1 December 2013
Dear Phyllis
Sometimes Sundays are feast or famine. There are times when I sit down to write you, and have nothing to say. And at other times there is so much I scarcely know where to start. Today is one of those days that, if I wrote a letter longer than Obama Care, I couldn't get it all in. Perhaps the number one item this past week has been Paul and Marisa. I mean to tell you, they are one unusual family. They were as messed up as it is possible to get, and now they are a center piece for heaven.
It would be difficult to find a more amazing model Christian than Marisa. Two weeks ago, a biopsy confirmed that she had cancer, which required immediate surgery. At first it was scheduled for Friday. She was disappointed as she was a counselor for the Franklin Graham dendo meetings, and desperately wanted to go. Then, miraculously, the Lord provided the top cancer surgeon in northern Thailand to do the surgery; but that could only be done on Tuesday. Praise the Lord! Now she could go to the meetings. While all her family and friends were devastated over her illness, she was thanking God for this opportunity to demonstrate how wonderful it is to have the Lord at such a catastrophic time. Friday night, their recently adopted son, Joseph, came down with a bad fever. Her problem with cancer was minimal, but the fact that he was sick, was such a concern that she scarcely slept all night. She was exhausted Saturday night, and Paul suggested that she should stay home from the meetings. Marisa replied, “No, I want to work for God”. Fatigue was not the issue. Her desire to serve the Lord was dominant over everything. After her surgery, she was in petty intense pain. She cried and thanked the Lord for that experience as she said she never knew how much Jesus suffered for us. Her recovery was surprisingly fast and, she was discharged from the hospital Friday. She was previously schedule to lead the church service Sunday. I couldn't imagine anyone even going to church five days after major surgery – much less – be the song leader for the service. She thought it was a great opportunity to prove to others how wonderful Jesus is. Marisa had a mastectomy with the lymph nodes removed. Now she has to have radiation. It is important that she builds up the muscels in her shoulder around her arm pit for that radiation; but physical therapy is very painful. The doctor was amazed that she had nearly full movement with her arm so soon. She cheerful replied, “That is because Jesus is wonderful”. Indeed is His! The most amazing thing of what He has done is the miracle of transforming a woman who was a total mess to be a model Christian with no thought of herself. Everything that has come out of her heart has been a concern for the glory of God or the needs of others. I haven't heard of one word she has said about herself or her needs.
That is only half the story. The other half is Paul, and what the Lord has done for them. They don't come much worse than Paul was. He was a first class rat of the worst order, being unfaithful to his wife and a bad alcoholic. Today he is as transformed as you can get. His love for Marisa, his faithfulness to her, and his militant concern for her, is off the scale. Hours before surgery on Tuesday, there was a mix-up in the hospital over money, and a postponement for the surgery. Paul went out of his mind. He was downright violent at the registers office. He was shouting, “I don't care about money! My wife has cancer. Do you understand that? We are not postponing that surgery.” “Please, Mr. Almstead, calm down.” “I don't care! Call the police. I am not leaving here until this thing gets settled, and my wife has surgery”. He won. Paul stayed with her day and night in the hospital. He said he scarcely slept for four days.
Finances were a roller-coaster. At first the surgery was going to cost 60,000 baht ($200). They didn't have that money. There was no food in the house. Then the price went to 80,000; and – with the stay in the hospital and all the treatment – it would probably run over 100,000. And they would not release Marisa until the bill was paid. Paul had money coming from the states, but it would take a week to get here. Paul was almost beside himself wondering how they were going to get out of that jam. They are members of the Chinese church in Chiang Mai, which is probably the finest church in town. The church stepped forward, and said they would cover the bill, so Marisa could go home. Marisa had some land in Nakhon Sawan that she has been trying to sell for ten years. She sold it twice, but the buyers never paid her for it. The day she got out of the hospital the land was sold and she got 100,000 baht that day. You figure that one out. Then when Paul went to pay the hospital bill, he was stunned that the total was only 66,000 baht. Someone said, “That is impossible. Someone has made a mistake.”' But that is what he paid, and now they have more money than they know what to do with.
This has been an incredible testimony, but they still are a long ways from being totally out of the woods. Marisa still has chemo and radiation in front of her, and there are many test that have yet to be taken. There will always be that shadow over her for five years before they know that she is completely out from under this death threat. But Jesus is certainly with them holding them up, and proving Himself to them and others in a wonderful way.
This past week, in the classroom With Christ in the School of Prayer, the Lord spoke to me about being a friend of God. Oh my goodness. What volumes could and should be written about this subject. It is highly significant, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, after His initial instruction, He told them an amazing parable (Lk. 11:5-9). The key thought in this parable is friendship. The Lord used that word four times. There is the man who goes to a friend at midnight to get bread, the man himself is a friend, and he has a friend who has come to him. In His teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasized the fatherhood of God. He raised the rhetorical question, “Ye being evil know how to give good things unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” (Mt. 6:33). But here He is referring to friends. Fatherhood is based on birth, but friendship is based on conduct. Jesus said , “You are My friends if you do whatsoever things I command you” (Jn. 15:13). Being a friend is a special relationship. It was one of the most wonderful testimonies of Abrahan that he was known as a friend of God (Jm. 2:23). God doesn't have very many friends. But if someone is His friend that puts him in a special category. In His teaching on prayer, it is a blessing that Jesus should suggest that when we go to God we might go as one going to a friend. And it is a friend with whom we have the liberty to go to, even if it is midnight.
The second thing that Jesus taught us by this parable is that our chief concern should not be for ourselves, but the needs of others. If someone banged on the door at night and said, “Hey, buddy, I'm hungry and we don't have any bread in the house. Could you let me have a loaf so I could fix a sandwich.”. It isn't very likely that he would get a positive response. But when we come with the needs of others, that is more likely to ring a bell in God's heart. I doubt seriously that we would get much good teaching from Jesus if we asked Him how to pray so we could have new cowboy boots or a better car. That is not what prayer is for. Our ordinary concern should be the needs of others.
And the next thing our own poverty of not having enough to help them.
I'm sure I told you this story before, but there was a man in Hong Kong that dinged me harder than any man I ever met in my life. Several years ago he was coming to Japan for the dedication of the new NLL printing press. I couldn't imagine talking to him, and took off for Karuizawa until the celebration was over. While I was staying in the NLL cabin in Karuizawa the Lord clearly spoke to me through this parable. It hit me as a dead ringer. I read how the friend came at midnight on a journey. That was my friend from Hong Kong coming at a most inconvenient time. The problem was, when he showed up, I knew what my attitude was suppose to be, but there wasn't a thing in my house that I could offer to him. A man couldn't get more poverty struck for grace than I was. I couldn't imagine myself saying hello to that dirty bird, much less, shaking hands, and being friendly. I would walk a mile in the wrong direction rather than meeting him on the street. You talk about someone being hard pressed to have some grace in their heart to give to another – I was the poster boy for bitterness.
Of course, I know Christian doctrine. I know you are suppose to forgive, and love even your enemies. But I was slam out of Christian grace. As I was on my knees in Karuizawa dealing with the Lord – or rather the Lord was dealing with me – Jesus showed me that I owed Bob three loaves of bread. The first loaf was forgiveness. The second was love. And the third was to trust God to bless and use him. I knew I owed him that, and, at the same time, I knew that I didn't have it in my heart to come up with the goods. It was midnight that Jesus spoke of in the Bible, and it was midnight in Karuizawa that I was on my knees pleading with Jesus to open His house to let me have what I needed to give to Bob. Very much against my desire, the next day I drove back to Hatoyama (NLL), and was able to shake hands with Bob, and say “God bless you”.
The surprising thing about this parable is the rebuff. Even though the man is a friend, he replies, “Go home! I'm in bed.” But Jesus told us to keep knocking. This is one of the most important lessons in the Christian school of prayer.
My favorite lady in the New Testament is the Syrophenician woman of Sidon (Mt. 15:22-28). She had a demon possessed daughter, and came desperately to Jesus for help. At first she couldn't get passed the front desk. Then she made such a commotion that she was ruining the vacation for Jesus and the disciples. They came to Jesus and pleaded, “Please tell that lady to shut up and go home.” (vr. 23). After a long time of no response, Jesus finally said, “I'm sorry, lady, but I am only sent to the Jews.” At that she fell down worshiping and just plain begged, “Lord, help me!” Then, of all things, Jesus said, “It isn't right to take bread from children and give it to dogs.” Wow! That has got to be the crudest thing that ever came from the lips of Christ. But what a response! She came right back, “True, Lord! But even the dogs get the crumbs.” (The crumbs are good enough. Please give me the crumbs.) With that she took the Lord's heart by storm. Jesus didn't say that insulting word to put her down, but to bring out what he knew was in her heart. When she took that hardest blow and came up smiling, she proved she was the all-time champion. She rang a bell in the heart of Christ the likes of which no one else did in His life. He exclaimed, “Oh woman! Great is thy faith!!!” There never would have been that magical moment if it had not been preceded by that horrible time of proving. In my mind, she hit the highest note in the New Testament.
It isn't that the Father is trying give us a hard time. And it isn't that he is reluctant to give us the goods we need for others. But He wants to do a work in our hearts by making us seek harder; to be more persistent; to refuse to take no for an answer for the grace we need to serve others. What the Lord is teaching here about prayer is a mild form of what the lady enacted in Sidon.
Thank God for needs. Thank God that we are komaru (big problem). The Lord is certainly proving Himself to Paul and Marisa. You don't get big victories without big battles, and you don't get big rewards with out big testings. The Lord is making Paul and Marisa very rich.
Oh how good and great is our God!
bill
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