The Visitation Part 40

MARIAN AND I pastored in Antioch for fifteen years. We lived in five different houses, worked at ten different jobs. I didn't draw a full-time salary from Antioch Pentecostal Mission until we'd been there ten years.

Antioch Mission began with Avery and Pete Sisson and their families, and we met in Avery and Joan's living room. Within the year, we moved into the old church building we rented from Mr. Framer, and three years after that we finally got an indoor toilet. We bought that building from Mr. Framer in 1987, the same year Marian and I got burned out of our home. We started our new building in 1990, were approved for occupancy in 1995, and moved in Easter Sunday.

On my last Sunday in November of 1997, the church was well established in its new building on the west side of town, on a quaint knoll just above the highway. There were one hundred and fifty in the congregation, a bank account in the black, a big yellow bus that ran well, a good youth program, and the church's name on a fancy, sandblasted sign out front.

Fifteen years. A journey that felt so long and was over so soon, in a little town few people ever heard of. Fifteen years. Ninety-three souls saved. Twenty-three weddings. Fourteen funerals. A small retirement account, no real estate, a little savings.

When I left the ministry, I was alone, and wondering what in the world I thought I'd been doing all that time.

MORGAN AND I declined a dessert but asked for coffee.

And then she just looked at me, studying me. I regretted sounding so depressed at the end of my recap. My stories tended to end on a blue note these days.

"Give me some names," she said.

"Beg your pardon?"

She gave a half-shrug and picked up her coffee cup. "Just some names. People you remember from those fifteen years. Tell me some stories."

JOE KELMER. He was in his fifties, a rancher with five hundred acres south of town. I was working with Pete Sisson's crew, preparing to pour a slab for a new stable out on his place. Pete, Johnny Herreros, Tinker Moore, and I were knee-deep in a ditch, digging footings and hurling dirt like a chain gang when Joe came out to see how we were doing, his hands in his jeans pockets, his face a little glum. It wasn't like him. Usually he'd come over to check on our progress and talk so much he'd hinder it.

"How's it going?" We told him fine, and Pete said we were hoping to get the steel in and pour by the day after tomorrow.

"So how's Joe today?" Pete asked.

"Oh, not too good," he replied, sitting on an overturned five gallon bucket. "My bowels ain't worth the p.o.o.p that goes through 'em."

"What's the problem?" I expected one of Joe's typical complaints about the water, his wife's cooking, or his advancing age.

"Cancer," he said. "Just found out this morning." We stopped digging. "Doc says they'll probably have to take the whole thing out."

We all stood in the ditch, our shovels in our hands, trying to adjust to the news and wondering what we could say.

"We'll have to pray for you," said Pete. "Get old Travis here to lay hands on you and get the Lord to chase that cancer out of there!"

Oh, thanks a lot, Pete! Set me up, why don't you?

But Joe just got up like a tired old man and said, "You'd better keep working. I'd like to see this barn while I'm still around." Then he left.

I first met Joe and Emily Kelmer on another project the year before, and immediately returned, more appropriately dressed, for a pastoral call. It turned out they considered themselves Catholics, meaning that was their background, but they never attended ma.s.s and had never been inside Our Lady of the Fields. They didn't have much use for my ministerial side, but they did appreciate my skill with hammer and saw and shovel and said so.

After Joe gave us the news, I did pray for him. I led the guys in prayer right there in the ditch that day, and Marian and I remembered him in our prayers every evening. I trusted G.o.d. There was no way in the world I could predict what the Lord would do, but I trusted him.

Well, G.o.d is never short on surprises. Joe told me he hadn't been inside a church since the day he and Emily were married, but the very next Sunday, he and Emily came into our little church on Elm Street arm in arm. We'd been meeting in that building for close to three years. The lockers were finally gone. Avery and Pete had recently completed a labor of love: a pulpit, a communion table, and a matching cross for the back wall. For now, we were using any chairs folks could bring from home-folding chairs, lawn chairs, plastic chairs, and dining chairs. Joe and Emily went right to the front row and sat in two green, plastic patio chairs.

I was leading some opening wors.h.i.+p choruses, playing my guitar while Marian played the piano, but I let the others keep singing while I ducked aside and greeted Joe and Emily.

"Okay, Travis. I'm here," he said. "You can go ahead and pray for me."

I went back to leading the singing, my mind half on what I was doing and half on what I would have to do in a few minutes. It's easy to pray for colds and flu, final exams, and unsaved loved ones. Most of those things work themselves out in G.o.d's own good time. Colon cancer doesn't do that. The wors.h.i.+p was sweet. Mine was intense.

"Folks," I finally said, "a lot of you know Joe and Emily." Those who did said hi, and Joe and Emily said hi back. "Joe's here because he needs prayer."

Joe stood and faced the thirty or so people who had gathered. "I'm not a religious man. Haven't had much time for G.o.d most of my life. But that doesn't mean he isn't there and can't hear me if I want to talk to him, you know what I mean?"

"Amen," some said. "Praise G.o.d."

"And I'm hoping he won't mind if I decide to come to him now after waiting so long."

He paused, perhaps to gather his resolve, perhaps to corral his emotions. "I have colon cancer. You know how it is, you get sick and you think you'll get over it and before long you've waited too long. The doctor says-" He stopped. Crying was something Joe Kelmer didn't believe in. He took a breath. "He says they'll have to take the whole thing out, put me on chemotherapy, pump me full of drugs and whatever. Won't be able to take a c.r.a.p like most people-excuse me, I didn't mean to say it that way."

He turned and faced me. "Anyway, I made G.o.d a deal. If he takes this cancer from my body, then I'll give him my attention, first thing, above everything, the rest of my life. If he'll give me my life, I'll give it back to him. And that's about it."

I absolutely did not know how this was going to turn out. Joe was either going to have a great reason to serve G.o.d or a great reason not to, at least in his thinking, and it was hard to be comfortable about it.

And then, when he came forward and stood facing me, ready to be prayed for, I couldn't banish old memories from my mind. I could just see myself standing in front of Andy Smith and Karla d.i.c.kens back in the old KenyonaBannister days. I could remember the episode with Sharon Iverson, the girl with diabetes who almost died at Christian Chapel.

Well, Lord, I prayed, you know all about that. You know I don't want to get into any kind of pretensions or showiness. I didn't ask for this. You brought it about, and now, here we are, that's all I know. Here we are.

Joe was waiting.

I took my little vial of olive oil from the back of the pulpit and put a drop on Joe's forehead. "This oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit," I told him. "In the Book of James it tells us to anoint the sick with oil and pray, and the Lord will restore the sick. Do you believe that, Joe?"

He shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"Let's pray for Joe," I said, beckoning to the Sisson brothers and Bruce Hiddle, my elders, to join me. We laid hands on Joe, and then I prayed. I don't remember much of my prayer. I said something about Joe wanting a touch from G.o.d, and humbling himself in meek pet.i.tion, and I know I requested that G.o.d would just glorify himself in Joe's body, in the name of Jesus.

And just like that, it was over. "Thanks for coming, Joe."

"Thank you, Travis," was all he said as he sat down.

They stayed for the rest of the service, received love and greetings from all of us, and then left.

Monday morning we were framing up the walls of the new stable and wondering how Joe was doing. He never came out of the house and we didn't hear a thing from Emily or anyone else. We remembered him in prayer at lunch time.

Tuesday, it was the same thing. We watched the house to see if any cars were gone, and one was. Maybe Joe was in the hospital. Maybe he was in for tests, chemotherapy, or even surgery to have his colon removed. We couldn't find out.

Wednesday morning, after we'd put in about an hour, Joe came out to see us, his hands in his jeans pockets, his cowboy hat set firmly on his head.

"Hey Joe," I said, "how's it going?"

He looked straight at me, that old Joe Kelmer half-smile on his face, and said, "Guess who doesn't have cancer anymore?"

The silence that fell over us was just as long and awkward as when we first heard the bad news.

I was being cautious, I guess. I actually said, "Who?"

Joe gave his chest two little taps with his thumb.

We were amazed. That's all there was to it. "You're kidding!" "Praise G.o.d!" "Are you sure?" "What'd the doctor say?"

"Went in on Monday." He laughed. "I told the doc something was feeling different all of a sudden and he got me right in like it was an emergency. They about took me apart trying to find something wrong. They spent two days at it and-" He gave his hands a quick wave like an umpire signaling safe. "It's gone. I'm clean! They can't figure it out. But I know."

We couldn't believe it. We looked at each other.

He almost touched noses with me. "Jesus healed me. He answered your prayer, and he answered mine." He backed off and addressed all of us. "So you boys might want to knock off for a while. Emily's got some coffee on and we can microwave some cinnamon rolls. We're gonna give our lives to Jesus. You just tell us what to do."

When the apostle Paul told the Philippian jailer "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, you and your whole household," his words could have applied perfectly to Joe and his family. On Wednesday, Joe and Emily knelt in their living room with me, Pete, Johnny, and Tinker, and received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. On Friday, Joe and Emily's daughter, Claudia, and her husband, Nate, knelt in the same living room and turned their lives over to Jesus.

On Sunday, Joe and Emily sat in the same green, plastic chairs, and Claudia and Nate sat right next to them. Their son, Larry, and his wife, s.h.i.+rley, had come from Oregon to fill out the row, and they dedicated their lives to Christ that morning.

Joe was not a shy man, and if you bought a horse from him or sold him feed or asked him directions or called to sell him a magazine subscription or just pumped some gas for his truck, you heard about Jesus and what Jesus had done for him. He wasn't one to debate or hard sell, but it was hard to argue with his testimony. Norm Barrett, the diesel mechanic, along with his wife and three kids, came to the Lord because of Joe Kelmer. Bud Lundgren, our permanent guitar player, got saved while he and Joe were out ba.s.s fis.h.i.+ng, and Bud's wife, Julie, our permanent saxophone player, got saved while shopping with Emily. The Barretts and the Lundgrens shared Jesus with other friends, some of them got saved and shared with their friends, and for a while we had ourselves a nice little revival rippling through town.

And it all started with Joe Kelmer.

BRUCE HIDDLE. He was a good-looking guy in his thirties, an electrical engineer for Was.h.i.+ngton Water Power. He had a sweet wife named Annie and two cute kids, Jamie and Josh. In May of 1990 he displayed a quiet peace and faith in the Lord that became an example to the rest of us.

Bruce and his family were returning from a visit with Annie's folks in Electric City, driving a long, monotonous two-lane late at night. Bruce was at the wheel, Annie was on the pa.s.senger side, the kids were secured in child seats in the back.

The last thing Bruce remembers was the oncoming headlights of a large vehicle, most likely a truck. There was nothing amiss. The truck was in its own lane. They pa.s.sed each other, going opposite directions.

And then Bruce woke up in a daze, in the dark, his body numb, slumped against his shoulder restraint. The kids in the back seat were screaming. Blood was streaming from his forehead and dripping off his chin. Beads of shattered winds.h.i.+eld lay like gravel on the seats, in his lap, on top of the dashboard. The car was leaning precariously, apparently in a gully beside the highway. He reached for Annie, but felt rough wood. A twelve-inch log had come through the winds.h.i.+eld and now lay where Annie's head and shoulders should have been. He twisted around, trying to see the kids. They were spattered with blood, flesh, and Annie's blonde hair.

A logging truck had lost part of its load just as the two vehicles pa.s.sed. A log, perfectly timed and aimed, went through the winds.h.i.+eld of Bruce's car, missing Bruce and killing his wife. The truck driver pulled over and became incoherent when he saw what his lost load had done. Another motorist saw the wreck and went in search of a telephone.

I was working as dispatcher for the volunteer fire department that night and took the emergency call. I sent out the dispatch, telling the volunteers there'd been a fatality accident, but I had no idea the accident involved a family from my church. When the aid crew arrived and radioed back, I got the news. By that time, Bruce and the kids had been trapped in their car for over an hour. Numb with shock, I remained at my post, coordinating communications and crews until Pete Sisson burst into the station and b.u.mped me from my chair. "I'll handle it. Get going."

Bruce and the kids were airlifted to a hospital in Spokane, and that was where I found them. Bruce had broken ribs and facial lacerations. The kids had minor injuries from flying gla.s.s and seat restraints. He was coherent, but we didn't talk. There were no words, only shock and an insurmountable disbelief.

Annie was gone. Instantly. Before any of us could fathom that we had lost anything, she simply wasn't there. We could not believe it that night. We could scarcely believe it the next morning. Shock did not give way to grief until well into the next day.

And then the questions came: With miles and miles of open road, why that truck, that car, together at that time in that place? Why was the accident so ruthlessly, savagely perfect?

Like everyone else, I drew upon my faith for comfort and tried to share that comfort as best I could. But inside, I was asking the same questions as everyone else, knowing there would never be answers.

There was no funeral, only a memorial service once Bruce had healed enough to attend. All who knew and loved Annie were there, and took turns sharing their thoughts and remembrances. I spoke briefly about the need to trust G.o.d in all circ.u.mstances, for his ways are unsearchable. I reminded everyone that Annie, knowing Jesus, was in a better place and just fine, but I could feel my insides quaking and I teetered on the brink of tears with every sentence. After we sang our last song, I stole quietly into a back room, sat down with my face in my hands, and lost it completely. Oh dear Lord, why? Why Annie? What's Bruce going to do now? What about Josh and Jamie?

I didn't hear anyone come in. I just felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a quiet whisper, "It's okay . . . it's okay."

I reached up and touched the hand touching me, then looked into the scarred, black-and-blue face of Bruce Hiddle. He sat down, put his arm around my shoulders and let me cry, not saying another word. I was supposed to be the minister bringing comfort to the grieving, but I was drained of comfort. Bruce, a quiet serenity showing through his scars and his tears, was ready to share what he had.

In the months that followed, Bruce often got tearful, at any time, in any place, usually without warning, but he didn't seem self-conscious about it. "It's for Annie," he would tell people. "Don't worry, it's just something I have to do." The rest of the time, he was the friend, daddy, and brother we all cherished, with a glow about him that the scars and the st.i.tches could not extinguish. The scars eventually faded. The glow still remains.

"It's Jesus," he always explained. "He knows the answers. He'll work it out."

Two years later, the Lord brought Libby McLane into Bruce's life, and in the summer of 1992, they were wed in our little church on Elm Street. Josh and Jamie stood with their dad and their new mom as I performed the ceremony, and once again, I teetered on the brink of tears with every sentence.

"It's okay," Bruce whispered to me as he held his bride's hand. "It's okay."

MR. FRAMER. He said he'd been to church already and didn't need any more of it. Well, we saw no need to argue with that, but church wasn't the question, Jesus was.

But although Mr. Framer didn't need any more religion, he did need a haircut. Marian volunteered and gave him a trim every two weeks. Having accepted her help, he was ready to accept mine, and so I helped him put a new roof on his house over several weekends. The next thing we knew, he was mowing the church gra.s.s every week without anyone asking him. When we started running a bus ministry around town, he was the guy who provided the bus and kept it running.

Four years after we started renting the church building, he finally came to a Sunday morning service, slipping in behind a group of folks to escape notice. I saw him come in but didn't make a big deal out of it. I just winked at him. We played that little game for the next few months, long enough for him to discover he could talk to just about anyone in that church without something spooky or "religious" happening to him.

Only when I was sure it was safe did I ask him about Mrs. Framer, and why she was not attending church with him. He didn't give me a clear answer that Sunday, but the following Wednesday he gave me a strong enough hint.

He brought over a portable, battery-powered chemical toilet for us to install under the bas.e.m.e.nt stairway. That way, he said, the ladies wouldn't have to trek out to the outhouse during a service, but could fulfill their natural obligations with some comfort and delicacy. I could tell he thought very highly of his gesture, so I didn't refuse it. We put the toilet under the stairs and nailed up a plywood wall and a thin little door with a springed hinge.

A chemical toilet is a box-shaped contraption with a toilet seat on top that doesn't flush to an outside sewer or septic system. It has two tanks inside it, one for fresh water and chemicals, the other to hold all the flushed waste. When you're finished and you press a little b.u.t.ton, the electric pump kicks on, the blue water and chemical mix swirls around the bowl, and the toilet tucks away your contribution in its holding tank.

The toilet Mr. Framer gave us was comfortable. I know that from personal experience, and others would agree. As for delicate, well, that toilet just couldn't keep a secret. The electric pump was loud, and it would grind on forever, announcing to the entire congregation seated upstairs that a modest user had just finished and would be rejoining the service directly. If that wasn't announcement enough, the slam of that plywood door was.

And then there was the smell. Though intended for the ladies and their need for comfort and privacy, it's just a fact of life that one good toilet among forty churchgoers is going to get used by everyone. Our little camping toilet wasn't meant to handle a load that size, and it didn't.

No matter. As soon as that toilet was in, Mrs. Framer came to church. The Framers heard the gospel every Sunday for two more years, and finally came forward to receive Christ one Sunday night. Nothing tragic had occurred in their lives. There was no crisis or desperate material need to make them turn to G.o.d. They were just ready, that was all. It was time.

But I do credit the Framers with our board's unanimous decision to do "whatever was necessary" to get a septic system approved and a real flus.h.i.+ng toilet installed. That motion was seconded and carried within a month of the chemical toilet's arrival, and when we installed men's and women's flush toilet restrooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the Framers were there to cut the ribbon.

RICH WATKINS. A former biker, now a trucker, with long, black hair in a ponytail and eagles, skulls, snakes, and naked women tattooed all over his huge arms. When we marched for Jesus down the main highway through town with signs and placards proclaiming his name, Rich happened to be in the tavern and stepped outside to watch us go by. Some of his drinking buddies laughed at us, but Rich just read our signs and listened to us sing. I saw the look on his face and thought, Dear Lord, protect us. That guy looks like trouble.

He pulled up in front of our church on his Harley Sunday morning, sat quietly through the whole service, and then said to me afterward, "So this where you find Jesus?"

"It sure is," I said.

"Well, I've decided I gotta square up with my old lady, but I'd better get right with G.o.d first, know what I mean?"

I prayed with him, led him to Christ, and eventually met his wife, Clarice, and their four children. Now this guy was one monumental discipling job. He'd never been to Sunday school or had any kind of Christian upbringing, so Marian and I and our church family had to do it all. We had to teach him the subtleties of doctrine, concepts such as, You don't usually lead a person to repentance by breaking a beer bottle over his head, and such fine points as, Turning the other cheek doesn't mean you walk up and moon somebody you don't like.

He's still growing in the Lord, and recently took a big step we were all proud of: He volunteered to go into the public schools and give the kids a no-holds-barred lecture about staying off drugs. The kids love his presentations. The parents and teachers do too, especially since we finally broke him of the habit of referring to Satan as "that dirty SOB the devil."

If I ever needed a mental image of the early Simon Peter, I just imagined Rich Watkins and I had it.

GUY FORBES. He ran the local movie theater. When he showed an X-rated movie, I got some of the other pastors and their churches to join us in picketing the theater both nights. I thought he'd be mad at us-many of the folks going into the theater were-but he called me that week and apologized for showing the movie. We got together for lunch after that, got to know and trust each other, and later started up our own, impromptu movie rating committee between the two of us. He didn't always go along with the other half of the committee, but we reached more agreements than disagreements, and our town enjoyed a little more peace because of it. He has yet to get saved, but we have a strong, mutual respect.

BOB FISHER, Paul Daley, the Sisson brothers, Jake Helgeson, Rudie Whaler, Tinker Moore, and twenty other guys and gals who showed up the night our house caught fire. You never appreciate your neighbors quite so much as when you're in trouble, and that night, when Marian turned away from some French fries to answer the phone and a grease fire broke out, we owed those folks everything. The fire took out most of the kitchen and blackened the rest of the house, but thanks to the faithful folks of the volunteer fire department, most of our belongings made it through. After the fire, the town almost buried us in clothing, food, dishes, and utensils to replace what we had lost. I'd done a lot of visitation around town, knocking on doors to get acquainted with people, but I don't know that I ever met as many folks as when we were in need and they came by to help out.

Antioch's a great town, it really is.

THAT FARMHAND-I never learned his name. Tom something. He was working for George Harding during harvest and got his foot caught in a combine auger. I was driving the truck and heard him screaming. By the time we shut the machine down and got him out, his ankle had made at least two full rotations.

"Pray for me, preacher!" he kept screaming.

I touched his ankle-very gently-and prayed, "Lord, please heal this leg, please restore it in Jesus' name."

He was back at work the next day, climbing all over that machine as if nothing had happened.

He moved on after harvest. I don't know if he ever got saved.