School Amongst the Hillbillies of Oklahoma

[1]

Psalm 48:14 Good News Translation

¹⁴     “This God is our God forever and ever;
    he will lead us for all time to come.”

 

Grampa lived with us during his last six years. For much of his life he successfully ran his own feather-duster factory in Buchanan, Michigan. Around the year 1900 he became a Seventh-day Adventist. Always insistent on doing everything with his might, he sat his son and daughter down and read E.G. White books to them by the hour.

Margaret, his wife, was blest with good practical wisdom. She took him to task: “Now Papa, you’re going to drive them away from Christ if you keep this up!” He heeded her warning, and the two kids grew up to be his strong supporters.

My mother came as a surprise to the family in 1907. The whole family doted over her and spoiled her. “I never received a spanking,” she would tell me while she wielded the wooden spoon on my backside. I needed it.

When Grampa turned 55, he decided that he had had enough of the entrepreneurial world. He sold his factory and packed the whole family out to the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Oklahoma. Here, about ten miles outside of the tiny hamlet of Hulbert, the hillbilly children were growing up without any education. When he and Gramma started Ozark Mountain School, they had first graders as old as 21. He raised all of the funds necessary to operate this school from donations, mainly from businessmen in Chicago. Gramma ran the school, functioning as principal, teacher, disciplinarian, dean, and matron.

The sign on the gate read as follows:

Children who Can’t pay
      are welcome Here
Children who Can pay
      are welcome Elsewhere

When my mother, Esther, turned fourteen, they roped her into teaching in the school. In the mid-1920s she went off to college and earned a bachelor’s degree. In 1932 she married Fred Clarke, and in 1936 they arrived in Africa as Seventh-day Adventist missionaries. I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1942.

Gramma passed away in early 1946, and Grampa joined us in South Africa in 1948. He was fiercely independent, and even at 78, he started selling Christian books door to door to support himself. At 85 years of age, he suffered a stroke that caused a steady decline in his health. He passed into a coma that lasted several days. Finally on May 7, 1954, he awoke from his coma. He was very lucid and chatted with a number of people in the house. When he specifically asked to see me, aged 12, they ushered me into his room and left me alone with him. He told me that he was dying and urged me to promise that I would see him in Heaven when all the righteous dead are raised to eternal life. Although I was not as yet a baptized Christian, I made a solemn promise that I would be there. Not many minutes later he passed to his rest.

“Grampa and Gramma” JW and Margaret Barnhurst

 

I have never forgotten that promise, and by the grace of Jesus Christ, I will indeed keep that promise. I trust that God, our God, will lead me for all time to come to that reunion.

 

Thank You, Lord, that I can trust You to lead me until the end.

 

---

[1] https://documents.adventistarchives.org/ScholarlyJournals/AH/AH19911001-V14-02.pdf

God's Promise to Our Descendants

 

[1]

 

1 Samuel 20:14-15 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

¹⁴But as long as I live, promise me that you will show me kindness because of the Lord. And even when I die, ¹⁵never stop being kind to my family.

 

Jonathan was speaking to David. With prophetic vision, Jonathan looked into the future. He realized that David was in the ascendancy and he was on the decline. At the time he was speaking he was crown prince. His father ruled the country as a tyrant, like the kings of the other nations around him. Through prophets, including Samuel, God had spoken to Saul. The only effect this had was to harden his heart and to further alienate himself from God.

At 70 I, too, feel the weight of time on my shoulders. Who knows when my call will come? My mother died at 66, and her mother at roughly the same age. On the other hand, my dad died at close to 101, and his dad at 69.

My concern is that Sylvia be well looked after when I’m gone. She has only been a wage earner for a few years of her life. So she and I will be living on what social security I have earned and what denominational sustentation the church will decide to grant me after working for them for 45 years.

Am I worried? No, not really. The Lord had seen to it that we have always been fed and clothed and housed. And I know my Lord. He often does things in very strange ways. But he does not forget his own.

---*&*---

I first wrote this in March of 2012, before I had any definite plans for retirement. A little over a year later I did retire. Over the last decade God has richly blessed us in both finances and health. As time has gone by, my faith has only grown stronger in God’s promise to look after us.

 

Thank you, heavenly Father. You have more children than anyone can count, yet you love us each one individually and do look after us!

 

 

---

[1] https://www.learnreligions.com/jonathan-in-the-bible-701186

Praying For You Every Day

[1]

Colossians 1:9 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

⁹ For this reason we have not stopped praying for you since the day we heard about you. We ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through every kind of spiritual wisdom and insight.

 

Byron[2] grew up in a dysfunctional home. His mother was the breadwinner, working as a social worker in the backwoods of Mississippi. His father sat at home believing that the world owed him a living. He was an alcoholic and couldn’t hold down a job. By both genetics and parental example, Byron became equally addicted to nicotine, drugs, and alcohol. As he grew stronger, he began to physically abuse his mother. Eventually she had to get a court restraining order to keep him out of the house.

Byron went to live with his father who had left his mother and lived in New York. However, the father didn’t want him there. He was having a hard enough time getting sufficient alcohol to support his own habit. Byron had spent some time in several different “homes” for maladjusted boys. None of these homes was able to bring about a radical change in his life.

Somewhere Byron found another “home” on a farm away out in the mountains of eastern Washington. They worked the residents there very hard. They were far enough away from any source of liquor that residents remained dry. Gradually Byron turned his life over to the Lord. God’s spirit transformed him. He told me that he needed to stay on this farm because it kept him away from alcohol, something he was unable to do on his own.

The last time I saw Byron, he had been invited to go to Africa on a mission trip. He was just glowing with enthusiasm.

Lord, I pray for Byron that Your spirit will fill him with the knowledge to help those he works with and the power to resist the evil that has held him so fiercely.

---

[1] https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/coronavirus-urgent-appeal-for-brits-to-work-on-farms

[2] Names and circumstances have been changed in this true account.

Tight Fisted Treasurer

 

[1]

Philippians 4:6 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

⁶ Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks.

We had worked as missionaries in Africa for 12 years. The Lord had richly blessed us. We had hundreds of friends. Many of our students were already making their mark on the world. Now the Lord had told us that He wanted us to return to the U.S.

Then we got a letter from the mission board. It stated coldly that we had only worked in Africa for three years. They had no responsibility to return us to the U.S. They had decided to fly us to the nearest airport in the U.S. and drop us. It was up to us to make our way from there. The same mission board had consistently garnished our wages upwards of 50% for “the Lord’s work.”

We were stunned. We had spent all our savings just surviving in Africa. This is a part of mission work that the home churches never see. I requested that they do the very minimum and drop us back in Detroit where we had originally left from. We prayed to the Lord fervently. We literally didn’t have enough money left to get from Boston, where they chose to drop us, to Detroit near family. We praised the Lord that He had blessed us in spite of the tightfisted man who controlled our funds.

When we arrived in the States, at my dad’s urging—he had been a missionary to Africa for 42 years—I wrote headquarters and explained our plight. The treasurer there thundered back, “They can’t do that to you!” He went on to say that he was the one who had originally hired us to go to Africa 12 years earlier. Then for the next six months we received check after check of bonuses that we were entitled to but had no knowledge of. This amounted to thousands and thousands of dollars.

Since that time, the Lord has abundantly blessed us, even beyond our dreams or expectations. We had never wanted to be rich, and we still aren’t. But we are comfortable. Indeed, praise the Lord!

We are grateful, Lord, that You look after Your own so well. We rest our future in Your marvelous nail-pierced hands!

---

[1] https://slideplayer.com/slide/13596288/

Please Make Me Wise

[1]

1 Kings 3:9 Contemporary English Version (CEV)

⁹ Please make me wise and teach me the difference between right and wrong. Then I will know how to rule your people. If you don’t, there is no way I could rule this great nation of yours.

 

A promise I have relied on over and over again is the promise in James 1:5 stating that if anyone lack wisdom he should ask God for it and it will be given him.

The La Sierra University president encouraged us to have prayer every day in class. I had never had this habit and felt that it was merely a formality. I have always been a firm believer in the value of prayer. However, I felt that in order for prayer to be meaningful, it should be prayed by someone who felt the need. One year, however, I decided to try reading a verse and praying at the beginning of every class period.

Jonathan[2] was one of those troublesome students. He expected everyone to bow to his wishes. He complained to my department chair that I was taking 20 minutes for roll call and devotions. My chair was quite upset with me and let me know that in no uncertain terms. She was on the verge of demanding that I quit having devotions at the beginning of class.

Breathing a prayer for wisdom, I reminded her that the president had requested that we start class with prayer. She backed off the demand that I not do it, of course. She didn’t tell me who the troublemaker was, but she gave me enough details so that it was obvious Jonathan was behind it. I also told her that I knew who had complained and that he was one to exaggerate freely and quoted a couple examples from some interchanges I had already had with him.

For the next couple days, I kept track of exactly how long devotions and roll call took, and it was certainly less than 5 minutes. But I concentrated on Jonathan in both prayer and attention. While always quick to criticize and complain, he soon became my strongest supporter. Although he had failed this class the quarter before, this time he ended up with a strong B in the class.

Thank you, Lord, for Your quick response whenever we need wisdom!

---

[1] https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/dealing-with-employees-who-complain/

[2] Name changed to protect the student’s identity 

Fourscore Years

 

[1]

Psalm 90:10, 12 American Standard Version

¹⁰ The days of our years are threescore years and ten,
Or even by reason of strength fourscore years;
Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow;
For it is soon gone, and we fly away.
¹² So teach us to number our days,
That we may get us a heart of wisdom.

 

The other day we held a reunion of friends who grew up or served in Southern Africa. About twenty of us showed up. This had dwindled over the pandemic, when we would often have forty in attendance. I estimate that the average age was about fourscore years; in one sense or another we must all have “strength.” From the conversation it appears that all of them had been vaccinated and “boosted.” In spite of all the sophistry and circumlocution that goes around, it is only wise to accept with rejoicing what the Lord has graciously given this generation.

Some of us were missionaries in Africa: some of us were born there. All of us are well educated, enjoy the outdoors, appreciate the arts, and revel in the love of God. All are doing something, even at this advanced age, to help our fellow humans. All of us have attained to a fair amount of wisdom.

We should be labeled sophomores in its classical sense. In case your classical knowledge is a bit rusty, sophomore is the concatenation of the two Greek words, “Sophos”—clever or wise—and “moros”—foolish, i.e., wise fools.

A rather outspoken friend of mine, not at our reunion, cajoles us rather frequently that the only way to achieve immortality is to author and publish books. He foresees his grandchildren reading the novels he is writing and sees them rediscovering him. He writes well into the wee hours of the morning every day. Is that a form of numbering our days?

The other morning a fire-engine and an ambulance, lights flashing, parked in front of the house across the street. I waved at Peggy as she lay on a stretcher inside the ambulance, and she smiled wanly and waved weakly back. As we see our friends and contemporaries check out of this state of “labor and sorrow,” it reminds us that our names are perilously close to the top of the list. Peggy is back home now, and her daughter tells me her pervasive pain has been brought under control. For the time being, she has beaten the grim reaper.

Thank You, Lord, for reminding us of the tenuous nature of our present existence and the eternity you have prepared for us.

 

 

---

[1] Eighty-and-Eighteen by John William Godward

Sufficient unto the Day is the Evil Thereof

 

[1]

Matthew 6:33-34 American Standard Version

³³ But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. ³⁴ Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

 

Ours has often been a life where we had enough of life’s necessities to get through each day but no cushion for emergencies. Of course, emergencies arose—they always do. When my cancer recurred, I went to an oncologist whose office was on the 10^th floor of magnificent medical building in Century City on the upscale side of Beverly Hills.

He showed me how he owns his own blood lab equipment and luxury patient treatment facilities. He spent several hours talking to me about my situation. It dawned more and more on me how much all of this must cost.

“I’m really impressed at what you will do for me. How am I going to pay for all this?” I queried.

He said simply, “You have Medicare, don’t you?”

He employs a full-time pharmacist who has gotten me a number of grants to help cover the expenses of outrageously expensive drugs I’ve needed. Some medical places around here have a policy that if you are over 15 minutes late to an appointment, you pay for the appointment, but they won’t see you or do anything to help you. Of course, insurance doesn’t pay if you miss an appointment.

With big city traffic, it’s very easy to be delayed much more than 15 minutes! My oncologist’s office is all the way across Los Angeles. It’s easy to get delayed an hour or more in the traffic. They have the same policy, but they tell me, “Just call us and let us know what’s happening.” They’ve never penalized me for being late.

As a retiree, I sometimes worry that my money will run out before both Sylvia and I have passed on. Then my thoughts return to the last sixty years and the fact that although at times we have been very short of funds, we have never gone hungry, nor have we ever been without a roof over our heads.

God will always take care of us!

Thank You, Lord, for Your constant care over us, in spite of some of the scrapes we get ourselves into!

 

__________________

[1] https://ccmpla.com/about/