6 July 2014
Dear Phyllis,
For years I have haughtily boasted that I have never aged. I say at 78 my body hasn't changed in 40 years. My weight is almost exactly the same as it was 40 years ago. My physical strength has not diminished appreciably and my energy level is basically the same as it was then. Apart from the white hair and missing teeth there is little evidence of the passing of time.
But today I feel like Urashima Taro. Urashina Taro is a famous Japanese children's fable about a fisherman who saved a turtle from being tormented by children. The next day as Taro was by the sea the turtle appeared to thank him for his help the previous day. As a reward he offered to take Taro on his back to the castle at the bottom of the sea. Taro was delighted for such an invitation and road on his back to the castle. There he met the beautiful princes of the castle and spent a most enjoyable day. But as evening approached Taro excused himself and said he must get back as his mother would be worrying about him. Before he left the princes gave him a beautiful box with the instruction that he must never open it. When the turtle took Taro back, and he walked into town, he was stunned that there was nothing there that he knew. Everything was totally different. In his dismay he sat down and forgot the instruction of the princes, and opened the box. Suddenly Taro became 100 years older. This is the Japanese version of the English Rip Van Wrinkle.
I feel like this is exactly what append to me, minus the visit to the sea castle. But like Taro, I have suddenly aged 50 years. Suddenly, I have become a decrepit 90 year old man. About three weeks ago I got a slight catch in my hip. That is nothing unusual as I have often had things like this, and I am sure this is common to most people. I thought it would go away in a few minutes. But it didn't. The catch affected my left leg. I started to walk with a slight limp and made a conscious effort to conceal it. But it got increasingly noticeable at night. There were certain positions that were uncomfortable. This went on for two weeks until it began to affect my whole body. At first it was just difficult to lift my left leg. Putting on my pant became a chore. I couldn't get my leg in the air high enough to get my pants on, and had to lower the pants low enough to stick my foot in. But nights became increasingly uncomfortable. Sleep became sporadic, shallow, or impossible. The more my leg restricted my body movements, the more my body began to stiffen up. The stiffer my body got, the more the list of things I couldn't do increased. It was an amplifying process into paralysis. I got to the place where it wasn't just my left leg that I couldn't move but every joint in my body seized up to where my arms were stiff, my neck was stiff; my wrists were stiff, and it hurt to open and close my fingers. Thursday nigh it was impossible for me to turn over in bed. At 5:00 in the morning I asked Pammy to help me get up. I told her to pull my legs around to hang over the edge of the bed, and then pull me up in a upright position' I felt just like I was living in a body that had died and rigor mortise had set in. Walking was restricted to taking short six inch steps. Going up and down stairs was a major event. One night I flat couldn't do it. I would lift up my right leg to the next step but it was too painful to drag the left foot up. Pammy had to lift my leg which helped considerably.
Apart from living in a corpse with rigor mortise, basically I felt fine. I refused to slow down and went to school to teach and kept up my job of running two wood shops every day. Exercise helped considerably. Night and mornings were death, but once I got going, my body would limber up considerably. One night, as I finished work, and was walking toward my bike, it suddenly dawned on me that for two hours I had forgotten that I had an infirmity. But then my body stiffened up again.
Everyone has been begging and demanding that I go to a doctor. I said, “Non-sense! A doctor can't fix this. I'm not sick.” If I broke my arm I certainly wouldn't go to a dentist. Rosemary practically salaried chiropractors for 20 years. We have been to many chiropractors in both America an Japan. I am very familiar with them. A missionary chiropractor friend of mine once complained, “Your back is like a rhinoceros. There is nothing I can do with it.” That is true. For some miraculous reason I have always had a very strong back. This is particularly amazing as I have abused my back by lifting ridiculous heavy things for many years. A friend once asked me to help him move a US freezer. It was so heavy he was planning on calling a crane truck to get it to the road where we could load it on my truck. It was too much for three of us to lift. I told Bob, “If we can get this thing up on a chair I will carry it on my back to load on my truck.” He was in awe and terror when I walked away with that on my back and set it on my truck. On three occasions I have put my back out by lifting heavy things asymmetrically. In each case I went to a chiropractor within hours and had my back put right back in place. One time I put my back out at 8:00 in the morning lifting logs. The Japanese chiropractor was not as good as a couple I had been to in the states but that night I was able to lift 150kg planner to off-load from my truck.
This doesn't feel like a back out of place. I have no pain in my back, but I do believe a good chiropractor could help a great deal.
One time I had a very similar problem in Japan. I had been sitting on a kitchen stool in Tim Cole's house drawing plans for a church for four hours. When I stood up suddenly my back went bong. Dave was with me and he had to drive home. I was in agony all night. There simply was no position I could lay in that wasn't painful. I spent most of the night sitting in the bathtub. Floating in water was the only relief. The next day, some friends told me about a man who had learned manipulation in Manchuria before the war. He was not a practitioner but a simple farmer. We went to him that afternoon. I crawled in his house on my hands and knees and an hour later walked out. The next day we went to Manza to sit in a hot onsen, I don't know what did it, but after that I was fine.
Surprisingly we are in a fault line here in northern Thailand and have several places where hot sulfur water comes boiling out of the ground. It is not as good as Japan, but similar. I felt if I could go to an onsen in Sangkapang that would help me, but Pammy said there was a much better one in Lampang. Friday night her sister came up from Lampang to pick us up and take us to that hot springs the next day.
Before then, we had a most unusual time of prayer. It is hard to believe that the Lord won't answer that prayer in the Spirit. The Lord has reminded me that His Name is Jehovah Rapha – the Lord that healeth thee (Ex. 15:26). Also the 103rd Psalm verses 2 and 5 tells us that the Lord “Healeth all thy diseases... and satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's”. The Lord forgive me if I am presumptuous, but it is hard not to believe that what He said is true. If the Lord actually does what His Words tells us is His promise, that means the Lord will certainly heal me and renew my youth.
In thinking about the miracles Jesus did in the gospels, I was reminded that with most of these healing miracles there was also a command. He told the man with the withered arm to stretch forth his arm (Lk. 6:10); He told the lame man to “Take up thy bed and walk (Jn 5:8). . He told the blind man to “Go wash in the pool of Siloam (Jn. 9:7). It was in obeying these commands that people were healed. As a young missionary the Lord promised me that He would give me the language (Japanese), but it was the will of God for me to go to school and study for two years. It worked out just that way. I went to language school but didn't get the language. But later He gave me the language. I obeyed the Lord by going to school, but it was later that the Lord gave it to me. There is no doubt in my mind but what the Lord has promised to heal Marisa of cancer. He could do that in an instant but Paul also believes it is the will of God for Marisa to have chemo and radiation. Personally I would prefer to see Him do it without the treatment. The other day Marisa was talking to a lady in the hospital about Jesus. The woman asked. “If Jesus is all you say He is why are you here with cancer?” Marisa immediately fired back, “I am here so I can talk to you.” AMEN! That explains it all.
The Lord could heal me without going to Lampang to a hot springs. But somehow I felt it was of the Lord to go. We got a very late start and I was a prototype of Grumpy the Goat. The place was nice but a long ways away from where I thought it was. I had Japan in mind, and this certainly was not Japan. But they did have private baths. I didn't expect anything hot in Thailand, but when I stuck my foot in the water I thought we had made a mistake and that was the place where they boiled the eggs. H o t?!!! Oh my goodness, if I wasn't Japanese there is no way I could have got in that water. But by using my Japanese onsen skill I was able to slowly ease myself in the water. I sat there probably longer than any human should have and then eased myself out. I lay on my back on the rough concrete tile with the hot water running under my back. It was great! Getting up and moving around was a terrific engineering feat. I was so stiff, I was almost paralyzed. But with great effort I was finally was able to pull myself upright again and take another dip. In Japan I would have been in a hotel and expect to stay 24 hours. But that was not that system. I must have been in there two hours when Pammy came in and said everyone was waiting for me. She was able to help me get dressed. I can't imagine how I could have done that by myself. I told her I was severely dehydrated and desperately needed water. She did get me a bottle that helped. But I was so shot when I walked out of there I felt like I needed to be on life-support.
They had a good Thai massage parlor and I thought a massage certainly wouldn't hurt. I have never had a massage in my life. I didn't know what to expect, but the gal who worked on me for an hour certainly knew her business. Three hours after we first arrived I was walking quite normal, whereas my best effort before were short six inch baby steps. It would be dishonest to say that I am perfectly normal but the pain is gone and I can do a lot of things that were impossible yesterday.
This morning, at breakfast, I had a terrific time talking to Pammy's sister's 19 year old son. I was amazed at the cutting edge the Holy Spirit was putting on my words. I take very little credit for that, but I did feel intensely that the Holy Spirit was leading me and giving me words that penetrated deeply into that young man's heart. His mother was thrilled and thanked me profusely for talking to him. If nothing else, that talk alone would have made this whole time of stiffness well worthwhile. Then at church I was unexpectedly asked to give a few words. They said five minutes. I did my best to be brief but it was 20 minutes later when I sat down. But again I felt what was said was directly given by the Holy Spirit. That too made the trip well worth while.
It is no fun suddenly being 50 years older. Hopefully this won't last too long and Jesus will renew my youth as the eagle. But in the meantime He has made me a very humble decrepit old man. I feel embarrassed acting my age. If this doesn't clear up that might put a serious question over my quest to go to Pakistan. I must make some decisions about my long term plans here in Chiang Mai very soon. I still have a month or two before I make the call, and this is one factor to be considered.
Otherwise things are quite good here. And I trust you are enjoying the hand of God upon your life as Jesus continues to move in His Church.
Oinori o arigato gozaimasu (Thank you for your prayers),
bill
PS: Gomen nasai for being late this week, but we got back late from Lampang so I wasn't able to send this letter out on time.
Dear Phyllis,
For years I have haughtily boasted that I have never aged. I say at 78 my body hasn't changed in 40 years. My weight is almost exactly the same as it was 40 years ago. My physical strength has not diminished appreciably and my energy level is basically the same as it was then. Apart from the white hair and missing teeth there is little evidence of the passing of time.
But today I feel like Urashima Taro. Urashina Taro is a famous Japanese children's fable about a fisherman who saved a turtle from being tormented by children. The next day as Taro was by the sea the turtle appeared to thank him for his help the previous day. As a reward he offered to take Taro on his back to the castle at the bottom of the sea. Taro was delighted for such an invitation and road on his back to the castle. There he met the beautiful princes of the castle and spent a most enjoyable day. But as evening approached Taro excused himself and said he must get back as his mother would be worrying about him. Before he left the princes gave him a beautiful box with the instruction that he must never open it. When the turtle took Taro back, and he walked into town, he was stunned that there was nothing there that he knew. Everything was totally different. In his dismay he sat down and forgot the instruction of the princes, and opened the box. Suddenly Taro became 100 years older. This is the Japanese version of the English Rip Van Wrinkle.
I feel like this is exactly what append to me, minus the visit to the sea castle. But like Taro, I have suddenly aged 50 years. Suddenly, I have become a decrepit 90 year old man. About three weeks ago I got a slight catch in my hip. That is nothing unusual as I have often had things like this, and I am sure this is common to most people. I thought it would go away in a few minutes. But it didn't. The catch affected my left leg. I started to walk with a slight limp and made a conscious effort to conceal it. But it got increasingly noticeable at night. There were certain positions that were uncomfortable. This went on for two weeks until it began to affect my whole body. At first it was just difficult to lift my left leg. Putting on my pant became a chore. I couldn't get my leg in the air high enough to get my pants on, and had to lower the pants low enough to stick my foot in. But nights became increasingly uncomfortable. Sleep became sporadic, shallow, or impossible. The more my leg restricted my body movements, the more my body began to stiffen up. The stiffer my body got, the more the list of things I couldn't do increased. It was an amplifying process into paralysis. I got to the place where it wasn't just my left leg that I couldn't move but every joint in my body seized up to where my arms were stiff, my neck was stiff; my wrists were stiff, and it hurt to open and close my fingers. Thursday nigh it was impossible for me to turn over in bed. At 5:00 in the morning I asked Pammy to help me get up. I told her to pull my legs around to hang over the edge of the bed, and then pull me up in a upright position' I felt just like I was living in a body that had died and rigor mortise had set in. Walking was restricted to taking short six inch steps. Going up and down stairs was a major event. One night I flat couldn't do it. I would lift up my right leg to the next step but it was too painful to drag the left foot up. Pammy had to lift my leg which helped considerably.
Apart from living in a corpse with rigor mortise, basically I felt fine. I refused to slow down and went to school to teach and kept up my job of running two wood shops every day. Exercise helped considerably. Night and mornings were death, but once I got going, my body would limber up considerably. One night, as I finished work, and was walking toward my bike, it suddenly dawned on me that for two hours I had forgotten that I had an infirmity. But then my body stiffened up again.
Everyone has been begging and demanding that I go to a doctor. I said, “Non-sense! A doctor can't fix this. I'm not sick.” If I broke my arm I certainly wouldn't go to a dentist. Rosemary practically salaried chiropractors for 20 years. We have been to many chiropractors in both America an Japan. I am very familiar with them. A missionary chiropractor friend of mine once complained, “Your back is like a rhinoceros. There is nothing I can do with it.” That is true. For some miraculous reason I have always had a very strong back. This is particularly amazing as I have abused my back by lifting ridiculous heavy things for many years. A friend once asked me to help him move a US freezer. It was so heavy he was planning on calling a crane truck to get it to the road where we could load it on my truck. It was too much for three of us to lift. I told Bob, “If we can get this thing up on a chair I will carry it on my back to load on my truck.” He was in awe and terror when I walked away with that on my back and set it on my truck. On three occasions I have put my back out by lifting heavy things asymmetrically. In each case I went to a chiropractor within hours and had my back put right back in place. One time I put my back out at 8:00 in the morning lifting logs. The Japanese chiropractor was not as good as a couple I had been to in the states but that night I was able to lift 150kg planner to off-load from my truck.
This doesn't feel like a back out of place. I have no pain in my back, but I do believe a good chiropractor could help a great deal.
One time I had a very similar problem in Japan. I had been sitting on a kitchen stool in Tim Cole's house drawing plans for a church for four hours. When I stood up suddenly my back went bong. Dave was with me and he had to drive home. I was in agony all night. There simply was no position I could lay in that wasn't painful. I spent most of the night sitting in the bathtub. Floating in water was the only relief. The next day, some friends told me about a man who had learned manipulation in Manchuria before the war. He was not a practitioner but a simple farmer. We went to him that afternoon. I crawled in his house on my hands and knees and an hour later walked out. The next day we went to Manza to sit in a hot onsen, I don't know what did it, but after that I was fine.
Surprisingly we are in a fault line here in northern Thailand and have several places where hot sulfur water comes boiling out of the ground. It is not as good as Japan, but similar. I felt if I could go to an onsen in Sangkapang that would help me, but Pammy said there was a much better one in Lampang. Friday night her sister came up from Lampang to pick us up and take us to that hot springs the next day.
Before then, we had a most unusual time of prayer. It is hard to believe that the Lord won't answer that prayer in the Spirit. The Lord has reminded me that His Name is Jehovah Rapha – the Lord that healeth thee (Ex. 15:26). Also the 103rd Psalm verses 2 and 5 tells us that the Lord “Healeth all thy diseases... and satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's”. The Lord forgive me if I am presumptuous, but it is hard not to believe that what He said is true. If the Lord actually does what His Words tells us is His promise, that means the Lord will certainly heal me and renew my youth.
In thinking about the miracles Jesus did in the gospels, I was reminded that with most of these healing miracles there was also a command. He told the man with the withered arm to stretch forth his arm (Lk. 6:10); He told the lame man to “Take up thy bed and walk (Jn 5:8). . He told the blind man to “Go wash in the pool of Siloam (Jn. 9:7). It was in obeying these commands that people were healed. As a young missionary the Lord promised me that He would give me the language (Japanese), but it was the will of God for me to go to school and study for two years. It worked out just that way. I went to language school but didn't get the language. But later He gave me the language. I obeyed the Lord by going to school, but it was later that the Lord gave it to me. There is no doubt in my mind but what the Lord has promised to heal Marisa of cancer. He could do that in an instant but Paul also believes it is the will of God for Marisa to have chemo and radiation. Personally I would prefer to see Him do it without the treatment. The other day Marisa was talking to a lady in the hospital about Jesus. The woman asked. “If Jesus is all you say He is why are you here with cancer?” Marisa immediately fired back, “I am here so I can talk to you.” AMEN! That explains it all.
The Lord could heal me without going to Lampang to a hot springs. But somehow I felt it was of the Lord to go. We got a very late start and I was a prototype of Grumpy the Goat. The place was nice but a long ways away from where I thought it was. I had Japan in mind, and this certainly was not Japan. But they did have private baths. I didn't expect anything hot in Thailand, but when I stuck my foot in the water I thought we had made a mistake and that was the place where they boiled the eggs. H o t?!!! Oh my goodness, if I wasn't Japanese there is no way I could have got in that water. But by using my Japanese onsen skill I was able to slowly ease myself in the water. I sat there probably longer than any human should have and then eased myself out. I lay on my back on the rough concrete tile with the hot water running under my back. It was great! Getting up and moving around was a terrific engineering feat. I was so stiff, I was almost paralyzed. But with great effort I was finally was able to pull myself upright again and take another dip. In Japan I would have been in a hotel and expect to stay 24 hours. But that was not that system. I must have been in there two hours when Pammy came in and said everyone was waiting for me. She was able to help me get dressed. I can't imagine how I could have done that by myself. I told her I was severely dehydrated and desperately needed water. She did get me a bottle that helped. But I was so shot when I walked out of there I felt like I needed to be on life-support.
They had a good Thai massage parlor and I thought a massage certainly wouldn't hurt. I have never had a massage in my life. I didn't know what to expect, but the gal who worked on me for an hour certainly knew her business. Three hours after we first arrived I was walking quite normal, whereas my best effort before were short six inch baby steps. It would be dishonest to say that I am perfectly normal but the pain is gone and I can do a lot of things that were impossible yesterday.
This morning, at breakfast, I had a terrific time talking to Pammy's sister's 19 year old son. I was amazed at the cutting edge the Holy Spirit was putting on my words. I take very little credit for that, but I did feel intensely that the Holy Spirit was leading me and giving me words that penetrated deeply into that young man's heart. His mother was thrilled and thanked me profusely for talking to him. If nothing else, that talk alone would have made this whole time of stiffness well worthwhile. Then at church I was unexpectedly asked to give a few words. They said five minutes. I did my best to be brief but it was 20 minutes later when I sat down. But again I felt what was said was directly given by the Holy Spirit. That too made the trip well worth while.
It is no fun suddenly being 50 years older. Hopefully this won't last too long and Jesus will renew my youth as the eagle. But in the meantime He has made me a very humble decrepit old man. I feel embarrassed acting my age. If this doesn't clear up that might put a serious question over my quest to go to Pakistan. I must make some decisions about my long term plans here in Chiang Mai very soon. I still have a month or two before I make the call, and this is one factor to be considered.
Otherwise things are quite good here. And I trust you are enjoying the hand of God upon your life as Jesus continues to move in His Church.
Oinori o arigato gozaimasu (Thank you for your prayers),
bill
PS: Gomen nasai for being late this week, but we got back late from Lampang so I wasn't able to send this letter out on time.
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