John's Miracle

Week of October 30

In mid July 2009 on the island of Kauai, Hawaii I became very sick. I had been healthy all my 63 years and this was a new experience for me. After a week of high fever, aches and waking up with the sweats I called my doctor friend in Montana. After hearing my symptoms Dan said I needed to see a local doctor.

I did and he thought it was a sinus infection. After a few days I started getting vertigo, and seeing double. I decided if I didn’t feel better in the morning I would go to the emergency room.
In the morning, still feeling lousy, I took a cab from where I lived outside of Koloa to the hospital on Kauai where I was admitted with what was originally thought to be double pneumonia. It was not.

While my lungs sounded clear x-rays revealed two white clouds. I was transferred by air taxi to the Staub Medical Center in Honolulu. Here I tested positive for Wegener’s granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the organs of the body. I my case it was the lungs.

I do not remember of lot of the initial weeks in intensive care as I was drugged and in an induced coma. I was not expected to live very long and my wife and three daughters were called. They came from Montana to visit me for the last time. I did not know they were even there.

My body weight went from 167 to 132. Massive doses of steroids were given me as part of my treatment. When I awoke from the coma I was on a ventilator and had all sorts of tubes in my body. I was literally a rag doll and could only move the muscles in my neck. An emergency button to call for help was draped over my shoulder so I could press it with my neck.

I remember thinking. How am I going to possibly come back from this. I believed I couldn’t and became totally depressed.

The bed I was in was a special physical therapy bed which could be set to do a wave like motion under the body. It wasn’t suppose to be on for me but it was. The motion caused me to move sideways and my body became lodged between the mattress and the sideboard. I was being squeezed with my arms dangling helplessly over the side of the bed. I could not move my head to press the call button. I was crying out “nurse help…nurse help!”

Then a strange thing happened. It was as if my spirit had left my body. I was sitting on the edge of a small stream with tall wet grass along the banks. A mist was rising from the water. I knew if I lay down in the wet grass it would be over. No more struggles. There would be peace. My spirit was ready to totally give up.

A hand gripped my shoulder. I “sprung back.”
A voice said, “Can I help you?”

After getting me help I found out that the man who touched my shoulder was the pastor at the hospital. He told me that he received a call 30 minutes earlier from my friend Jim in White Fish, Montana who asked that the Chaplain to look me up.

From that moment on I never had depression again. In fact, during the rest of my hospital stay I was even joyful. My spirit was strong and I made dramatice progress physically. Within two weeks I was completely off the ventilator and oxygen.
I still could not move a muscle but my physical therapist thought my muscles were ‘firing’ and I believed him. He began by massaging my muscles and moving my limbs.

I was moved from Intensive Care to the sixth floor of the hospital where they put patients who are close to being released. I worked hard and talked and joked with almost every aide and nurse on that floor.

One day the doctors looked at me and my progress and said “John you are a living miracle.” They suggested I be transferred to a nursing home in Montana where I would be near friends and my support system.Flying Nurses International flew with me from Honolulu to Salt Lake City and onto Glacier International Airport in Kalispell, Mt.

It wasn’t until I was back in Montana that I learned that my doctor friend Dan and Jim, who I knew from my appraisal business, had been meeting and praying for me daily throughout my ordeal.You see, the doctors were right, I am a living miracle. And I was right, I could not come back on my own. I have no doubt that God through His grace spared my life and used my friends and that Chaplain to help me back.

John Woods
Kauai, Hawaii

Turtle over Miami

Week of October 23
It was a great year for me and my two boys. I was a single mother of an “all state- all area” 325 pound offensive lineman for Sarasota High School. The season ended at10-2. It had been a long time since SHS had seen that kind of record. It was his senior year. I was in charge of the “Pre-game meals”, so I was able to spend more time with Brian before the games. It was a great season for him and our family to see my son, the center of attention for 4 years, and now he would be moving to a college in the fall on a full scholarship!

January 2005 arrived, and Brian was preparing for “recruiting” and I was really getting nervous. He was going to possibly be moving out of state. How will I visit him or take care ofhim?How can I watch over him or protect him? All these things racing through my mind and crying out to God, “Please Lord, don’t take my son so far away”. As the days went on calls were coming in from all over the U.S. and Brian very quickly decided he wanted to stay in Florida! Whew! Relief for me, he can’t go to far…”God please let him be close”. I kept giving it to God and then I would take it back.
One morning I woke and remembered a dream I had during the night, which was very strange for me as I do not ever remember my dreams. It was about a big turtle crawling up the side walk. And that was it…so I said God “What does this mean?” Well he revealed to me that when Brian was very small a large turtle had wandered to our front door. My husband at the time picked it up and put it in our bath tub. He thought Brian would get a kick out of seeing it when he got home from kindergarten. I remember the look on his face. He was so excited, watched it for hours and fed it. It made me happy to see him get excited over this turtle. Then we decided we had to release it and took it to the pond by our house and let the turtle go…So I thought okay this was a happy moment for us and it reminded me how happy Brian was, so I took that from the dream.

A weeks went by. Within that time Brian and I had been traveling from university to university, looking to accept the best deal. He finally made a decision to move to Florida International University in Miami, a Division I school. I thought, Oh No, there’s too much crime and drugs and how will I protect him and watch over him? I became very anxious again and began praying and asking God to help me through this time. “As such a time as this”….

It was May 2005 and my little boy was graduating. I was planning a big graduation party at my home. Of course praying everyday for protection, and trying very hard to give it to God. I was still feeling a bit anxious. “God help me please, I know you will protect him, Help me to trust you better”.

Graduation day came. I was doing the last minute house check, as a dear friend of mine Debbie was preparing food in the kitchen. I decided that I needed to sweep the front porch and ran to get the broom. As I opened the front door my eye caught an object to the left and as I turned and saw the object I looked up into the sky laughing and said “Thank you God, Thank you God”….it was a large turtle at my front door. And as the Holy Spirit spoke to me, he revealed to me that a turtle carry’s his home on him, he also has a shell that protects him. The spirit was telling me that Brian would be protected and safe. That day was a day of peace for me. The last time we saw a turtle on our front door had been 12 years ago, when Brain was six. I knew this was from God and tears of joy and peace were within me. I knew that God was telling me to TRUST Him. “As such a time as this”……

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the rock eternal. Isaiah 26:4

Thank you God, I love you…

Linda Kelleher
Sarasota,Fl.

Help from Strangers

October 22

Everything seems fine until I distinctly smell gasoline. I pull off the road, open the hood and find gas seeping out of the fuel line. It is a miracle that the engine hasn’t caught fire. Now what do I do?

A car pulls in behind me. The driver sees the leak and proceeds to tape the split hose. What a Godsend he is. Come to think of it, I have had a lifetime of Good Samaritans who have come by and bailed me out of trouble. on the roadways and byways of life. Many of them were strangers but as the parable says, they were my real neighbors.

"Then Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise." (From the parable of the Good Samaritan.(Luke 10: 36-37)

Out of Gas

Week of October 16

I had gone to the mall for a job interview. I spotted a man pushing a broom when I entered and I figured he must know where the main office is located. He was very pleasant and appeared to know a lot about this mall.

During my interview for a management position I mentioned the nice man I encountered pushing the broom. Guess I thought I would put in a good word for him since he showed kindness to me. After I described him they smiled and said, “ Oh that’s Jeff, he owns this mall. That is one of the ways he gets to talk with the customers.”

I was hired as a manager of that mall.

After that Jeff and I kept bumping in to each other. He was always cordial and we would have friendly albeit brief conversations. Several months went by and then I learned that Jeff had sold this mall for something around $29,000,000. Shortly after this the new owners gave me an envelope to deliver to Jeff’s home.

I wasn’t surprised to find that his home was a mansion right on the water but I was surprised when I pressed the front door bell and it was Jeff who opened the door. He greeted me warmly and invited me into his home. He opened the envelope and

told me that it was a sizeable check representing his part of the commission of the sale of the mall. He or someone in his family was a licensed real estate broker. Then he shared with me that his family foundation was inundated by requests for money. He said he was really looking “to find something to give to that is making a difference.” Since I didn’t immediately respond he said, “If you run into any, let me know.” I said I would.

A couple of years went by and I was going down a back road near the coast when I see a guy standing by his car on the side of the road. It is Jeff. He has run out of gas and I offer to take him to the nearest filling station. It turns out to be some distance before we reach a station. We chat.

I ask him if he is still looking for an organization to give to that is making a difference. He asks what I have in mind? I tell him about a new organization called Gifts From God, which is feeding the hungry and helping families needing furniture or providing a car free to struggling single moms. By the time we are back to his car with a can of gasoline he has agreed to come to my office and meet with Mike Butterfield, the president of Gifts from God. From that meeting came a much needed seed grant from Jeff’s family foundation.



A year later I am driving on Laurel Road in Venice and I am rounding a curve and there is Jeff standing by his car on the side of the road. Yep! He was out of gas again. .

“You have come to my rescue again, it must be time for another grant to Gifts From God,” he grins.

It was. Mike had called me a few days ago with a bleak financial report and said we need another grant from Jeff’s foundation. And here God puts Jeff and I together again. Who else could orchestrate such timely chance meetings like this?

We received the second grant which I call truly a gift from God.

Lloyd Keith
Osprey, Florida

Moment of Faith

Week of October 2

In 1946, I was stationed in the Aleutian Islands as a chaplain for the United States Air Force. Our particular island , Shemya, was shaped like an oyster and was just large enough to have one important airstrip.

One night a tremendous earthquake broke open the deep water of the Bay of Alaska and sent tons of surge water ( a tsunami) toward our island. The high flood water, much higher than our island, was to hit us at about 3 a.m.

We had 3,600 men on the island, but only one surface craft for about 200. The idea of evacuation was abandoned.

Hundreds of men and officers gathered in the chapel on the high side of the island. Our highest elevation was about 18 feet and we were warned to expect about forty feet. Every light was on in the chapel. We had both large and small prayer services and the men periodically sang songs of all faiths and wrote letters. Many men sat alone thinking of their families and what the impending death by drowning would be like.

At about 4 a.m. the wave came. There was a strong gush of wind and high water, but nothing like the predicted 40 feet. The island of Adak, lying 400
miles to the east broke the wave in two, with one half going into the Bearing Sea and the other toward Hawaii.

We were spared. Lots of water (ranging from15 to 18 feet) and a lot of mopping up, but there were no casualties. Not a single life was lost. The water came as far as the Chapel steps. Our faith had been lifted by total trust and dependence on God, and he came to our rescue.

Lionel W. Nelson, USAF retired
Sunny Side Village, Sarasota

“Copyright©2003, Sarasota Herald-Tribune.Reprinted with express permission of the Sarasota-Herald Tribune.”