A Godly Confirmation

 Week of February 23

          Like most empty-nesters, we had two cars:  A luxury sedan for Bill and a sporty SUV for me.  When Bill was diagnosed with brain cancer and had to be driven to chemo treatments, he became the passenger in the sedan…the smooth leather seats made it easy for him to pivot while getting in and out.  The cloth seats in my vehicle didn’t quite do the trick.  He just plain enjoyed being in that car!

            As Bill’s condition worsened, we realized that we no longer needed two cars, so our youngest son was given my little car.  When Bill entered hospice care at home, I drove the sedan on the days I was able to go to the office for part of the day and for all the errands.

            After Bill died, I tried hard to like his car as much as I had my “old” one.  It was a lovely automobile, and as much as I appreciated its features, it just didn’t please me.  Another son with two children needed to replace a troublesome car, so I knew I could pass the sedan along to him and keep it in the family.  And that Bill would be pleased to have some grandchildren riding in it!

            So a trip to the dealer produced a sporty little red sedan that won my heart right away.  No trade, not much paperwork, and the car would be ready for pickup the following day.  That night, of course, doubt came to visit.  Had I been callous to Bill’s memory not to cherish his car?  Was it my duty to keep it spiffy and on the road for as long as it would last?   I decided to go ahead and claim the new car.

            When I saw it sitting on the lot, all shiny and cute and waiting for me, I knew I’d been guided to the purchase and that all was well.  How did I know?  The numbers on MY (not Bill’s) car’s license plate had been 5603.  The brand new plates, supplied by the dealer, ended in 5604.  A most logical progression that my engineer husband would certainly have appreciated!

                                                                       

Rosemarie Seewagon

Hilton, New York

An unusual job reference

 

Week of February 16, 2014

 

Approximately twenty years ago I was working as a secretary in a steamship company in New Orleans. I had been there a couple of years but because I had studied to be a legal secretary, I was ready to get a job with a law firm. I started to seek God’s guidance to help me find a job where I could utilize my legal training. During lunch hour, I would take my Bible and head behind the office building where there were benches and fountains.

 

While I was out there I would often see homeless people and panhandlers. There was one man in particular that was there every day. Eventually, he came to me and asked what I was reading and I told him. He asked if I was a Jesus freak and I said yes I am. He said I made him feel uncomfortable when he was trying to ask people for money. I told him I had no condemnation for him, but that I thought he seemed able bodied enough to work. I also shared my desire to get a job with a law firm.

 

We became speaking friends and one day he said, “Since you know God so well, why don’t you pray that I get a job.” At that moment I put my hand on his shoulder and started praying out loud. “Not here, not now,” he protested. I just kept praying. That was on a

Thursday. On Monday he came running up to me at lunch. He was clean and groomed and I hardly recognized him. An attorney who he had been asking for money had hired him. I was happy for him but I was jealous. I said (silently of course) God, I am the one who wanted a job with a law firm, have you mixed things up here or what? I was sure God knew what he was doing and I thanked him for giving this man a job.

 

About a week later, the man came to me and said, “I have an interview for you at the law firm. The senior partner needs a secretary.” I thought this would take an act of faith for me to go on an interview at the recommendation of this man. Were they just humoring him? Those thoughts vanished immediately because I knew no matter what; I would do nothing to cause him to waiver in his belief in answered prayers. I was not going to let pride prevent me from going and thereby show a lack of faith.

 

I thanked God for the opportunity, went on the interview and I was hired on the spot. The attorneys still tell people that the best employment recommendation they ever had was from a homeless man. I quickly remind them that God alone was the employment agency. God will answer your prayer when you step out in faith. God also has a wonderful sense of humor.

 

Carolyn Bourgeois

New Orleans, Louisiana

Chance Meetings?

Week of February 9,2014

 

The beginning of a year is a good time to look ahead and to make some changes. In my case I decided that twelve years working in the same piano store in Poughkeepsie, New York was long enough.

 

I had gone about as far as I could go working in this family-owned store. Besides, twelve years of upstate New York winters was enough. It was time to move to Florida. When I informed Jon Vincitore, the owner of the store, he urged me to stay one more year. I agreed to stay until the fall.

 

In the spring I attended a national conference and met the owners of a piano store in Sarasota, Florida. They invited me down to Florida for an interview. I told a regular customer and former employee of the Poughkeepsie store, John DelVecchio that I was going to Sarasota.

 

“Maybe you’ll bump into my cousin, Ray White. He can play the drum, guitar and he can sing. You’ll like him. He is doing construction right now somewhere in the Sarasota/Bradenton/Venice area.”

 

“Do you have a number I can call or an address?” He had neither.

 

 

In July I flew to Sarasota for my interview with the principles of O’Lynn Callahan Piano and Organ at the Corner of Bee Ridge and Tamiami Trail. The interview went well and I followed them to look at their new store in Venice, a twenty minute drive south.

 

Before the morning was over we agreed I would manage their Venice store in the fall.

 

On the way back up Route 41 I was driving through Osprey when I saw a sign “Condo for Rent.” I stopped and within an hour I had made a deposit on it. I now had a job and a place to stay when I returned. I had accomplished in a half day what I thought would take me several days. Now it was time to look around.

 

I drove into Sarasota Square Mall. Walking through that mall I ran across a piano/organ store with several young men taking turns playing an organ set up in front of the store. As I lingered to watch, a little guy walked up to me and asked, “Can I help you?”

 

“Oh,” I said, “I’m just looking around. I just flew down from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. for an interview,”

 

“Poughkeepsie Huh? Do you happen to know John DelVecchio?” he asked.

 

“RAY? RAY WHITE?”  I don’t know who was more surprised, Ray or me. Turns out he had left construction recently and this was his second day at this store. While neither of us was particularly religious at that point we both agreed our meeting this way, “Must be a God thing.” I still get goose bumps  when I recall that moment.

 

Before moving to Florida I set out to say goodbye to family and special friends living in New York and New England. However, saying goodbye to Uncle Dennis was going to be a challenge.

 

No one knew exactly where he was living; somewhere in the Berkshires was what I was told.

 

One day while driving the Mass Pike to return to Poughkeepsie I intentionally pulled off at the Lee/ Barrington exit for the Berkshires to see if I could find a phone book and locate Uncle Dennis. Besides I was hungry and wanted something to eat. Coming off the exit there is a town to the left and one to the right. It didn’t seem to matter which way I went but something made me feel I should go right. I drove past several fast food drive-ins that I normally would have driven into and continued down Main Street to the end of the business district. There at the end was a diner with a single parking space open right in front.

 

As I walked up the steps to the entrance I saw there was one man sitting at the counter. The back of his head looked familiar. Could it be? It was him! I slipped in and sat beside the man at the counter and said casually, “Hello Dennis.”

He told me he lived in the town to the left of the exit but he often came to this diner. He especially liked the pies here. If I had tried to look him up in the phonebook I would not have found him. He didn’t have a phone. I had a nice visit with Dennis that day and actually returned two weeks later to his home where I presented him with a guitar that I knew he wanted.

 

Ray White and I became partners in a band and played together for several years in Florida. We also both became Christians and Ray is a worship pastor at a church and goes on frequent missions trips to Africa.

 

I play regularly at worship services for a church and I have my own company Worship Media Solutions helping churches with their sound and video needs.

 

As busy as I am, I try to stay attentive to any unexplained prodding or feelings. For example, the other day I left my house to get a haircut when I felt a strong urge to stop at the Living Word Book Store and see Jesse Ramos. So I drove out of my way to the bookstore. In the parking lot I passed a woman walking to her car. I felt I should speak to her but I didn’t know what to say and being basically shy I walked by as she stopped and opened the trunk of a car. As I walked into the store there was Jesse at the counter holding my calling card in his hand and waving his arm at me.

 

“Hey Rick, what timing. There was a gal in here whose church needs your services. She just left.”

 

“She’s there putting something in her trunk,” I said.  He looked out the store window, “Yeah that’s her, how did you know?”

 

How did I know? How do I explain my bumping into Ray White out of the thousands of people who live and work in Sarasota County? What directed me to that diner in the Berkshires that afternoon I found Uncle Dennis? Why did needing to see Jesse Ramos come to my mind when I started off for a haircut?

 

Were these all chance meetings? I don’t think so, not for a minute.

 

Rick Furrow,

Formerly Poughkeepsie, N.Y. via Florida

To Prescott, Arizona

God's Quartet

Week of February 1, 2014

 

 

We were on our way back to Fayetteville NC from Augusta, Georgia where we sang to about 700 people in the First Baptist Church when our old bus broke down along I-95 somewhere in South Carolina. Our piano player Earl Britt said,” the only thing I know to do is to start praying.”

 

We are on our knees when there is a knock on the side of the bus. Here is an elderly gentleman with a straw hat, white shirt and bib overalls and a sports jacket. He says you boys a quartet?  Now we’ve got  letters on the side of the bus that are three feet high that say Masters Quartet. I chuckled and said Yes Sir.  He says would you boys be able to sing tonight?  I was just getting ready to tell him no, when my younger brother Tommy jerked me out of the way and says. “Yes sir we will but we can’t go, our bus broke down.”

 

He says, “That’s no problem, I can be back in about 15 minutes with some trucks to take you and your equipment to my house. In about twenty minutes he came back with two Ford Stake trucks. a station wagon and a wrecker.I told the wrecker driver that we didn’t have any money and to leave the bus be.

We all pile in the trucks and station wagon and go to the preacher’s house which is out n the country about 30 miles from the interstate. When we arrive his wife has dinner ready for us. The food was set up on two long tables. We finish eating and watch a little TV.

 

What we didn’t know was that this preacher, his wife and two children all had separate telephone lines and were calling people and telling them to be at the church at 6:30.

 

We learn that Pastor Reed had been a preacher for an Assembly of God church in Indiana. When his parents died he had come to South Carolina to live on their farm. When the pastor of the local Presbyterian church died he was asked if he would fill in. He’s been filling in for several years now. 

 

When we get to this old wooden church in the middle of a tobacco field it is packed. After singing about five songs the preacher tells us to go back to where the refreshments are as he is going to take up a love offering for us. After what happened at the Baptist church I’m kind of leery and I stand by the door.

 

When the ushers come forward with the plates he looks over the podium and says ,“that ain’t goner work…these boys sang at a big Baptist church in Augusta and they got $50…that ain’t  happenin here. Now I’m gonna send these ushers back out and when they come back if these plates aren’t full I’m  gonna tell what I know and who I know it on.” 

 

They finish the collection and call us back out and we sing a little more and the last song we did was Sinner Saved by Grace. We use that at our altar call.

 

As the preacher is praying this little blonde haired girl comes running down the aisle to ask God to save her. She had run away from home and had been gone for some time and had returned home and asked her mommy and daddy to forgive her and they said if God has forgiven you we will. And that is why she was running to the altar to ask God to forgive her and become her Savior.

 

After all was said and done our piano player says to me, “Is that our bus I hear running outside?”  I look out the door and there is the wrecker driver standing by our bus in greasy overalls with his hat in his hand.

I say, “you fixed it.” He says, “Yep.”

“ How much do we owe you?” “You owe us nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

He says, “that little girl who just went to the altar is my daughter. She wouldn’t have come if y’all hadn’t been here tonight.”

 

I asked him what was wrong with our bus and he says all the bolts on the fly wheel had fallen out and were laying in the dust pan.

 

“ Wait a minute. I’m mechanic enough to know that bolts don’t fall out of a flywheel, especially on a bus. They have locking caps on them and they don’t fall out, you have to drill them out.”He says,  “Every one of them was laying in the pan and not a threat on anyone of them was torn off.  God backed the bolts out of that flywheel so you would be here so my daughter would hear the singing and your testimony that you brought here tonight.”

 

As we drove home I opened the envelope containing our love offering.  We counted out coins and small bills totaling $ 1200.           .

 

About four months later we got a phone call from Preacher Reed who said they were trying to raise money to build a new church. He wanted a gospel sing and would we help. We got three and four other groups we knew and we drove to South Carolina to sing in the middle of a football field standing on a flatbed trailer. That night  they raised over $100,000.

They built the church and invited us back to sing at their first service . When we pulled up in front of the church there was a big piece of marble block on the Northeast corner of the building. Inscribed on that block was Masters Quartet and they listed all ten names in our group, the four singers, the five musicians, and our bus driver.

We kept in touch over the years and we went back and sang at Preacher Reed’s funeral. He  had filled in for 15 years.

 

Lee Bissette

Fayetteville, North Carolina