Dan's Thoughts

Trish # 50   -May 16th, 2005

Well, the saga continues. It has been nearly a year now since Trish had her brain aneurism. As you recall, the original rupture was followed by truly terrifying vasospasms, which left her physically paralyzed and lost in a mental twilight. You watched and prayed with me, week after week as she begin to emerge from her comatose state, struggled to breathe on her own, then began to walk again.

Many of you have told me some of the things medically trained people told you during those weeks. Their reports were all sad and frightening. However, beginning with one humble cleaning lady at St. Joseph’s hospital, the word of God began flowing through His people to us: Trish will live and manifest the glory of God.”

We moved to Nashville to work in our home church so we could focus on her healing and recovery. For these last many months she has been going to intensive physical therapy. Our insurance coverage for therapy ran out months ago and the therapy is expensive. However, God has provided month after month for Trish to get the care she needs. Her movements are nearly normally now. Her mental condition is also good, though she gets tired easy, a common complaint of those healing from neurological trauma.

We are going to Phoenix next weekend. We will see our children, our granddaughter, other family members and a host of friends. We will also visit St. Joseph’s hospital where we will go to the chapel to offer our thanks to God in that place where we met with Him so many times last year.

The story is still unfolding though.

Trish has decided to run the Phoenix marathon next January! Her therapist agrees that she can do it if she keeps training. She had decided to do this last week, as a testimony to the faithfulness of God and her renewed commitment to life. However, this weekend she got another brainstorm: she will ask for donations give them to support a hospital in Haiti. You will want to hear how and why she made that decision!

Yesterday was Pentecost. Our church, Christ Church Nashville, has roots in the Pentecostal movement. Naturally, this weekend is an occasion for celebrating the distinctives of Pentecostalism. So we had decided to ask Mrs. Pentecost herself, Patricia Gruits, to speak for us on this important day.

Yesterday, she began her message as expected. She spoke of events in her family’s life that are connected to the history of the Pentecostal movement. Our responsive reading as from Acts 2, and she connected her personal experiences with that New Testament passage. Somewhere in the middle of ser sermon though, she shifted our attention to the phrase, “they heard them speak the marvelous works of God.” She talked of how important it is for us to speak and to hear about the marvelous works of God and wooed us back to the evening service. So about a thousand of our people returned, expecting what one usually expects from a Pentecostal worship service on Pentecost Sunday. But no.

Sister Pat began telling us about a vision she had received in 1975. The vision instructed her to build a hospital for the suffering people of Haiti. Since she faints at the sight of blood and has no medical training, the vision was a stretch. But, the fire of the Holy Spirit was burning in her heart. She felt commissioned by God to carry out this vision. So she went to Haiti. For seventeen years she did all she could to be obedient to the vision she believed God had given her. Naturally, given her lack of medical background, the government would not allow her to open a hospital. Then, after seventeen years of doing all she could do, God did what He can do. One day, without warning, the government asked he to attend a meeting. In the meeting, representatives from the World Health Organization, the Haitian government and Doctors without Borders, thanked her for her work among the poor people of Haiti. They then informed her that they would allow her to run a hospital, indeed that they would build it for her, if she would agree to locate it in a remote valley of the nation. She agreed. Within days, building began on a beautiful facility in which first class medical people could offer continual care to the people of Haiti. She was also given permission to have a food distribution center and to provide training for the care of newborns from the same facility. She is now expanding the work to care for AIDS victims.

We were spell bound. We opened our hearts as she taught us about how the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God, comes to enlarge our capacity to do the work of Jesus in the world. She did not take up an offering. She did not manipulate us. She just told about the marvelous works of God When she had finished her sermon, people could hardly move. It was not a normal Pentecostal reaction. The Wind was not loud but it was mighty. The fire was not frantic but it was certainly hot. A living force descended in the room last night and filled all the house where we were sitting. Tongues of fire pierced our hearts. Pentecost was, God seemed to say, not for our amusement. The coming of the Holy Sprit was about pushing us out -- into the world -- out where people suffer and die. The gifts of God are for the people of God to serve humanity in the name of God.

This morning Trish said to me, “I want to run in Phoenix for the glory of God and I want to support that hospital. I want you to help me get the word out.” So I am writing to you again. This is not a fundraiser. I will simply keep writing to all of you who want to listen, about the marvelous works of God.”

Once again Trish I are learning that the power of God works through networks of people. These networks are not usually formally organized things. Often they are called into being by an unexpected act of God, or as a response to a work of darkness and suffering. Last year, thousands of you walked with us through our greatest trial and you became a canal of Spirit that has renewed our life and strength. This year, a good woman of God preached a sermon that made us glad to be alive again. She reminded us that it is time for us to move on and give to others what we have received. It is not time to be amused by supernatural fireworks and interesting phenomena; it is time to move into the world and declare through our lives of service what God has done.

So we are off to Phoenix. We will kiss our year-old grandbaby. We will hug the necks of our friends. We will go to St. Joseph’s to thank God and all the people who served us last year. Then we will return to Nashville to love and serve the people of our church, love one another and get in shape to run. Hopefully, this tile next year, some Haitian children will be touched by the love of God through the hands of the people of God because we have been touched by the Spirit. We are trying to do what the writer of the Hebrews urged, “Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises.”

I’ll keep you posted on how we are doing with that!

I will do my best to write several emails each week, at least until we run next January. If you are interested in reading them, just go to our church website, www.christchurchnashville.org, click on the button that leads to this on-going blog and read on. We will also try to post all my old emails for those of you who are new to this story.

Dan