Week of March 25
Jim lost his wallet and that affected the whole family. It happened sometime Sunday although he didn’t realize he had misplaced his wallet until he was getting his things ready Sunday night for the morning commute.
He had washed two cars and detailed them Sunday afternoon so that was the first in place he looked. The rest of us started the search inside the house, starting with the obvious places like the nightstand by the bed and the buffet in the dining room. We progressed to feeling in the crevasses of the cushions on the couch and inside the levels of the Lazy Boy chair. Soon we were trashing the house. All was for naught.
Monday morning Jim drove off to work without his wallet and of course without his license, I prayed the wallet would be found. Monday night we resumed the search perhaps more frantically than the day before. Jim and the kids went out and checked the cars again and I looked around inside revisiting many of the same places I had searched before. No wallet. I prayed some more
Tuesday Jim was obviously still upset and began grumbling about the prospect of having to apply for a duplicate license and call the credit card companies to close the accounts. As he stood by
the door he said he was going to take my car this morning because the SUV was low on gas. I suggested we pray together, something we hadn’t done for awhile. So we did.
We didn’t ask that the wallet would be found but we praised the Lord for all that we did have confessing that we didn’t have to worry about these things but just give it all over to Him. I felt better after praying.
I walked him out to the car. As he opened the door he shouted, “There’s my wallet!”
I took a step forward and then I saw it too. It was on the floor in front of the back seat right in plain sight. He and the kids had searched both vehicles twice, most recently as last night. That wallet could not have been out in the open like that.
We looked at each other in disbelief. How did it get there? What if he hadn’t decided to take my car instead of his today?
Cathy Pansa
Shorewood, Illinois
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
John' Miracle
Week of March 18
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 just lay down in the wet grass it would be over,end of struggles. There would be peace. My spirit was ready to totally give up.
Then 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 mover 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 closed 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
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 just lay down in the wet grass it would be over,end of struggles. There would be peace. My spirit was ready to totally give up.
Then 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 mover 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 closed 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
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Lost Wallet
Week of March 11
Jim lost his wallet and that affected the whole family. It happened sometime Sunday although he didn’t realize he had misplaced his wallet until he was getting his things ready Sunday night for the morning commute.
He had washed two cars and detailed them Sunday afternoon so that was the first in place he looked. The rest of us started the search inside the house, starting with the obvious places like the nightstand by the bed and the buffet in the dining room. We progressed to feeling in the crevasses of the cushions on the couch and inside the levels of the Lazy Boy chair. Soon we were trashing the house. All was for naught.
Monday morning Jim drove off to work without his wallet and of course without his license, I prayed the wallet would be found. Monday night we resumed the search perhaps more frantically than the day before. Jim and the kids went out and checked the cars again and I looked around inside revisiting many of the same places I had searched before. No wallet. I prayed some more
Tuesday Jim was obviously still upset and began grumbling about the prospect of having to apply for a duplicate license and call the credit card companies to close the accounts. As he stood by
the door he said he was going to take my car this morning because the SUV was low on gas. I suggested we pray together, something we hadn’t done for awhile. So we did.
We didn’t ask that the wallet would be found but we praised the Lord for all that we did have confessing that we didn’t have to worry about these things but just give it all over to Him. I felt better after praying.
I walked him out to the car. As he opened the door he shouted, “There’s my wallet!”
I took a step forward and then I saw it too. It was on the floor in front of the back seat right in plain sight. He and the kids had searched both vehicles twice, most recently as last night. That wallet could not have been out in the open like that.
We looked at each other in disbelief. How did it get there? What if he hadn’t decided to take my car instead of his today?
Cathy Pansa
Shorewood, Illinois
Jim lost his wallet and that affected the whole family. It happened sometime Sunday although he didn’t realize he had misplaced his wallet until he was getting his things ready Sunday night for the morning commute.
He had washed two cars and detailed them Sunday afternoon so that was the first in place he looked. The rest of us started the search inside the house, starting with the obvious places like the nightstand by the bed and the buffet in the dining room. We progressed to feeling in the crevasses of the cushions on the couch and inside the levels of the Lazy Boy chair. Soon we were trashing the house. All was for naught.
Monday morning Jim drove off to work without his wallet and of course without his license, I prayed the wallet would be found. Monday night we resumed the search perhaps more frantically than the day before. Jim and the kids went out and checked the cars again and I looked around inside revisiting many of the same places I had searched before. No wallet. I prayed some more
Tuesday Jim was obviously still upset and began grumbling about the prospect of having to apply for a duplicate license and call the credit card companies to close the accounts. As he stood by
the door he said he was going to take my car this morning because the SUV was low on gas. I suggested we pray together, something we hadn’t done for awhile. So we did.
We didn’t ask that the wallet would be found but we praised the Lord for all that we did have confessing that we didn’t have to worry about these things but just give it all over to Him. I felt better after praying.
I walked him out to the car. As he opened the door he shouted, “There’s my wallet!”
I took a step forward and then I saw it too. It was on the floor in front of the back seat right in plain sight. He and the kids had searched both vehicles twice, most recently as last night. That wallet could not have been out in the open like that.
We looked at each other in disbelief. How did it get there? What if he hadn’t decided to take my car instead of his today?
Cathy Pansa
Shorewood, Illinois
Friday, February 17, 2012
Brad's Story
Week of Fbruary 19
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life.” Along the way he met Christina Mauldin, a preacher’s daughter from the South side of Chicago. Brad is also from Chicago. Within a year and a half they were married. “She thought she was marrying a golf professional and I thought I was marrying an entertainer from Black Television.” (Christina had done a stint on the program Heart & Soul.)
“ My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught). I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.
“He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to graduate, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a neighbor’s van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pasto who put them up.
“We lost everything as our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered are other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line. In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
BradZwetschke Ft. Riley, Kansas
( Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain-Ed)
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life.” Along the way he met Christina Mauldin, a preacher’s daughter from the South side of Chicago. Brad is also from Chicago. Within a year and a half they were married. “She thought she was marrying a golf professional and I thought I was marrying an entertainer from Black Television.” (Christina had done a stint on the program Heart & Soul.)
“ My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught). I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.
“He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to graduate, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a neighbor’s van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pasto who put them up.
“We lost everything as our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered are other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line. In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
BradZwetschke Ft. Riley, Kansas
( Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain-Ed)
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Chance Meetings
Week of February 12
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
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
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Under Authority
February 8
My induction into the U.S. Army was February 8, 1954. My life was no longer my own. Being totally controlled by an authority helps me better understand this exchange between Jesus and the centurion. "Lord, say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one 'Go,' and he goes; and to another 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'do this,' and he does it."
"When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him… 'I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel." (Luke 7:7-9)
My induction into the U.S. Army was February 8, 1954. My life was no longer my own. Being totally controlled by an authority helps me better understand this exchange between Jesus and the centurion. "Lord, say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one 'Go,' and he goes; and to another 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'do this,' and he does it."
"When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him… 'I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel." (Luke 7:7-9)
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Brad's Story
Week of February 5
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life,” Brade recalls.
“ My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught). I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.
“He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to graduate, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a neighbor’s van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pastor.
“We lost everything as our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us. It still hasn’t subsided.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered our other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line.
In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
“Simon do you love Me more the these?”
“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
Brad Zwetschke
(Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain-Ed)
“Simon do you love Me more the these?”
“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life,” Brade recalls.
“ My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught). I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.
“He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to graduate, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a neighbor’s van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pastor.
“We lost everything as our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us. It still hasn’t subsided.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered our other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line.
In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
“Simon do you love Me more the these?”
“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
Brad Zwetschke
(Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain-Ed)
“Simon do you love Me more the these?”
“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
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