NEW BEGINNINGS!

Friday, October 15, 2010, Walla Walla, WA 65 degrees perfect weather.

I am feeling more effects from the latest R-CHOP chemo that I had just over a week ago. It is sort of a delayed reaction. You feel fairly well when you are still taking 100 milligrams of Prednazone every day for 5 days. Then you come off of that cold turkey and the side effects of the chemo agents start to kick in and it's difficult to have much energy to do anything optional, like writing a blog. I also officiated at two Memorial Services last Saturday afternoon and preached three times on Sunday morning. We are in the process of finalizing the reconstruction of the Wasser House, located just next door to CPPC. It will be a home for people who are in Walla Walla to receive cancer treatment. There is already the Herring House for that service, but they only allow adults and have no capacity for children. We will be able to host one family at a time and focus on those with a child in treatment. The team getting the house in order has set a deadline of October 24 to get it ready and we will dedicate it during our Harvest Party that Sunday afternoon. There is already a waiting list of families who need this service, so we will have the privilege of showing God's love and grace to many over the years. People come to Walla Walla from all over NE Oregon and SW WA. to receive cancer treatment. With winter driving conditions approaching in the Blue Mountains, it becomes difficult, if not dangerous to drive over 1-2 mountain passes every day for radiation or other treatment. We know that this ministry of hospitality will not only meet physical and financial needs, but we pray that God's love will touch the hearts of all those who come to this house. It is a ministry of completely unconditional love. There are no strings attached to the use of the facility. We are creating a hospitality ministry team to welcome new guests, give them orientation about the house and the community and provide information about opportunities within our congregation and community that they can access. We already have a volunteer who happens to be a nurse, who will clean the facility after every usage. She wants to offer her nursing skills and awareness of sterile necessity to make sure people are safe and secure. Many others have given amazing amounts of time, skills and resources to transform this eyesore into a place of beauty and service. That is the goal of the cancer treatments and stem-cell transplant that we are experiencing.

I have heard from most of my siblings and they have submitted the blood samples to the SCCA for testing. We hope to hear from those tests in the next couple of weeks. I am scheduled for a PET scan on Thursday, October 21 and then will meet with my Oncologist the next week here in Walla Walla. The R-CHOP is obviously having a strong impact on my body. The tumor in my neck is essentially gone, along with my hair. Kriss and Cleo pulled out the bulk of it as I was shedding and then I went to the barber and had him even it all out with his closest cutting blade. I have an uncanny resemblence to DR. EVIL when I take my glasses off. I demonstrated that during the worship services last Sunday. It got a lot of laughs. One has to keep some form of self-deprecating humor in all of this or you can find yourself in a bad place. I try to keep in perspective all the amazing blessings that flood over my life on a daily basis. My friend Glenn, whose Memorial Service I led last week, was diagnosed with his cancer in late August of this year and died within six weeks. My first cancer surgery was 12 years ago and I have had four years since my initial diagnosis with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I try to live one day at a time and give thanks for the gift and miracle of each moment. I still waste a lot of time on probably non-essentials, like watching sports on TV, but some days it is therapeutic to just sit in my recliner and rest. We are just clay. Jeremiah 18 speaks of God as the Master Potter that keeps shaping and reshaping our lives into the form God desires, which is ultimately to be like Jesus. During my Sophmore year at Wapato High School I started a complete make-over in every area of my life.

Fall of 1966, Wapato, WA - Welcome to High School!

I survived my return from the wilds of Alberta via the Greyhound Bus Lines. It was a long and tedious trip with a layover in Spokane in the middle of the night. There is no way you can sleep on those benches and you are constantly in fear that someone is going to just up and steal your luggage if you do happen to fall asleep. Bus Depots are not usually located in the best parts of town and so I got home very tired and cranky. High School orientation began immediately and we were the Class of '69, mighty fine. Having started a complete reset of my priorities and lifestyle in Canada, I wanted to make sure that I didn't fall back into old habits and patterns of behavior. Inspired by the example of people I had met in Alberta, I began to instill spiritual disciplines into my daily life. I prayed for every meal. I began to read not only the Bible daily, but other devotional materials. I discovered a "Christian Radio" station, KBBO in Yakima, WA that aired a program entitled "Unshackled" every weekday evening just when I was going to bed. It originated from some Rescue Mission in Chicago, IL and told a story each night of some desperate soul coming to the Mission for food and shelter and finding a new life in Jesus Christ. It was an ole-timey program with corny organ music in the background for emotional emphasis. Somehow the message was powerful enough to ignore the massage and I became a devoted listener. It reminded me daily of the power of prayer and the hope of a new life in Christ. Many of the converts had had a Godly mother or grandmother who had been praying for them for years, if not decades, and God answered those prayers. I began to pray for my family and friends with a hope and an expectation that God would one day fill their hearts with the Spirit of Life. As a result of these changes, I found myself in no man's land socially and culturally speaking. My friends had no idea how to relate to me any more. I didn't make it easy for them. I was a typical convert. Zealous to a fault, I must have come across as an amazingly arrogant and self-righteous fanatic. I had no qualms about telling them to stop listening to Rock and Roll Music and even suggested KBBO as an alternative. Having been deeply influenced by the Holiness Church in Medicine Hat, I made an appointment with the Principal of Wapato High School, Mr. Dorr, to see about abolishing School Dances. This was obiviously a place of sin and degradation and I thought it would be better for public schools to eliminate such temptations from their schedule. He was not in support of my vision and politely excused me from the office.

The transformation of my mind and spirit (cf, Romans 12:1-2) first showed up in my academic life. I now had time to study, since no one was calling to talk to me or invite me to go anywhere. I devised a very disciplined hourly pattern in which I would read or study intensively for 15 minutes. Then I would reward myself with a 5 minute break and then force myself to go back for 15 minutes on and 5 minutes off. I had read someplace that your efficiency of retention declines rapidly after 20 minutes of concentration, to the point that if you tried to read or study intensively for 60 minutes, the last 40 minutes would essentially be wasted. In my schedule, I could get 45 minutes of productive work out of 60 minutes and reward myself with three 5 minute breaks as well. It worked so well that I rapidly became a model student. I got everything done on time and came to class prepared to contribute to discussion and discovery. By the end of the first Quarter, I proudly carried my Quarterly Grade Report into the High School Library to show my mother how well I had done. It was the best Grade Report I had ever had and I knew she would be very proud and pleased. I received all A's and one B+. I handed her the Report Card without comment and awaited her response. She looked at it for a minute and without any facial expression or emotion stated: "You could have done better!" I was so angry and disappointed that I was speachless. I grabbed the paper and stalked out of the Library vowing under my breath that I would show her. I did. Over the course of the next 2 3/4 years in High School I would receive nothing less than an A, except for my final Trimester my Sr. year when I got another B+. I would not recommend this as a helpful parenting skill, but either my mother was extremely wise in how far and hard to push her expectations, or she was just having a bad day. Regardless, my academic transformation would continue and I would initial PTL on returned papers and tests, Praise The Lord. God was the only reason I could either desire or accomplish anything of value in my life.

The second area of obvious change in my life was my dedication and commitment to tennis and basketball. My mother had forbidden me from playing football. She had had enough sons seriously injured playing that sport and she argued that tennis, in particular, was a lifetime sport that you could play forever. I bought that reasoning and so I played tennis fall and spring, but basketball was king in Wapato and to be a member of the Wolfpack Basketball Team was the dream of most of the young boys in the community. Wapato was a school of about 600 students, but there were only a couple of classifications of different school sizes in those days and we competed against the largest High Schools in the state. Wapato was legendary as a small school who could compete with anyone. During my career, I had the privilege of playing for two WA State Hall of Fame Basketball coaches, Russ Insley and Jerry Groenig. They were Hall of Fame stature as people, as well as coaches. Early in the fall of my Sophmore year, I began training in earnest to make the Jr. Varsity Team. Those were the days of limited playing opportunity and there was only a Varsity and a Jr. Varsity Boys Basketball team. If you didn't make Jr. Varsity as a Sophmore, your basketball career was essentially over. By some divine intervention, I was selected as one of the chosen 12 out of dozens of candidates. We all got a buzz shave, just like I have today due to chemo, and we proudly wore the scarf and knit caps required by the coaching staff whenever we went outdoors. I was the shortest player on the team. By the end of the season, I would be one of the starting guards, along with my friend Glenn Hata. My favorite place to play was Ellensburg, WA. For some reason, I always did my best there and I was high point man when we played them in January, 1967. One memory stands out in particular from that season. We were playing a tight game in Grandview, WA and leading by just a few points, Coach Groenig told us to hold on to the ball and force them to foul us. I had been practising this special move inside the key that I had perfected to where I could score 9 out of 10 times. I found myself in the right place for that move and someone passed me the ball and I just reacted out of instinct and did the move and scored a basket. Coach Groenig immediately called time-out in order to ream me out for disobeying his explicit instructions about holding on to the ball. Arriving at the bench, he sternly asked me if I didn't recall him telling us to hold on to the ball. The only thing I thought to say was: "But Coach, I knew I could make it!" He had seen me practising this move over and over, even after practise was over, and I guess he believed me. I didn't take any more unauthorized shots the rest of the game, however, but I learned a lesson about dedication and courage in the face of adversity. My entire Sophmore Year would be a turning point in my life. The old adage was coming true, "God honors those who honor Him." I had committed to returning to Canada for a second year on brother Noel's cattle ranch. I wanted to show Noel and Betty that I was a new person in Christ. I went back with a completely different attitude and motivation.