"...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!"

"To Be Or Not to Be...That Is The Question"... Hamlet, Scene 1

     Indeed, that is  the question!  Because the subject of Assisted Suicide has once again reared it's ugly head in our society, I decided to put in my two cents worth. In order to do this I had to do some digging and to this I have to say, "Thank God for the Internet!"
     In my "digging" I have come across some wonderful things. One of these things that I've learned is that the Christian Church from Saint Augustine to Focus on the Family, has consistently been in agreement on the subject.  These church leaders have laid out a principle on the matter, that they gleaned from the scripture, so I don't have to wonder what the Bible teaches.     
     Now it's true, there are some denominations that have departed from this Biblical teaching. This is not new.  As a matter of fact, it began with the Apostle Peter. They base their opinion on the feeling that we must be "compassionate" to the suffering.  Then they proceed to define compassion as the prevention of suffering and pain.  This  definition of compassion, Jesus rebuked in Matthew 16:22, 23  Peter's statement there, "Be it (suffering) far from Thee, Lord."  Jesus replied to him by saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"   He wasn't calling Peter "Satan", but was addressing the "spirit" within Peter that would utter this Satanic temptation.  Jesus knew His purpose in coming into this world and He was saying, "Stop tempting me, Satan, with Peter's notion of compassion, for this suffering and death is the very reason for My incarnation!"  This is a larger subject than I want to address here, but suffice it to say, the Christian Church, down through the ages, warns us to avoid the stumbling block of this squishy compassion and instead chose to believe that suffering is very often God's chosen way.
     The principles which the church leaders came up with are as follows:
             1.Suicide is against nature.
             2.Suicide is destructive to community.
             3.Suicide is a sin against God.
     So with these points in mind, let's look at them one at a time.  1. Suicide is against nature... It is natural to love your own body.  Jesus said it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." in Matt. 19:19, and 22:39, Mark 12: 31, 33, and Luke 10:27 He included this phrase in His presentation of the Greatest Commandment. Then Paul said it in Eph. 5:28, 29.  He even went farther and said, " No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church."  So it is natural to love your own body and that makes suicide "unnatural". (By love, I mean care for your body.)
     The second point on which the principle is based is...2. Suicide is destructive to community. Have you ever noticed how suicide, "runs in families"?  Indeed, in the Jewish community, a good father would never give his permission for a young man to take his daughter in marriage, if there was a history of suicide in the young man's family. (Check out the movie, Yentle.)  The reason for this, I believe, is that when a person commits suicide they are conveying a message to their children, of faithlessness. They are saying, "When life gets too hard the thing to do is "punch out".  That leaves no room for God's intervention or for you to glorify Him through your death.  
     The third point of the principle is...3. Suicide is a sin against God.  Augustine based his position against suicide on Deut. 32:39 which says, "Look now; I myself am He!  There is no other god but me!  I am the One who kills and gives life; I am the One who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!"  Augustine went on to say, "Life is God's gift to man.  It belongs to God alone to pronounce life and death."
     But having said that, God gives us a choice. He says in Deut. 30:19 "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live..." God's wish for us is that we live! 
     So, I concluded, it was pretty plain from the scripture that suicide is not the "way of escape" from suffering or anything else.  Then I asked myself the second question. " Well then, how about when I get to that point where I think life is not worth living, it's painful and just too hard,  I'll just ask someone else to do it for me...a Doctor for example."
   But, the scripture also says that I have no right to ask another person to sin, or entice them to sin.  In fact I would be inviting them to murder me and that is a violation of the seventh commandment in Ex. 20: 13... "Thou shalt not kill. ( The Hebrew word for kill here is ratsach or murder.)  So if I ask someone to assist me to commit suicide, I'm asking him/her to "murder" me.  Not only is that against God's law but it is against a Doctor's oath.
    So the answer to Hamlet's question is..."To be"!  If you are a Christian and devoted to God and His word, you will reject the false idea of compassion, just as Peter had to reject it as coming from Satan, and stand against suicide in any form.

"...and so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice___the kind He will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship Him!" Romans 12:1
    

"Duck Dynasty in a Miley Cyrus World!"

     This will be a short blog. It has one message, sent on the wings of a prayer.  The message is... tomorrow is election day, Christians, go out and vote! I don't mean that you should hold your nose and close your eyes and flip the lever and think to yourself, "It really doesn't matter. They're all alike. They're all crooks! etc. etc..." You know the statements. You've heard them repeated over and over.  You may have even said them yourself.
     No, what I'm suggesting is, look at the person running for Senate. Are they pro life? Are they for gay marriage? Ask yourself these questions and others that reflect your values and pick the candidate that more closely agrees with these values. They probably won't be perfect, no one is. But you can vote for the person who most agrees with you, then hold their feet to the fire.  Call or write and remind them of their promises.  Then look at the Judges and do the same thing, and then the State offices that are running.  If you don't have a "voters guide" from Michigan Family Forum or Right to Life then go on line and check them out.  The online address for Michigan Family Forum is michiganfamily.org and I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find Right to Life or Baptist for Life or Lutheran's for Life.  Just google them. (Just got a new web site for you to see a voter guide. It is http://frc.org/voterguide.#ValuesVoter)
     Now a word about the title of this blog, Duck Dynasty in a Miley Cyrus World, I put it in quotations because I "lifted" it from Todd Starnes latest book, God Less America. It so apply describes where we are as a nation.  We are the Robertson family in Duck Dynasty with their values, and we are living in a "Miley Cyrus world".  We, the church, are called to be "salt and light" in this world. That means that we should be holding back the corruption that is so prevalent in our society.  One way we can do this is by voting. It seems like such a small, insignificant thing and we are tempted to think, How can my puny little vote count for anything?  But did you know that if all the Christians in this country would vote we could totally change the direction of it?  Not only that but your act of being a good citizen can and probably will influence others to do the same.  God has given us this duty, this power, this privilege and we dare not spurn it.  Because of the great lack of interest or irresponsibility or maybe just plain ignorance, we have very nearly lost our freedoms and the American church is on the brink of persecution. 

This is the price that was paid  so you can vote!

     I have been so burdened about what is happening to our country and this is my appeal to all of you who read my blogs. As I read my Bible I have come to see that there are two ways God has spread the gospel, one is by giving His people the freedom to preach and teach it and the other is through persecution.  With this in mind go vote!

The Land of Enchantment

     Today's bolg is a walk down memory lane.  My motivation for writing it is two-fold.  First they are my memories and I love them and second, they are a slice of American history that will give you a rare glimpse into a time and place that helped make up the American experience.  Probably, not all of you will appreciate it, but some will and that's all I can expect.  If even one of my readers like it, I'll consider it a success.
     I grew up in southeastern New Mexico, mostly in oil camps.  Now an oil camp is an outdated thing so it warrants some explanation.  My dad worked for Gulf Oil Corporation and at that time they provided housing for their employees in the field.  There were no big corporate offices there where men and women with brief cases filed in every day.  This is where men worked on the wells.  They maintained them, guarded them and serviced the industry that provided oil from the fields to the refineries.  My dad was a "switcher".   I'm not sure of the particulars of his job but I do remember that he traveled across the dessert in a jeep or a pickup and did something  to the many wells that dotted the New Mexico landscape.
     The "camp" where we lived consisted of a row of six modest homes, which housed the families of the employees.  Most of my childhood memories centered around the camps and the people who lived there.  We lived in two different camps while I was growing up.  One was south of Eunice, New Mexico and the other was north of the town.  When I reached high school age Gulf Oil got out of the employee housing business, we all bought the homes we lived in and had them moved to a lot in Eunice. Ours still stands on the same lot today.
     In 1944 we moved to our first camp south of Eunice.  I was six years old and just beginning elementary school.  To put the time in perspective, we lived there at the end of World War II and during the time when Roosevelt died.  My mom and dad were Democrats when Democrats were still conservative, so they mourned the President's death like he was a member of their family.  One of Daddy's friends who worked in the oil fields with him was a German man whose mother was in a concentration camp in Germany during the war years.  I don't know why she was there.  Perhaps they were Jewish.  I just remember the man crying as he talked about her.  It left a strong impression on my six year old heart to see a grown man cry about his mom and I would go to bed at night and pray for them and cry when I did.  I've never forgotten his face although I can no longer remember his name.  I don't know what finely happened to his mom.
     We had a barn that Daddy built a distance away from the camp.  Daddy was always a farmer at heart so he kept a pig, some chickens, and a cow at the barn.  I raised rabbits and pigeons to sell.  People in New Mexico ate them and sales were always good.  I sold them for a dollar a piece and I remember one month I deposited sixty dollars into my account.  At that time that was a lot of money for a eight year old kid.
     The families in the camp were our friends and neighbors.  I'll not name them all because I'm sure I'd miss someone, but as a child some of them made distinct impressions on me because they had kids who were my friends.  We visited back and forth between our homes.  We played together, rode our bikes out across the prairies, and played croquet at the camp croquet court till our moms called us in for supper.       
     In the summer when the weather was too hot for us to play outside, Mrs. Sanders would occasionally call us all to her house where there was a big air conditioner in the living room.  There she would read us the children's classics.  We'd spend many hot hours of the afternoons listening to Bambi, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Heidi, The Bobsy Twins, The Secret Garden, just to name a few.
     There was an old sway backed mare who lived at a nearby ranch.  Occasionally she would come up to the fence around the camp to graze.  When she did one of the kids would yell, "Black Beauty is here!"  We'd all run to the fence to pet her and feed her apples or carrots and climb up onto the fence then onto her back, where we'd take turns riding her while she grazed.  On the back of that trusty steed, our imaginations carried us away.  We would look out across the prairie landscape and see tumbling tumble weeds, cactus and mesquite bushes and imagine being chased by a band of wild Indians or a posse.  To us she was Trigger, Champion and Black Beauty all rolled into one beautiful, majestic, animal.
     One morning one of the Sanders boys, while gathering radishes from his mother's garden, felt a sting on his bare foot.  His toes were protruding just under the plants.  He jerked  back
and when he did there was a rattle snake connected to his foot.  He jumped and shook it off.  The snake slithered away and the boy ran screaming into the house.  Someone administered first aid then took him into town to the E.R.  From that day on, we were not allowed to leave the house without a "snake bite kit" which consisted of a belt, to use as a tourniquet, a small pen knife, for cutting an X over the bite and a small bottle of alcohol to sterilize it with.  We were given careful instructions about how it use it and it became part of our lives.  Thankfully I never had to use it, but I was prepared.
     Later that year another of the Sanders boys found a 22 bullet and decided to stick it into his dad's ciggarette lighter in his pickup. then look at it to see what would happen.  Well it shot him but fortunately just grazed the side of his head.  My dad said it probably wouldn't have penetrated his skull anyway.  I guess the Sanders boys were a constant source of excitement for us all.
      One of my favorite memories of the camp was when one of the neighbors would decide to make homemade ice cream and send the word out through the neighborhood and invite us to bring our bowls and spoons and "come on over".  We all took turns doing this on those hot summer evenings and it was a wonderful time.
      At some point during these years, my mother went to work in the school lunch room.  She then became the alternate "bus driver" for all the kids in camp who missed the bus.  I think some of them did it on purpose because they hated the bus ride.  On those mornings someone would inevitably read us a story while we traveled the 20 miles to school.  Usually it was a fairy tale which was short and interesting.  If there was no fairy tale reader then Mother would turn on the radio and we'd listen to "Don McNiel and the Breakfast Club".  I don't know which I liked more.  They were both fun and made going to school something we looked forward to every morning.
     I was a pre-teen when we moved to the second camp, north of Eunice.  I hated leaving my friends in the first camp but quickly made new ones there.  That's where I met the Kemps, the Tates, the Browns and the Hunters.  All of these families had multiple children.  There we ran and played hide and seek and tag on the lawns between our homes till 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. when we all had to go in.  We rode our bikes, explored the prairie, wrote plays and performed them in some one's garage or home.  I was the story teller of the group and sometimes we'd just sit in a circle on the lawn while I spun a tale.  Or we'd challenge each other to "make up a poem" about something or other. 
     Christmas time was always an adventure.  We'd open our gifts at our homes in the morning, then roam the camp, going from house to house to see what our friends got for Christmas.  We'd play the games, try on their new clothes or ride their new bikes.  It was a shared holiday on so many levels.  I was never hungry for Christmas dinner because by the time I got home I was filled to the gills with the neighbor's Christmas goodies.
     We didn't have Televisions in our homes, so in the winter time we listened to the radio.   We had tele without the vision.  The visions took place in our heads as we laid on the floor or a couch or sat cross legged in front of a big mahogany radio and listened to Fibber Maggee and Molly, George and Gracie Allen, Digger O'dell, The Friendly Undertaker, The Jack Benny Show,  The Bob Hope Show, The Green Hornet, The Squeaky Door, Our Miss Brooks,  I'm sure there were a hundred of them of which these are only a few.  They provided hours of entertainment on the cold winter evenings and I looked forward to them and hated missing even one.  We listened until we had to go to bed and sometimes I went to sleep still listening to the music coming from that radio.
     About age sixteen or seventeen, I was allowed to date twice a week on Friday and Saturday nights.  I had to be in the house by eleven and my Mother was very cleaver about it.  As soon as my boyfriend would pull up into the yard at 10:30 and turn his car lights off, our porch light would go on.  Soon Mother would poke her head out the front door and call out to us, "I just made a big banana pudding.  If you kids would like some just come on in and help yourselves." or, "I have a fresh freezer of homemade ice cream in the sink, if you'd like some, come on in."  She always enticed us inside with something because she wisely knew that teenage boys were as driven by their stomachs as any other part of their anatomy.  I probably owed my purity when I married, more to my mother's banana puddings, homemade ice cream, apple pies and prune nut cakes than anything else. 
     One of my favorite memories of my childhood was going hunting with my dad.  As I said before, his job took him out across the New Mexico prairies in a jeep or a pickup.  As he drove along on or off a dirt road, he took his twenty-two rifle and sometimes a shotgun.  He was always coming upon jack rabbits, doves, quail or some other edible critter and they often were our supper for the night.  So at age 12 he taught me to shoot a gun.  I got quite good at hitting something with the rifle.  I could hit a jack rabbit on the run from a moving truck.  But I hated the shotgun.  It kicked me and bruised my shoulder and besides I hated shooting doves and quail because they were such beautiful, gentle creatures.  He had trained our cocker spaniel, Charlie, to retrieve the birds and taught me to shoot them in flight, but dove hunting was not my favorite.  This led to his teaching me to drive the pickup so he could hunt.  So by age twelve I could shoot and drive. I remember begging him every year to take me deer hunting with him in northern New Mexico but he wouldn't take me.  He always went with a group of men so it was a man's trip.  I doubt that I could have shot a deer anyway, after being brain washed by Mrs. Sander's stories of Bambi and  The Yearling. Hunting was a wonderful bonding experience with my dad.  Mother said one time that Daddy was very dissapointed when I reached age 14 or 15 and he found out I was a girl!  As a young wife stationed with my Airman husband in Constantina, Spain, I entered a shooting contest on base during the Feria celebration.  In the contest there were G.I's, Spanish guards, me and our commander's wife.  She and I were both from New Mexico.  She came in first and I came in second in the contest.  Our husbands never lived it down.
     Now perhaps this hasn't been one of your favorite blogs, but I felt it was important for people to know how it was being a kid growing up in the West in the '40's and '50's.  When I look back on it I realize how blessed we were to have grown up in The Land of Enchantment!