Everything is New

 

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2 Corinthians 5:17 Contemporary English Version

¹⁷ Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.

 

This is a new year. I have had serious reservations about what this year 2025 would bring. Our country has been divided worse than anytime since the Civil War. Only time will tell whether we can ride the crest of this wave or be drowned by it. The past is indeed being swept aside.

On the other hand, life rolls on. We have a water leak in our front yard that threatens to drain the Colorado River dry. But we will take care of that. We have a Better Than 50 Club meeting in a mere fortnight. But members will rise to the occasion. My computer, on which I am typing this, is showing more and more serious signs of rolling over and playing dead. But my brother gave me a little computer for Christmas.

When I say little, I mean tiny: it is less than 3½ inches square and 1½ inches high (less than 9 x 9 x 4 cm) Yet it is 500,000 times more powerful than the computer I used during my doctoral research at the University of Iowa that occupied a whole floor of one of the large buildings on campus, and had dozens of people running it. In less than an hour I transferred onto it more than 100,000 times the total capacity of data that IBM 360 could hold.

I am already polishing off the final chapter of my Ikizu Memoirs book on this Ace Magician. And, yes, with Sylvia’s help we have all but completed the equatorial African experience of our lives, so that part of our past is history and forgotten only in the sense that we no longer are living it.

God has had His hand in our lives through out our whole existence. We are definitely new persons, but in this case “new” includes “old” in it! Yesterday my Standard 1 grade school teacher Ruth (Miss Hurlow) Webster and her husband Eric came by our home. She will be 100 years old this year. I had found some pictures of their wedding (in 1950) that my dad had in his collection and gave them to her. I was in Standard 1 (= Grade 3) that year!

Thank You, Lord, for making us new persons—we look forward to the finished product when You come again.

Here is a wedding picture of Eric and Ruth Webster in 1950

 

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[1] https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51pmHZlGyaL._AC_SX679_.jpg

Christian Love for Fellows

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2 Thessalonians 1:3 Good News Translation

³ Our friends, we must thank God at all times for you. It is right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love each of you has for the others is becoming greater.

 

When I graduated from Andrews University, I married Sylvia, and we moved to the University of Iowa so I could get a master’s degree. Then we were already committed to go as missionaries to Africa. [Later we returned to Iowa City after a 5-year stint in Tanzania.] One of the first things we did in Iowa City was to find the Adventist Church. They had no building of their own but rented space to meet on Sabbath from the St. Mark’s United Methodist Church there.

The Adventist church had about 20 members. There were two families from the faculty of the University, both in the School of Dentistry. Some students attended who came and went as their education directed them, and there were several families who lived in the area and were not connected to the university.

Our pastor was also the pastor of a much bigger church in Cedar Rapids, about 25 miles north. He divided his time between the two churches, roughly by the different memberships. The most we saw of him was every second Sabbath. Usually, a church elder preached on the Sabbaths that the Pastor was not with us. I learned to give a sermon there quite frequently, and it was graciously received.

The church members organized a potluck every Sabbath. The food was always good. On one occasion, luck would have it that everyone brought desserts. I confess that it was a special meal for me. We learned to know each other and tried to help each other’s needs.

An older couple, Oliver and Geraldine Lien took us under their special mentorship. For most of the time we were there, he was the head elder and she the treasurer of the church.  I could expect a call every Sunday morning from Geraldine: “The amount you have written on tithe envelope differs from the amount on your check. What do you want me to do with the extra money?”

I would apologize. At the time I had no calculator and only bought one for myself as a graduation present when I graduated with a PhD in Mathematics, ten years later.

She would respond, “You would think a graduate math student would be able to add a few figures correctly!” We both laughed heartily.

We held a prayer meeting regularly every Wednesday evening. Some of the time it was at the Liens or one of the other member’s homes, and sometimes it was at our apartment. During Sabbath Schools, and at the prayer meetings and potlucks, we would have excellent discussions about spiritual interests. We often came with different opinions, and this led to interesting thoughts. Yet we never got so defensive of our own opinions that it divided the church.

Thank You, Lord, for providing us with a loving and caring church home while I was in grad school. I’m sure it fostered a loving home in our family.

 

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[1] https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x87e46a3b6ae0e99b%3A0xf921fb38b0cdee75!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNMNRf8AMHQSZ7c3EpXgvK0ck43Xh1PzSxcdBfQ%3Dw406-h273-n-k-no!5sst%20marks%20united%20methodist%20church%20in%20Iowa%20City%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipOjcHyksZIsD4SpOl76WcHGB6hFRDC9qoKEcyhV&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlnbiR84j9AhXaD0QIHXdzCnAQ7ZgBKAB6BAgOEAI

God Will Provide

[i]

Genesis 22:8 

American Standard Version (ASV)

⁸ And Abraham said, God will ^[a]provide himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son: so they went both of them together.

After I taught in Tanzania for five years, the mission offered to send me back to graduate school to earn my doctorate. Actually they sponsored me for the standard nine months, and then I was on my own to finance the rest of the degree. I spent those nine months back at the University of Iowa passing my PhD comprehensive examinations and reacquainting myself with people in the department.

One of my fellow graduate students had just finished his dissertation and was looking for a teaching position. He sent out applications to over 1,000 colleges and universities. Eventually he heard back from two of these institutions and was finally accepted at an obscure women’s college. His experience alerted me to the new reality. When I did my Masters degree six years earlier, there were job openings for mathematicians all across the country. But by this time there were more new mathematicians than there were jobs available.

When I approached my math department and asked whether I could obtain a teaching assistantship, they were very hesitant about even considering my application. As I chatted with them, they helped me understand that the university felt some responsibility for actually placing their graduates. They could see that in the present job climate that could be very difficult.

Sending up a quiet prayer, I explained that I was at the university on a leave of absence and that there was a position available for me when I completed my studies. That was what the committee needed to hear. They enthusiastically agreed to support me for the next three years with a teaching assistantship that was sufficient to cover our family expenses and my tuition.

Thank you, Lord, for providing sufficient for our needs throughout our life.

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[i] http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/higher-education/university-of-iowa-changes-leadership-strategy-20171112