AUGUST 1975
I went into the Coast Guard addicted to drugs and a destructive way of life. I left the Coast Guard a new person ready to go into full time ministry.
After College (4 years, 3 different schools), and 2 Masters (M.Div.) and M.A. in Cross Cultural Studies, I became a missionary teacher in Africa for 5 years and then a pastor for 10 years. After being a pastor I have been an adjunct professor for three local Christian universities.
Counting the cities in which I have established residency, I've lived in 23 cities, 4 countries and have attended dozens of churches through my journey. I've met the most amazing and gifted Christians and I have met the wierdest. But all in all, my Christian faith was formed in the Coast Guard with the help of friends and enemies. Those years and the lessons I learned were rarely easy and often came came with struggle and pain, but grateful for the people I met during the four years I spent in the Coast Guard for they were the ones who helped form my faith.
Ray - who taught me how to witness and through his honesty helped me grow even when I didn't want to.
Brian - who led me to the Lord and showed me how God can use someone.
The churches I visited - where Christ was made real through so many different kinds of ministries and personalities.
My brothers and sisters - who becoming Christian in very possitive ways went against Christian peer pressure to conform to the group.
Pastor Rentz and his wife - who invited me into their house so many times.
Manny and Danny - who loved to have fun (something I did so little back then and I needed so much during the last year and a half in the Coast Guard).
The people who prayed for me.
And so many more.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Healed Again
EPILOGUE #1 - HEALING
During my 3rd year in College, Dr. Yanghi Cho spoke at two of our chapels. Dr. Cho was the pastor of the largest church in the world at the time with over 750,000 members in his church in Seoul, Korea. He had a healing service on the first day and some interesting things happened...
1- He didn't like the fact that in the U.S. people would always fall down (slain in the spirit). He didn't know why people did here.
2- He had a healing service after the sermon where he gave word of knowledge about people being healed. Let me put it briefly, my sinuses were healed - totally - for one hour. Then they got unhealed. I heard other people have gone through the same experience of being healed and the next day things are right back to normal. Don't know what to make of this. I started putting these things in a place in my brain called the "I don't know what to make of it" box.
2018 FOLLOW UP
Although I didn't know what to make of this at the time, I have since learned that temporary healing like this are common. In an interview with BBC, the interviewer suggested to Benny Hinn that the the placebo effect might be the reason so many people seem to be healed. In his normal dazed look, Benny admitted that in some cases it might be so. He also admitted the placebo would explain why people get up out of their wheelchairs on stage only to return to them later.
Temporary healing is a result - not of God's trickery and not the result of losing faith - but rather, it is that fact that so much so called healing is from the body's own reactions to expectation and the trust in some authority - or in other words, "the placebo effect."
During my 3rd year in College, Dr. Yanghi Cho spoke at two of our chapels. Dr. Cho was the pastor of the largest church in the world at the time with over 750,000 members in his church in Seoul, Korea. He had a healing service on the first day and some interesting things happened...
1- He didn't like the fact that in the U.S. people would always fall down (slain in the spirit). He didn't know why people did here.
2- He had a healing service after the sermon where he gave word of knowledge about people being healed. Let me put it briefly, my sinuses were healed - totally - for one hour. Then they got unhealed. I heard other people have gone through the same experience of being healed and the next day things are right back to normal. Don't know what to make of this. I started putting these things in a place in my brain called the "I don't know what to make of it" box.
2018 FOLLOW UP
Although I didn't know what to make of this at the time, I have since learned that temporary healing like this are common. In an interview with BBC, the interviewer suggested to Benny Hinn that the the placebo effect might be the reason so many people seem to be healed. In his normal dazed look, Benny admitted that in some cases it might be so. He also admitted the placebo would explain why people get up out of their wheelchairs on stage only to return to them later.
Temporary healing is a result - not of God's trickery and not the result of losing faith - but rather, it is that fact that so much so called healing is from the body's own reactions to expectation and the trust in some authority - or in other words, "the placebo effect."
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The Problems Healing Brings
In 1981 my new wife (Kim) and I worked 3 months in an orphanage in Haiti. I had read an article about a runt of the litter kitten that got special attention and grew to be the best cat of the group, so in Haiti I chose the 1 year old kid who had the least amount of attention - I chose him to bask with attention and prayer. He had an extreme mental disability. He rocked his head back and forth all day, never cried, never laughed and never moved away from his mat rocking his head.
I hugged him, played with him and loved him for 3 months. Once when all the kids were sick at both ends and Noah (the kid I took care of) was dying, we prayed and left him alone in the back so villagers wouldn't know he was dying. All the kids who were sick got medicine, Noah didn't.
The next day Noah was completely healed while the rest of the kids began a slow recovery. From that point on Noah grew a personality. By the end of 3 months there, Noah was laughing, crying and acting like a normal healthy kid, which actually made the man who ran the orphanage angry on one occasion when Noah cried because he needed a bottle. He said in his stress, "I liked you better before."
There were some strange people who ran the orphanage... what can I say?
Years later I saw the same thing happen to a lady who had a year old girl in the hospital for ear infection. The doctors had found the infection and were on the way to do some more tests when I and some friends prayed for the girl and then talked about whatever. During our conversations, the mother was completely distracted by her girl's behavior (the girl was in bed next to us and was more active than she had ever been in her life). We left after about an hour.
In a few days the mother told me that the hospital tests showed that there was nothing wrong with the girl, furthermore the mother said, "I have never seen my girl like this, she was so quiet all her life, but in these last few days she has been all over the place...she is keeping me on my toes constantly." Unlike the guy in Haiti, this mother was happy for her girl, albeit busier and more stressed.
These two healings gave me a good lesson about spiritual health in churches: Although spiritual and mental health can bring great change but also more stress. Some churches just don't like that.
I hugged him, played with him and loved him for 3 months. Once when all the kids were sick at both ends and Noah (the kid I took care of) was dying, we prayed and left him alone in the back so villagers wouldn't know he was dying. All the kids who were sick got medicine, Noah didn't.
The next day Noah was completely healed while the rest of the kids began a slow recovery. From that point on Noah grew a personality. By the end of 3 months there, Noah was laughing, crying and acting like a normal healthy kid, which actually made the man who ran the orphanage angry on one occasion when Noah cried because he needed a bottle. He said in his stress, "I liked you better before."
There were some strange people who ran the orphanage... what can I say?
Years later I saw the same thing happen to a lady who had a year old girl in the hospital for ear infection. The doctors had found the infection and were on the way to do some more tests when I and some friends prayed for the girl and then talked about whatever. During our conversations, the mother was completely distracted by her girl's behavior (the girl was in bed next to us and was more active than she had ever been in her life). We left after about an hour.
In a few days the mother told me that the hospital tests showed that there was nothing wrong with the girl, furthermore the mother said, "I have never seen my girl like this, she was so quiet all her life, but in these last few days she has been all over the place...she is keeping me on my toes constantly." Unlike the guy in Haiti, this mother was happy for her girl, albeit busier and more stressed.
These two healings gave me a good lesson about spiritual health in churches: Although spiritual and mental health can bring great change but also more stress. Some churches just don't like that.
Friday, January 2, 2009
1:00 a.m. in the Morning
SUMMER 1976
So I was dating this girl in Milwaukee during Summer Vacation and we talked until very late in my car in front of her house. Yes we were just talking... and on the way home I went through some rough neighborhoods.
I stopped at a stop light and this guy came right up to my driver's side, opened the door and asked me for a ride to another bad section in town. I let him get in and decided that if he had the gall to hop in my car uninvited, I was going to be every bit as bold in telling him about Jesus, so I did.
To make a long story short, I took him to the place he needed to go and after he picked up some stuff he needed, I offered to drive him back to his house to the address where he hopped into my car. He gave his life to Christ and invited me up into his apartment where I met his wife and sleeping kid.
I drove home and got about 3 hours of sleep that night.
So I was dating this girl in Milwaukee during Summer Vacation and we talked until very late in my car in front of her house. Yes we were just talking... and on the way home I went through some rough neighborhoods.
I stopped at a stop light and this guy came right up to my driver's side, opened the door and asked me for a ride to another bad section in town. I let him get in and decided that if he had the gall to hop in my car uninvited, I was going to be every bit as bold in telling him about Jesus, so I did.
To make a long story short, I took him to the place he needed to go and after he picked up some stuff he needed, I offered to drive him back to his house to the address where he hopped into my car. He gave his life to Christ and invited me up into his apartment where I met his wife and sleeping kid.
I drove home and got about 3 hours of sleep that night.
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