Maely's big day - Surgery

Pat and I arrived in LA around 5:30pm yesterday afternoon and pulled in to Kevin and Gaby’s house around 7:15pm.  They are the most gracious hosts and Maely has been truly blessed by their kindness and generosity.  Maely will be living with them for the next 3 to 5 months and couldn’t be in better hands…which is no surprise.  God loves this child and will provide only the best for “His little girl”

Gaby and Pat have escorted Maely to Childrens Hospital this morning for her surgery which is scheduled for 7:30 am.  They got up at 4am to make sure she arrived in time.  Within a few hours the deformity she has lived with all her life, the mark that has made her an outcast in her village and within her own family, will be erased forever.   When I look back over the last 16 months, its clear that God’s hand has been firmly steering  events in a multitude of peoples lives between here and Honduras, just to lead us all to this perfect moment in time.  When you consider the events and circumstances that had to align to make this happen, then compound that by the variable of human nature which intervened at every turn, it becomes abundantly clear that it is truly a miracle that Maely will be healed this morning.

I wish I had the ability to go back and analyze each chance encounter, each conversation, each decision, each seemingly irrelevant “coincidence” that has ocurred from the day we first decided to travel to Honduras and then view those events through the lens of 20-20 hindsight.    By doing so, I think we could begin to grasp the smallest measure of the wisdom, power and love that IS our Creator.  All that has transpired, and all the will continue to unfold over the coming months will continue to be a testament to the Majestic Glory of our God and King and HIS willingness to be the center of our universe if we will only let HIM.

It will be several hours before we get an update from the Doctor, and I feel God leading me to share my testimony while we wait.  In doing so, I hope to reveal how God began preparing todays events more than three decades ago.

Next December 3^rd will mark 37 years since I became a child of the King.  I was 16 at the time I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior but in the two years leading up to that decision, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been continually tugging at my heart.  Each time I was confronted by the Living God, I pushed HIM away.  After all, I was only 16, I had my whole life ahead of me and didn’t want to have to give up all the fun I was going to have.  So if I may, allow me to provide a little background to the story so you may better understand the significance of all that transpired that night at 10:04PM as I walked down Ave. A in Surfside Texas and the events that are unfolding today with Maely.

My father worked in the oilfield all of his life, as did his father before him.  We travelled a lot going from one construction project to another and it wasn’t unusual for me and my older brother to go to three different schools in one school year.  This transient lifestyle exposed us to a wide variety of people and cultures but also kept us from ever truly fitting in.  When I was 14, we moved to Surfside Texas and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  Having grown up in South Texas, right on the border of Mexico, the largest body of water we had available to us was Mr. Longoria’s cow tank which we would sneak into for a swim when we knew he wasn’t around.  Living on the beach opened up a whole new range of activities I had only dreamed about.  Surfing, fishing, snorkeling, crabbing, floundering…and then…there was this Baptist church called  “The Anchor”  Keep in mind this was the early 70’s and the few times I had darkened the doorway to a church it was to hear the old gospel songs accompanied by a piano and organ and quickly followed up by sermons of hellfire and brimstone that used to singe my socks!  Unlike those churches I attended as a kid, The Anchor Baptist Church had “A band” with electric guitars, drums and they were singing songs like “Jesus is just alright with me” and did it better than the original rock group that made it famous.

In addition to this new type of worship, they also had a program called Royal Ambassadors ( or R.A’s as we called it) which was run by a wonderful young man by the name of Billy Proske. The R.A.s not only sponsored sports activities like basketball and baseball, they also took the kids on the beach on campouts, to Astro-World and all kinds of places that a country boy like me had never had the chance to enjoy.  Let me tell you a little about Billy Proske. Billy devoted his entire life to the youth ministry and now almost 40 years later he is still at it and going strong.  He sacrificed his hearts desire to get married and have kids of his own because he knew that wasn’t God’s will for him.  Due to Billy’s faithfulness and obedience, he has now literally touched the lives of thousands of boys and girls over the course of his life.  I am one of those whose life was changed as a result of his love for GOD.

So from the age of 14 to 16, I was a regular participant in RA activities and frequently attended services at the Anchor.  Regardless if it was a campout, a canoe trip or a baseball game, Billy would always give an invitation at the end of each event and ask his kids if they wanted to accept Jesus into their heart.  The first time that happened, I felt the gentle touch of my God tugging at the strings of my heart and I bolted like a jackrabbit in the other direction.  I knew without a doubt it was the Spirit of the Living God that was speaking to me, but I wasn’t about to miss out on all that life had to offer a young man growing up on the beach.

So for next two years, God continued to tug at my heart during RA activities and Church invitations, each time I pushed HIM away and said not now,….maybe later.  Then in November of 1973 my dad came home from work and said start packing everything up, we are moving in a couple of weeks back to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.  He had been offered a job as the head operator of an oil and gas facility located just outside San Isidro Texas.  My whole world came crashing in, I couldn’t imagine leaving this place where for the first time in my life, I felt like I fit in.  I had friends, I had activities, I had opportunities…and like a hundred times before, now I was going to have to leave it all behind and hit the road again.

When Billy and the rest of the RA and GA (Girl Ambassadors) heard that I was leaving they planned a going away party to be held right after the Wendesday night RA/GA meeting.  Believe it or not, 40 kids (including some of my closest friends and cousins) managed to keep a secret for two weeks and I was totally surprised by the party.  I was overwhelmed by appreciation for their friendship and at the same time devastated by the realization that I would be leaving them all behind.  In writing this story, I just now realized that Billy didn’t give an invitation that night.  Odd that I should think about that now, but I believe that God wanted this moment between He and I to be private.  So after the party, I was walking the 11 blocks back to my house around 10 PM that night.  Somewhere between 3^rd and 4^th street, God began to tug on my heart again…only this time it was different. This time, I felt like it was the last time He would call, the last time I would hear HIS voice and sense HIS presence.  That terrified me even more than surrendering my life to HIM, not because I was afraid of going to HELL but because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the opportunity to get to know the GOD who I knew loved me unconditionally.  I sensed that this would be my last chance to make the decision that I had known all along that I needed to make.  So somewhere between 4^th street and 11^th street, in the tiny little seaside village of Surfside Texas, I invited the CREATOR of the UNIVERSE into my heart and was immediately transformed from the inside out.  Not that I was physically changed and became a saint, but for the first time in my life, I was complete, I was whole, I was what God had intended all of us to be….I was a child of the KING.  I cannot describe the joy and the peace that flooded my soul.  In an instant I knew HIM, and was Known by HIM to core of my being.  I was one with Father and experienced a love that washed over me like a tidal wave.  I belonged, and that God shaped hole in my heart that I was born with was now filled by the God who spoke the stars into existence and gave each one a name.  For the first time in my life, I had meaning, I had purpose, I had joy and now I had the security of knowing that nothing could snatch me out of the hand of Almighty God.  He would never leave me, or forsake me..He became my redeemer, my tower of refuge in times of trouble, my hope in times of uncertainty, and my comfort in times of despair.

That was 37 years ago, and my life since that time has been a journey of preparation for HIS service.  I have been truly blessed with a wife who shares my faith in God and who is my best friend, my strength and the love of my life.  Together we are embarking on a journey of discovery as we plumb the depths of God’s love, and surrender our all the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is this degree of surrender that led us to travel to Roatan Honduras in December of 2008 where we met Miguel and Wendy Mathis.  It was obedience to HIS calling that led us to begin working with Miguel and Wendy to help the poor in Wendy’s home village of Potenciana.  It was trust in God that allowed us to travel to Potenciana in June of 2009 where we first met Maely.  It was God’s prompting that started us on the path to find a means to get Maely to the US for surgery.  Over the last 16 months, God has done amazing things to bring about the events that are unfolding before us today.  And the beauty of it is…..He had all of this planned, before He placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  He knew me, He knew Pat, He knew Maely and He knew Kevin and Gaby Morgeman, HE KNEW ALL OF THIS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!  His love stretches from eternity past, through the present and into eternity future.  Life for all its brevity or longevity, it but the blink of an eye in the midst of eternity and our GOD is in control from the beginning to the end. 

If you have never asked Jesus Christ into your life, then that tugging your feeling in your heart right now is none other than the voice of God the Father, your creator calling out for you to come home.  To accept HIS free gift of salvation that HE has made possible through the death of HIS sinless son Jesus Christ.  The bible says that He who knew no sin (JESUS) became sin so that he could die in our place and his death could atone for our sins, making us holy and righteous before our perfect Father in Heaven.  Jesus is the only door through which we can pass and regain that fellowship with our creator that was lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve rebelled against God.  In this life, we have no guarantees for tomorrow.  I truly believe that had I pushed God away that night on Surfside Beach, I would not have had another opportunity and my fate would have been sealed for eternity.  Don’t let that happen to you, life is short, so make it count by embracing that which has been ours for the asking from the beginning of time and which once recieved, can never be taken away through the end of time.

I will follow up later with details on Maely’s surgery, but in the meantime, keep in mind that the God who brought her from her tiny village in Honduras to Childrens Hospital that she might be healed, is the same God that is dancing across the strings of your heart right now and urging you to come home to HIM.