True Suffering . . . Rare Faith

We arrived in Michigan after a safe and pleasant drive. It's wonderful to see Sue and Jeff and grandson Justin. This evening we'll have dinner with a bunch of tried-and-true friends from our past life in East Lansing. On the way there, we'll stop to see my cousin and her daughter and new grandson.

A couple who served in Africa with SIM have been walking through what looks to us like hell. Two years ago the wife had an “incident” while bike riding in Germany, and she has not recovered. In fact, it seems that almost all of her body has failed, with unbelievable needs for care from her faithful husband Ben. We marvel! Something remains in her mind that keeps her faith strong. I can't help passing on this a story that came from the husband this week:

He asked a local care agency for early evening help, and they sent a middle-aged woman named Joni. She was a big help. Of course, the husband talked about God, and Joni said she didn’t believe in him, but had practiced Buddhism in her past. She had been abused as a child, concluding that either there was no God, or if there were, he didn’t care about her. They continued to talk about God throughout the first week, and then during the second week they invited her to attend a home church meeting at their house. Joni came, and announced that she was not a believer. But later that night, she had a dream, in which she saw an open door with total whiteness beyond. She heard a voice saying, “Walk through the door.”

After only two weeks with the SIM couple, Joni was called back to care for a previous patient, but before she left their home, she said she wanted to pray with them and would “walk through the door.” Just imagine! God used that short time to bring Joni into eternal life. The following Sunday she sat with our friends in church. Ben writes, “A long time ago, Moses told God that he couldn´t speak, but God told Moses that He would use him anyway. My wife is not able to speak very well, yet God has used her anyway, and another fellow earthling has escaped the hurt of Satan into the healing of God. We may think that God is absent in our trials, but he certainly is not. We may not see him, but he is there.”

I may not be able to get online on Friday; we'll see.

Love,
Carol