Thanksgiving for a Beautiful Creation

Genesis 1:31

Good News Translation (GNT)

³¹ God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. 

Where I grew up the south-east trade winds blew continuously for nine months of the year. They came in off the southern oceans and had a constant chill in them. Often they howled through at gale force sweeping everything clean and laying a magnificent white cloud covering over the rugged mountains isolating us from the great desert stretching away to the north. Epidemics that swept the continent were blown out to sea by this Cape Doctor, protecting the fortunate Cape dwellers.

Magnificent sunsets over Table Mountain and Lion’s Head were so common that most people never bothered to marvel at them. The mountains anchor what the global explorer Sir Frances Drake called “The fairest cape in all the world.” The wind carried the fading daylight far out into the Atlantic and left a clear black sky. The brightest stars in the heavens bejeweled the sky and became my constant friends.

In late winter and spring the foothills of these mountains are festooned with an array of wildflowers that is unequalled anywhere else. Some have claimed that there are more species of flowering plants within 50 miles of where I grew up than in the rest of Africa combined. I wandered the hills and mountain slopes and made an unending collection of these flowers that I pressed in a contraption made of two boards and lots of newspaper stuck under the leg of my bed. Finally I mounted them in scrapbooks that I pored over on days when I couldn’t go out.  

Brightly colored sun birds seemed to steal their radiance from the flowers they lived on. My brother, friends and I often scared up a family of guinea fowl under the bushes and trees and chased the scattering babies. We never caught any. Other birds and small animals—pigeons, squirrels, mice, lizards, snakes—were common sights in the hills. I kept a small zoo of these animals Gerald Durrell style—a childhood close to nature

Thank You, Lord, for sharing with us a tiny remnant of that great perfection You created the whole world to be.  

Gossip by Superiors

Psalm 69:12

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

¹² Rulers and judges gossip about me.

When I finished graduate school and earned a doctorate in mathematics, I had several openings where I could teach. We prayed earnestly over the choices and asked the Lord to indicate His will in our lives. He directed us to South Africa. The choice was appealing since I had grown up there and could speak both official languages; the choice also seemed the most rational to make. We spent four good years there. It seemed like we were helping students not only do mathematics but also establish a foundation for solid Christian living.

Eventually the time for a furlough arrived. Questions arose in our minds about what would be best for God’s work and for our family. Our children were of school age now. Sylvia felt that our simple country living in Africa without TV and other modern distractions would be a better place to rear the children. Besides that, we enjoyed our work in Africa, had excellent friends that we would hate to leave, and had no desire to radically change anything. We had committed our lives to work in Africa.

On the other hand, changes were coming to the college: science and math were being phased out because those students could take the science classes at a nearby school with well equipped labs and other facilities. Furthermore, there were elements in the board of the college that saw no use for science. The country was in the midst of double digit inflation, and everyday expenses had approximately doubled in four years. Faculty, however, had received no cost of living adjustments to their salaries. We were per force a one income family, and we were barely making ends meet.

Again we took these issues to the Lord and asked Him to direct us as to what our next employment should be. His direction was contrary to our chosen mission. He directed us to return to the United States, at least for the foreseeable future. When I communicated with the college president, he agreed with my explanations and encouraged me to pursue them.

The next day I got word from several of my friends that the president was circulating the report that we were money grubbers and were going elsewhere to get better wages. I was saddened by the misrepresentation, and I guess I wouldn’t remember it now if it didn’t really hurt at the time. I said nothing about how I had originally chosen to come there knowing I would be getting significantly less than my other job choices offered. If I were really money-grubbing, I would never have gone there in the first place.

Looking back, I can see God has abundantly blessed us over the last 35 years. I am still not rich as far as wealth goes, but I count myself rich in life experiences, in friends, the students we have influenced, and above all, in the marvelous grace of our loving Redeemer.

Thank You, Lord, for bringing to naught the gossip of those who speak out of ignorance or misconception.

When Everything Goes Wrong

John 16:33

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

³³ I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

It seemed that things were going from bad to worse. It was winter in South Africa. The nights were frosty and the days grey, drizzly, and cold. Our home had brick walls with vent holes in every room and every external wall. There was no heat, and the damp cold air seeped into our every fiber. The children, one still in diapers, had colds that added to the suffering. Inflation had eaten up our meager savings, and our wages just couldn’t be stretched thin enough.

My wife was depressed. It was a spiraling, deepening depression that left her weepy and irresolute. Just getting up every day and fixing meals for our three kids had become an impossible chore. I took her to the family doctor. He diagnosed this as a nervous breakdown and prescribed total rest away from family responsibilities.

Of course, time away in a resort was totally out of the question. The Coetzee’s, long time acquaintances but not close friends, offered to let her live in their sunny cottage with them. I had no idea how long this isolation would be. We bundled everyone into our little old Peugeot and headed for Coetzee’s. I was almost a basket case myself. The future looked bleak as I drove over to their cottage. On the way there, a man in a pickup suddenly hit the brakes ahead of me, and I slammed into the rear of him. We dropped my wife off, and the four of us drove home in a blackening depression. Life was bleak, cold, and unfriendly.

But things did turn around. The sun eventually came out. After a week or so Sylvia returned home rested and refreshed. The accident was sufficiently minor that I chose to pay for repairs to both vehicles rather than collect on insurance. We were very tightly stretched financially for the next two years until we returned to the U.S. It took well over ten years before we found a doctor who was able to provide effective and lasting relief for the depression. But through it all we were given the courage and the peace to face what life had given us.

Thank You, Lord, that You do give us the support and comfort we need for the suffering that indeed comes our way.

When God Delays Answering

Jonah 2:7

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

⁷ As my life was fading away,
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You,
to Your holy temple.

Esther, our eldest child, was born in Kendu Bay, Kenya—the home town of President Barak Obama’s father. We were missionaries at Ikizu in Tanzania, and she spent the first two and a half years of her life there. Ikizu experiences two separate rainy seasons in the year. During each rainy season mosquitoes abound, and malaria becomes a major problem.

We had no malaria prophylactic for such a young child. Even though we took precautions like having her sleep under a mosquito net, she came down with malaria. There were two standard treatments for malaria available to us, Chloroquine and Camoquin. Chloroquine was much easier on the patient, but much of the malaria in our area was resistant to it. Camoquin, on the other hand, was still effective in most cases but was sufficiently poisonous so that the patient would nearly die of the cure.

Esther invariably contracted the Chloroquine resistant strain of malaria. Each time her temperature shot up to 105° or 106°F (above 40.5°C), naturally, under medical recommendations, we tried Chloroquine first, and it would have no effect. Then, in desperation we switched to Camoquin. Blood tests showed that we had eliminated disease, but she would be absolutely prostate in bed for upwards of a week after being “cured.” Each bout seemed to hit her harder than the previous one, and as the December 1971 rainy season approached, Sylvia and I became concerned that we would lose Esther to malaria this time.

We had a furlough back to the U.S. scheduled for late in January. I requested permission to send Sylvia and Esther away in December, early enough, we hoped, to miss the rains and mosquitoes. The response was, of course, that this was against policy and couldn’t be done. We felt desperate and prayed earnestly for the Lord’s intervention. Eventually He not only intervened to let them leave early but also allow me to go with them. We took several doses of Camoquin with us just in case Esther had a relapse in America where many doctors have no experience treating this tropical disease. By God’s grace we never had to use them.

Thank You, Lord, that indeed You hear us even when we seem to be near death’s door.

Mt St Helens Geology

Hebrews 11:3

King James Version (KJV)

³ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The Davy sisters sent me two DVDs a couple months ago. I was going to watch them earlier but then decided that Sylvia’s Mom would probably enjoy watching them with us. She was here with us for a week recently, and I invited her to watch one entitled Mt St Helens: A Big Bang for Creation. It has several parts, and we chose to watch a one hour lecture.

The St Helens eruption in 1980 was undoubtedly the most carefully observed and documented by scientists of any major eruption to date. The massive eruption saw the top and whole north side of the mountain blown away in a very few minutes. The glaciers on the mountain were melted causing a great river of water, volcanic ash, and mud to rush down the side of the mountain, carving in 20 minutes a canyon as deep as 400 feet in places. This whole new river system, dubbed Hoffstadt Creek, would have been considered to have taken many centuries to form by old style geologists. Hundreds of layers of strata were laid down by the explosion and then carved by the creek to leave cross sections of these layers exposed, much like those in the Grand Canyon and other great canyons in the American west today.

Where the old Spirit Lake had been, the volcano created a new lake−also called Spirit Lake. The bottom of the new lake is roughly at the altitude of the surface of the old lake. Hundreds of square miles of forest were denuded in the first blast from the mountain. This area after the blast was covered by thousands of logs, many of them lying in such a fashion that it looked like the area had been combed. Thousands of these logs covered the surface of the new lake. Over the last thirty years most of these logs have sunk to the bottom of the lake. In the process of sinking the heavy end of the log went down first leaving the trees suspended in the lake in vertical position. They then come to rest in this vertical position on the bottom of the lake.

There is a petrified forest like this preserved in Yellowstone that was regarded as proof positive of a long geological history of that area. A plaque had been erected in the area by the National Park Service stating this. Now, at the suggestion of Dr Coffin from the Geoscience Research Institute, this plaque has been removed since scientists have witnessed another petrified forest like that in Yellowstone form in less than a quarter of a century.

Although the Mt St Helens eruption was extremely powerful, it is regarded by volcanologists as being puny when compared to many volcanic eruptions within the past few centuries. Results from the observations of this mountain are causing geologists to reassess their whole dating systems and to reexamine old estimates of long geological time.

Thank You, Lord, for tipping Your hand just a little in order to give us an inkling of how mighty Your works are.

Love And Marriage

Proverbs 5:18-19 

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁸ Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹ Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

Sylvia had a birthday recently. The universe celebrated it in big style including an eclipse of the sun. I’m afraid I can take no credit for that one. We met in a Christian college back in the early 1960s. Courtship was very limited at the college in those days. A date consisted iof meeting a girl in the lobby of the women’s dormitory before a Saturday evening entertainment in the gym. Otherwise we could see each other in the classroom or library.

Two and a half years after our first date we were married in the college church. About ninety guests showed up to help us celebrate. They looked lost in a church that must have seated 2,000 people. Our guests assured us that the rain we had during the wedding was a token of a fruitful union. We took a tent and summer clothes on a camping trip into the woods of northern Wisconsin. Of course the weather turned cold, and we spent a week shivering in a tent on the shores of a muddy little lake.

Over the next quarter century we became the proud parents of three lovely children. We each went back to school. I earned two graduate degrees and Sylvia her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. We spent two terms as missionaries in Africa. These taught us to that we could survive in each other’s love on a lot of faith and very little money.

The second quarter century is nearing its close. We still rejoice in each other’s love. When I recently reread Solomon’s advice to married couples, I was impressed again by the beauty and wisdom in his words. I looked up this advice in several different versions of scripture.

The CEV misses the thrust of  Solomon’s well earned advice by yielding to the accentuated hypocrisy of a pretended Victorian Christian 21^st century facade. “Be happy with the wife you married when you were young. She is beautiful and graceful, just like a deer; you should be attracted to her and stay deeply in love.” This rendering is truly insipid and offers only generic advice, watered down purely for pecuniary reasons and groveling political correctness.

The Voice translation on the other hand shoots straight from the hip with post-Christian candor. “May your fountain, your sex life, be blessed by God; may you know true joy with the wife of your youth. She who is lovely as a deer and graceful as a doe—as you drink in her love, may her breasts satisfy you at all times.”

Thank You, Lord, for your special, abundant blessing on a faithful union that You have used to symbolize the ideal relationship between You and us.