A fellow member of The Word Guild posts the story of how he left a life of homosexuality and is now making summer wedding plans. Alan Yoshioka describes himself on the About Me page of his blog:
"My name is Alan Yoshioka, and I live in Toronto, Canada.
I've been there, done that, bought quite an extensive collection of gay T-shirts, thank you very much – and discovered there's nothing as satisfying as living in Christ."
Title: Holding Fast - The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy
Author: Karen James
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, 2008, Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1595551751
ISBN-13: 978-1595551757
As Kelly James lay alone in a snow cave nearly eleven thousand feet high on Mount Hood, he wondered, “Where the h— is Brian? Come on dude.” His climbing partner, Brian Hall and fellow climber Jerry “Nikko” Cooke had left Kelly a few days earlier to descend the mountain in search of help. It was December, and Kelly was stuck on a mountain in Oregon, far from his home in Dallas, Texas. What had started as a quick weekend trip to practice ice climbing in preparation for tackling Mount Everest had turned into a life-and-death situation unlike any that Kelly had ever faced….
So begins Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy by Karen James, Kelly’s wife. It is a harrowing tale, all the more so because we know how it will end. Yet James manages to not only hold our attention but inspire us through her retelling of a mountain climbing accident — and its aftermath — in a fierce winter storm.
The book is divided into four parts. In Part One, “The Man Behind the Headlines,” James starts with her imaginative recreation of Kelly’s last hours in the snow cave. Then she goes back in time to fill us in on Kelly’s life to that point, ending with a description of their happy life together just before the trip.
In Part Two, “The Storm of a Decade,” James details what happened during December 10-17, 2006 in chapters the very names of which tell a story: “The Phone Call That Changed My Life,” Our Arrival,” “Signs from Above?” “Give Us a Break,” and “The Worst Day of My Life.” The narrative in this section is divided by subheadings of date and time-of-day (e.g. Monday, December 11, 10:00 a.m.), slowing the pace and putting the focus on how time is passing as the search drags on without a clue of Kelly's whereabouts. James keeps us informed of the weather, what happened at the daily search briefings, and how the family is handling the wait and the media. It is a roller coaster ride of hope and disappointment.
Part Three, “Putting the Pieces Together,” describes the aftermath of finding Kelly’s body. James is amazingly transparent about her journey through grief. Though the story could easily have bogged down in self-pity here, it never does. Instead, in addition to a moving tribute to an exceptional man, it becomes a journal of grief recovery and a testimony to how faith in God can help one come through the darkest time.
Part Four, “A Legacy of Love,” contains Karen’s tributes to Kelly as her husband. In it she shares poems and letters he wrote her.
The hardback edition I read had a heft to match the mid-book color photo section, printed on heavy, glossy paper. There were black and white photos throughout the text as well. The photos and personal writings made the story and its characters come alive.
Cover endorsements from Sheriff Wampler and Steve Rollins, both involved in the rescue, where James’ description of the events is called “the most accurate I have heard to date,” and “the most detailed and inspiring I’ve heard,” encourage the reader to trust this vivid first-person account. James’ experience as a journalist shines through in her skillful storytelling.
I found Holding Fast a quick, absorbing read. It made me see my family with new appreciation and want to tell them so now, while I still have them. The story also gave me a confidence in God’s presence even in tragic situations when our most earnest prayers remain unanswered. James ends the chapter where she tells numerous incidents of feeling God’s presence (from the message she got in a fortune cookie to the name of the bulbs she was planting on the day she got the phone call from Oregon) with the statement, “I believe now more than ever that there are no coincidences and that there is a grand plan in which we all play a role.”
I recommend Holding Fast for the riveting story it is. But I recommend it too for the aftertaste of hope that lingers even after you’ve turned the last page.
Go to Holding Fast for Purpose to hear the song which inspired the book's title, see more photos, read chapter segments and more.I first posted this in 2005. I re-post it today as part of the Wednesday series of life-changing stories.
Time for another life-changing story. This time we'll hear from Marcia Laycock, writer and minister's wife from Blackfalds Alberta.
Marcia writes:
It was on the road to Mayo, Yukon. I was going to visit a friend, determined not to think about God or religion or any of the baffling questions my husband kept bringing up. But no matter what I tried, my mind would not rest. The question of God’s existence and what he had to do with me would not go away. In desperation, I pulled my vehicle into a lookout point about the Stewart River.
The beautiful river valley stretched out below, but I barely saw it. In turmoil, I challenged God to do something to prove He was there. Then I realized how foolish I was, talking to a God I did not really believe existed...
Story time!
There's nothing quite as interesting and inspiring to me as hearing how God draws people to Himself and works in their lives. In the weeks ahead, I'd like to share a few of these life-changing stories. I'll introduce some with a few paragraphs and a link, others will be told in full here.
Jan Keats is a fellow Canadian writer. Her story titled "My Two-year Journey to the Lord," begins:
My husband and I lived in Fort McMurray in the early 1980’s. Our 3 children were born there. After awhile I began to feel desperately lonely. I wanted my children to be surrounded by family and the only way that could happen was to move back east. With some persuading my husband did agree to take the risk but now it meant that my husband had to look for employment elsewhere.
Soon after our move back to NL, my mother-in-law suggested that I take my children to Sunday school. Like a good Mom I sent them with someone else. It wasn’t long before I was going along to watch my children’s performances in choir and other events at the church. From the very first service I felt something within me that I hadn’t felt before. I couldn’t describe it because I didn’t know what it was. But it made me curious enough to want to go back and try to decipher the experience....
Title: Spirit of the Rainforest
Author: Mark Andrew Ritchie
Publisher: Island Lake Press, Second edition, 2000
ISBN-10: 0964695219
ISBN-13: 978-0964695214
Back cover description:
"The Yanomamo of the Amazon -- endangered children of nature or indigenous warmongers on the verge of destroying themselves? Now for the first time, a powerful Yanomamo shaman speaks for his people. Jungleman provides shocking never-before-answered accounts of life-or-death battles among his people -- and perhaps even more disturbing among the spirits who fight for their souls. Brutally riveting, the story of Jungleman is an extraordinary and powerful document."
Review:
The Yanomamo are a fierce tribe of Indians who live in the jungles of Venezuela. The story that Mark Andrew Ritchie tells in The Spirit of the Rainforest - A Yanomamo Shaman's Story is through Jungleman, one of the most powerful shamans of the tribe. The incidents Jungleman relates took place from approximately 1950 to the early 1980s. The stories were collected and transcribed by Ritchie during numerous visits to Amazonia when he talked with Jungleman, Shoefoot, Keleewa (Gary Dawson, son of missionary Joe Dawson who grew up with many of the story's characters, and translated the stories for the author in exchange for all author royalties from the book going to the Yanomamo people), and others.
From the 1950 fight with Potato Village to the 1980s when Jungleman is finally able to live at peace in Honey Village, his tales of events among the Yanomamo -- their tit for tat inter-village battles that inevitably lead to more anger, fear, treachery, and revenge -- fascinate and repulse.
Several things struck me about this story.
1. The reality of the spirit world and how it corroborates Bible accounts of Jesus interactions with the demonic. Though the Yanomamo encountered white men (nabas) of various kinds -- rubber traders, anthropologists and missionaries from various denominations -- it is when they met Pepe (Joe Dawson who worked under New Tribes Missions) that the spiritual conflict really began. Pepe and his family came to live at Honey Village (at the Yanomamo's invitation) where Shoefoot (Jungleman's protege and relative) was the shaman. Over time Shoefoot gave up his spirits. Here's what happened the next time Jungleman came to visit his brother-in-law and friend:
"When I pulled my canoe up to the shore at the mouth of the Metaconi I felt the usual excitement that comes with meeting old friends. But something was very different. What was it, I wondered.Compare with Mark 5:1-12, also Matthew 8 and Luke 8.
'Don't go in here,' Jaguar Spirit told me. 'There's too much danger here. We are afraid.' It was the first time I had ever heard fear coming from Jaguar Spirit and it made me feel poor inside. My hands began to flutter and I held my bow tight to make them stop.
There can't be any danger here, I thought. These people are my friends. They have always been my friends. But it wasn't just Jaguar. All my spirits were crowding the shabono iin my chest and making a terrible noise about how afraid their were.
When I saw Shoefoot I was stunned. 'What has happened to your spirits?' I asked him, looking at his chest. I could see they were gone.
'I threw them away, brother-in-law.'
'What!' I whispered as hard as I could. 'How could you do that? Why would you do that?'
'I found the new spirit I was looking for,' Shoefoot said. 'Yai Wana Naba Laywa -- the unfriendly one. You know, our enemy spirit.'
'You can't have him!' I whispered in excitement. 'It's too hot there and he never comes out!'
It was a horrible visit for me. There was a spirit in Shoefoot's village that I couldn't understand. But it was powerful. That's why my spirits were so upset when I came. I hung my hammock next to Shoefoot and as soon as I lay down they were all there, every spirit I have, crowding my shabono.
'Please Father!' they all begged together. 'Please leave here. It's not safe here. We are terrified.' And they were. The new spirit in Shoefoot's chest had them all frightened like I had never seen them before.
He's my friend, I thought.
'He's no friend of ours! We hate him!' All my spirits talked at the same time. 'Please Father! Please don't throw us away.'
The thought of throwing my spirits away hadn't even come into my mind. Why would they say that to me?
'He'll want you to throw us away,' they said. 'You'll see. Please don't listen to him, Father!'
My spirits were right about that. Shoefoot and his new naba friends did want me to throw my spirits away. Shoefoot's new spirit would never get along with mine."
"I wish I had known the truth about Yai Wana Naba Laywa when I was a young man -- it would have saved me so much pain and misery. But how could I? My spirits lied so much to me and tricked me. They were so beautiful, so wonderful, so hard not to want. They were the best at telling me split-truth. Now I'm at the end of this life, and I'm ready to begin my real life with Yai Pada.
The reality of God's presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us. Our problems come when we refuse to bank on the reality of His presence. The experience the Psalmist speaks of --"Therefore will we not fear though..." will be ours when once we are based on Reality, not the consciousness of God's presence but the reality of it --Why He has been here all the time!
At critical moments it is necessary to ask guidance, but it ought to be unnecessary to be saying always --"O Lord, direct me here, and there." Of course he will! If our common-sense decisions are not His order, He will press through them and check; then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.
- Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest
Update - Wednesday 04/23/08
I was unable to hear the streaming video last night, but this morning Strang Ministries sent me a link which I can access. If you missed it, it's here. It's a worthwhile interview - Listen!
Sunday Adelaja is the founder and senior pastor of The Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations in Kiev, Ukraine. Pastor Sunday has an international ministry that reaches more than 30 countries, including the U.S., Canada, England, Germany, Russia and Singapore.
Born in Nigeria, he was recruited by Russian communists as a teenager. Today he pastors one of the largest churches in Eastern Europe. His congregation has had a direct influence on the regime change during the Orange Revolution. His cross-cultural ministry has had more than 2 million converts and 600 church plants worldwide.
Back in April of 2005 I posted six-part excerpt from the book Christ's Witchdoctor by Homer Dowdy. It is the story of how Elka, a shaman leader of the Wai-Wai people of South America, made a decision to follow Jesus instead of continuing to pursue the spirits ('Kworokyam' he called them). The excerpt I posted begins here.
Yesterday I got an email from someone named Marcos. Here's what he wrote:
My name is Marcos. I am from Brazil. I was searching for articles about Wai-Wai tribe and I reached yours. It seems to me that the story of Elka impacted your life. I decided to send you this e-mail because I was visiting the Wai-Wai tribe this past week. We went there to teach the leadership how to prepare a VBS and at the same time, have a VBS with Wai-Wai kids.
They are such a neat people. Still hungry for the word of God. The only tribe in Brazil that has the complete Bible translated into their native language. That is also the only literature they can read. Since gospel reached them, they learned how to read and write. Sending you some pictures. If you want any other or any extra info, just let me know.
The Bible was translated by UFM (Unevangelised Field Mission). The translation started in 1955 and finished in 2002.
Elka is resting in peace. His body is in another Wai-Wai village named Jatapuzinho. My friend does not know when and what caused his death.
Last week when I was in Lethbridge, I met some of the other guests of Passionate Women. One was Evelyn Hinds from Texas. She told us her story.
Some years ago when she was working as a docent in a museum, she was scheduled to do a training presentation. Her supervisor suggested that rather than prepare a lecture or talk, she dress up as a historic character and present her information in that way. The skit she prepared revived within her the interest in acting she'd had since high school and proved to be a big hit.
Driving home from the presentation with a friend from church and still excited about how well the performance had gone, she said, "Who knew that I would be good at that? Who can I be for church?"
When she arrived home she went straight to her book case and got out her favorite devotional Each New Day. "I'll be Corrie ten Boom*." she declared.
That was a turning point in Evelyn's life. Her portrayal of Corrie didn't end with the skit she wrote and performed for the women of her church. Invitations began to come in for her to do the Corrie ten Boom act in other churches, at women's meetings, conferences and on the radio.
Over the years she has spent a lot of time making her performance as realistic and authentic as possible. She has met with everyone she could find who knew Corrie before she died. She visited the ten Boom home and museum in Holland. She took speech training from Florence Littauer to strengthen her presentation. Last year she heeded Ms. Littauer's encouragement and wrote The Weaving -- the story of her life and how the ministry Corrie ten Boom Live came about.
In the GodTube video below, she performs just over 3 minutes of her 45-minute Corrie ten Boom presentation.
What I love about Evelyn and her story is how it illustrates God using a woman who told Him she is available -- and in a way that is beautifully customized to her temperament, training, interests and talents. I wonder what would happen if you and I told Him the same thing.
Does God still speak? Does He speak to you? How? What does He say?
Acts 16 has an interesting story of a time when the Holy Spirit spoke to Paul and his entourage giving them the unusual command NOT to spread the gospel. We're not told how God communicated this -- through inner promptings, prophetic utterance, external circumstance, an audible voice, or...?
Later when they were in the place God told them to go (through a vision) and there were problems, they did no second-guessing, no questioning about whether they had actually heard right. Instead they faced arrest and jail with their trademark reaction: joy, prayer, praise.
God does still speak today. Last night I listened to an archived It's A New Day TV show where Todd Bentley gave his testimony. You'll be amazed at how God got through to this profane, addicted 17-year-old ex-con biker-boy raised by a single (deaf) mother and alcoholic father on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast. (January 22, program 33042 - linked on this page)
I love the verse: "Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it.' whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left" (Isaiah 30:21). That's how closely I'd like to be tuned to God. That's how clearly I'd like to hear Him.
But it doesn't end there. Hearing demands a response. May my response be like that described by Oswald Chambers (I quote the original Chambers edition):
"Be resolute when God speaks, act in faith immediately on what He says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your will now, make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you -- "I will write that letter, I will pay that debt." Make the thing inevitable."
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (May 10)
"Get into the habit of saying 'Speak Lord,' and life will become a romance."
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Jan 31)
Well, we're seeing the finish line in this move. The last days have been long, tiring ones of packing. Who knew one small house could hold so much?
Carrying on with this week's blogging rehash, I've been putting up old posts which, according to Sitemeter, garner the most hits. Today we've come to number one -- and it's really no contest. It is the testimony of Pastor Sunday Adelaja, which I first posted on September 16, 2005 - "How Sunday Adelaja learned to pray."
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As I’ve mentioned recently, Pastor Sunday Adelaja was a guest speaker at our church last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
For those unfamiliar with him, he pastors the biggest church in Ukraine, 20,000+ members, called the Embassy of God. He and his church members were prominent in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in late 2004, early 2005.
As someone who yearns to see a turnaround in my country Canada, I listened to his recounting of what happened in Ukraine with a lot of interest. If I learned anything, it was that you have to pay a price.
The changes in Ukraine have a history. They were birthed in much prayer. In one message, Pastor Sunday told us how he spends one week out of every four in isolation, fasting and praying. This is to intercede for the country, the church and to get God’s direction and strategy.
The Embassy of God sponsors a spring and a fall festival each year. These are ten to twelve-day stretches when up to 1000 people (from his church and from all over Europe – countries from the former Soviet Union, Holland, Germany etc.) will gather. There they will spend the entire time in fasting and prayer. They will pray up to ten hours at a stretch.
On Tuesday night, Pastor Sunday told us the story of how he learned to pray. (These are the exact words from his message – which I transcribed [see, I knew my medical transcription experience would prove valuable for some kingdom purpose!]).
In the words of Sunday Adelaja:
Now, anywhere you see a visitation, a genuine visitation, somebody has been found who stood in the gap. That’s why I said, we prayed, not just some sweety-sweety prayer. We must learn to pray the kind of prayer that James was talking about, that, you know, the fervent prayer of the righteous cannot but avail much. It must bring results. It must produce the rain of righteousness.
In our church, you know, in Ukraine, when I went to the Ukraine in 1993, the first time when I went to visit, I was coming from Belarus. I started in Belarus. And when I entered Ukraine, where I am today, I felt like there was a dark cloud over the whole city, over the country. And I would say, "My, are there no churches in this city? Why is it so bad?" I could feel the heaviness. Maybe some people went to Russia in the ‘90s. In the early ‘90s. You could see the cloud. It was even worse than Belarus at that point.
Then I was walking the streets and I was praying, "Oh God, raise up men to pray this thing through." And I never knew a year later, God was going to send me there. So when God sent me there, I knew the first thing I needed to do was to pray through.
Now God had taught me to pray through while I was a student, just years before then, during communism. I was a student. There was no church. We couldn’t have any relations with the underground church so we were just isolated on the campus, the student campus. And at the point when I knew I was giving up, I was defeated, I couldn’t hold on any longer, communism was shrinking me and brothers and sisters who came as believers were all backsliding. You know, people were being sent to the psychiatric hospital, people were being sent to mental hospitals because they were Christians and others were leaving the country, and so when it was so difficult, there was another believer. We made a covenant and we said, "We are going to meet every day. No matter what we do. No matter where we go. No matter what happens. We are going to meet every day until God does something or heaven opens."
So we made a covenant with ourselves to meet together, not to talk, not to preach. Not to do anything else. Just to intercede and pray together for two hours minimum. Minimum from two, three, four.
That was the most difficult one year in my whole life. I could pray before then for two hours, but to do it every day? Everything fought it. My professors would ask me to come to class. I was a student, then, in the university. My classmates would come and you couldn’t pray openly. You were being watched. You were being monitored. To find a place of isolation – oh yeah, my God, we needed to go through hell just to keep that covenant. But we did.
When it was one year, after we were praying two hours every single day, heaven broke loose. It was like we were no more under communism. The Spirit of God descended on us like mad. People began to get saved through us. God broke the chains and led us supernaturally to the believers, to the Russian believers in the underground church. We got a breakthrough. We began to fellowship together, preach together.That was how my ministry began in 1991. The Holy Ghost began to appear. When I woke up in the morning, I would lie on my bed, cover myself and I just prayed one hour, straight in tongues, no English, no Russian, just wake up, and... (here he began praying in tongues to demonstrate and in the next 20 minutes or so, a fire of prayer swept through the room).
Notice the new widget in my sidebar "When God Steps In"? Click on the link and you'll be taken to the WGSI blog and the announcement of Bonnie Bruno's latest book, When God Steps in: Stories of Everyday Grace (Standard Publishing), to be released in September. In it appear fifty life-changing true stories, as well as fifty of Bonnie's black and white nature photographs.
Bonnie is an often-published writer and amazing photographer, so I know the book will be well-written and stunning, (Hmmm... might make a nice Christmas gift?)
When I heard last week that they had arrested a man (Mark Edward Grant – a repeat sexual offender) for the 1984 murder of Candace Derksen, I perked up my ears. Besides being gripped by the chilling story of a 13-year-old who mysteriously goes missing on her way home from school – the mere thought of which strikes fear into the heart of any parent – I know her parents Cliff and Wilma. We attended the same Bible School. It’s heartening to know that the police were still working on the case this many years later.
Of course that’s not the end of it. As Wilma is quoted in a Winnipeg Free Press article from May 17th, “It feels like our lives have been turned upside down again.” Now they face the lengthy (and unpredictable) court ordeal.
Not only were the lives of Candace’s parents turned upside down with her murder, but the lives of her friends as well. In a May 26th WPF article, Mike McIntyre reports on conversations he had with Candace’s friends Heidi and David after the arrest. David, 15 at the time of her disappearance and the last of her friends to see her alive on November 30, 1984, was the police’s prime suspect. He was interrogated again as recently as Valentine’s Day, 2007.
As with all these kinds of tragedies, it seems so unfair. Why did this happen to these wonderful people? But then we could ask, why do tragedies – illnesses and deaths and crimes etc. – happen to any and all of us? And when they do, how do we cope?
To me this illustrates again the importance of preparing in advance for the inevitable ‘day of trouble.’ One way to do that is to formulate now – before that trouble comes – a theology of suffering and evil. Take a look at these two posts at Rebecca Writes for a leg up in that department.
On Preparing for Suffering and Evil from D. A. Carson – link and notes on sermon one
On Preparing for Suffering and Evil from D. A. Carson – link and notes on sermon two
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And from another angle...
"Finding Forgiveness in the Depths of Sorrow" by Wilma Derksen (Candace's mom), originally published on the website of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in October 2006.
Please let me hear breathing. Please let someone still be here. Those were the thoughts of my seven-year-old self when I’d wake up at night. For I was scared, since I had not yet asked Jesus into my heart, that if He came back in that “twinkling of an eye” like the Bible said, I’d be left behind. It was the fear of being left behind more than anything that prompted me to come to my Mom one day when I was about eight and ask her to pray with me to ask Jesus into my life.
I had always gone to church and been a pretty good girl, so life didn’t change much after that – although I certainly slept better. I got baptized at fourteen, joined the church we attended, after high school went to Bible school for several years, and pretty much lived up to everyone’s expectations – until I left my Saskatchewan home and moved to Vancouver.
Turning my back on the beliefs and lifestyle I had been immersed in since childhood was not something that happened overnight. In fact I can’t isolate an event or moment when it began. It was, instead, a gradual slide from obedience and faith to compromise and then skepticism as I needed to rationalize my actions and did that by poking holes in what I had always believed.
I continued on in this state through university until graduation and into my first teaching job in northern British Columbia. After two years of teaching, a couple of friends and I decided to travel Europe. We quit our jobs and with Eurail passes in hand, embarked on the “Europe cure.”
It was in month three of that jaunt – October of 1974 – that I decided to take a side trip to L’Abri. I had read about this Swiss home of Francis and Edith Schaeffer years earlier in a book by Edith. I’m not exactly sure what I expected to get from this visit. In a way I was surprised that I even had the urge to seek the place out. For there had been little sign of spiritual life in me for years now. But there was something – a restlessness, a holding back, an inability to fully enter into the godless outlook of my friends – that made me feel marked. It was as if my Christian experience had spoiled me for really enjoying my backslidden state. Perhaps I made this trip as a somewhat grudging assent to what seemed inevitable. I think I viewed it as a way of saying to God, here’s your chance to win me back.
When I got there, I was toured around with other visitors. At lunchtime we were invited to join in a meal. Neither Dr. Schaeffer nor his wife were home. We did sit around and talk to some people for a while. But nothing happened – inside me I mean. Despite the whole effort of making the trip up the mountain, I didn’t feel any closer to God. When daylight began to fade I made my way back to the road and the bus stop.
On my trip back to town I mulled over what had and hadn’t happened. Partly I was relieved that there had been no Damascus Road experience. I wouldn’t have to change anything or go through awkward explanations to my friends. But I was also a tiny bit disappointed – and worried. Was this spiritual numbness I was feeling here to stay? A verse I’d memorized in childhood came to me: “No one can come to me unless the Father ... draws him” (John 6:44). Had God decided not to draw me any more? Had He written me off?
We finished our trip and I arrived back in Canada mid-December. The bone chilling Saskatchewan temperatures mirrored the chill in my spirit. My grand adventure was over. I felt like I shouldn’t go back to B.C. because my Dad was ill with bone cancer. Jobless and broke, I moved back into my old bedroom on the farm. Completely cut off from friends and the life I’d made for myself, without even the freedom of using my car, which was up on blocks in the snowed-in quonset, I had lots of time to think.
Did I really like the direction my life had taken, I asked myself. As I looked at the last years from the vantage point of this place, where even the air made me feel dirty by the way its purity brought out the foulness of my cigarette smoke-permeated clothes, I saw how far I’d strayed. Again I sensed God beckoning to me and knew that this was the time to respond. If I resisted now, there might not be another time.
Still I resented the thought of giving up my independence and my right to determine my own future. Could I really trust God with my life? He'd probably want me to be a single missionary or an old-maid school teacher.
Yet, in the five years I’d done my own thing, had I done any better? I certainly wasn’t happy. Was I prepared to take on the responsibility for the rest of my life as well?
Finally after several weeks of this, one evening I’d had enough. I knelt on the cold floor of my old bedroom and prayed, “God, I’ve been a fool. Can You take me back? Please? I want to be Your girl again.”
Of course He did. And I’ve never strayed like that again. As for my treatment at His hands – I could have suffered way more consequences for my prodigal years. But instead, God has heaped my life with goodness and mercy. He is wonderful. I wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s girl!
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This is part of "Testimony Tuesday," where you'll find links to lots more life-changing stories. Thank you Tim Challies!
part 1
part 2 - as told by Gypsy Smith in Gypsy Smith - His Life and Work
My father was now terribly in earnest. There were a great many gipsies encamped in the forest at the time, including his father and mother, brothers and sisters. My father told them that he had done with the roaming and wrong-doing, and that he meant to turn to God.
They looked at him and wept.
Then my father and his brothers moved their vans to Shepherd's Bush, and placed them on a piece of building land close to Mr. Henry Varley's Chapel. My father sold his horse, being determined not to move from that place until he had found the way to God. Says my father "I meant to find Christ if He was to be found. I could think of nothing else but Him. I believed His blood was shed for me."
Then my father prayed that God would direct him to some place where he might learn the way to heaven, and his prayer was answered. One morning he went out searching as usual for the way to God. He met a man mending the road, and began to talk with him - about the weather, the neighbourhood, and such-like things. The man was kindly and sympathetic, and my father became more communicative. The man, as the good providence of God would have it, was a Christian, and said to my father, "I know what you want; you want to be converted."
"I do not know anything about that," said my father, "but I want Christ, and I am resolved to find Him."
"Well," said the working-man "there is a meeting tonight in a mission hall in Latimer Road, and I shall come for you and take you there."
In the evening the road-mender came and carried off my father and his brother Bartholomew to the mission hall. Before leaving, my father said to us, "Children, I shall not come home again until I am converted"
I shouted to him, "Daddy, who is he?" I did not know who this Converted was. I thought my father was going off his head, and resolved to follow him.
The Mission Hall was crowded. My father marched right up to the front. I never knew him look so determined. The people were singing the well-known hymn ––
"There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains."
The refrain was, " I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me."
As they were singing, my father's mind seemed to be taken away from everybody and everything. "It seemed," he said, "as if I was bound in a chain and they were drawing me up to the ceiling." In the agony of his soul he fell on the floor unconscious, and lay there wallowing and foaming for half an hour.
I was in great distress, and thought my father was dead, and shouted out, "Oh dear, our father is dead!"
But presently he came to himself, stood up and, leaping joyfully, exclaimed, "I am converted!" He has often spoken of that great change since. He walked about the hall looking at his flesh. It did not seem to be all quite the same colour to him. His burden was gone, and he told the people that he felt so light that if the room had been full of eggs he could have walked through and not have broken one of them.
I did not stay to witness the rest of the proceedings. As soon as I heard my father say, "I am converted," I muttered to myself, "Father is converted; I am off home." I was still in utter ignorance of what the great transaction might mean.
When my father got home to the waggon that night he gathered us all around him. I saw at once that the old haggard look that his face had worn for years was now gone, and, indeed, it was gone for ever. His noble countenance was lit up with something of that light that breaks over the cliff-tops of eternity. I said to myself in wonderment, "What marvellous words these are –– 'I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me.'"
My father's brother Bartholomew was also converted that evening, and the two stopped long enough to learn the chorus, and they sang it all the way home through the streets.
Father sat down in the waggon, as tender and gentle as a little child. He called his motherless children to him one by one, beginning with the youngest, my sister Tilly. "Do not be afraid of me, my dears. God has sent home your father a new creature and a new man." He put his arms as far round the five of us as they would go, kissing us all, and before we could understand what had happened he fell on his knees and began to pray.
Never will my brother, sisters, and I forget that first prayer. I still feel its sacred influence on my heart and soul; in storm and sunshine, life and death, I expect to feel the benediction of that first prayer.
There was no sleep for any of us that night. Father was singing, "I do believe, I will believe, that Jesus died for me," and we soon learnt it too. Morning, when it dawned, found my father full of this new life and this new joy.
He again prayed with his children, asking God to save them, and while he was praying God told him he must go to the other gipsies that were encamped on the same piece of land, in all about twenty families.
Forthwith he began to sing in the midst of them, and told them what God had done for him. Many of them wept. Turning towards his brother Bartholomew's van he saw him and his wife on their knees. The wife was praying to God for mercy, and God saved her then and there.
The two brothers, Bartholomew and my father, then commenced a prayer meeting in one of the tents, and my brother and eldest sister were brought to God. In all thirteen gipsies professed to find Christ that morning.
The wild man in my father was broken forever. My mother’s death wrought a moral revolution in him. As he had promised to her, he drank much less, he swore much less, and he was a good father to us. When my mother died, he had made up his mind to be a different man, and as far as was possible in his own strength he had succeeded. But his soul was hungry for he knew not what, and a gnawing dissatisfaction that nothing could appease or gratify was eating out his life.
For years my father had greatly added to his ordinary earnings by fiddling to the dancers in the public-houses at Baldock, Cambridge, Ashwell, and elsewhere. Even after my mother’s death, though his fiddling led him into great temptations, my father continued this practice.
All this time, while my father was living this life of fiddling and drinking and sinning, he was under the deepest conviction. He always said his prayers night and morning and asked God to give him power over drink, but every time temptation came his way he fell before it. He was like the chaff driven before the wind. He hated himself afterwards because he had been so easily overcome. He was so concerned about his soul that he could rest nowhere. If he had been able to read the Word of God, I feel sure, and he, looking back on those days feels sure, that he would have found the way of life.
His sister and her husband, who had no children, came to travel with us. She could struggle her way through a little of the New Testament, and used to read to my father about the sufferings of Christ and His death upon the tree for sinful men. She told my father it was the sins of the people which nailed him there, and he often felt in his heart that he was one of them.
I have seen my father when we children were in bed at night, and supposed to be asleep, sitting over the fire, the flame from which was the only light. As it leapt up into the darkness it showed us a sad picture. There was father, with tears falling like bubbles on mountain streams as he talked to himself about mother and his promise to her to be good. He would say to himself aloud, “I do not know how to be good,” and laying his hand upon his heart he would say, “I wonder when I shall get this want satisfied, this burden removed.”
One morning we had left Luton behind us. My eldest sister was in the town selling her goods, and my father had arranged to wait for her on the roadside with our waggon. When our waggon stopped my father sat on the steps, wistfully looking towards the town against the time of his daughter’s return and thinking, no doubt, as he always was, of my mother and his unrest. Presently he saw two gypsy waggons coming towards him and when they got near he discovered to his great delight that they belonged to his brothers Woodlock and Bartholomew. Well do I remember that meeting. The brothers were as surprised and delighted to meet my father as he was to meet them.
The three men sat on the bank holding sweet fellowship together, and the two wives and the children of the three families fathered around them. Soon my father was talking about the condition of his soul. Said he to Woodlock and Bartholomew, “Brothers, I have a great burden that I must get removed. A hunger is gnawing at my heart. I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. If I do not get this want satisfied, I shall die!”
And then the brothers said, “Cornelius, we feel just the same. We have talked about this to each other for weeks.”
As the brothers talked they felt how sweet it would be to go to God's house and learn of Him, for they had all got tired of their roaming life. My father was on the way to London, and fully resolved to go to a church and find out what it was his soul needed. The three brothers agreed to go together, and arranged to take in Cambridge by the way.
They drove their waggon to the Barnwell end of the town, where there was a beer-shop. The three great big simple men went in and told the landlady how they felt. It is not often, I feel sure, that part of a work of grace is carried on in a beer-shop, and with the landlady thereof as an instrument in this Divine work. But God had been dealing with the landlady of this beer-house. When the brothers spoke to her she began to weep, and said, "I am somewhat in your case, and I have a book upstairs that will just suit you, for it makes me cry every time I read it." She brought the book down and lent it to the brothers to read.
They went into the road to look after their horses. A young man who came out of the public-house offered to read from the book to them. It was "The Pilgrim's Progress." When he got to the point where Pilgrim's burden drops off as he looks at the cross, Bartholomew rose from his seat by the wayside and excitedly walking up and down, cried, "That is what I want, my burden removed. If God does not save me I shall die!" All the brothers at that moment felt the smart of sin, and wept like little children.
On the Sunday the three brothers went to the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Fitzroy Street, Cambridge, three times. In the evening the Rev. Henry Gunns preached. Speaking of that service, my father says: "His points were very cutting to my soul. He seemed to aim directly at me. I tried to hide myself behind a pillar in the chapel, but he, looking and pointing in that direction, said, "He died for thee!"
“The anxious ones were asked to come forward, and in the prayer-meeting the preacher came to where I was sitting and asked me if I was saved. I cried out, ‘No; that is what I want.’ He tried to show me that Christ had paid my debt, but the enemy of souls had blinded my eyes and made me believe that I must feel it and then believe it, instead of receiving Christ by faith first. I went from that house of prayer still a convicted sinner, but not a converted one."
(Conclusion of Chapter 8: "Into the Pit of My Stomach" from the book Christ’s Witchdoctor by Homer Dowdy © 1963).
[Introduction] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5]
part 6
On Thursday of that week Elka went fishing with Kirifaka. They followed the stream that bounded Kanashen under the sunset and emptied into the Essequibo at one side of the village landing. Threading their way up the creek, they shot many fish with their arrows.
"Why have we caught so much meant, Little Brother?" Elka asked Kirifaka. "Who is giving us so much food?"
"God," Elka continued, answering his own question. Kirifaka looked bewildered. And then Elka bewildered him even more: "I think I’d kind of like to receive Jesus.
"Why do you want to receive Jesus?" Kirifaka said with some scorn.
"Be quiet, Little Brother," commanded Elka. "Bow your head and close your eyes. I’m going to pray."
Kirifaka did as he was told, partly in obedience and partly in fear of the strange things that Elka was saying.
"Father in the Sky, this is Old Elka. You are good, Father. Look, You have given us our meat. We didn’t have any before and we haven’t had to go far to get it. You showed it to us. You are good Father."
He had meant to ask Jesus to enter his life. Somehow this was the prayer that came out. That night he dreamed he was teaching God’s Paper to the people at Yaka Yaka. The next day he told his wife about it.
"Kofi! How scary!" exclaimed Ahmuri. "Why are you like this? Why don’t you work your charms any more? You’re a witchdoctor, but you don’t sing your songs. How do you suppose Kworokyam likes that?"
Elka said nothing, but he noted Ahmmuri’s deep frown. He had noticed that she often frowned. He hair might string down from the knot in back, but it didn’t have the happy snap as when she used to swing her head about so saucily. He didn’t think of her long, though, for other thoughts fillede his mind.
The night before lesson time, Elka again dreamed that one like Bahm appeared before him and said,
"Let go of your sins. Say to Jesus, ‘Come in.’ If you do, He will come in."
Elka got up early on Sunday. He told his dream to his wife.
"Maybe that was God’s spirit," she commented, not knowing what else to say.
It was time for Elka to come to a decision.
Here he was, a chief, a witchdoctor, a handsome young man, his body and limbs well filled out, his features clean-cut and pleasing. He was one to whom not only his own villagers were looking for leadership but others as well; one ripe in the ways of forest and field, in weaving hammocks, in many other skills.
And he was torn by indecision.
Before others began to stir in their hammocks he left the big house. He strode across the clearing and entered an abandoned field which was being rapidly overtaken by jungle growth again.
"Father in the Sky," he said aloud on reaching the middle of the field and looking up as if he saw God sitting in His heaven, "Father, I want to know You. So make Yourself known to me forever. What do You think about that? Old Elka wants You to come into the pit of his stomach, Father and make his spirit strong."
He sat on a charred log, still intact after the burning so many seasons before. He no longer looked up. He spoke as if the One he talked to sat next to him on the log.
"Here I am Father. I’m a witchdoctor. This is what I am. I’m a bad person, too. I get angry. I scold my wife. And I’m sad about those things. But this is the way I don’t want to be. So my old being, take it out, Father. You can because your Son died for my badness, in order to take it away. Fix me to be another kind of person. I want to be like You."
In contrition the young Indian bowed his black-crowned head which even at this early hour was decorated with the downy white feather of an eagle. One by one he named his sins: hatred, lust, envy, foolish pride.
"This is the way I am Father," he prayed quietly and sincerely. "Fix me to be like Jesus. That’s all I have to say this time, Father."
That afternoon Elka went with his family to the lesson at Kanashen. As he sat in the main room of Kron’s house he drank in the teaching of God’s Paper.
"I’m really beginning to hear it with good ears," he said to himself, smiling at the happy thought. Things were beginning to fit together. He saw now why the missionaries could live as they did. It wasn’t they who were good. It was Jesus living in them. He understood, at least a little bit, the peace they possessed. If they let God into them, they were good and had peace. If they didn’t let Him in they weren’t good and were miserable. This was the way it fitted together for him.
A few days later, Elka faced the issue at an onhariheh. The eat-and-drink session took place in a hut at the edge of the clearing at Kanashen. A sick child was there, and a number of villagers had congregated in the shelter to find out how he was doing. Someone had brought a pot of fish broth. They were about to dip their cassava bread when Elka told them to wait.
"I’m a companion of Jesus now," he said. "I want to tell you that. So let us talk to God. Let us all be telling him it is He who gives us our food. Bow your heads and close your eyes."
Mawasha would not bend that towering head of his. Neither would others bow their heads or close their eyes. Alone, Elka closed his eyes. He did not see Achi approach the little circle with a hypodermic in her hand for the child.
"We will now talk to God," Elka said.
Achi, believe he had called for prayer because she had come, started to pray.
"Dear Father..."
It was as far as she got. Another voice was addressing the God of heaven. She opened her eyes to look, though she knew the voice. Elka was leading a group of people in prayer!
"Father in the Sky," he prayed, "You give us our food. You are good to us. Jesus is the good one. Fix the ones here to know You. That’s all I’m saying now."
He was slow in opening his eyes so did not see Achi run from the hut toward Kron’s house.
"Claude!" she cried, running up the stairs to the gallery of the kitchen. "I just heard Elka pray. Do you suppose it can mean he has received the Lord?"
Kron learned of Elka’s faith in a talk they had about a forthcoming dance.
"The people want to lift up drink," Elka reported to Kron. "They told me, ‘We’d like to make strong drink and catch women We want you to call a dance.’"
"What did you say?"
"I said, ‘Hnnn. I don’t know about that. I have received Jesus.’ But they just said, ‘Gicha! You received Jesus. That’s bad to us. We like strong drink. That’s the way we are.’"
Elka related how he had told them then that if they made strong drink he would not drink it. If they asked him to dance and take women, he would refuse.
"Hnnn," they had said, "why are you like that? We’re surprised at you."
Only Kirifaka, Elka went on, had said that maybe Elka was a good one.
In talking about the people’s desire to have a yamo dance, Kron and Elka decided that a time of games, with sweet drink and much meat, would be a good substitute. Elka left Kron to talk about it to his people. Kron went to the radio to report to Bahm in Georgetown that Elka had become a Christian.
Elka, witchdoctor without equal and witchdoctor still, but now Christ’s witchdoctor!
(Part 5 of Chapter 8: "Into the Pit of My Stomach" from the book Christ’s Witchdoctor by Homer Dowdy © 1963).
[Introduction] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]
part 5...
Not long after Malu’s drowing, Bahm and Ferochi left the land of the Wai Wai for a short rest. Before going, Ferochi taught the Sunday lesson. She said God had created all things. Elka was to think of this many times in the coming cycle of the moon.
In this and other lessons he had learned of the nature of God–of His holiness, justice, mercy, love. He heard the stories of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah. The Gospel accounts of Christ’s ministry, His life, death and resurrection, and the Acts of the Apostles–these, too, were materials for his thought.
In the continuing work of the translating God’s Paper, Elka still was the key informant. He continued to receive an insight into scriptural truths as his keen mind dug deeply into them. The first epistle of John was one of the books opened to him.
"...Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God...."
Thus began the fourth chapter. It was something to think about in this world of spirits.
"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Maybe this explained why God’s children did not fear the spirits of the forest.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him."
They could learn something about love. Was there not a better love than that which the Wai Wai knew?
"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."
Hnnn. So that’s the way to become a child of God, a companion of Jesus.
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear....We love him, because he first loved us."
No fear. This seemed to fit his need, a need that Kworokyam with all his frightening power had never met. Maybe this gave meaning and hope to life. There was badness and fear, yes; but there was a release from this trap after all.
It was Elka’s decision to make. Which should it be?
Kworokyam, the world of spirits, mostly evilly disposed toward man, who, without appeasement, rained fear, hate, pain, and death?
Or Christ, who came so far to bring love, peace, and life?
Kworokyam, whose power for evil would someday be destroyed by Christ?
Or Christ, eternal God?
Elka began to speak to the people in his house about God.
"Hnnn. Maybe Jesus Christ is the one we should believe in," he said.
"Huh!" they said to one another. "Old Elka is just talking talk."
One Monday, with Ferochi’s lesson fresh in his mind, Elka went hunting with his brother Yakuta. The trail gave onto a big rock.
"Who made this?" Elka asked suddenly, his question catching Yakuta by surprise.
"Who made that rock?" repeated Yakuta. "Why, I don’t know who made it." He was more interested in bringing down a fat-bellied spider monkey than in discussing who made what.
"It was Jesus," Elka said, ignoring his brother’s lack of interest. He climbed the rock and sat down. "This is of God’s making."
"Is that so?" Yakuta grunted with a toss of his bronzed shoulders. Yakuta went on hunting while Elka sat and thought. Jesus, not Kworokyam, was the one he wanted to serve, Elka thought to himself. Maybe he should ask Jesus to come into the pit of his stomach right now. "But," came the challenge of doubt, "maybe I’m not a true one. If I do receive Jesus, I will receive Him forever."
No, he was not ready yet.
to conclusion - part 6 ...
(Part 4 of Chapter 8: "Into the Pit of My Stomach" from the book Christ’s Witchdoctor by Homer Dowdy © 1963).
[Introduction] [part 1] [part 2] [part 3]
part 4 ...
In the shurifana Elka sang to the bush hogs. But it was not his pets he thought of. Instead, he remembered what God’s Paper said about the time when the evil spirits obeyed Jesus’ masterful command and forsook the tortured man who lived where the dead were buried. Elka had been impressed by the story while helping Bahm to translate the Gospel according to Mark.
Where did the spirits go? Into a pack of wild pigs feeding in the mountains. The pigs became violent and ran down a steep bank and drowned in the water. How scary it was! Were they like his pets, these wild pigs to whom the spirits fled?
Elka went on singing his old familiar songs. But when he sang to the hummingbird it did not come down to carry him to the region of the spirits.
From inside the big house, where they had taken to their hammocks, the people called into the shurifana. They supposed that the spirits had come down to occupy Elka’s body. In their usual manner they started chatting with them while Elka, they thought, was sojourning in the sky.
"Where is Malu?" they asked.
"We don’t know," answered Elka, imitating the falsetto he had heard the spirits speak in when they used a witchdoctor’s voice.
Did Kworokyam carry him away?" asked one in the big house.
"No," Elka replied. "We don’t know where he is."
"Do you think he sank?"
"He probably sank."
Elka tried again and again to contact the spirits. But Bahm’s words kept coming back. He could not concentrate on Kworokyam. All the while he felt as if Bahm–or maybe it was God– were there in the dark hut with him. Maybe for this reason the spirits refused to come down.
Greatly disturbed by his failure to lure the spirit of his pets, Elka left the Shurifana in dejection. Yukuma was there waiting.
"What did the spirits tell you in the sky?" he asked anxiously.
Elka thought it best to say nothing of his failure, or that his thoughts had been of God. Turning away from Yukuma’s pleading eyes, he said,
"I did not hear them clearly."
Yukuma started to turn away, hope nearly lost. Then thinking suddenly of one last resource, he turned back to Elka to suggest,
"Maybe you can go to sleep and dream." There was no bravado now. Yukuma was entirely servile toward his cousin. "Maybe Kworokyam will reveal to you in a dream where my son is."
Elka tried, though it was no use. Elka did not dream that night. He hardly slept.
Malu was found three days later, his body floating in a backwater of the river. If Elka needed proof, here it was, in the sad sight of Yukuma’s third dead son: while thinking thoughts of God, Elka could never exercise Kworokyam’s power.
That was it. That explained his failures. Stuck fully onto Kworokyam, Elka could call and Kworokyam would answer. Stuck just a little and wavering toward God, Kworokyam held him in disdain.
God’s paper said he could not serve both God and Kworokyam. Well, Kworokyam felt that way too.
He was surely going to have to choose between the two.
on to part 5...
