My 9-11 Story

My September 11 story began in June of 2001. We were missionaries to Romania on furlough. We were in New York trying to raise support to return to the field. We had a day off and decided to go to the Statue of Liberty. This was my first time there; the kids too. I remember standing there looking across the skyline of New York City. I had always wanted to go there. I made up my mind right then and there that we would go on our next trip to New York which was coming up in September. Ten year old Gabriel didn't seem as impressed as I was with the skyline. One comment about the world trade center buildings was, "They're not twin towers. One has an antenna on top."

Three months later we found ourselves in New York again. We were busy visiting several churches and spending time with John's family. John asked at one point, "What do you want to do on Tuesday?" I forgot about my determination to go to New York City. I forgot about the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers. It never occurred to me that we would be only an hour away on Wednesday and it would be a very feasible trip on Tuesday. All of that completely slipped my mind. Instead I said something like, "I don't know. I think it would be a good idea to stay at the mission apartment and do some homeschooling with the kids." And that is exactly what I did. John had heard about a preachers' meeting going on that day and so he left early to do that. I was there in that church apartment, prophet chamber as it was called. We pulled out our books and I was so glad to get some much needed school work done.

It was a nice place to stay. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom. There was an old TV on the dresser. The kind where you pull the knob out to turn it on and it takes a while to warm up. We didn't bother turning the TV on. We had school. Did I have a cell phone? I don't remember. I would say probably not because John had not contacted me. Neither did anyone else. We were pretty much in our own little world that day. As far as we knew, it was just your run of the mill average day. How very wrong we were.

It was about 2:30 PM when a lady from the church came over. She was also a homeschool mom and we had made plans to fly kites together that afternoon. She came into the church kitchen with a distraught look on her face, "Have you heard what happened?" she asked me. By her facial expression, I knew it was serious. I had no idea that it was an event that would forever change all of our lives. As she shared the impossible news, I wondered what had happened to our country. How was it that our security was so lax that so many planes could be hijacked?

We went to the room with the old fashioned black and white TV and pulled the knob to turn it on. It wasn't hard to find a channel broadcasting the news. By that point, both buildings were long gone and they showed over and over how they had collapsed. It was then that I saw the antenna on the one tower - and I remembered! I remembered Gabriel's words on how they weren't really twins. I remembered my desire to visit the city. Oh how I had wanted to go! And that was our free day, the day that it would have been possible to go - and I had forgotten.

Why did God spare us, and not others, from possible death and certain calamity? (Just being in the city that day must have been a nightmare.) I am sure I will never know as long as I live on this earth. For His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. We are blessed by His mercy and His grace. Our hearts are grieved by the tragedy that touched all of our lives. I hope that as Americans we will never forget what has happened; that we will continue to be a strong nation that will fight for our freedom. And I pray that as Christians, we will love God with all of our heart, soul and strength and share His mercy and grace with all. May God bless America!

Long Story Short Version

My longtime blogging friend PlainJane asked me recently if I am still working outside the home. I was a stay-at-home mom for many years, beginning shortly before our first child was born. It has always been my personal conviction that mothers should be home with their children unless their income was needed to put food on the table. I understand that most Americans do not share my feelings on that point but I am not here to change anyone's mind, I'm simply stating what is right for our family.


I did have a couple of part time jobs when John was in college. He also worked full time, making a little above minimum wage. I did Mother's Day Out 2 days a week and brought Gabriel and Hannah along with me. After that I cleaned our church occasionally. I was a substitute janitor! I got the kids up early, took them to my mom's and was at the church by 5:30 A.M. Money was always tight. We didn't have fancy cars and have never taken a luxury vacation. But watching God work miracles in our lives has been more fascinating than any exotic excursion could ever be.


Fast forward to 2007 - We had just returned from Romania and made the decision to move to Virginia. We came here in faith that John would be hired by the Virginia State Police. Until then, John found a job working security. Two week's pay only paid for two-thirds of our rent. We decided I would be a substitute teacher. It was a good plan. I worked from 7:00-3:00. The kids did their school work and I would go over it with them in the afternoon. John worked from 4:00-Midnight.


Money was still tight. We still didn't have fancy cars. Vacations consisted of going to see family. Schedules were also tight. Trying to squeeze in homeschooling between my work and the kids' jobs was tough. Reading aloud went out the window and I really missed it. But John was eventually hired by VSP and I didn't need to work as much.


I worked some during our third year in Virginia. Gabriel and Hannah were seniors in high school and college expenses were on the horizon. I'm not sure if I worked ten days last year. With Gabriel and Hannah gone and John working days, there were few occasions when he could be home with Holly so I could go to work. Last week, I received my substitute letter. I discussed it with John, "Do you want me to sub again?" We would have the same dilemma - what do we do with Holly? So the answer is a decisive "No."



To sum up the story, I will once again be a stay-at-home mom. I will look for other ways to earn some extra income - selling things on ebay and clipping coupons. But mostly, I will be watching how God will provide in His miraculous ways. And stand in awe.

Files of Memories Part 2

(Read Part 1 here)

I was numb as they carried Holly to the operating room. The trauma of the night before and precious little sleep were taking their toll. Worried about what would happen to Sweet Holly, I took a seat. Was it on the window sill or the radiator? I don't remember. There was no waiting room. No comfortable chairs. I was there with our friend Laura and our not friend Missionary Wife. Missionary Wife tried to comfort me with her own stories. "Well if you think this is bad . . . " Her chatter did not help. My mind was in a fog and I wasn't really listening anyway.

I don't know how long we waited. An hour? Four hours? It seemed like an eternity. Finally out came the nurses carrying Holly. They had smiles on their faces. They went on about how well Holly did. She didn't like the shot but afterwards was completely happy during the whole ordeal, smiling and cooing. She was always a happy baby. I often thought I should have named her Joy. I spoke with the doctor. I was told she was the best in Romania. I'm not really sure what that means in the realm of national healthcare. She performed micro plastic surgery on Holly's pinky. It was necessary to shave 1 mm of the bone but she was able to save the root of the nail.

We went home and waited for John. How could I tell him that his baby was injured? That her hand would never be whole again? When he arrived, I ran out to meet him at the gate. I didn't want him to walk in and see Holly's hand bandaged up without knowing what had happened. Once again, I don't remember what I said. Some things about the entire event are so clear and ever etched in my mind. Others are just a vague dream.

John was sad for me and for Holly. If his emotions were more than that, he held them in for my sake. He was the strong one. He was gentle and gracious and loving.

We went back to the hospital the next day to have it checked. Please keep in mind that we were in Romania. Do not envision your local hospital. And this hospital or at least the ward we were on specialized in hands and feet. Doctors and nurses were required to wear white jackets. Because it was cold a bathrobe would suffice. Patients were walking around with their hands and feet bandaged. It looked like something out of "Night of the Living Dead." Someone in a bathrobe came up to me and started to reach for Holly. At first I was shocked thinking we were in the looney ward. Then I saw her ID badge and realized she was a nurse.

We donned the required white jackets (no street clothes allowed) and took Holly into an examining room. Snip, snip, snip with the scissors and off came Holly's bandage. Then the nurse turned around to a man sitting in the same room. His hand was also bandaged and oozing . . . not a pleasant sight. She used the same scissors on that man. I wonder where they were before Holly?

We all survived these traumatic events. Amazingly her finger healed without any infections. It is scarred and the nail grows over the tip of her pinky. One day we hope to have more plastic surgery, here in the United States, to correct it. Hearts have healed as well, also with some scar tissue. But that is a story for another day.

Files of Memories

Today I was going through some of the boxes in the den - our collection site for all the things we don't know what to do with or haven't gotten to yet. Some of the boxes are ones that we brought back from my mom's. She so graciously stored them for us for a long time; some nearly a decade. I found a file of pictures drawn by Gabriel and Hannah circa first grade.





They brought a smile to my face. Sweet memories of my now grown children.




I find myself wondering what Hannah was wearing that day that made her draw her shirt or dress like that.



There was another file. It contained only two items. An x-ray and a slip of paper from a Romanian doctor. I don't know what the paper says. I've always had a difficult time reading Romanian handwriting - and this was written by a doctor! But the x-ray was self-explanatory. A tiny baby only nine months old had suffered an injury. She was so tiny that the bones in her hands had not yet fused together. There was another hand in the x-ray - a nurse holding the baby's hand down. Or perhaps it was me. I don't really remember.



It was January 1999. We were in Brasov, Romania. John had taken a trip to the United States. Gabriel, Hannah, Holly and I had been alone for nearly 10 days. We were fine. We had several good Romanian friends. I knew the language well enough. We would be fine for those 10 days that John needed to be gone. It was on that last night that we found it necessary to visit the Romanian emergency room. I was supposed to go to language class that evening. I was tired and decided not to go so I called the teacher and told her. Gabriel, Hannah and I were having fun building with K'nex. We decided to build a tower taller than Daddy before he came home. Holly was crawling around and making a mess out of the process. So I got the exersaucer and put it just outside their bedroom door which was right next to the kitchen. We made our tower, took some pictures and with a sigh I realized we just had one more night to get through. John would be home the next day.

I went to the bathroom to start Hannah's bath water. She asked if she could play with some Tupperware in the tub. Sure. She knew where it was. She opened the cabinet, took what she wanted and closed the door again. She didn't realize that her baby sister had put her hands on the door. She couldn't know that the door would become a knife to a tiny finger.


The scream that reached my ears was one that could stop a mother's heart. It was more than pain. The blood that I saw terrified me. The tip of her pinky looked frightening. Was that her nail . . . or bone? I searched the cabinet for any sign of flesh but found nothing. I grabbed a clean towel and the phone. No one I knew was home. And there was no 9-1-1.

"Oh, God!" I prayed aloud, "help me!" Hannah sat in the living room and sobbed. I told Gabriel to pack the diaper bag. We were going to the hospital. He didn't really know what to do. Hannah was my helper in that department. I kept making phone calls. Finally, in desperation, I called a missionary wife that didn't like me and made that fact obvious. Her son answered the phone. I remembering him telling me to calm down. I didn't realize I sounded frantic but I must have been. She came right away. She was the right person to get ahold of. She knew where to go, what the procedures were.


We went to the children's hospital for the x-ray and then on to another hospital. At both places, they put some medicine on the finger and wrapped it up. "Come back in the morning for surgery." Really?! There's no surgeon now? Can't you call someone? "Who are you to wake the surgeon up?" I was told.

So we went home. By then, our good friend Marius and Laura were home. Marius went to get Ildi who lived many miles away in a Hungarian village. Ildi helped me with the kids and the house while I was at language class. She adored Holly. Before she arrived, I looked at that cabinet door again. There it was on the edge, the tip of her pinky from the fingernail up. I don't know how I missed it earlier except that God must have blinded me to it. I'm not sure I could have seen that at that point without having a nervous breakdown. Ildi came and cleaned up the blood and washed Holly's outfit. We took turns holding her all night. Meanwhile, John knew nothing. At the time of the accident, he was on his way home. Even if I could get in touch with him, what could he do?


I took her to surgery the next morning. Our doctor in the States advised me to not let them give her a general anesthesia. A local was all she needed. The night before I had trouble remembering English but that morning, I was arguing with the surgeon in Romanian. "Who told you this? A pediatrician? He is not a surgeon!" So I gave my sweet baby back to God. "She's your baby Lord. Do what's best for her." Then the surgeon came back out and asked how much did she weigh. Eight kilograms. They said they would only do a local. "Thank you, Lord!" And with that, they took sweet Holly down the hall and behind closed doors.

To be continued. . . (Read Part 2)

Learning to Trust

I was a school teacher in 1987 when I married John. He was a Richmond City police officer. Everyone who knew John acknowledged the fact that he was in the right profession. Police work was in his blood. He loved what he did. He became a Virginia State Trooper in 1988 and I never saw a change in our future. I imagined living life in that one city; stable, secure, certain. Little did I know that God had a different plan when He called John into the ministry just four years after we were married. Since that time, John has worked at a rescue mission, gotten a BS degree in Biblical Studies while he worked full time and finally we went to Romania as missionaries. All the while, I was raising babies, youngsters and then teens. I was learning to be frugal on a slim budget and doing my best to teach them at home. Our life has rarely been stable or certain as I had imagined it would be; chaotic and sporadic are the adjectives that pop into my head. But throughout these many years, God has taught us that He is faithful and true. He is the Rock that we can stand on when the storms of life are raging all around us. He alone is steadfast and unchanging. He alone knows the next step of our journey. I am learning that He knows all about my tomorrows and I am learning to trust Him for each day.

The above paragraph was written on March 16, 2007, the day after we returned from Romania. We had absolutely no clue as to where our life would end up. At that point we never dreamed that God's path would lead us back to Virginia and the State Police. Never did we imagine that after giving up our life in 1992 that God would give it all back. My heart is full and I have many more things to say about this subject. But for now, I just want to say that God is good. All the time. Praise the name of the LORD.

The Dreaded Enemy

Today I was thinking about the mountain of laundry needing to be done and was tempted to complain. Instead, I decided to repost this blog entry. My poor blog needs some attention.

Laundry. The dreaded enemy. The never ending pile of dirty clothes. Laundry and I may never be best friends but I do consider myself to be blessed. After all, I have an automatic washer and dryer in the same little laundry room. My washing machine is hooked up to both the cold and hot water faucets. I can wash and dry a lot of laundry in just one day if I need or want to. This wasn't always the case.

Twelve years ago, we lived in Brasov, Romania. I considered myself fortunate to have an American washing machine. Never mind the fact that there was only cold water to wash in. It did the job well enough. In the winter, the water was really, really cold. And we only had powdered detergent. After a couple of loads that ended up covered with the undissolved powder, I learned to microwave a bowl full of water, stir in some detergent and put that in the washer. I had to hang the clothes to dry inside the house for most of the year. We had a little clothesline above the bathtub and a dryer rack usually sat near our huge terra cotta heater. No, it wasn't the most convenient arrangement. But it was better than it was when we first moved into that house. It was a small house and certainly not made for a large American washing machine. It took John a few weeks to figure out how and where to install it. Meanwhile, we did laundry in the bathtub and wrung it out by hand. I say "we" because John helped immensely. I was 2 months pregnant and very ill.

The first few months in that house were difficult in many ways. But it was a relief from what we had just been through during our first two months in Romania. Much of it is a nightmare that I try to forget but since laundry is the topic of the day, I will address that aspect. We lived in one room of a Romanian family's house for our first few weeks. They had a small washer but it was usually broken. When it worked, it was constantly in use by them. So I washed clothes in the tub. But there was nowhere to dry them. The family had a clothesline but it was always filled with clothes, wet clothes. It rained almost every day that we were there. So I washed socks, underwear and anything else that just couldn't be worn one more time and hung them on the radiator, backs of chairs and bedposts, hoping they would dry in the damp weather.

Laundry is still an almost daily affair here in our house in the States. We generally do a load or two 6 days a week (and several on the weekends when John returns from the State Police academy). This time the "we" includes the kids. It's not my favorite chore. I don't mind washing and drying so much and I actually enjoy hanging clothes on the line outside. It's the folding that I don't really enjoy. So, sometimes I forget how blessed I really am. Sometimes I complain, sigh, procrastinate. But then I remember the days when a simple thing like clean, dry socks was an enormous challenge and I thank God for all that He has blessed me with.

Healing Broken Hearts

I wrote this just over two years ago, days after we returned from Romania.

The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Psalm 34:18

I was nearly 16 when we left my favorite place in the world, San Diego, California, to move to the Podunk town of Hixson, Tennessee. Someone certainly thought of an appropriate name for that place, I thought way back then. The high school years are a horrible time for such drastic changes in a teenager’s life. I had good friends and a good school. I liked my life as it was and I did not want it to change. I certainly did not want to move to a place where everyone spoke with a weird accent and talked about buggies in the grocery store and stove eyes in the kitchen. What were my parents thinking? What was God thinking? But we did move. My parents took me, practically kicking and screaming, across the continent and away from everything that was familiar. Eventually, it became home. I grew accustomed to the accent and even adopted it myself. I learned exactly how to say “ice” and that all carbonated drinks were called “coke”. The kids at school were normal kids, most of them. I really expected red hair and bare feet. I made friends and fell in love with the south. Years later, I realized that leaving California was the best thing for me. God had a plan for my life. He knew the best path.

Fast forward nearly three decades and I find my son in the same situation. We left Romania just days before his 16^th birthday. The culture here in the States is practically foreign to him. He has left his best friend and a life he loved in a country he will probably never live in again. He is broken hearted and must be wondering what God is thinking.

Over the years, I have seen first hand how God has worked in my life. He has led me through difficult times, challenges, failures and tragedies. Time after time He has healed my broken heart and I have become stronger because of the trials. Now my children are growing up. I know that in this life, they will face their own struggles. The sorrow of life cannot always be healed with a mother’s kiss and a band-aid. Children grow up and they must learn to rely on the One who directs their steps, the One who loves them so much more than their mother. It is breaking my heart to see his heart broken. I kneel down and ask God to hold him close, so close that he can feel God’s presence and know that God does indeed have a reason for that path He has asked us to walk. I am trusting Him to heal broken hearts.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

The Lord has healed Gabriel's broken heart. From time to time, he still longs for Romania, his friends and the life we lived there. We all do. Gabriel is growing up and learning to trust God to direct his steps. I am excited to see where the Lord is leading him.

My Story - Part 1

This is the beginning of my story of being called to be a missionary and my life in Romania. I posted this on my other blog and thought I would share it here. I will post more later.

Like any story, there is a beginning and this is where I will start. Not the very beginning. That would be Genesis 1:1 and I was not there. Not my beginning either because I do not remember it. Instead, I thought I would share my first thoughts of being interested in serving the Lord.

Most missionaries do not have a blinding light experience like the Apostle Paul calling them into God’s service. God’s voice does not thunder down from heaven telling them exactly the next step to take. My first thought of full time Christian service had a much more humble beginning. It was in the lunchroom of a rural elementary school in the state of Kentucky. I was sitting with my best friend Susan talking about who knows what. Susan and I became best friends from the beginning of that school year and we were inseparable. We shared a birthday and each of us had an older brother named David. Those were important commonalities for ten year olds. I do not recall our conversation that day but the words of the boy across the table were unforgettable. I had a secret crush on him. However, I was much too shy to ever let him know my feelings, even when he was chasing me around the playground. I do not remember the date or the many other details of that day but his words still ring clear in my memory. “God has called me to preach,” he proudly announced. Our response was deplorable. We laughed out loud, hysterically and recklessly. The boy was deeply hurt and the agony was visible on his face. I laughed because Susan laughed. I laughed because it was the only thing I could think to do at that moment. It was then that I knew I would be a preacher’s wife.