FAITH in Times of Trials

FAITH IN TIMES OF TRIAL


Throughout our many years of marriage, Flo has manifested marvelous FAITH and godliness. As I peruse my papers covering our ministry of thirty-seven years in Kenya, I am struck by the numerous tests God brought our way. Through them all, Flo has stood strong in her living FAITH in our faithful God.

In July 1987 we were hosting a research team on prayer renewal at Kijabe, Kenya. The men slept in Moffat College of the Bible nearby while Flo cooked their meals for them in our house. Then suddenly on Wednesday we received a phone call from Pastor Dana Weller of our home church, requesting Flo to come home immediately because her father was seriously ill. Her mother had passed away unexpectedly in her old age in 1985, just weeks after we had arrived back in Kenya. Since Flo had just been with her mother weeks earlier, she never returned home for the funeral. Our pastor kindly thought that Flo should return this time and the church paid for her return fare.

The love and concern of the African brethren is always refreshing. They met with us to express their concern. We sang several hymns; they read Scripture and prayed with us. Then they released us so that we could work together in sending Flo off to the States quickly.

Flo left Nairobi for Emmaus Pennsylvania on Friday 28th August, 1987. Two days after she arrived home in Emmaus, her dad passed away. Though her father was unable to speak when Flo had returned, he squeezed her hand, acknowledging her presence. She was so grateful to be there before he passed away. Flo was his pride and joy in her missionary service. We were all shocked and stunned. Though he was 79 year old, he had been active, umpiring ball games, working in the garden and active in church until a few weeks before he passed away.

Flo was gone on her compassionate leave to visit her father for more than three weeks, arriving back home on Tuesday, September 22, 1987. Pastor Noah Thananga, a faithful brother and friend, drove with me to the airport to take Flo on August 28 and then did the same when she returned on September 22 because the journey was at night and not the safest. Immediately after her return she spent two days sprucing up the house and elevating it to her standards of cleanliness and orderliness.

Then on the following Friday at 4:00 P.M. she began to have cramps in her stomach, could not move her bowels nor eat that day. She began to have a great deal of discomfort in her stomach and by Saturday morning felt nauseated and threw up. So we went to the Kijabe Medical Center. On the basis of her symptoms and her history the doctor concluded it was a bowel blockage, similar to the bowel blockage five years earlier which required major surgery. The x-ray and blood test confirmed his diagnosis. With her condition continuing to deteriorate with vomiting and a distended stomach, they decided to operate Sunday morning. The bowel blockage was caused by adhesions. She had so many adhesions that the surgery took longer than anticipated. She remained in the hospital for twelve days.

The Lord in his grace spared her from having this medical emergency in the States or on her trip back to Kenya. Though she was released from the hospital after twelve days, she was not allowed to return home because she developed a serious infection following the surgery and needed a nurse to clean and dress the incision several times a day. So Marian Gibbon, a nurse friend with her husband, Fred, kindly invited her to stay with them to escape the institutional surroundings of the Kijabe Medical Center with its limitations of nursing care and food. Her recovery was longer, having lost fifteen pounds and finding difficulty in eating.

Flo’s thoughtful reflection on this experience is a lesson to all. “I’m thankful,” she wrote, “for the thought that it takes both sunshine and rain to make a beautiful flower. I want to be beautiful flower. I want to be beautiful so I need the dark times of life too.” Flo loves flowers. All our houses in Kenya were graced, both inside and outside, with gorgeous flowers. In Kijabe our house was noted for its beautiful flowers; and in her own life, Flo desired to be a beautiful flower for the glory of God.

What a marvelous expression of FAITH. Would to God that we could all say from our hearts, whenever trials of various kinds strike us: “I’m thankful - it takes both sunshine and rain to make a beautiful flower. I want to be a beautiful flower so I need the dark times of life too.”