Norm’s Notes                                                                                   August 28, 2016

Some of the people who have crossed my path this week …
 
On Sunday, in the foyer, I was talking to a mother. I knew the mother quite well. She told me her two teenage sons got up and came to church and as they were leaving the house, they knocked on her bedroom door to say “Mom, we are going to church.” Mom was still sleeping. The young men came to teen classes and adult worship, on time for everything. Mom was late to worship. Mom has raised her young men very well; now the young men are trying to raise mom.
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On Sunday afternoon Linda and I attended the funeral of her cousin, Donna, in southern Ohio. The funeral was conducted by Donna’s brother and Linda’s cousin, Colonel Tim Willoughby. Tim is an ordained pastor in the Church of God and has spent most of his life as a chaplain in the US military. He is a quiet, humble, Godly man and talks about his distinguished military career only when asked. His career has included being head chaplain over all the Green Berets. At the highest point in all the middle east wars, Desert Storm and Afghanistan, he was head chaplain over all the military forces with 500 chaplains under his command. His last assignment was Command Chaplain at Central Command of US military. God has placed this humble man in very high places. In his position he has counseled and given direction to the people who control the most powerful military in the world. Names of military people we see on the news are among his friends. Maybe I can get Tim to FMC sometime. He now lives in Florida.
 
Also while at the funeral, I met for the first time a young man named J.D. He had spent ten years in the military. His last assignment as a marine before leaving the military was as part of the team that trained the Afghanistan military how to fight once the US military left the country. I thanked him for his service.
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Monday, about 10:00 a.m. I received a phone call from a 21 year old pregnant young lady, baby coming in January. She called me because I did her mother’s funeral in 2008. This story is about as sad as it gets, but not unusual either. Not married; father of the baby just trashed their former apartment and now he is out of the picture. She has no job but getting one at Subway someday. She has moved into a new apartment where rent is $450 a month. She receives $469 Social Security per month. She has no car – she relies on friends. I sent her to Project Help to get food and direction for life then asked her to call the Compassion Pregnancy Center to get help with the baby coming. My question to her was – if we help this month with rent, how will you pay next month? She was not sure until she actually gets a job but she assured me several times she would make it somehow.
 
These type calls, 3 or 4 a day sometimes, are usually handled by secretaries Cindy and Stephanee because they answer the phone. This one just happened to come to me because the caller knew me. What would you do? 
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Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. a message was left on my voice mail at home. I was reading / napping on the front porch so I let the machine pick it up. “Pastor Norm, I am at my bottom. I have no money, hardly any milk, no gas in my car. I just wanted a hamburger bun for my turkey burger but I have no money.” I called her backWednesday morning and we helped her with some Wal-Mart cards and filled up her tank with gas.
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Wednesday, 3:00, the secretaries buzzed me to say there was a man out front who wanted to talk to a pastor. I went out to talk to him in the foyer. He wanted to work to get gas money to get back to Alabama. He was limping and had one knee bandaged up. I quickly summed up in my mind that he cannot work. I asked him what happened. He told me he hit his knee with an ax while helping his Pentacostal preaching uncle build a church in the mountains of Kentucky (I can see this may be an interesting story). He showed me his wife’s Alabama driver’s license, not his own. I surmised he does not have one. I told him to follow me down to the Meijer gas station to fill his tank so he could head back to Alabama. He did not know where Meijer was even though he has been in town a week and went by it to get to the church (I did not ask him how he ended up at Fairview). He pulled up to the pump and got out this little funnel to put in the gas tank. He told me the spout that goes to the gas tank has a leak so he has to use the funnel. The funnel is the same size as most people use to put oil in their lawn mower. He and his wife literally put most of the $30 of gas in the little Mazda truck 5 cents at a time. I just leaned against the truck and made conversation with them. He quoted the KJV of the Bible very well during the 25 minute talk. I learned that he actually had hit his knee with an ax in 1992 and his uncle has been in heaven for 10 years. He recently re-injured his knee by hitting the hitch that stuck out the back of his truck. He has logged timber by mule in Kentucky mountains and worked in coal mines for 18 years. He is 52 years old and wants to get on disability. I briefly prayed with him at the pumps. I figured a full tank will get him down to Kentucky or Tennessee and then maybe his relatives can fill his tank again.
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These are the stories of some of the people God brought across my path so far this week. 
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It’s great to be your Caring Pastor. See you Sunday.
 
Norm
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