Whiter Than Snow

Ted and I had been on the staff of a Covenant Church in Minneapolis, a Southern Baptist Church, a Church of Christ and Scofield Memorial Church in Dallas, Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, Fruitvale Community (now River Lakes Community) in Bakersfield, prior to going with Overseas Crusades, with Dr. Ed Murphy and his wife, Loretta to Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Viet Nam. (Just look at the hodgepodge of doctrinal preferences we were subjected to. But our Dallas Seminary anchor held our boat steady). Prior to this teaching trip to Southeast Asia we had relocated my aged parents from California to be with my brother in Kansas and had more or less settled 19-year-old Jeff and fourteen-year-old Dee for three weeks in a new home, church, culture, schools and strange, wet climate. With tears streaming, we flew to San Francisco to meet the Murphy’s, barely connecting with our flight to Japan. I sobbed all the way to Tokyo while Ted slept like men do, thus departing our plane refreshed and ready for our wild introduction to tough ministries in every country where we were welcomed as the “experts” who had been sent by God Himself to hammer out the inevitable disagreements that smolder under the surface of most church and mission teams. By the time we reached Viet Nam, near the end of the war, I was frazzled to the max and just wanted to go home……But where was “home”? Arriving back in Houston we walked into a house in which our family had no history.
…but there was no time for adjustment. Our new church had cut us grace to take this Southeast Asian trip and they were ready for this jet-setting couple to go to work. What no one but God could know was that neither Ted nor I would ever be able to scale down our passions to one church. Ever again. There’s an old World War I song my family used to sing around the piano: “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree (Paris)”? The next event in the Houston church was inevitable. A couple of members of the Board of Elders could not understand why we were always reaching out beyond the church territory or why we spent so much time with people. God graciously cut us loose and opened doors into multiple echelons of Houston society. We would be there today if I could have tolerated the tropical climate which finally put me to bed most days of the week.
God brought us to a little group in Bear Valley, and with reservation, we came to a flat piece of ground that was waiting for a building. My Ted worked himself nearly to death to give the people what they wanted: a beautiful building. Our home housed the church office and people came and went by the dozens..…but again we were “out of sync”. We were hurt and demeaned. We had given all we owned, but it was all interpreted as suspect. We were accused of everything from extortion to being alcoholics. Since then I can’t count the couples who have come here, broken in spirit from bashings by their elder Boards and congregations. Most never go back to the pastorate; many never return to ministry. Some turn away from God altogether. We went on the associate staff of Agape International, with Campus
Crusade, helping with our veteran experience to prepare the young candidates for the realities of the mission field. …for seven years.
Since then we and now “I” continue to work with the church without walls. Our best team and family years were after years of mixed joy and pain in the church with walls. Around this world there are millions of Christians in hidden groups worshipping Jesus and bearing fruit. One of my Board members, Nick, continues to warn me, “Josie, stay free. Stay free!”
This last smackeroo (Don’t ever laughingly tell somebody to “Break a leg”) has knocked me physically and emotionally winding but I will come out of it. I have to. I have grandchildren and others to teach.
Sunday Morning:
My son Jeff has just cleared off enough snow to make it out of our long driveway to the paved road. He came Friday night. Yesterday he followed the to do list his sister left for him to a “T”. Jeff was always my fix-it boy/man; yesterday our day was spent talking while he fixed. Then Dee, Brent and Lexi returned from Lexi’s medal-winning swim team meet, Jeff practically lifted me into our 4x4 Honda and we entered a piece of Heaven for me with Jeff, Dee, Brent, Lexi and me at Dee’s house with a roaring fire and the snow coming down outside. We were a family again. The men talked “man talk”. Oh, how I have missed that. Brent, in a new job of great challenge, and Jeff the same. Both men are leaders, hard workers but with godly motives: to glorify Christ.
I am energized by family again. I have learned more than I wanted to know about breaking a bone. The healing is slow and takes tremendous energy. I have had little to give anyone else and that has been disconcerting. Surely this B12 and B every other number will pull me up out of wherever I’ve been the past few weeks. The fatigue has been beyond any I have ever endured.
I am looking out my window, far below, at a herd of deer searching for grass below ten or so inches of snow. The trees are glistening with ice; therefore “Hymn for the Week”:
Lord Jesus I long to be perfectly whole; I want thee forever to live in my soul; Break down every idol, cast out every foe; Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Love, Jo