Chance Meetings?

 Week of January 12, 2014

 The beginning of the 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 that

 

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 up and down my arms 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 passed 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 now 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 also started 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, New York

now Sarasota, Florida

God and a Raggedy Ann Doll

Week of January 5, 2014

 

One morning before leaving for high school, God put it on my heart that I was going to be in a car accident that day. I told my older sister who urged me not to go to school.

 

I told her I had to go today because if I was absent or late one more day I was risking being expelled. Besides I had stayed up late finishing the hair on my Raggedy Ann Doll for my Home Economics class that had to be turned in this morning in order to get credit.

 

My friend Robin drove up in her Riviera at the usual time. While my sister kept telling me not to temp fate by going to school, I prayed over the car asking God for his protection. When I got into the car with my books and Raggedy Ann doll I noticed a St. Christopher Medal hanging from the rear view mirror. It hadn’t been there before.

 

“Who gave you the medal Robin, your mother?”

 

“My grandmother.”

 

That’s neat I thought, we can use all the protection possible, especially today. Everything went well until we entered the Natchez Highway and Robin speeded up. We hit a patch of black ice and slid off the highway and smashed onto a cement irrigation box that propelled the car backwards. We flipped completely over three times before coming to a stop right side up. I passed out. I came too with Robin yelling my name.

 

I was crunched up against the mangled door and window that was shattered and bowed from the impact. Wedged between my head and the window was the Raggedy Ann Doll. The hair of the doll was caught at the top of the window and the doll acted as cushion for me preventing serious injury.

 

Robin and I crawled out of the car and ran off to the first house we could see to call our parents. When we returned to the car a state trooper was standing by our wreck. He said when he saw the damage and nobody in the car he thought our bodies had already been taken to the morgue. He told us we shouldn’t have left the scene of an accident.

 

Our parents arrived and later they drove us to school but nobody ever said anything about being late that day.

 

Colleen Jorgenson

Veradale, Washington

Special Job Reference

 Week of December 29, 2013

 

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 read my Bible behind the 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

Christmas away from home

Christmas Week 2013

My first Christmas away from home was courtesy of the U.S. Army. I was station in the Canal Zone (this was before we turned it over to Panama). Being in the tropics it didn't feel like Christmas. Being from New England my view of Christmas had been the Currier and Ives scenes of snow, sleighs, and
evergreens.

In Panama there are palms, heat, and the prospects of a white Christmas is zero. I was sad.
Cardboard snowmen, plastic Santas and cotton for snow further dampened my spirits. Some enterprising GI's had parked eight jeeps in front of a tank hooked together with ammo belts to simulate reindeer and a sleigh. There was even a stuffed Santa Claus waving from the tank turret.

By now I was having a real pity party.

On Christmas even I went to the base chapel for a service, There were wreaths, candles and the singing of traditional carols. The chaplain read familiar passage from Luke. My spirit was lifted.
As I left the chapel it dawned on me that the first Christmas night was celebrated in a stable in the desert. Looking up at a star lit sky, I hear the message loud and clear:

"Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11)

Mal Salter
Balboa, CZ

Flying home for Christmas

 

I was looking forward to spending Christmas in Phoenix with my family. I had a break in my residency in clinical pastoral education at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C.

 

When I arrived at the airport, I found my flight was cancelled. I waited in line with hundreds of others. My hopes faded when the attendant behind the counter looked like a high school student filling in during his holiday break. When I explained my situation, he suggested an alternate route.

 

He told me there was a flight ready to go to Pittsburgh. From there , I could take a flight going to Los Angeles. But my destination was Phoenix. He explained the LA flight would have to refuel in Phoenix due to headwinds and I could get off the plane there. My instructions were to tell the crew when I boarded in Pittsburgh I was the one to be let off in Phoenix.

Anything that would get me out of Washington D.C. today was worth the try, so on to Pittsburgh it was.

 

I explained my situation to the flight attendant on boarding in Pittsburgh. She said she would let the pilot know but told me this plane was going directly to LA. I took my seat.

 

When we were almost ready for takeoff, the captain announced over the PA, “Would the guy who thinks he is going to Phoenix please come forward.”All eyes were on me as I walked to the front of the cabin. Everyone had a good laugh at my expense.

The crew was adamant. They were not stopping in Phoenix, but I could go to LA and then get a flight back to Phoenix. I agreed to do so and again I took my seat.

 

Everyone settled down for a quiet flight. Well into the night, the captain came on the PA with an apology for disturbing everyone’s sleep. He announced he had good news for one passenger and bad news for everybody else. Fuel was low because of headwinds, so we were stopping to refuel in Phoenix.

 

I wanted to gloat but held my reaction to a smug grin. In Phoenix, we parked out on the tarmac. The rear stairs were lowered and I was taken to the terminal in a service truck.

I’ve never found a logical explanation for how the young counter worker in Washington knew the plane would have to refuel when the flight crew was certain it would not.

 

That leaves the illogical, the mysterious.

After all, it was Christmas. Was he an angel? I’ll never know.

 

Gerald Knighton,
retired Air Force chaplain
Slidell, La.

Blaming God?

 

Week of December 8

 

 

It was a season in my life that I was so angry and hurt I was even blaming God for allowing me to wreck my life. I had sacrificed so much and he allowed this to happen.

 

The Elders came over with a form for me to sign that I would read the Bible every day, even if I didn’t feel like reading it. 

 

I told them, “You can fire me now but I can’t sign that form. I am not reading the Bible. I’ll read the book of Ecclesiastes…it is the only book that makes any sense. I do believe in God but I’m not sure His Word is all we have made it out to be.”

 

God heard all that and God decided No Problem. I have lots of others ways to speak to you. Two things happened.

 

One was my daughter Catherine bringing me the Bible to read as a bedtime story. I was irritated because I didn’t want to read the Word but how do you tell a child you don’t want to read the Bible.

“I was  wiped out but I heard God’s voice through the story.”

 

That was one way God got the Word back in my heart and the other was the Diary of Ann Franck. I was watching an old version of the film in black and white. I remember seeing all the frail people fighting over crumbs. These people were under the oppression of Hitler. I realized that Lost people are under the oppression of evil.

 

I recalled the song that was sung at my ordination, a song that I have always loved, “People need the Lord.” I felt called by God to rescue the lost people. I felt I had the answer. People need the Lord. They are dying and I had the solution but I can’t get to them anymore. I felt like a gladiator who wanted to fight but that I was outside the ring.

 

I remember weeping and crying and saying what are we going to do. I’m on the sidelines. I called Bob Yawbeg ( a pastor’s pastor) later that night and he said “Jeff you are a gladiator and you will fight again but right now God is doing something in you to prepare you for the long haul. Let it happen.”

 

I now realize it wasn’t God but it was me to blame.

 

Jeff Wilson

Birmingham, Alabama

God's Baby Blanket

 

 

 

 

 

 

“God has a plan for each of us,

and what we want and ask for,

        may not fit into that plan.”

Albert Einstein

 

 

 

Week of December 1

 

 

Paul and “Bob”

 

I was going through a really difficult time. I was recovering from a divorce, my daughter was living away from home at school and the bank I was working for was going under due to big mistakes in real estate lending practices.

 

Then the unthinkable happened. My male friend committed suicide. I found his body slumped over in his car still in his garage. I never felt more alone.

 

The following evening a dear friend from the bank, Noreen, came to my apartment with her husband David. They gathered up a few of my things, literally carried me to their car and drove me to their home.

 

Noreen made a wonderful bed for me out of the couches in her living room, made a fire in the fireplace and instead of bringing me a box of tissues she brought me all her frilly hankies. She also made a pot of my favorite tea.

 

While we talked about our deceased friend her son Paul, who was probably five or six at the time, kept coming in and out of the room. Each trip he brought a handful of toys or stuffed animals, which he lined up next to me on the couch. The more I thanked him the more things he brought me. In his little boy way he was bringing everything he had to comfort his mother’s friend who obviously was crying and sad. Lastly he brought into the room his most precious possession-his baby blanket.

 

I understand all things baby blanket. Those of us who were baby blanket people have a way of finding each other. We have a language that only we understand. So little Paul and I immediately had this bond and he showed me his baby blanket that looked like a large blob of shredded rags tied together in large knots.

 

He called his baby blanket “Bob.”

 

After a while, Paul and “Bob” went off to bed.  When the house was quiet I started reflecting and I began to cry and even sob. My shaking with grief was interrupted by the sound of shuffling little feet. It was Paul walking towards me carrying “Bob.” Without saying a word, he gently laid “Bob” in my arms, turned and left the room.

 

At that moment, I knew that God was using this child to comfort me in my time of pain and sorrow.

To this day, I am blown away by that precious little one obeying the prodding of the Lord and lending me his most cherished possession that evening. God manifested his love that night to me.

 

Joy Holloway Salter

West Hartford, Connecticut