandparents to pass truth on to our offspring.  You can read through it yourself then instead of reading it to them, explain each paragraph to them.  When they get old enough to understand it they can then read the beautiful language for themselves and appreciate it in a whole new way.     The most beautiful part of the sermon, for me, was the last paragraph. It's where he wrapped it all up and where he gave hope and encouragement to the church.  That's what we need so badly as a country right now, so to whet your appetite for the sermon, I'm going to reprint the last paragraph here.  So like Jesus at the wedding in Cana, I've saved the best for last!

     "THE DAY IS COMING WHEN LIBERTY AND PEACE SHALL BLESS THE HUMAN RACE.  BUT PREVIOUS TO THIS, TRUTH AND VIRTUE MUST PREVAIL, AND THE RELIGION OF JESUS MUST GOVERN MEN'S HEARTS.  THEN THE HORRORS OF WAR WILL CEASE, AND THE GROANS OF SLAVERY WILL NO MORE BE HEARD.  THE ROD OF THE OPPRESSOR WILL BE BROKEN, AND THE YOKE SHALL BE REMOVED FROM THE SHOULDERS OF THE OPPRESSED.  THE SCEPTER WILL BE WRESTED FROM THE HANDS OF THE WICKED, AND THE POMP OF THE PROUD WILL BE BROUGHT DOWN TO THE DUST.  THE WHOLE EARTH WILL REST AND BE QUIET; THEY WILL BREAK FORTH INTO SINGING.  THE LORD WILL COMFORT ZION; HE WILL COMFORT ALL HER WASTE PLACES.  HE WILL MAKE HER WILDERNESS LIKE EDEN, AND HER DESERT LIKE THE GARDEN OF THE LORD.  JOY AND GLADNESS SHALL BE FOUND THEREIN, THANKSGIVING AND THE VOICE OF MELODY."  by the Rev. Joseph Lathrop on July 4, 1794 in Mass.

     Now, wasn't that like cool water poured onto dry ground?

Lathrop 4th Sermon: Click Here

"Rise Up, O Church of God!"

Isaiah 13:2  "Raise a signal flag on a bare hilltop.  Call up an army...Wave your hand to encourage them as they march..."

Psalm 60:4  "You have raised a banner for those who fear You..."

Used with Permission by MJane Photography

     As I've meditated on all that has happened in America in the last couple of weeks, I've come to some conclusions that I'd like to share with you all.  By way of disclaimer, these are simply my conclusions, not the "word a God" as my Daddy used to say. You are free to comment and agree or disagree or dismiss it as the ravings of a frustrated old woman, but at any rate I hope you'll consider it.

     My contemplations went back to Charleston, not to the horrible mass murder in the AME church, but to the unceremoniously taking down of the Stars and Bars, the so called Confederate Flag.  I knew that was an important occurrence, probably even more symbolic than the flag itself.  So that's what got my wheels turning.  As a student of history, I knew that there was more to that banner than a symbol of slavery. It was a symbol of why the Civil War was initially fought.  One writer put it this way, "A major point of contention between the North and the South was the issue of the size and power of the federal government as defined by the Constitution.  Most Northern politicians supported a loose reading of the Constitution and wanted to expand the size and scope of the federal government, even if that meant giving the government powers that were not authorized by the Constitution.  Most Southern statesmen supported a strict reading of the Constitution and believed the federal government should perform only those functions that were expressly delegated to it by the Constitution. From the earliest days of the Republic, Southern and Northern leaders battled over this issue. Our textbooks rarely do justice to this important fact." (Michael T. Griffith, 2004, A Condensed Look At The Southern Side Of The Civil War)

     So the lowering of that flag was another victory for the "loose Constitutionalists", in the ongoing battle between governmental ideologies in our country.  However, it has come to mean something else.  As the South surrendered the meaning of the war as simply a fight for or against slavery, it devolved into segregation symbolized by the hated Jim Crow laws. The South became like a husband who sees his authority slipping away, trying futilely to hang onto it by becoming an unreasonable tyrant.  As the "good old boys" began flying the Confederate flag from the backs of their pick-up trucks in desperate efforts to assert their questionable manhood and their "flagging" superiority, the whole thing became uglier and uglier. The once noble symbol became a banner of hate.  The people who had once waved it from a hill top, to call up an army, waving their hands to encourage them as they marched (Is. 13:2) had given up their banner.  It had been lowered generations before.  They had lost the history of it... surrendered it to the enemy and covered it with hatred and shame.  Then to top it off, they surrendered their children to federal public schools, who would reinforce the philosophies of their opponent. So, they lost their flag because they lost it's history.  Now they watched in horror as a Southern Governor stood with pride and great ceremony and brought it down.

     As I thought about this I realized that we as Christians do the same thing when we fail to guard our banners, our symbols, our flags, which stand for our most cherished values.  I suddenly thought of a personal illustration of how this happened in my life.  I remembered a battle that waged in my home, when I was a little girl. My mother insisted that I wear a hat to church every Sunday.  I hated the stupid looking things.  I'd protest every Sunday and ask "Why?" She'd say something like "Because we're supposed to wear a hat to church!" and I'd come back with "...but why?"  Then she'd end the conversation by saying "Just put the hat on and stop arguing with me!" Well that worked until I got into my teens. No one else wore a hat so I would either take it off when we were separated at church, or I cry and throw a fit until she acquiesced and gave in to me.  It wasn't long before I was going to church hat less and the fight was over.  

     My mother was raised as a strict Methodist, who in her day believed that women should have their heads covered when "praying or prophesying" (1Cor. 11:5) The problem was, by the time the tradition got to me, it had lost it's meaning.  Her church had dictated that my mother wear a head covering to church, but they had failed to pass on the teaching, thus the symbol became meaningless.  She couldn't tell me "Why?" when I asked because she didn't know why.  She just kept the tradition without knowing the Biblical reason for it.  The symbol became meaningless to her and odious to me. In my mind I had some great reasons for my rebellion.  It messed up my hair, none of my peers had to do it, and it made me look different.  So in my mind, it became a hated, mocked, meaningless thing which I despised.  Years later when my oldest daughter came home from college advocating head coverings, because she had learned from her Greek studies that it was taught by Paul in 1 Cor. 11 (in plain Greek, even if the English is obscure). I simply said "Huh!" and began to cover my head in church.  The Biblical reasons became clear to me and the symbol precious.  "Why?" you ask?  Well briefly, because it is a symbol to the world and to angels (perhaps demons) that a women who covers her head in church, is under the protection of her spiritual authority, first her father, then her husband and if she is a widow or orphan, her church leadership.  Now the symbol is still, mocked, embarrassing, messes up my hair and makes me look different from my peers, but now it means something to me and will be honored by me until I die. Having said that, it has been almost completely surrendered by the church.

     Finally, at the end of this week we received the ruling by the Supreme Court on same sex marriage.  It was the last dot I connected as I cried and prayed and wondered in trepidation what it would mean in the life of the church and religious freedom, in the life of people who are given the freedom to pursue this destructive lifestyle, and in my life as I sought to stand against the tide of secularism in our country.  I first experienced anger at SCOTUS, then grief, then solemn contemplation, as I realized that once again we, the Christian world, had surrendered a flag.  When the church lowered the banner on sexuality within marriage and marriage alone, when it began to celebrate out of wedlock births, when it failed to stand against divorce, it surrendered the flag of the sanctity of marriage.  The reasons God gave for marriage between a man and a women are spelled out in the first writings of holy writ in Gen. 1:27 & 28. There He gave us the banner, the flag, the reason and definition of marriage. As I studied it I realized that He never even mentioned "Love" as the reason for marriage, in these verses.  Love and respect is implied and certainly nice to have if you're going to be in this thing together for the rest of your life but God didn't hold it up as paramount. So once again, sadly, the Church layed down a flag.  Through generations of neglect, it failed to lift high the absolute necessity to honor God's institution of marriage and gave up the banner.  The Supreme Court this week, like Nikki Haley in South Carolina, simply lowered the flag that long ago had been surrendered by the church.  

     1 Peter 4:17 says, "For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household.  And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God's Good News?"  So as we begin to judge ourselves as His church, may God help us to do it with repentance, love and respect for all.

The Open Door, The Narrow Way and The Road Less Traveled

     *The following is a speech that I will be giving at the graduation of my Granddaughter on June 4th.  She is a home schooler and will be graduating with two of her friends.   I'm very honored to have been asked to speak and hope that this will bless them and something here will stick with them.

      Graduation... even the word has an exciting ring to it! It's a word denoting a passage to the future, an open door of opportunity, a new beginning and achievement...makes you smile just thinking about it.  On the other hand, it also brings us to an ending, a finishing line, a passing from childhood to adulthood, the leaving of old friends, and that may make you choke back tears.  But today you'll receive your diplomas that will officially make you High School Graduates!
     It's a time of rejoicing, a time of reflection and a time of serious consideration.  That's why graduation speeches are full of advice because when the glow is off the diploma, when the last well wisher has left the open house, when you wake up on some Monday morning staring at the ceiling of your bedroom and asking yourself, "what now?" that's when you'll need, advice.... lots of it, from wherever you can get it, parents, pastors, counsellors, friends... anybody that you think might have a thimble full of wisdom and experience.
     So this speech won't be any different from others you might have heard this year.  It will be full of advice, most of which you probably won't remember past this afternoon, but if you remember just one bit of it, my job here will be done.
     Now, I am really an expert in this area of advice, because... I've had lots of it... some good, some bad... and probably the most important thing I've learned about advice is how to discern the good from the bad.  I don't know this because I'm smart. I know it because I'm OLD!  Because I've given and received lots of advice in my 76 years, I've  trained myself to look at it in a certain way.  This is a valuable skill to have,  so I'm going to pass it on to you.
     So lets start here with,  "How to tell the good advice from the bad advice.  The answer to this for a Christian is really pretty simple. You start by asking yourself this question... How does this advice line up with principles of scripture?  The bible for Christians is the seat of all wisdom. (It is for the non-Christians too. They just don't know it.)  Now this might seem difficult to you at first but like I said before, it's really very simple.
     If you're on face book you receive, almost daily, pithy little sayings that offer you advice.  Some are really good and some are really bad. For example, last week I re-posted one that said, "Remember to be nice to the people you love because someday God's going to want them back!"  Then another time I read one that said, "Be nice to your kids, because one day they'll pick out your nursing home!"  Now both of these are true and possibly good advice,  but only one is biblical.  In the first one you'd be motivated by love of others (which is biblical) in the second, though it's very funny, we shouldn't take it too seriously, because it's not always true and if you followed it for the reason given, you will have been motivated by self-centerdness (something that is un-biblical).  Then there was this little gem also posted last week... "The problem with putting others first is you are training them to put you second!"  That sounds right, but is it?  Jesus said, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first!" We are called to love sacrificially.  The Christian way is the way of the cross, Jesus teaches us that the way up is down, and when we practice this, our example will be seen by others.  So if the bible is our guide, than that can't be a statement by which we should order our lives.
      The bottom line is this... start training yourself to think biblicaly.  How you do this is simple.  Read your bible!  Even if it's just a verse a day... read it daily.  Now, even for Christians, daily bible reading is a discipline that must be developed through practice. If you don't have much of an appetite for it right now, don't worry about it.  If a person stays on a fast for a long period of time, he will eventually lose his appetite.  I don't know when that happens but eventually it does happen.  I say this because I remember being an 18 year old girl.  The Bible was the last book on my mind.  If I read it, it was because my parents made me.  So if you don't have the habit of daily Bible reading, you probably won't have an appetite for it and even a verse a day will wake up your appetite and you'll find yourself wanting more and making it a priority to set aside time to read more.  If you read it consistently, the bible will train your mind to think along with it.  You will develop a biblical mindset and it will become a shield to all the un-biblical philosophies that will bombard you on a daily basis for the rest of your life.
      The next piece of advice I have for you is this... choose your close friends wisely. Psalm 1 gives us this instruction, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful."  When I taught 4th grade I taught them this Psalm and I asked, "What does it mean when it says "standeth in the way of sinners"?  One little boy raised his hand and said, "It means to go find a bunch of sinners and stand around in their way."  Imagine that... wisdom from the mouth of a child. :) Basically this verse is telling us that we shouldn't become such close friends with ungodly, scornful people, people who habitually live in sin, that we'd be willing to go to them for advice.  Even the so called experts are to be "taken with a grain of salt" if they fall into that category.  Why? Because sin and unbelief hardens a person's heart and clouds their thinking.  People you go to for advice should be first of all, people who care what happens to you,  and secondly, people who's wisdom comes from the Book.
       Since Christian young women are the ones I'm talking to here, it's important for you to hear what perhaps is the best piece of advice the Bible gives to women.  It comes from 1 Peter 3:3&4. There it says, "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price." Put in plainer English it reads like this, "Don't be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hair styles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes.  You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."

Elizabeth Taylor

     I once read an interview with one of Elizabeth Taylor's ex husbands.  It was very interesting and it really validated the truth of 1 Peter 3:3&4. Liz Taylor was for years known as "the world's most beautiful woman" and that claim was almost indisputable.   She was very beautiful.  If you don't believe me, google her and look at her pictures from childhood to when she became an old woman.  So, I wondered, how could she go through 7 or 8 husbands?  Why would any man leave "the most beautiful woman in the world"?  This interview answered my question.  Her ex husband began by saying, "Liz is a mess! Everywhere she goes there is chaos. She can't keep domestic help because she yells and screams at everybody all the time and there's no one in the world who needs help more than Liz.  She constantly has to be in control of everything and if she's not she's miserable and makes everyone around her miserable.  A person can only live with that for so long without going crazy."
      She was outwardly perhaps "the world's most beautiful woman" but inwardly she was... well, ugly!  At the same time her outward beauty was fading and she couldn't control the one thing in life, that she felt, made her valuable.  She was pitiful because she'd never learned the secret of true beauty, "the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit".

Brooke Schneider, Teyha Smith,
Margaret Jane Ginster

     Now, right now in your life you probably aren't too concerned about this because right now you are beautiful. You are budding roses, but just as a rose buds then blossoms, it also fades and falls, so what the Bible is telling you here is that unlike the rose, your beauty can be unfading.  That becomes  true when you apply that anti wrinkle cream of faith and unwavering trust in God, to that "hidden person of the heart".  You see, God wants you to be attractive so that others will be drawn to you, from your youth to your old age.  You are His workmanship, His witnesses, His ambassadors.
      When I was a little girl I would ask my mother, "Am I pretty?" and she would say to me, "Pretty is as pretty does."  Then when I would misbehave she wouldn't say, "Don't be bad!" she said instead, "Don't be ugly!"  In her mind the two were inseparable.

     So all I've said today can be summed up in these two sentences... "Only one life, twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last!"  This is the one thing I hope you take away, the one thing I hope will be pinned on your heart and in your mind.  Whether this open door before you, leads you into marriage and motherhood, or a degree and a career, or to a life of full time Christian service, this is the most valuable thing you will hear here today.  Your life is a gift from your Creator, meant to be given back to Him, in the service of Jesus Christ, through serving others, so that when your time is finished on this earth, something you have done will last forever. I once heard a Gideon say, "There are only two things that you can take with you to Heaven ... the Word of God and the souls of men!" That pretty much says it all.  

     Finally you're not only facing an open door today, but you are at a cross roads, facing a choice, the choice is to live for yourself or for Christ.  And less you think that you can make that choice once, and you won't ever have to make it again, let me dispel that notion for you.  You will come to this fork in the road over and over again.  The poet Robert Frost talked about these things in a much more beautiful way than I am able to do, in his poem "The Road Not Taken".  I won't take the time to quote the whole poem here, but I encourage you to look it up and read it, however  I want to emphasize what I've said here by quoting the last stanza of his poem,  It says...

"I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference." 

     

     Now, I'm not sure what road Frost was referring to but I'm talking about the Jesus road, the way of the cross.  Jesus Himself described it in Matthew 7:14 when He said, "...strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it!"  Jesus wasn't just talking about the afterlife in the "sweet by and by".  He was talking about our present life in the "nasty now and now"!

     Thus my final advice to you is this, keep choosing the narrow way, the one "less traveled" and when you come to the end of your journey you will find that it has made "all the difference"!

 

"...the helper of the fatherless." Ps. 10:14

"...Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto Thee; Thou are the helper of the fatherless."

     In 1970 our family was moved by the U.S. Air Force to Zaragoza Spain to a base we affectionately called ZAB. (See Call to ZAB, Feb. 1).  Jennifer was three weeks old when we arrived at the deserted base which the Air Force was busy reopening.  They had moved G.I.'s from all over Europe to accomplish this task and had also moved in the children of diplomats and other Americans who had previously been housed at our base in Sevilla.  We were thrilled to still be with these kids to whom we had ministered  previously.  They had become a precious part of our youth group in Sevilla and we were loathed to leave them.

Michelle and Mary Ann are the two blonds on the right.

     Shortly after getting settled into base housing a fellow showed up in the Chaplin's office with two motherless girls.  He told our Chaplin that he was working in the oil fields of the Middle East. Their mother had died and he didn't have the heart to leave them in a barracks with all the other children.  He wanted a Christian family to take them in.  So Chaplin Mosher called Ted.  We took one, Mary Ann (the oldest at 15) and he and his wife, Nan took the youngest, Michelle. I think she was 13.  Well it didn't take long and they were part of our families.  Their dad, Bill Myers, would try to come see them on the holidays.  He was usually late (one time we had Christmas with him in February), but it didn't matter to them as long as they got to see him two or three times a year. 
     Michelle and Kelly became close friends and Mary Ann had a wide circle of teenage friends who came in and out of our home every week.  We have so many memories of our time with them.  They were funny, happy girls who brightened and challenged our lives.
     When our family went on our tour of Europe just before we left, Michelle went with us.  She was given to car sickness and had to have Dramamine to endure the trip.  As a result she slept through most of it.  She slept in the tent with Kelly, Jennifer, Ted and I while the boys slept in the car.  One night we camped by a river in Austria and during the night there came a frog strangling thunder storm.  We awoke with Michelle and Kelly screaming, "We're floating!"  I can still here her squeaky little voice pleading, "Get up, Mr. Gehrke, we're floating to the river!"  Ted got up and went outside in the rain, grabbed some tool from the trunk of the car and dug a trench around our tent to drain away the water.  Needless to say he came in soaking wet and I don't think he ever got completely dry that night.  The boys slept soundly inside the car and didn't even know how close we came to "floating away on the river".
     They were little mothers to Jennifer.  I don't think I changed a diaper or dressed her for months.  She was their baby.  As a result she was very late in learning to dress herself or brush her own hair.
     Mary Ann was very funny and always in trouble.  She came home one day from school and said, "Mr. Gehrke, my science teacher hates God.  He's always mocking Him and anyone in class who is a Christian.  Also if we try to answer him, he puts us out into the hall for a "time out".  Of course we love the time outs and stand out there laughing and joking."  So Ted said, "I tell you what to do, Mary Ann, the next time he mocks God or Christians you stand up to him, politely, and when he says, "Go to the hall for a time out!" You start pleading with him not to banish you to the hallway.  That way you'll be able to stand firm for the faith and he'll believe his "punishment" is effective and keep banishing you to the hall.  Just make sure you do the work and get good grades."   Well a couple days later she came home and reported that he had made some asinine statement about Christianity and she put up her hand and answered him.  He immediately raised his arm and pointed at the door and said, "To the hall, Mary Ann!"  She began pleading, "No please, Mr. So n So, not the hallway!  Please don't make me go to the hallway!"  She wouldn't leave her desk so he went over and took her by the arm to guide her out to the hallway.  She immediately dropped to the floor and grabbed him around the ankle and held on for dear life screaming, "Please not the hallway!  Don't make me go out there by myself!"  The hapless teacher began to drag her, one step at a time until he had pulled her out the door where he extricated his foot, went back into the classroom and slammed the door.  As far as I know he continued this practice to the end of the year and the Christian students continued to stand up for their faith and accept their "punishment".
     Eventually the Moshers rotated back to the states and we inherited, to Kelly's delight, Michelle.  They really did become "our girls".   They are in a couple of our family Christmas pictures.
      Finally the day came when we had to go back to the states and Mary Ann and Michelle went to be with their dad, somewhere in the Middle East.  We left Spain in May and were sent to Altus, Oklahoma.  There we rented a house and prepared to enter our kids in school in the fall.  We missed the girls terribly.  Added to that, we were hearing reports of a conflict between Lebanon and Israel and we thought they were in Lebanon in an American boarding school.  One night as we sat down to eat dinner one of the kids asked, "Are Michelle and Mary Ann in a war?"  "What do you mean?" I asked.  "Well, I heard that there's a war between Lebanon and Israel.  What if they are in danger?  Can't they just come here and live with us?"

Mary Ann and Michelle, the two blonds on the left.

     "Of course they can if their dad wants them to.  We just need to pray for them and ask God to send them to us if He wants them here."  So we did.  I think Joel prayed and asked God to send Michell and Mary Ann "home" so they'd be safe.  We began to eat and a few minutes into the dinner the phone rang.   Ted answered the phone and heard Bill Myers' voice on the other end. He asked if we'd be willing to accept his girls back into our home for a while longer.  "You're not going to believe this,"  he told Bill, "but we just prayed for that and we can't wait to get them back."  Two days later we picked them up in Oklahoma City at the airport.  They lived
 with us for at least another school year then their dad moved them back to California to live with relatives.
     Life separated us after that.  Ted retired from the Air Force in Altus and we came to Michigan to finish our education.  We lost touch with them for several years but we have finally re-established contact with them and are corresponding via Facebook and mail and phone once again.  I talk to them, hear their familiar voices and the years fade away.  Once again, "our girls" are a part of the family.  It makes me long for that day when "the helper of the Fatherless" will welcome us all home.

The Call to ZAB

     In an effort not to confuse my readers about where we were and at what time of our lives we were in a particular place, I have decided to try to clarify it for you.  We were stationed in Spain twice.

The Cathedral in Sevilla

  The first time was from 1960 to 1963 when we lived in Constantina.  That's where Joel was the baby, (fourteen months old when we arrived there) and Kelly was born while we were there.  The second tour of duty was in Sevilla at San Pablo and Moron Air Force bases. The time period of this second tour was 1968 to 1973.  That's where Jennifer was born in 1970.

       By the time we returned to Spain for our second tour we had grown as a family and in our marriage.  We were no longer newly weds.  We now had three children and our interests were different .  We were active in church,  Ted was a Baptist Preacher, so we came back to Spain 

 Entrance to Base Housing for San Pablo AFB

looking for a place to serve the Lord and our church.  We weren't there long when Ted began his first pastorate.  He was an Air Traffic Controller in the Air Force and the pastor of a small Baptist Fellowship in his spare time.  I won't go into detail about the Fellowship because I've mentioned it in previous stories but I must say this, it was a very active group of young Christians, enthusiastic about their faith and eager to grow and learn and they had a great impact on our lives and future ministry.    It was also in Seville, at this time, that Ted started his first youth ministry.  While we were there the base became the home of over a hundred American teenagers from all over Europe and the Middle East.  These were the children of diplomats, oil field workers, and other State Department employees.  Their parents wanted them to attend an English speaking school, so San Pablo Air Force Base became the "boarding school" for all of these young people.
     Now, this was the time of  "flower, power, and Haight/Asbury in Los Angeles where drugs flowed like water and runaway teens laid around high in the parks and in unoccupied buildings. It was the time of "sex, drugs and rock and roll".  The group of teens who arrived on the tarmac at Moron Air Force base were poster children for that time in our national history. 


Moron AFB

      The night they arrived the Air Force buses met them at the plane.  They deplaned in various stages of disarray.  Many of them were high on hash, which was easy to obtain in the Middle East, several were drunk, a couple were wrapped in army blankets and when the blankets were removed, found to be completely naked.  The ones who were sober were homesick and frightened and some were crying.  Of course this description was quickly relayed to our fellowship by the G.I.'s who picked them up and we realized the challenge that our little military community had been presented.  As parents, they broke our hearts.  We looked at them and saw kids...  someone's son or daughter.   As a Christian group on base, we viewed them as a ministry.  We began by visiting each one of their rooms and inviting them to church.  We never expected any of them to show up, but to our surprise a few did start attending chapel on Sunday mornings.  Of course the chapel didn't know what to do with them, so our fellowship decided to start a Sunday night youth meeting.  We announced it in the morning chapel services then waited with bated breath for them to show up on Sunday evenings during our worship service.   The first Sunday evening we went ahead with our usual services,   We had all brought cup cakes and punch just in case the flood of teenagers, that we were praying for, showed up.


Park at San Pablo AFB

      During the service I sometimes allowed six year old Kelly to take her restless little brother out to the playground, which was located between the chapel and the dorm.  They were swinging together there, when a young man from the dorm, joined them.  He was sixteen or seventeen.  He had long straggly hair and a scruffy beard.  He was dressed in "hippy" garb and looked generally disheveled and unkempt.  Kelly, who was an out spoken and friendly little girl, struck up a conversation with him.  She asked him if he was a Christian. He said he didn't know and what was a  Christian anyway?  So she proceeded to explain it to him, then she asked him if he was coming to the youth group meeting at the chapel after church, "We're having cup cakes and punch and we'll probably sing for a couple hours.  Why don't you come? It will be fun!"
     That must have been the hook that reeled him in because just before the  service ended, Kelly came walking in holding the hand of her "catch" while he and a group of other teenagers (she must have hooked the leader of the pack) walked around the congregation, handing out flowers to everyone.  We accepted their flowers (which they had probably stolen out of the chapel flower beds) with smiles.
     When church was over Ted immediately went back and introduced himself to them, shook their hands and invited them to the fellowship hall for cake and punch.  There we milled around them asking questions about their families, their countries of origin and where they were from in the states.  They were eager to talk to us.  We began to get acquainted with these lonely kids and they with us.  It was fun for us all.  Before they left we invited them back for the youth fellowship the next week.  Thus began our adventure with the boarding school kids.
     Soon we were taking birthday cakes once a month to celebrate the birthdays of the month, at the dorm.  We were inviting them in groups into our homes for dinner and board games or just times of conversation.  Ted started teaching them and counseling with them during the youth meetings on Sunday night.  We discovered that he had a special rapport with teenagers.  They thought he was funny and he related to them like a friend. Soon we had a large group that attended church to hear him preach.
     About a year after their arrival, rumors began flying that the Air Force was closing San Pablo Air Force Base.  We also heard that the boarding school was being sent north to Zaragosa Air Force Base (ZAB).  Zaragosa was an abandoned base in northern Spain which was slated to be re-opened.
     Ted was told that he would be rotated back to the states and could have his choice of three bases.  We discussed it and he asked me, "If we go back to the states, who will minister to the kids?"  As eager as we were to go home, our hearts were still with these kids.  I remember looking at him and saying, "Well, it looks like our "base of choice" is, Zaragosa!"  Shortly after that Ted was told that he would be sent to Zaragosa to help open the tower, then he'd be rotated back to the states.  He asked them about the possibility that he could just transfer permanently to ZAB and they told them that it would be impossible, because they were bringing in a whole new wing for ZAB.
     Ted and several other airmen from Moron left us for ZAB when Jennifer was two weeks old.  It was hard on us as a family because we no longer had the fellowship, we had a new baby and many of our friends had already left Sevilla.  We missed our Dad and our future was "up in the air".  We existed like that for about three weeks when Ted came up with a great idea.  We had friends, the Harrisons, who were stationed at Madrid at Torrejon Air Force Base. He called them and asked if we could live with them for a couple weeks so he could come there on the weekends and see us. (Madrid was a little over an hour from Zaragosa.)  They said, "Sure!" So Ted took a couple days off and came down to move us temporarily to Madrid.
     We stayed with the Harrisons for a week and a half during that time, Ted came to visit us twice.  The second time he came, he took us back to ZAB for the weekend.  There we met Chaplin Mosher and his family.  We got acquainted with many of the people at the Chapel and one of them, Captain Harry Evans, had a tent.  He came up with the idea that we should set up his tent in the "park" on base and camp out there for as long as we wanted... so we did.  We borrowed the tent and other folks began showing up with lawn chairs, a camp stove, a pup tent for the boys, sleeping bags, a cooler and a small table.  Ted went to the empty barracks and borrowed two mattresses.  It was a three room tent, so the girls had one mattress in one "bedroom" and Ted and I had the other.  The boys slept in the pup tent.  We were right down the hill from the swimming pool and there we had bathroom facilities, showers and a laundry room.  We were all set.  That became our home for the next six weeks.
     We began to pray that Ted would get orders for ZAB.  Chaplin Mosher said he was going to need a good youth worker when all those boarding school kids arrived and Ted looked just like the guy for the job.  Of course we already wanted to stay there.  It just didn't seem right for us to leave at this time.
     We loved camping there.  We cooked our meals outside and slept like babies in our snug little bedrooms.  The kids swam every day. They would get up, eat their breakfast, pack a couple p.b. & j.'s, grab towels and I didn't see them again until lunch.  After lunch they'd take off up the hill again until supper time.  They were so brown and blond at the end of summer that they ceased to look like Gehrke's.  (At least the fair, Irish/Polish side.)
     During our time there we had neighbors that joined us for a couple weeks.  They were the Stoners.  They were missionary family from Vitoria, Spain.  They had four boys and one little girl, so our kids were joined by playmates and we had a couple to visit with at night.  Every night we had dinner together, then sat around the campfire and sang, while Rosie played her accordion, until it got late and our tired kids all fell asleep one at a time.  We'd distribute them to their beds then, Bill, Rosie, Ted and I would talk until the wee hours.  It was such a special time and we grew very close to the Stoners.  We still are.
     During that time also, we had a terrible wind storm in the middle of the night.  Zaragosa was always windy.  The base was situated in a valley between two mountains and the wind whistled down through it constantly, but one night the speed picked up.  We had straight line winds that night that reached 75 mph.   We laid in our beds and prayed.  So did our neighbors.  I kept asking Ted if we should go to the Chapel or the gym and take shelter. He would go out and check the tent pegs and come back in and say that they were holding fine, so we could stay put.  We did put the boys into the car to finish out the night and all our camping equipment was stuffed into the trunk, but we stayed in our tents.  Of course none of us slept.  The next morning we discovered trees down in the park all around us and all over the base.  God had protected us and the Stoners.  So as we cleaned up the next morning, we thanked Him.  It was exciting!

Flight Line at ZAB

     We kept praying for orders to ZAB.  The Moshers were praying, Captain Evens and family were praying and now the Stoners were praying, because they had asked us to take one of their teenage boys for the school year, while the Moshers took another.  So we were all "storming the gates of heaven" for orders to Zaragosa.
     Finally, the thirty-first of August arrived and our faces were long.  There were still no orders for Ted and we had to take our children back to Sevilla, to enroll them in school, in another day or two.  I went to see Nan Mosher that morning and said to her, "Well it looks like we're going back to Sevilla.  I don't know how we could have been so wrong.  We were just sure the Lord wanted us here, but I guess we're supposed to go back to the states."  I was almost in tears.  Nan hugged me and prayed with me that the Lord would give me peace about it.
     That afternoon about 3:30 Ted came roaring into camp.  He jumped out of the car and I knew by the look on his face that something had happened.  He was waving a sheet of paper and smiling.  I greeted him at the tent door and shushed him because the baby was asleep.
     "Wake her up!" he said,  "We got orders!" Then he laughed and hugged me.
     "Where to?" I asked and held my breath.
     " ZAB!  Where else?" he exclaimed.
     We stood there rejoicing together for a few minutes, then I said.  "Don't you dare go tell the Moshers without me!  Go get Kelly from the pool to babysit and we'll go together to tell Nan and Bill."


Christmas in our home at Zaragosa

      So that's what we did  Of course there are many more stories to tell about ZAB and our time there so they will probably crop up from time to time.  The important thing is what we learned about how God calls a person's heart before He moves their bodies.  After our hearts were transferred we were willing to go to any length to cooperate with Him. Even living in a tent for six weeks was not a burden but a blessing.  Jennifer was two and a half months old when we received orders for ZAB and she had lived in a tent for most of her life.  We had never been fond of camping.  Ted used to jokingly say that his idea of "roughing it" was running barefoot through a Holiday Inn.  But our time camping out in the ZAB park was one of the happiest times of our lives.  We learned that it doesn't matter how or where you live, when your heart is at home.  When your purpose for living is higher than yourself and there are people who need and welcome you into their lives, you will have joy.  For us that home had become Zaragosa Air Force Base and a little piece of our hearts will always be there.
    

Ever Feel Forsaken?

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" (Jesus, from the cross.)

     This is my first blog of 2015.  After the hustle and bustel of the holidays I went through a couple weeks of frequent naps.  I didn't want to leave my home.  The weather was bad and going out was an effort.  I had to make myself undecorate the house and put my pictures back on the hutch where the manger scene had been displayed.  Added to that there were the irritations of winter that comes every year. (This is when I most understand and envy the "snowbirds" in Florida and Texas.) These irritations made we whiny and out of sorts. (Going a couple weeks with frozen pipes and no running water will do it to the best of us.) All of this made me want to become a hermit!  My blog was the last thing I wanted to do.  (You can't reach outside yourself when you're being self-centered!)  but I gradually became so miserable that I couldn't stand myself, I started thinking of what I wanted my first blog of 2015 to be.  Below is what I came up with.  I hope it helps you.  It helped me to write it. :)

      Have you ever felt "forsaken" by God?  You pray but heaven seems like brass,... impenetrable.  You sing the praise and worship songs with a yawn.  You read your Bible and fight sleep,... and sometimes these periods last, what seems like, forever.  One saint referred to this as "the dark night of the soul".  Have you  been there?  I have to admit that I have and it has left me confused and empty.  It has caused me to question my faith and God's faithfulness.  But in the almost fifty years I have been a Christian, I have come to see that I'm not alone in this and there are answers for me.  Added to that, God has always been faithful in ministering to me after a period of drought.  I often think of Elijah who after being obedient to God, was forced to flee for his life into the wilderness.  There he endured physical suffering and despair until God finally broke through his little world and once again showed him his love and care and that He was still with him to defend him and take care of his needs.

     As I studied the subject further, I discovered David, "the man after God's heart", also had his spiritual desert experiences. In Psalm 10:1 he said, "Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?  Why do You hide in times of trouble?" Then again in Psalm 22: 1,2 "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent." Then in Psalm 44:23, "Awake! Why do You sleep, O Lord? Arise! do not cast us off forever."
     What's up with this? you may ask.  When I first became a Christian and surrendered my life, my joys and sorrows, my everything to Christ, I experienced a bliss something akin to a "mad crush".  I slept "somewhere between the sheets and the mattress" (to quote my husband, Ted), for weeks. When I prayed the tears flowed uncontrollably from my eyes because of the closeness I felt to God.  Christian fellowship with other believers was so sweet that I dreaded the days in-between Sundays and last but not least, Bible study and good preaching was like a thirsty, dehydrated person trying to get great gulps from a fire hydrant.  So when I entered my first "desert" experience, I asked the Lord, "What happened?"
     I guess it's akin to that moment when a new bride says to her groom, who wants to go fishing with his buddies and leave her home, "Well, I guess the honeymoon is over!"  And if anyone ever tries to tell you that their honeymoon was never over, don't believe them. They are either kidding themselves or trying to kid you!
     As a northern flower gardener I have come to see the wisdom in Christ's admonition to us to "Consider the lilies..." and I applied this to my changing emotions.  In the summer, the lilies are glorious.  They wave in the breezes and catch the eye of any passer-by with their brilliant colors, and the noses of even the blind with their sweet scents.  However in the fall their blossoms having already dropped, their leaves begin to brown and droop and finally lay on the ground awaiting a blanket of dried leaves to cover them and shield them from the coming snow.  Then in the spring, when the snow is gone and the sun is out once again to warm up the earth, a tiny green leaf pokes through the soggy old leaf blanket and waves at me as if to say, "Yoohoo,...hello, it's me! I'm not dead! I was just sleeping."
     So the Lord spoke to me through the lily and through the disappointed bride.  He taught me that the human heart is like the cycles He sets into nature.  Emotions wax and wane but His faithfulness is consistently there.  And when we fall in love with Him we hang on with the same commitment we promise at the alter or in the garden.
     My wise mother used to say to me, when she saw me struggling with a fussy child,  "Put that baby to bed!  He's tired, and when he's resting, he's growing!"  Now I don't know how she knew that, but since then it's been scientifically proven.  So is that same scientific fact true for us spiritually?  In the dry times are we "growing"?  When the lily is "resting" under that blanket of leaves and snow, is it gaining strength so it will be more brilliant and more fragrant next summer?   I'm not a botanist or a biologist so I can't give you a definitive answer to that question but it wouldn't surprise me if that is true.
     So lets look at some conclusions.  #1. Desert experiences in the Christian life are normal and to be expected.  #2. During these times we "hang on" by staying committed to Him through faithful worship, prayer and Bible study. #3. We wait on the Lord. In Isaiah 8:17 the bible says, "And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him." then again in Isaiah 30:18 "....blessed are all that wait for Him."  and finally the promise that we are really waiting for in Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint!"
     Every emotion we experience as humans is temporary, sorrow, disappointment, grief, hopelessness, joy, laughter and elation, they will all change as we travel through this life (unless we stubbornly park on one of them, and even then that parking space is unsustainable).  Like ships on the sea, one minute we're "tossed in a storm", another we're "dead in the water" and still another we have "smooth sailing" and are making good time.  Knowing this and resting in the fact that "we have an anchor that keeps our soul, steadfast and sure as the billows roll" as the old hymn tells us, should make us content and unafraid as we face our "dark night of the soul".

The Old Family Bible

Just one of my treasures in an old earthen vessel...   

     When I wrote about my Grandma's quilt in July, I promised another blog about the other treasure I was given by my aunt.  If you haven't read that blog you may want to go back and read it just for continuity.  The title of it is "The Ways of God and the Real War On Women".

The old worn cover...

     So making good on my promise, here is the story of the old family Bible. When my aunt took me into her storage room to choose a "treasure" from my grandparents worldly goods, I saw the old bible and was immediately drawn to it.  I really didn't know about the spiritual heritage of the Stanley family and I thought the bible might hold some clues to it.  It did, and my aunt filled in some gaps for me.  
     Besides the beauty of the thing, and it is beautiful, in spite of the crispy, crumbly pages, it contains family history.  My grandparent's marriage is recorded there... July 15, 1918.  That was probably the only record of their marriage that ever existed and being recorded in the family bible made it a legal document.  So we know that the book is at least 96 years old.  Also recorded there are the births of their children, their marriages and their deaths.  Someone faithfully kept the record up to date.
    As I carefully turned the old pages, my mind filled with questions, Did they read the bible?, Who are these people that I never heard of?  What did this book mean to them?  Why has no one else in the family valued this treasure?  How can I make my children understand the value of it?  Well my aunt must have read my mind because she started talking about it.

 The first page

     "It was the most important thing in our house.  Mama said, "If we ever have a fire, grab the bible first."  "All of us kids were forbidden to touch it but Mama would show us the pictures and tell us the stories.  We were in awe of it.  Sometimes I thought I saw a glow coming from it's pages."  (Then she laughed at herself.)  "Years later when I became a Christian, one of my first thoughts was to go back and read that book for myself.  You know, Daddy was an unbeliever for most of his life, until Bobbie died.  Then I think he just couldn't bear the thought that he'd never see her again, so he had to take care of that... never saw such a radical change in a person, as when my daddy got saved.  He went from a cursing, angry man to a quiet believer.  He never missed church after that.  He stopped cursing immediately, even though I'd never heard him complete a sentence without a curse word before that.  He never took a drink of liquor again.  He treated Mama better and talked to us kids like we were real people!"  She stopped and shook her hear in disbelief.
     "Did he read this bible?" I asked.

My grandparent's marriage license

     "No, Daddy couldn't read but Mama probably read it to him.  Their marriage license and all of us kids are in here."

Marriages and births...

     She spoke of it as if they had their own "chapter and verse".  I smiled and continued to turn the pages.  Later I reflected on how the times have changed.  We have probably ten different translations of the bible in our house.  We listen to it on our computers, our "notebooks" and our cell phones.  We hear it read form our pulpits on Sunday mornings, but most of the time we ignore it.  Have we become like a river that has widened so much and become so shallow that we no longer hold the "life" that's in it?  That bible to my grandparents and their family was valuable and deep.  It contained not only the life of their family, but the "words of life" and they were aware of it.

Deaths of loved ones

     I brought it home in my suitcase along with my grandmother's quilt.  This morning I took it out of it's plastic storage, so I could take pictures of it for my blog.  Now I've promised myself to find a place to store it so it will be protected and I can display it prominently in my house, like my grandmother did.  And I will instruct my children, "If we ever have a fire, grab the Bible first!"