This is a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in China did not get to see it.  And because they want to see it, I am herewith sending it again. 

Ron

The Garifuna

Along the east coast of Central America there is a very unusual group of people.  There are over 300,000 of them and they are all black.  They live in villages’ right against the ocean.  There are some in Nicaragua , some in Guatemala , a few in Belize , but most live in Honduras .  They mostly live off of food from the sea…….fish, crabs, oysters and also cassava root.  And they have a most unusual language.  Many languages like Latin, Spanish, and even Arabic have male and female endings for their words.  However, in the Garifuna language the male and female are totally different words.  That makes it a really hard language to master. 

The history of these people is so interesting.  There were many tribes across West Africa over the centuries, but by far the fiercest were the Ashanti .  They lived deep in the forest in what is now central Ghana .  They were quite wealthy, deriving most of their wealth from raiding neighboring tribes and selling slaves to the Muslims. 

The British conquered and subdued all of the tribes across West Arica, but not the Ashanti .  They were so fierce that they were never scared or “cowed” by the British rifles or cannon.  The Ashanti were never conquered until the British were able to bring in modern machine guns in later years. 

Occasionally, though, from the early 1600’s to the middle 1700’s the slave ships would wind-up with a few groups of Ashanti on them.  They would be captured by Muslims coming around to that part of Africa and raiding inland to capture slaves.  But that is when certain slave ships “messed-up”.  Like I said, occasionally a ship would get some Ashanti on them.  Those Ashanti warriors would either take over the ship or die trying, and were apparently often successful.  They most all wound up in the islands off the coast of Venezuela, mostly on St. Vincent by sailing there or drifting there.  Those that were taken to Jamaica didn’t stay, not the Ashanti.  They captured boats and sailed or rowed west to the same islands. 

Most all slaves brought to the Caribbean on these ships were men.  The plantation owners wanted strong workers.  Thus the Ashanti who got to St. Vincent and surrounding islands were mostly all men.  So they just married the local, indigenous women.  That is how their language developed.  The men spoke one word for an object or action, and the indigenous women spoke another. 

For a time, the Afro-Caribbean Garifunas lived peacefully alongside French settlers who reached St. Vincent later in the 17^th century, until being exiled by British troops in 1796 and eventually shipped off to Roatan, one of the Honduras Bay Islands in the Caribbean Sea .  After successfully developing a healthy crop of cassava, a mainstay of traditional Garifuna diets, on Roatan, Garifunas branched out to the Caribbean mainland to establish fishing villages.  According to one source, the Spanish agreed to transfer the Garifunas from Roatan to the coastal mainland of Honduras , effectively consolidating their claim on Roatan and the other Honduras Bay Islands . 

Garifuna culture is closely identified with music and dance.  Garifuna music styles are known for their heavy use of percussion instruments and distinctive drumming, which combines the beats of primero (tenor) and segunda (bass) drums.  Garifuna drums are typically made from hollowed-out hardwoods such as mahogany or mayflower that are native to Central America .  

Punta, an evolved form of traditional music played using traditional instruments, is the most popular and well-known genre of Garifuna music and dance.  Punta lyrics are typically sung by Garifuna women and often relate to one gender or the other.  Energetic punta dancing has been described as “consciously competitive.” 

On one mission trip I did a one day clinic just for the Garifuna.  It was one of the most fun clinics that we have ever had.  They were so very grateful too, for the attention paid just to them. 

In a coastal town about and hour from San Pedro Sula where our medical teams often stayed I met a young missionary named, David.  He and his wife were originally from Arkansas .  He wandered around Central America for some time seeking what he thought God wanted him to do.  

When he encountered the Garifuna people he became intrigued that no one had ever learned their language.   There had been many Catholic missionaries in past years, but none had ever learned the language. 

So David decided that he should learn their language and be the first missionary that we know of to them other than the Catholics years ago.  When I met him, he had a new small church and was working on mastering their language.  He even had a radio show in their language.  It had a really large audience of Garifuna, mostly because they found it great fun to hear all the mistakes that he made trying to speak Garifuna on the radio show. 

David asked if he could show the Jesus Film in Spanish to the congregation in his new church.  It was on the same night that I had the electrical trouble with the old bob-tail truck, so I got there only at about the end of the showing. 

David and I visited afterward, mostly discussing these interesting people.  I asked him what would happen if we ever got the Jesus Film into their language.  He was overwhelmed at the thought.  He said thousands and thousands of them would find God and come to know Jesus and be saved into Heaven. 

I came back to the US and called Paul Eshleman about it.  As I mentioned earlier, up until that time we thought that the Jesus Film only had to be translated and produced into 89 languages.  However, Paul had discovered that words like “love” and “forgiveness” only have real meaning in a peoples’ heart language, not just the 89 trade languages that are mostly spoken around the world.  

Paul agreed to do it, and what was so interesting time wise, was that this would be the first making of the film into a “heart language”……….Garifuna.   

So we started making plans.  To save money it was decided to only lip-synch Jesus’ words in the film and have a narrator talk over the other parts.  They had done it that way before, and the way it turned-out, it really did not make that much difference.  So I really only needed to get two Garifuna speakers to California . 

David selected the two that he considered the most appropriate that could also speak fairly good English.  I went down to Houston to meet their plane to make sure that they got on the right flight to Los Angeles . 

We did real well until we got on the driverless rail train that circles the Houston Airport .  When that voice came on with no driver, I almost lost them, but finally got them on the plane to LAX. 

I had coached the folks at Campus Crusade who do the Jesus Film about how these Garifuna live mostly on a protein diet of fish and cassava.   We did not want them to get sick and delay the translation project, so the Campus Crusade folks had a diet all prepared for them.  

About two days later I got a call from California .  The Crusade people said that they had it all prepared what the two Garifuna speakers were to eat, but that all they wanted to eat was cheeseburgers.  I asked if they were doing OK on cheeseburgers, and the answer was “yes”.   So I said:   “Just give them cheeseburgers.”  

So, the Campus Crusade film team finished the Jesus Film in the Garifuna language.  It was now time to take it there for its Premiere.  

Paul Eshleman liked to go to as many premiers as he could manage, and he for sure wanted to go to this first one in the first Heart Language as he called it.  We coordinated with the young missionary down in Honduras and set a date.  I also recruited a really fine Christian oil man to go along with us too, Bob Foree, Jr.  His father had been on the Board of Dallas Baptist University with me when I was Chairman of the Board.  Uncle Bob, as we called him was one of the first Texas oil barons.  He was the one who drilled the well that off-set Dad Joiner’s that established the East Texas Oil Field. 

Previously when we were down in Honduras and speculating about getting the film into the Garifuna language, I had lamented to the young missionary, David, what a shame it was that we did not have a bible in their language to go along with the film.  David said, “Man, you can forget about that.  It is not even written”. 

In those days it was really hard to get a phone call back to the US from that part of Honduras .  David lived in the town of Tela on the east coast.   That was the town where United Fruit Company had once had its headquarters that I mentioned before.  To get a call out, you usually had to get an operator recruited to set up the call and then call you back when she had it all ready.  So, when you got a call from there it was usually to announce something really major……like someone had died or something. 

Three days before we left, I got a phone call from David.  I was so worried that he was calling to report some tragedy had happened.  Instead he said, “Ron, you won’t believe what has happened.  This lady has walked out of the jungle up in Guatemala and come down here with a bunch of bibles in the Garifuna language.”  I said, “How can that be”?  David explained that she had started with Wycliffe Bible Translators 27 years ago to put a bible into the Garifuna language.  With Wycliffe they had a rule that you are supposed to stop if you lose your partner, and even though she lost her’s, they let her stay on in their compound and finish.  I later learned from the Wycliffe people that if you can start with a language that has never been written, and put it into written form for the first time, you can use the phonetics of the language.  In this way, when it is done correctly, the speakers of that language can learn to read very easily. 

Just consider this timing.  This lady shows up with bibles she started on 27 years before, just one week before the premiere of the Jesus Film in that language.  You can call it a fortuitous coincidence.  I call it the amazing timing of God. 

David wanted the first showing to be in a Garifuna village down the coast from Tela.  Many Garifuna lived there, but it was so remote that it could only be reached by going over the mountains with great difficulty in a four-wheel drive vehicle with a very high center.  We loaded the generator and projector and film into a dugout canoe with an outboard motor and all piled in as a preferred way to get there.  

We finally reached the village, and beached through the surf.   It was amazingly beautiful.  All the ground was covered with a vivid green grass that only grew about an inch high and appeared to be perfectly mowed in all directions.  The whole place was shaded by tall coconut palms, and there were beautiful little waterways meandering through the whole village. 

We rested in hammocks until it got dark.  We brought food for dinner, but one of the kids in the village caught a big iguana to roast for us. 

As was expected, they were just amazed to have a film in their heart language.  Like we did with the Hispanics, we showed it on a big white sheet so they could sit on both sides of the sheet for viewing.   You could just feel God’s Spirit there permeating the crowd. 

The lady from Maine who had spent 27 years translating for the Garifuna a Bible into their “heart language” wanted to be there for this first showing of the film in this very remote village.  David’s wife was able to get her there over the treacherous mountain roads in their 4-wheel drive jeep. 

There is that part in the film where Jesus has Peter throw out his net on the right side of the boat and Peter and his fellow fishermen bring in so many fish that the boat is just filled.   Wow!  That caused a huge commotion among those fish conscious Garifuna.  There is another place in the film where this cute little girl looks right into the camera and says some words.  The folks in California had her use a special idiom that is unique to the Garifulna language.  The crowd just couldn’t stop laughing at that. 

At the end when the film gives you a chance to ask Jesus into your heart and life, most all the crowd sincerely wanted to do so.  With one of the English speaking Graifuna translating, Paul Eshleman himself did the counseling, and those people were so filled with God’s Spirit that they did not want to stop.  They wanted to start a Christian church, right there.  David promised to come back and help them do exactly that.  

By now the surf and waves were much higher, but we managed to get back to Tela safely, although at some Campus Crusade meetings later, Paul accused me of trying to drown him that night. 

We showed the film several more times to different Garifuna groups, but the last showing in La Ceiba was the most dramatic.   La Ceiba is farther down the coast from San Pedro Sula and Tela, toward Nicaragua .  It has a port and limited commercial air service.  It also has a large Garifuna population, concentrated on its west side.

We arrived fairly early before dark and had plenty of time to set up the big white sheet/screen and get the projector and speakers well positioned.  We selected a big open soccer field for the showing. 

The lady who translated the bible into Garifuna went with us.  She brought a supply of those bibles. 

I was fascinated watching her visit with a large group of mostly Garifuna children.  She was teaching them to read their language right there.  But those kids kept looking at her mouth.  They just could not believe that their language was coming out of this very white lady’s mouth.  She was originally from the State of Maine, and she was very white from being closed-up inside during all those years doing the translation. 

While waiting, I kept going over and over in my mind that she had started translating 27 years before, and here she was at what turned out to be a crowd of Garifunas at one of the premiere showings of the Jesus Film in their language with her just finished bibles.  This would be the primary place and optimum time for their distribution, and their printing had just been finished on time for this occasion after 27 years.  I just know that was God’s plan working as I mentioned before. 

The showing was a huge success with hundreds of children sitting right up front on both sides of the screen.  I don’t know how many prayed to accept Christ and come forward for counseling, but it was hundreds.   Paul and David handled the counseling.  The young man with the blue shades who spoke Jesus part in this version of the film was also there and helped with the counseling.  He had acquired these treasured blue sun-glasses while in California. He had gotten much closer to the Lord as one would expect after living those weeks in California with those wonderful Campus Crusade folks. 

As we were finishing up late that evening, I saw something that I had never seen before and have never seen since.  Paul Eshleman, standing out in that field, broke down in a wave of tears.  Sure, there had been a lot of pressure counseling all those people, but that was not why.  Later he told me. 

Paul had thought that the young man with the blue shades would go on and pastor some of the Garifuna groups.  He had expressed a desire to do so, but out in that field, in the dark, he had asked Paul how much money Paul was going to give him to do it.   Maybe it was because of the occasion and all those people accepting Christ, but that just devastated Paul.  Paul had assumed that the young man had higher or deeper motives in his heart. 

A year later I was back in Tela, two days in advance of another medical team.  With the help of the only local doctor we needed to select the optimum sites for the clinics.  That afternoon after the doctor and I had finished, I was walking back to that compound that had formerly been the headquarters for United Fruit.  It was now a hotel/resort on the beach where we stayed so many times and was great for housing the medical teams with its great food and contiguous beach as I have mentioned.

Just as I was about to enter the compound, here came David’s red jeep down the road.  I stepped in front of it to stop them.  And there in the front seat was that Garifuna dude with his blue shades on.  So, “where are you guys going.”  They explained that every week they went over the mountains to that remote village where this dude was preaching to the Garifuna there in their new church.

I hope Paul reads this.  I know he will be thrilled and gratified to find that this dude had “really come around” after all. 

But, unfortunately, there is more to this story.  Before we left for the States, I said to the group:  “We had better be careful.  We all know how powerful the Devil is.  He has had a strong hold on these people for many generations.  And here we are down here breaking his hold on them.”   He will not be pleased! 

Little did I know! 

When we arrived back in the Dallas airport Paul got the message that his daughter had been overcome by a strange infection and was dying.  It later took Billy Graham, his whole staff, Dr. Bill Bright and a host of Campus Crusade folks to pray that girl back from death. 

The fine Christian Dallas oil man had told us on the trip how thrilled he was that his wife had finally recently conquered years of alcoholism.  He had been praying for her for years.  But she was not there to meet him at the airport.  She was drunk again and passed-out on the floor at home. 

And my wife was not there to meet me.  She had run off with a homeopathic doctor to Oklahoma with our four children and filed for divorce. 

Welcome home from ministering to the Garifuna! 

The Jesus Film continues to cause amazing results.  I have shown it in countries all over the world, and have been just amazed at how many would want God in their life, after each and every showing, whether it as in a city or out in a remote jungle setting.

There are teams of young people showing the film every night now all over.  Many are doing so in quite dangerous places and settings.  But every day new stories are coming to us about amazing manifestations of God’s intervening Spirit Power.  And I wanted to share with you just one of those stories from this week……………

A local father and son heard about a “JESUS” film team going around their community sharing the gospel. This was blasphemy that had to be stopped. So, they grabbed guns and headed to where the team was.

The team was jarred awake from sleep with guns pointed right at them. They were about to be executed.

The father and son demanded, “Are you the ones showing the film about the Prophet, causing people to stop following our faith?”

Knowing they could be killed in the next moment, the team courageously replied: “Yes. We are the people, and if you have come to kill us, that is OK. You can kill us. But before you do, we have one request. Will you please watch the film?”So, here is what happened……….

“You May Kill Us … But Watch This Film First”

The team was amazed when the father, a man who fervently defended his religion, agreed to watch the film. So, they set up their portable equipment and showed them “JESUS.”

Because the film was in their heart language, the father and son heard and understood the Word of God for the first time. They were gripped by God’s love, and by the story of Jesus’ miracles, words, death and resurrection. It was clear to them: Jesus was not just a Prophet, but God Incarnate.

Something more was happening, for when the film concluded, rather than killing the team, the father jumped to his feet and shouted, “I have seen the Lord!”The film team explained the gospel further to the father and son and about how much Jesus, the Son of God, loves them. They believed and were made new by the power of the Holy Spirit … transformed from death to life.

Ron

If you would like to watch a wonderful, life changing movie, get yourself all prepared with the time to watch a full length movie, and then go to this site and be ready for a life changing experience.…………….. https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/english.html

如果您想观看一部精彩的、改变生活的电影，请准备好观看一部完整电影的时间，然后访问这个网站，为改变生活的体验做好准备………..…………https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/chinese-mandarin.html

This is part of a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in China did not get to see it.  And because they want to see it, I am herewith sending an edited version to you again.

Ron

Richard Brooks   

There were many “Fighting Texas Aggies” who contributed greatly to the Allied success in WWII.  However, there were probably none more so than Richard Brooks from Waco, Texas.  And you probably never heard of him.  Many have been honored and commemorated down at College Station for their contributions to our military efforts, but he has not been.  There is no statue or plaque there commemorating what he did. It is a fact that General Patton greatly admired Texas Aggies.  And he said that mainly because of Richard Brooks, my mother’s younger brother.  Here is his story:

He graduated and was commissioned an officer in the US Army at just the right time to be sent to England at the start of WWII. 

General Patton was legendary there, as you know.  He did not participate in the D-day landing.  Instead, he was used as a decoy to cause the Germans to suspect a landing near Cherbourg, farther down the coast from Normandy.  The Germans feared him above all other Allied leaders.  That he was still in England after the D-day landings caused Hitler and most of his generals to think that the main landing was yet to come and be headed by Patton.  That is one reason that they did not throw all their massed Panzer Divisions against the Normandy landing and throw the Allied invaders back into the ocean.  They felt they needed to hold them back to oppose Patton. 

Finally, they realized that Normandy was the main force.  It got bogged down in the hedge rows in that part of France and also moved slowly because of what many consider the over cautious tactics of Montgomery and General Bradley.  They needed to break out of there.  That was when General Patton was sent over.

He attacked from down to the right, away from most of the hedge rows.  We have all heard how his tanks were out in front of everyone, sending the Germans reeling back.  What most have not heard is that someone had to be out in front of those fast-moving tanks, to get them across the multitude of bridges that the Germans blew as they retreated, the creeks, the ravines, and the tank traps that the Germans left.  That job fell to Patton’s Engineering Corps.

And Richard Brooks was one of the officers in charge of Patton’s Engineering Corps for most all his operations.  He had officers above him, but he was the ranking officer in front of those tanks…….”The tip of the spear”.

That made him the ranking officer to free every French town they encountered and the ranking officer to capture every German town they took.  In Germany he had orders not to leave an armed population behind them.  In each German town and village they took, he would call out the Mayor or “Burgermeister” and order them to pile all their guns in the square to be burned.

Captain Brook’s, father was the Chief Engineer on the Katy Railroad that ran from San Antonio to Kansas City.  He was a very Godly man, but with few outside activities other that his important railroading job and church and Sunday school.  It was my father who taught Richard how to hunt and fish and to appreciate and care for fine guns.

He told me, as his nephew, that it really pained him to destroy all those fine old firearms.  He said that those old Germans would actually cry and shed tears as they threw those old guns onto the fire.  Richard said that he almost cried with them.  However, he saved back some of the best ones.  He sent quite a few of those to me here in Texas.  But he saved the very best ones for the small group of pilots that protected him.

See, he was out in front of those tanks.  The only primary protection that he had was the small squadron of fighter planes that were assigned to strafe and fire their rockets in front of the tanks.   They were all Douglas P-47s.  Their air cooled 18-cylinder, Pratt & Whitney radial engines generated 2,600 hp.  At a speed of 440 mph their speed equaled that of the much lighter and more glamorous P-51 Mustangs.  While the Mustangs carried six 50 caliber guns and 1,800 rounds, these “Jugs” as they were called, each had eight 50 caliber guns with 3,400 rounds of ammo.  The pilots just loved them.  They had roomy cockpits and big comfortable seats.

Each of these planes could carry 3,000 lbs of armament, half that of a Flying Fortress.  Its bombs and 5-inch rockets were very effective against those big German tanks.  Since they were stationed at captured German airfields just behind Patton’s forces, they flew as many as 3 missions on many days.  It was dangerous work, flying those low-level sorties against the radar controlled anti-aircraft guns of the Germans.  Many were shot down, and on those low-level strafing runs, your parachute was useless.  However, without those brave P-47 Thunderbolt pilots, Brooks could never have done his job.

Brooks made sure that the pilots of those planes got some really fine German firearms, particularly the thin-walled 16 gauge shotguns.

One of the two of those 16 gages he sent me was so unique.  It was a twin barrel 16-gauge shotgun with an 8mm rifle barrel just underneath the shotgun barrels.  It had the standard shotgun sighting rib down between the shot gun barrels, but when one wished to fire the rifle, he could push on a little tab on the stock and a rifle sight would rise up right out of the shotgun rib. 

He related how on one occasion they captured a big warehouse that was totally filled with the 22 caliber Mauser rifles that the Germans used to train their youth.  He made sure that I got one of those, also, complete with its bayonet.

So, you might ask what all this has to do with the theme of this book about God intervening in a particular way with his Spirit Power to cause real, tangible miracles.  Let me tell you.

As they were moving across Germany, one day Captain Brooks was down in a tree-covered ravine deciding the best way to get Patton’s tanks across it.  A German soldier threw one their shrapnel grenades way up in the air over him.  It exploded at the top of its arc.  One cubical piece of the shrapnel slammed down and hit Captain Brooks.  It entered the top of his back, went completely through his body, and came out against his belt.  He said that all he felt was the hot metal burning his stomach and lodged against his belt from the inside.  They rushed him to the field hospital, but he needed almost no medical attention. 

After the war, when he first returned, he showed me that piece of shrapnel.  His children told me that he never even showed it to them.   It was cubical and about 3/4 of an inch on each side.  What I will never forget is that on one side it had rough, serrated ribs; and there was khaki wool imbedded in that metal where it had gone through his wool coat.  Now just think about it.  How could a piece of hot metal that big go all the way through a man’s body from the top of his back down to the belt around his stomach and miss every blood vessel, and every organ, and every nerve?  I consider that an absolute miracle that I literally held in my hand. 

They say that Captain Brooks was back in action in only three days.  A host of people were praying for protection and success for the Allied troops.  Captain Brooks was so important to that effort at that very time; I just know that this miracle was one of the answers to those prayers.  He needed to be there in front of those tanks.

Brooks and Patton were very frustrated that they were not allowed to circle and capture that sizable German army that was allowed to escape out of the forest after the Battle of the Bulge.

They were really frustrated when Eisenhower and Bradley held them at the Siegfried Line in what seemed like forever.  They could have easily captured Berlin way before the Russians ever got there.  Let’s not get too deep into the politics, but that was for sure a political decision, just like it was to let the Russians take and control most all of Eastern Europe.  Our media never showed all those East European troops on our side committing public suicide in protest for allowing the Russians to take over their countries and make Communist satellites out of them.

Brooks was very self-effacing.  He protested when they pinned all those medals on him.  They wanted to promote him to Lt. Colonel or at least Major, but he insisted that he remain Captain Brooks.

Upon his return to Texas, he related a few of his experiences to me.  One day I was allowed to see the sizable pile of medals he had been awarded.  He protested every time that he did not want one, but they awarded them to him anyway.  I picked one shiny medal up and asked him what it was awarded for.  He insisted that he did not want it, but that they pinned it on him anyway; but I insisted on knowing what it was for.

He finally agreed to tell me.  He said that they had fought all day and all the next night to save a particular old bridge in a German town.  He did not want the Germans to blow it.  He wanted it for his tanks to get across the river.  Finally, they succeeded,  and all the tanks got across.  He said that he was so exhausted that he was just leaning against the far end of the bridge after the last tank had passed over.

At just that moment he was amazed to see a hidden steal door open across the road from him at the end of the bridge.  He said that an immaculately dressed German officer stepped out and walked over and asked permission to surrender his troops to him.  With Captain Brooks’ acquiescence, the German officer barked out orders and German troops started exiting……..several hundred of them. They were hidden in tunnels built into the end of that bridge and beyond.

Brooks told the German officer to take charge of the troops and have his junior officers to march them back across the bridge and down into the town where Patton and his staff were ensconced.

So, across the bridge and down into the town marched most of a whole German battalion with only Captain Brooks as their captor.  They say it was an amazing sight.  They insisted on giving him the medal for such a feat.

Under the stress and pressure of combat sometimes communications were quite short and even curt.  An example was when in the Battle of the Bulge the German Panzer Divisions had the crossroads town of Bastogne completely surrounded.  It happened during some of the worst snow and cold ever recorded in that area.

On December 22, 1944 two German officers from the 47^th Panzer Corp. and two German enlisted men from the 901st Panzer Grenadier Regiment came walking down the Arlon Road south of Bastogne carrying two white flags.  The Germans had their own blindfolds with them.  The two German enlisted men were left at a foxhole outpost and the two blindfolded German officers were taken to the Command Post of F Company, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, which was a large foxhole located in a wooded area about a quarter mile away from Bastogne. 

The Germans, a Major Wagner and a Lt. Henke (who could speak English) both from the 47^th Panzer Corp., had a one-page, typed surrender demand in English.  It noted that the Americans were completely surrounded.  It said that the Germans would wait two hours and then open up with heavy artillery and four units of Anti-Aircraft guns and completely annihilate everyone in Bastogne and the surrounding area if the Americans did not agree to surrender.  It appealed to “the Americans’ well-known humanity” that all the civilians there would not be killed if the surrender was accepted.  It was signed “The German Commander”.

The paper was taken to the commanding General of the 101^st Airborne, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe.

After conferring with his staff, he sent back this typed short, curt reply that was typed in the center of a single sheet of paper:

December 22,1944

To the German Commander,

NUTS!

The American Commander

The second in command at Bastogne was Col. Bud Harper, the 327^th’s Regimental Commander.  Others above him were all wounded or out of action.  He was not there.  He was out inspecting his unit’s positions.  He was summoned on the radio and he came in to their headquarters.  Gen. McAuliffe had him read the German letter and before he could reply with an answer, the clerk came in with Gen. McAuliffe’s typed reply.  When he read it, he just laughed and said that would be adequate.

The two German officers were still waiting at that foxhole out in the woods.  They felt that since they had delivered a formal offer of surrender, they were due a formal reply.  Gen. McAuliffe sent Col. Harper himself out to them with his reply. 

The two blindfolded German officers were then driven to their entry point at the Arlon Road.  The group was rejoined by PFC Premetz who could speak German. The blindfolds were removed and the Germans opened the envelope and looked at the reply. They asked, “What does this mean?” They obviously didn’t understand the American slang.

Harper and Premetz discussed how to explain it. Col. Harper suggested, “Tell them to take a flying s**t!”  Premetz thought about it, then straightened up, faced the Germans and said, “Du kannst zum Teufel gehen.” He told Harper it meant “You can go to Hell.”

Then Col. Harper said, “If you continue to attack, we will kill every damn German that tries to break into this city.” The German Lt. Henke replied, “We will kill many Americans. This is war.” Harper then said, “On your way Bud, and good luck to you.”

After Lt. Henke translated, the major acknowledged. They saluted and the Germans started to walk away. Harper angrily called out to them, “If you don’t know what I am talking about, simply go back to your commanding officer and tell him to just plain, ‘Go to Hell’.” After Henke translated, the major got angry and stormed off.

I am sure you have heard how General Patton was ordered to make a 90 degree turn and see if he could get to Bastogne and relieve it and the 101^st Airborne. 

The artillery of the Germans had already been moved on to the west so they did not lay down the promised artillery barrage, but they bombed that night and heavily the next two with the their Luftwaffe.  They made 17 attacks with tanks and troops, but the 101^st doggedly held out.

Gen. Patton’s 3^rd Army tanks did arrive at 4:50 in the afternoon on the day after Christmas.  He had made one of the most amazing forced marches in US Army history and broke through the German encirclement.

The Rhine River was the last main barrier to the German heartland.  The Germans had blown all the bridges across it as a defense.  However, their explosive charges did not bring down the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen as they had planned.  The extremely brave US Army engineers cut the wires and kicked off the remaining explosive charges that were still there, under heavy machine gun fire.  A movie was made about it (The Bridge at Remagen).

However, the Americans were able to get a fairly sizeable group of soldiers and some armor across before the bridge finally came down.  They were enough to make a fairly safe bridgehead on the other side of the river.  However, they were not nearly enough to repulse the German counterattack that was being readied to annihilate them.

Captain Brooks had saved back a sizeable number of rubber rafts and the metal tracks to lay across them for just such an occasion.  In nothing flat he had a bridge across the Rhine there.  Patton’s tanks and support trucks rolled across.  They not only saved the troops providing the beachhead, they began to roll into the area of the German Ruhr, the German heartland.  However, before they charged straight ahead, they made a quick arc to encircle and captured 22,000 German troops.  

Patton was just ecstatic that he had beaten Bradley and Montgomery across the Rhine.  When Central Command heard about it, Eisenhower radioed wanting to know how he had done it.  Montgomery and Bradley were still stopped by the Rhine River.  Patton’s crossing was totally unexpected, especially by the Germans.

It is said that he sent back one of those short, curt replies just like Gen. McAuliffe did at Bastogne.  Patton’s reply was only…………”One Texas Aggie”

But this is not the end of the story.  There is more, with some incredible pictures.  I will send you the rest of the story next week

This is part of a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in China did not get to see it.  And because they want to see it, I am herewith sending an edited version to you again.

Ron

                            Russia – a true tale                                                            I just had the overwhelming compulsion that I was supposed to go to Russia.  My father and I had sold the Russians several groups of Santa Gertrudis cattle, but I did not need to go there.  They always came here for those purchases. 

Also, in the early 1970’s most people from here were not especially welcome there.   If you drew a chart of Russia’s meanness and their efforts to take over the whole world in the name of Communism, that would have been the time when the graph of meanness on the chart would have been at its peak. 

But I thought I should go.  Even though we had sold them cattle, you didn’t just apply for a visa and go on your own.  That would have caused all kinds of suspicion and consternation.  But I found a way (or was shown a way).  There was a man from Houston who was getting together a small group of people to go to Russia for a “Cultural Tour”, mostly to listen to the Russian symphony orchestras and to particularly watch the Russian ballets.  Russia had a long history in these areas and Communists were still proud of those traditions.  In fact, in those days there, that was some of the only entertainment that they had.

So, my wife and I joined this cultural tour.  A few of the people were from Houston and a few were from Dallas.  We were to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg (called Leningrad under the Communists).  

When you fly across Russia you realize just how huge that country is.  As we were flying for hours and hours, I was thinking:  How in the world could the Germans ever think they could conquer a place this huge.

In the early days of the 1970’s one of the first things you learned was that almost nothing had been built since the Communists took over in 1917.  Most of the municipal buildings used by the Communist government are old palaces and the homes of formerly very wealthy people from pre-revolution days that have been converted to other uses.  Even the main department store in Moscow was a converted palace.

The hotel where we stayed in Moscow was directly across the street from the huge Red Square.  It and the room’s furniture was pre-1917.  Our room even had a grand piano in it from those days.

Another thing that you had heard about and were now experiencing was that the government and the KGB controlled everything.   They did not even check any of our luggage or belongings upon entering the country.

Their attitude was that if you brought in anything that you shouldn’t, they would know it because of their tight control.  The floors on our four-story hotel were not very large, only a few rooms, but at the head of the stairs on every floor was a tough looking lady at a desk who just watched everything.  Just for spite, I started leaving my room key with her whenever I left.  She just kept it for me.  She never said a word.

Another thing that you learned was that nothing worked.  There was a small leak in my bathroom under the sink.  I was told by the economics’ head of the US embassy in Moscow (with whom I had a most interesting visit) that I could come back years from now and that leak would still be there. 

Our group did attend cultural events.  One in particular was a “big deal”.  Their most famous ballerina, their Prima Ballerina was about to retire.  The ballet “Anna Karenina” was written just for her.  It is based on the Russian novel by Tolstoy.  She was going to dance it one more time and then it would never be danced again until after she died.

This was one of the biggest events in Moscow in many, many years.  The wives of all the top officials in Moscow were there, dressed in their finest.  However, I need to tell you about “their finest”.  See, only recently every woman in all of Moscow had received a new coat from the government.  The Russians love fur.  But these were all cloth coats of different colors, but with only a fur collar.  So, the wives of all these top officials could only have and wear these cloth coats with their fur collars; and they were no better than those same coats that the peasant ladies had gotten also.

We were given the best seats in the house.  They were the very center seats in the first balcony.  Sitting next to my wife was Mrs. Storey Stemmons from our group, whose husband had been the brother of John Stemmons.  The big Stemmons Freeway leading into downtown Dallas is named after them.  Mrs. Stemmons had on a full-length mink coat with a gorgeous sable collar.  My wife had on a crimson dress with a wide gold belt and a full-length mink coat.  I took a picture of all those hundreds of officials’ wives down below looking up and staring with envy.

In my book I tell much more about Russia as it was in those days.  I tell about visiting in the Kremlin with the head of all animal husbandry in Russia who had been in Texas buying our cattle, and how I got lost inside the Kremlin and wandered into places that I never should have been.  I also tell about meeting with some of their top leaders in the Kremlin and what they sincerely wanted from me, and also how I was officially detained by the KGB before leaving.

But who I really want to tell you about are two older ladies from Houston who went with us.  At that time you could buy Russian rubles at a bank in the US for 17 cents.  However, the Russians required you to pay $1.83 for each ruble there.  They for sure did not want you to bring any rubles into the county from the outside.  It was an automatic 8 years in prison if you were caught with contraband rubles.  You didn’t even have a hearing.  You just went.

However, these two ladies had brought a huge amount of rubles into Russia with them.  They had brought them in their boots, in their coats and stuffed into all kinds of places.  Like I mentioned earlier, the Russians did not check you upon coming in.  Their attitude was that they had such control over their country that they did not need to check you upon entering.   Later, these ladies informed me that all this money was for the Underground Church in Russia.  That is all they said, except that……I was the one who was to pass all that money to the Underground church!!!!

Also, like I said earlier, I did not know why I thought I was compelled to go to Russia.  Now I knew that this is probably why.

I did not know anything about the Underground Church.  I did not even have a clue about where you might find it.  I knew that the Russians had closed most all the churches and made atheist museums out of them.  I had seen some of those.  I also knew that they did have one Baptist Church in Moscow so that they could brag about having “religious freedom”, but I did not even have a clue about where it was or how to get there.

So, it was early-afternoon, and I just told God:  “If I am really supposed to do this, You had better take over!”

And, so help me, and I cannot begin to explain it, but from that moment I was not in control of my own thoughts or my own actions.  I walked out of the front of that hotel and down the street for about half a block.  There across the street, in English, was a sign over a store front that read:  “Tourist Information”.

I went in and asked this lady how one could get to the Christian Evangelical Church in Moscow?  She said not a word but wrote this address down on a yellow slip of paper.  I walked out into that wide street in front of our hotel, which was directly across from Red Square and the Kremlin, as I mentioned before.

I got several taxis to stop, but when I showed them the address, they all shook their heads, no.  Then I looked over right in front of the hotel and there was a large black sedan with a fellow sitting in the driver’s seat.  I showed him the address and he motioned for me to go back out and get a taxi.  I tried several more taxis with the same lack of success.

I still cannot explain any of this, but I was just being led what to do.  I went back to the big black sedan and said:  “I think you are supposed to take me here”.   He looked at the yellow slip of paper and motioned for me to get in.  Off we went, way across Moscow.  Every time we stopped at a stoplight, I noticed people staring at this big black car.  Finally, we arrived at the church.  I went in and was greeted by folks that spoke English.  After some conversation they informed me that in a little more than an hour, they were going to have a full church service, and that I should get my wife and come attend.

I went back out and the black car was still there.  I told him what I wanted in English, and he took me back to the hotel.  But he never uttered a word.  I got my wife and he took us all the way back to the church.  They had us sit on the side of the balcony on its front row so we could look down at the congregation.  It was packed full.  And what was so interesting was that as they read the scripture from the pulpit, the people would hold their bibles up as high as their heads and the people behind would furiously copy the scripture.

When they sang, they did the same thing with the song books, and the people would furiously copy those words.

When this nice fellow came to escort us out, I could not believe it when these words came out of my mouth:  “I need to find the UnderGround church people.”  He looked at me and continued down this long hall.  There were no windows or doors along that hall, but abruptly he stopped and pushed on a wooden panel of the wall to our right and it just opened up.  There were all these young people in there.  I knew instantly that I had contacted the UnderGround  Church.  I was brave enough to explain to them that I had money for them and that I needed someone to go with me to receive it.

A nice young man went outside with me and my wife.  There was that big black car, patiently waiting on us.  I don’t know if the guy was KGB or what, but it didn’t seem to matter.  I asked him if I should pay him anything and he never said a word.   I did reach over and stuff 20 rubles into his upper coat pocket.  (After thinking this all over later, I have not doubt that this was an angel sent to aid me accomplishing this task.)

We got back to the hotel and I went up to the ladies’ room while the young man waited outside.  They had been taking a nap and were still a little groggy.  I couldn’t seem to get through to them so I finally blurted out:  “I have come for the rubles!”  They both put their fingers up to their lips to shush me.  But I thought, oh really, there is no one listening to us.

They stuffed all those rubles into a shopping bag and handed it to me.  I walked right past that lady at her desk at the head of the stairs with no problem.  I handed it to the young man outside and he faded into the huge after work crowd.  The big black sedan was gone.  

Instantly, I was back in control and making my own decisions and actions again.

We were to have an early dinner so that we could attend another cultural function inside the Kremlin that night.  The two ladies were a little late coming down to dinner; and, wow, did they look shaken.  They said that no more and 15 minutes after I left their room, a KGB officer and some of his guys knocked on their door.  They said that in his long leather coat, he looked just like one of the German Nazi Gestapo officers from a WWII movie, and that he was even holding his cigarette backwards in his hand just like the Nazi’s in the movies did.

They had heard my words.  They searched every inch of that room, but found no contraband rubles, of course.   They were gone!

But then, mirabile dictu, at almost midnight when we got back to our room, the phone rang.  Like, I don’t know anybody in Moscow.   Who could possibly be calling? 

This deep voice answered in quite good English and thanked me for our “interest in the Church of Moscow”.   I immediately realized that he was talking so very officially and that I was supposed to “read between the lines”.  He had once been out of the country to attend a Christian conference, so it was OK for him to call and talk to me.

Still talking very “officially” he wanted me to know that everything was cool and it was “mission accomplished”!

When God wants something to happen, He has His ways of making it happen!  Such a privilege to be the one involved!

This is a note to the multitude of folks in China who are reading these stories:  我很高兴你在中国读到这些故事。 如果你不介意的话，我真的很想知道你是谁以及关于你的一些事情。 请给我发电子邮件，并告诉我关于你自己。 我的E-mail地址是…….. ronald82@verizon.net

Under Chairman Mao Zedong the Chinese people suffered greatly.  He was a total dictator and not only repressive, but capricious as well.  When he died and his surviving leaders were thrown out, Deng Xiaoping became China’s leader.  Below I describe how he was heading China toward much more democracy and freedoms.  He hand-picked China’s succeeding Presidents who were also leading China into more democracy and freedoms. 

Upon Deng’s death, Xi Jinping was elected President.  He proceeded to change the Chinese Constitution and make himself a total dictator for life.  There is not indication that he will ever be repressive like Mao, but no one is sure just where he will now lead China.  However, since China is such a very major player in the world’s economy and the #1 consumer of oil and most other minerals.  And since China has such a huge influence upon the US and the US economy, it is really important to know all about Xi Jinping.  If you will read the info that I have provided below, you will understand much more about him and his close relations with the US in his past life.

China Now

I have written earlier about how Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore very soon after becoming the new leader of China; and how he brought back to China the freedoms that he saw among the ethnic Chinese there and the policies as respects the freedom for businesses that Singapore’s famous leader, Lee Kuan Yew taught him

I mentioned how he granted freedoms first to the farmers and how they became rich.  The freedoms eventually were granted to all of the different groups across China and the people did become rich in great numbers.  Never in the history of our planet has so much wealth been accumulated in such a short time.  I would go there and visit with regular common folks as respects assets.  I would come back two years later and they would be worth 100 and 200 million US dollars.  It was amazing.

When Deng told them to “go get rich” they did.  Even the military officers were getting rich.  I could hardly believe the sight of Chinese Army trucks delivering goods to Wal-Mart.  Finally, they had to ban Chinese military officers from being in business.  That is when so many of them resigned their commissions and left the Army to peruse their businesses instead.

Even though Deng gave businesses freedoms, left over from the Communist system they still had all of this monstrous, stifling system of regulations.  You needed to get permission to do most anything.  However, as you probably know, just an average Chinese has a really high IQ.  You have probably observed how on occasion just an average Chinese will get permission to live here and bring their children.  The child will speak no English upon arriving, but in only two years he will be the valedictorian upon his graduation from one of our high schools.

It did not take these clever Chinese long to learn how to deal with this plethora of stifling regulations.  If you were going to start a business or build a building or even a cluster of high-rise buildings, you just made it part of your budget to allocate the money needed to pay whatever official needed to be paid to get that specific permission.  It just became their system.  Since the municipalities there own most all of the land, you had that as part of your budget also, to pay that municipal official for permission to buy the land you needed and to get a very fair price for it.

Another part of this system was taking whoever you needed the favor from out to a fabulous dinner.  I have been to many, many of those dinners.  They were usually at lavishly outfitted restaurants in one of their many private upstairs paneled rooms.  They were always at one of those huge, round tables with the whole center part revolving.  You eat at only a small space between the big revolving part and the edge.   The more lavish the dinner, the more exotic the food.  On my last trip to China I ate eleven different kinds of snakes. 

They nearly always start with turtle soup, and the whole turtle shell must be showing.  Literally tons of turtles are being shipped to China out of the Port of Houston.   Most are being trapped along the whole length of the Trinity River and other rivers leading into the Gulf of Mexico.  It is quite a thriving business as long as the turtle population lasts.

These dinners will have a vast array of different foods.  Toward the end, they serve different fruits.  Finally the main ending soup of the meal is served.  That signals the end; when the soup comes.  They don’t serve desert.

However, these meals do not constitute the end of the evening.  The host and principle guests all go to one of the big facilities owned and run by the hospitals in that particular city.  There you are met by male and lovely female greeters garbed in hospital clothing.  The women are ushered off to the right, and the men to the left.  You go down a stairway to a huge shower room.   There are all manner of steam baths there for taking off weight, but for the occasions I am describing, each male host and guest take a shower.  Then they are ushered

into another room where a young man scrubs down their body to take off all the old skin.  After you survive that, you go back and take another shower.   You are then issued a sumptuous terry cloth robe and are ushered upstairs to a private room where you meet the ladies in the same type of robes.  These rooms have a long line of massage tables where beautiful, tall Chinese young ladies lay you down for a fantastic full body massage. 

The ladies then discuss lady things, and the men discuss sports and sometimes business.  I just wish they would all be quiet so that I could enjoy that massage in peaceful quiet.

If the hosts and hostesses of the evening think you have already had massages earlier in the week, they take the whole party to another kind of facility.  It is not run by hospitals, but it has private rooms for each such party.

You enter that room and there is a long line of very comfortable recliner chairs.  In front of each chair is an oak bucket that is filled in the bottom with small round river rocks.  You sit down, and the bucket is filled with very warm water and different kinds of herbs.

At that point a very beautiful young lady takes off your shoes and proceeds to bath and massage your feet.   I have timed these, and they usually last at least two hours.  She knows so very many ways to pleasure your feet.  You would think that after two hours this would “get old”, but I have never wanted her to quit.

But, the evening still does not end there.  The hosts and hostesses and guests all travel to one of the special Chinese Tea Houses.  There you all sit together in a fairly private room.  At the head of the little room is a lovely young Chinese lady who goes through their elaborate tea ceremony and continuously serves tea to everyone in their special, small tea cups.

At this point, the women continue their lady discussions and the men get down to their real business.  After about two hours the tea party is over and everyone goes home.

99% of the Chinese, other than the country and farm dwellers, live in high-rise buildings in what we would call condos.  If you want to build such a condo or office building in Dallas or Atlanta it takes at least two to three years to get all the permissions and zoning that you need.  If you live in California or New Jersey or New York it takes 6 to 7 years in most cases.  In the “payoff system” the Chinese developed, you were finished with all permissions and land purchase and zoning in only 2 weeks in most cases and ready for construction.  Anywhere in the world wherever this kind of accelerated, freedom of business activity has existed, amazing growth and enormous wealth creation has developed.  China’s GDP growth under most of Deng’s tenure was 10 and 12% and more, per year.

I pass no judgment on the “pay-off for permission” system that they developed.  It was their system under all of Deng Xiaoping’s tenure of leadership.  Toward the end of his life he appointed new Presidents, but everyone knew he was still the boss.  His reign lasted from 1978 until his death in 1997.  The last Presidents that China had before its present one were appointed by Deng after he went into semi-retirement.  They pretty much continued Deng’s policies on increasing freedoms for the people.  The first was Hu Yaobang.  He allowed even more freedoms.  Next was Jiang Zemin who was still controlled by Deng.  Then they had Hu Jiantao who was groomed by Deng for the job.  He served until the present President/Chairman, continuing Deng’s policies.

On March 14, 2014 Xi Jinping became the President of the People’s Republic of China.

President Xi Jinping was born in Beijing on 15 June 1953. He is the second son of XiZhongxun and his wife QiXin.  After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by Mao Zedong, Xi‘s father held a series of posts, including propaganda chief, vice-premier, and vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress. 

However, Mao Zedong was just like Stalin, who he patterned his life after.  He was always suspicious of those under him and continually purged them.  Sure enough In 1963, when Xi was age 10, his father was purged from the Party and sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan Province.  Then in 1966 that horrid Cultural Revolution broke out. 

Student militants ransacked the Xi family home and one of Xi‘s sisters, Xi Heping, was killed. Later, his mother was forced to publicly denounce his father, as he was paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution and was put into prison.  Without his father’s political “shield”, Xi was sent to the countryside like so many others to work on a farm in a little village near Yan‘an in Shaanxi Province.  Life was so severe and oppressive as so many others experienced, that he ran away to Beijing.  But they found him.  He was arrested and sent to a work camp to dig ditches.  He worked diligently and became boss of his production team.   When asked later about this experience by Chinese state television, Xi recalled, “It was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realized, it proved an illusion.

He continued to advance there “where he was planted”.  From 1975 to 1979, Xi studied chemical engineering at Beijing’s Tsinghua University as a “Worker-Peasant-Soldier student“. There engineering majors spent about one-fifth of their time studying Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong thought, doing farm work and “learning from the People’s Liberation Army”.

From 1979 to 1982, Xi got a job as secretary for a fellow who had once worked for his father, GengBiao, the then vice premier and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission. At this job Xi got some military background and experience.  Then in 1985, as part of a Chinese delegation to study U.S. agriculture, he stayed in the home of an American family in the town of Muscatine, Iowa. This trip, and his two-week stay with a U.S. family, is said to have had a lasting impression upon him and his views on the United States.

He continued to “climb the ladder” in the Communist party and the political establishment.  Then in 2007 he was ranked above LiKequiang on the 9 man Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, a sure indication that he was gong to succeed HuJiantao as China’s next leader.  In 2008 he became Vice President of the Central Secretariat and also in the same year he was put in charge of preparations for the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing.

In 2012 he traveled to Ireland and Turkey and to the United States again.  He visited with V.P. Joe Biden and  President BarackObama, but he insisted on that trip that he go back and visit the family in Muscatine, Iowa that he had lived with years before.

I read a translation of Xi’s inaugural address to the nation at the People’s Party Congress in the Great Hall of the People upon his becoming the new President of China.  He stressed a few things directly and specifically.  He promised to immediately and completely do away with the “pay-off system” that had become a Chinese business norm, and to do away with the multitude of “permissions” demanded by Communist Cadres on businesses.   I was greatly heartened by this.  I hoped that he would drift toward a democratic system as Deng and his picked successors had been doing.

One reason that I was hopeful of this was that Xi’s daughter, XiMingze, had just returned from getting her degree in the US at Harvard.  Xi’s first wife wanted to go and live in Britain.  He did not, so they divorced.

He then married the beautiful PengLiyuan who was one of the most popular entertainers in all China.  She is a celebrity soprano.  XiMingze is their only child.  She attended Harvard under an assumed name.  They say that only 10  people knew her true identity.  She majored in Psychology and English.  She crossed the podium at Adams House for her degree, the same dorm that housed Franklin Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger, at age 22.

No one knows how much of an influence she may be on her father.  I am hoping that she may be an influence for tolerance and freedoms in China, but it does not look that way.

After his inaugural address, Xi immediately started to crack down on any payoffs.  However, his big mistake as respects business, is that he stopped the payoff system without stopping the red-tape of all the permissions demanded of businesses first.  Gone were most all the lavish dinners, the different massage treatments and the trips to the lovely tea houses.

In his inaugural address he has promised to purify the Communist Party.  This turned out to be a purging of anyone who may be even the slightest threat to his power.  This was easy to do.  Since everyone was getting payoffs, he could easily purge anyone by showing that they had been taking money for permissions.  He called this purging program “Tigers and Flies”……. Meaning that he would not only get rid of the big officials that he did not want, but a multitude of little people.  He purged former Central Military Commission vice-chairman XuCaihou, former Politburo Standing Committee member and security chief ZhouYongkang and former HuJintao chief aide Ling Jihua.

So much of the power in China rests with the many municipalities and their leaders.  Xi initiated the formation of “centrally-dispatched inspection teams”. These were essentially cross-jurisdictional squads of officials whose main task was to gain more in-depth understanding of the operations of provincial and local party organizations, and in the process, also enforce party discipline mandated by Beijing. 

Many of the work teams also had the effect of identifying and initiating investigations of high-ranking officials. Over one hundred provincial-ministerial level officials were implicated during a massive nationwide anti-corruption campaign. These included former and current regional officials (SuRong, BaiEnpei, Wan Qingliang), leading figures of state-owned enterprises and central government organs (Song Lin, LiuTienan), and highly ranked generals in the military (GuJunshan).  In June 2014, the Shanxi provincial political establishment was decimated, with four officials dismissed within a week from the provincial party organization’s top ranks. Within the first two years of the campaign alone, over 200,000 low-ranking officials received warnings, fines, and demotions.  And in China a clean-up is not like here, many of these people were just shot.  I would come back to China and ask about a former friend, only to be informed that he had been shot dead by firing squad.

In consolidating his power, Xi formed several new commissions.  A new National Security Commission was formed with Xi at its helm.   The Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms…….another ad-hoc policy coordination body led by Xi…….was also formed to oversee the implementation of the reform agenda.   Termed (“comprehensive deepening reforms”), they were said to be the most significant in 25 years.

Xi also became the leader of the Central Leading Group for Internet Security and Information, in charge of cyber-security and Internet policy.   He has also formed a multitude of working groups with himself as each group’s leader.

In 2013 at the Communist Party’s Third Plenum they created the National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China, another body chaired by Xi. This is believed to have ultimateoversight over issues of national security such as combating terrorism, intelligence, espionage, ultimately incorporating many areas of jurisdiction formerly vested in others. 

Xi has been really active in all Chinese military affairs.  He has taken a direct, hands-on approach to military reform.  In addition to being the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and the leader of the Central Leading Group for Military Reform founded in 2014 to oversee comprehensive military reforms, Xi has delivered numerous high-profile pronouncements vowing to clean up malfeasance and complacency in the military, aiming to build a more effective fighting force. In 2014 he held a conference of all of China’s top military officers to re-emphase the principle of “the party has absolute control over the army”.  One university professor in the US who closely studies China’s military says:  “Xi has been able to take political control of the military to an extent that exceeds what Mao and Deng had done”.

On 21 April 2016 Xi was named commander-in-chief of the country’s new Joint Operations Command Center of the People’s Liberation Army.  That puts him as head of all military affairs for China.  Another military affairs expert in the US says:  “Xi not only controls the military but also does it in an absolute manner, and that in wartime, he is ready to command personally”.

Finally in an ultimate stroke of consolidating power, in March 2018, the party-controlled National People’s Congress passed a set of constitutional amendments including removal of term limits for the president as well as enhancing the central role of the Communist Party.  Then on 17 March 2018, the Chinese legislature reappointed Xi as president, now without term limits ……….President for life.

Xi claims that all this concentration of power is so that he can better the country by streamlining the cumbersome government bureaucracy.   For instance, he caused the whole legal system to be changed “for more transparency in legal proceedings, more involvement of ordinary citizens in the legislative process, and an overall ‘professionalization’ of the legal workforce.”   It was stated that “the reform of the legal system was needed because it had been perceived as ineffective at delivering justice and affected by corruption, local government interference and lack of constitutional oversight.” 

Xi caused the Plenum to announce that “market forces” would begin to play a “decisive” role in allocating resources. This meant that the state would gradually reduce its involvement in the distribution of capital, and restructure state-owned enterprises to allow further competition, potentially by attracting foreign and private sector players in industries that were previously highly regulated. This policy aimed to address the bloated state sector that had unduly profited from an earlier round of re-structuring by purchasing assets at below-market prices, assets which were no longer being used productively.

He even caused the one-child policy to be abolished, resulting in a shift to a two-child policy from 1 January 2016.

All this sounds great, but his dogmatic thoughts about “anti capitalism” and his other highly Marxist thoughts have been actually inculcated into their current Constitution.

Communism did not enjoy an immaculate conception in China.  Rather, it was grafted onto an existing ideological system…..the classical Chinese dynastic system.  China has an unusual veneration for the written word, and acceptance of its value for teaching principles about life and systems.  China’s veneration of the written word causes stories, histories, and teachers to have great moral authority.  As a result we are seeing Xi making his claim to be the true Revolutionary Successor of Mao.  Xi’s language of “party purity;  criticism and self criticism”; his obsession with “unity”; his attacks on elements of “hostile Western liberalism”, “constitutionalism” and other variants of ideological “subversions”……..this is all Marxism-Leninism as interpreted by Stalin as re-interpreted by Mao.

So, we have this new leader of China, with highly concentrated power who can take the country in most any direction……toward liberation and freedom for the people, or as a despot holding on to power through coercion and total thought control of the people.

I suggest that we sincerely pray for him to take the course that God would have him to, for the benefit of the people and for him to allow policies that will lead to the Gospel being further spread across that huge diverse country.

P.S. This is to all my many friends in China who read these stories ……………这是向所有读过这些故事的中国朋友问好。 请，请，如果您不介意，请给我发电子邮件并告诉我有关您的信息。我的E-mail地址是………..ronald82@verizon.net

I have already described how I went every week to the large, high-security prison, at Gainesville, Texas for boys ages 12 to 19.  I did this for 20+ years to present the Gospel Story to each new boy who came into the prison.  Over the span of those years that amounted to thousands of youth (for at least 12 each week).

Most of these sincerely prayed to accept Christ into their lives.  I admonished them to not “mess around” with God, but to really, really mean it.  I followed up with very many of them later.  On that occasion, I would tell them stories.  One of the stories that seemed to mean very much to them was the story of what a “Covenant” is.  I put that story in the Appendix of my soon to be published book, and below I am sending that story to you.  The story is written in the exact words that I used in telling it to those boys.

The Covenant – (In the same words as told to the prison boys)

I wanted you to know what a “covenant” is.

The closest thing that we ever had to a covenant in this country and in Mexico was when the Indians would cut their wrists and put them together and let the blood run together as they were becoming Blood Brothers with each other. The reason that they did that was because they did not have police are FBI back in those days. They needed to have someone to watch their backside or their family’s backside.

It was the same way back in the Bible Times. They needed someone to watch their backside and their family’s backside. In those long ago times they did not call it “blood brothers” they called it going into covenant with someone. It was really for mutual defense and was most always in secret.

For nearly 3,000 years they had the same ceremony that they would go through when they went into covenant with someone. It was a strange affair. The first thing that they did was to build a fire. 

Then they were to walk a figure-8 with their covenant partner between two walls of blood.  And you say, “ what do you mean……two walls of blood”?  Well, they would take a big animal, like a bull or an ox, and they would split them into two halves. Then they would hang up the two sides or prop them up to make two walls of blood. The Bible says that when Abraham did his covenant, he took birds and goats and cut them in half and put them on bushes to make two walls of blood. Blood was important back then.

Anyway, after that, they would sit down across the fire from each other and exchange their outside coats or their outside robes. That was a symbol of putting on the other person.

Then they would exchange belts with each other.  Now why would they do that? They did not wear pants. They wore robes. They did not have any pants to hold up with a belt. Their belts held their weapons…..like their sword and their dagger and their head-knocker. The belt went around the outside of their robe so that they could get at their sword quickly. This exchange was a symbol that if someone attacked one of them, he was attacking both of them.

Finally, they did cut their wrists a little bit and let the blood run together. 

And then they would do a strange thing. They would rub the black soot or the charcoal from the fire into the cut.  Now why would they do that?  They wanted to make a scar.  That is how you make tattoo ink…..by grinding up charcoal and mixing it with water.  See, you may be away from your “home boys” and someone is giving you trouble.  You just cool roll that wrist over and they see the scar and realize that this guy is in covenant with someone. We are not facing one sword and two fists; we are facing two swords and four fists. He may be in covenant with some big, ugly dude…..with a big sword.

And another thing about the covenant that I want you to remember is that it lasted until the second generation, to the children.  But the children would not be under the terms of the covenant unless they said “yes” to it or signed off on it. It would not be fair to put them in the covenant otherwise. Their fathers many have gone into the secret covenant with each other before they were even born.

And the most famous Covenant Story in the Bible was the story of David and Jonathan. They were in this strong, secret covenant with each other. Jonathan was King Saul’s oldest son and he was in line to be the king someday, which must have been confusing for David; because when he was a young boy, the High Priest had this secret ceremony and put this oil on his head and said that he was going to be the king someday.

Anyway, Jonathan and King Saul both got killed in this big battle.  So, David started up to the Palace to become the new king.  All the people already wanted him to be the king.

And in those days when someone from outside the king’s family came to be the new king, the custom was that he always killed all of the old king’s children and grandchildren. He did not want them to grow-up and take the kingdom over again someday. Of course, David would not do that, but if you did not know any better, you might assume that he would.

Well, before he died, Jonathan had this little boy named, Mephibosheth. And when the nurse that took care of that boy heard that David was on the way to the palace to become the new king, she was terrified. She was sure that he was going to kill this little boy.  She grabbed that boy up and went racing through the palace, and she stumbled and the little boy went flying through the air, and he hit on these marble steps on his back.  And the bible says that “he never walked any good” after that.  It probably paralyzed his legs.  But they took that boy way out to a town in the desert called, Lo-debar, and hid him out there with this family.

Well, David gets there and goes through all the ceremony of becoming the new king.  He takes over the army.  But he knew about this little boy.  And he knew that the boy had the right to be in the covenant. He never mentions the covenant; that is a secret. But he keeps asking where the boy is. And nobody will tell him. They think that he wants to kill him.  So, 17 years go by.  That boy is over 18 years old now.  And after all that time, finally, one of King Saul’s old advisors realizes that David is a good man, a godly man; he wouldn’t kill that boy.  He tells him: “Sir, the last that I heard, that boy was still out there in the desert, in Lo-debar where they hid him.

Wow, David sends the royal chariots racing out there…….the sun glinting off their gold and silver…….they are throwing up a plumb of dust. That was like the Hummers in those days, but with horses. They circle around that town and come in there, and they found that boy. They put him on one of those chariots and race him back to town. They let him off right there in front of the palace. They say: “Boy, you walk straight up through there, the king is waiting on you right now.

Well he goes up there on his little crutches…….”clump, clump, clump”.  And when he got there right in front of the king, he just threw those crutches out, just like that.  Well, he just fell down right on his face. And King David says: “Stand that boy up”! Oh, gee, he thinks that his head is coming off right there…..whoosh, with a big sword.

No, King David gets up off of his throne (He never does that.) and goes down and talks to that boy quietly.  He says: “Son, see that scar on my wrist? I was in covenant with your father. I am prepared to return all of your father’s and your grandfather’s lands to you; and all of their assets…….millions of dollars in gold.” All this little dude has to do is say “Yes” to the covenant………to get all of that…………..

Man, he is no dummy.  Of course he says “Yes” to the covenant.  And Kind David says: “Son, I want you to live right here in the Palace.  And you have the right to eat at the king’s table any time that you want, the rest of your life.”  Wow, you can hear him up there the next morning. He is having breakfast with all of the princes and princesses. He says: “Pass the jam, man!”  And they say: “Why you sorry-ass little bugger, what right do you have to be here at the King’s Table anyway.”  And he says: “Ask the King about that scar on his wrist.” He was in covenant with Mephibosheth’s father.  And now he has signed-off on the covenant. That makes him like the King’s own son, with all of the rights and privileges.

So why do I go through all of that long story of what a covenant is with my prison friend here?  Because, Jesus used the story of what a covenant was to explain to those dumb-head people back there why he had come down from Heaven to the earth. They knew what a covenant was, but they did not have a clue why he had come down to the earth. He explained to them that he had come down from Heaven to the earth to, in effect, complete a covenant between God and man.  So, if you are part of that covenant, you become like part of God’s family and inherit eternal life, and all that goes with that.

So, my friend, that time when you and I were looking at that little yellow Four Spiritual Laws book and we were looking at those two circles in the back, and I looked you right in the eye and said: “Which one of those circles do you want to be?”  That was just like Mephibosheth standing there in front on Kind David, and King David saying: “Son, do you want to be part of the covenant or not part of the covenant?”

And you were not any dummy either.  You said “Yes” to the covenant; and we prayed together and you asked God, in effect, to put you in The Covenant.

So, I thought that story would have lots of meaning for you. And I want you to remember all your life that you are part of the Covenant. Don’t ever doubt it.

And God is not like some big judge up in the sky who whaps you up the side of the head whenever you do wrong.  (Of course, I wish that he would.)  But He expects us, out of gratitude for what He has done for us to try our best to keep his rules and to for sure be part of his church.  So, I want you to get into a really good church when you get back to the free, and participate, and to be in its Sunday School, especially.

And I will be praying for you.

P.S. This is to all my many friends in China who read these stories ……………这是向所有读过这些故事的中国朋友问好。 请，请，如果您不介意，请给我发电子邮件并告诉我有关您的信息。 我的E-mail地址是………..ronald82@verizon.net

This is part of a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in China did not get to see it.  And because they want to see it, I am herewith sending an edited version to you again.

Ron

When I started to Junior High School we moved out to this heavily wooded area about 5 miles west of Waco.  It was called Rainbow Lake, for there was a beautiful blue mile long lake together with a little smaller lake just next to it.  Our home looked right down onto the larger lake.  There was a very large area surrounding the lakes, and it was all owned in common as a private club.  There were only 5 homes scattered on both sides of the larger lake.  It was such a large area, that the homes were separated from each other by many acres between them.  You did not hear anyone else or even have anyone else close to you at all.

On the other side of the house from the lake were thousands of acres of virgin wooded land.  Much of the ground was white limestone on the surface.  The whole area had been inhabited by Indians long ago, for there were flint arrowheads all over the whole place.  Out in those woods there were beautiful, perfect arrowheads just laying right on top of the white limestone out in the open.  That showed that no one went into those woods, for they would surely have picked up those arrowheads.  I accumulated quite a collection of them.

In the early pioneer times the people had some beef and pork, but in the earliest days they mostly lived off of wild game for meat.  They ate ducks, geese, doves, wild pigeons, rabbits, deer, bear; all manner of wild game.  However, their favorite tasting meat out of all those was squirrel. 

Davey Crockett and his friends would divide-up into two groups and hunt squirrels for two weeks or more.  The meat would keep well with the insides cleaned out, the skin left on, and hung in the shade, in the open air.  Then they would have a grand squirrel feast.  The group who got the most squirrels was the winner.  The loser had to skin and cook all the squirrels. 

They would first parboil the meat for a short time in boiling water, then either barbeque it or, their favorite, deep fry it in an iron kettle in pig fat.  They would spend two days or more feasting on squirrel.

Since my father was president of that big freight line, he traveled much of the time on weekdays.  He lived off restaurant food, but when he got back home, his favorite meat was squirrel, also.

Other boys, like my peers at school, had the luxury of sleeping late on Saturday mornings; but I had to get up before daylight on Saturday mornings and get my father at least two squirrels.  My semi-automatic Browning 22 rifle held 11 shells.  I would take it and go across the fence into those deep, dense woods.  They stretched for miles and miles.  I would sit very still for as long as it took for a squirrel to come across the trees overhead.  So that I would not mess-up the meat, I was required to hit them only through the rib cage or preferably in the head.  I eventually became such a good shot that when I got into Baylor, I qualified to be on their intercollegiate rifle team and travel to rifle meets all over the country.

After several years, my squirrel hunting job got easier.  My mother had two old maid aunts who still lived in the backwoods in Tennessee in the log house that their brothers had been born in before they came to Texas.   We would visit them sometimes in the summertime.  It was very enjoyable.  They still lived in that subsistence lifestyle.  They grew all their own vegetables, and fruits.  They slopped and killed their own hogs and smoked the hams in a tall smoke house by the barns.  One of the barns still had the spinning wheels and looms from which they had make the clothes that their brothers wore when they came to Texas.  And everything was made of wood……fences, gates, barn doors, locks, everything.  They didn’t have an outhouse.  You just went out behind one of the barns and used corn cobs. 

I had never slept in a real feather bed.  Wow, you dived into those and sunk way down and “just died” asleep.  Those breakfasts they cooked on the wood burning stove in the kitchen were fantastic.  When they found out that I loved fried pies, they would make me big flat ones from their apples and apricots out of their orchards in big cast-iron skillets.

Anyway, on one trip my father told the locals there that he wanted to buy the best squirrel dog in that whole part of Tennessee.  They all acknowledged that “Toby”, a ¾ cross Bull Terrier, was the best squirrel dog there.  Since no one had ever been willing to pay a whole $35 for a hunting dog in that part of Tennessee.  We were able to take Toby back to Texas.

We were anxious to try him out when we got back.  I had a little black and brown Manchester Terrier that my mother’s friend had given me named “Toy”.  Toy went with us as we all headed into those woods with our guns and Toby.  In only a little while Toby had treed a squirrel on the edge of this creek.  We all went rushing there and sure enough there was a big squirrel up in the trees.  Since my father had a shotgun, he brought the squirrel down first.  As it came crashing down, Toy, not Toby, grabbed it before it even hit the ground.   It didn’t take Toy long to figure out what this was all about.  She became as good a squirrel dog as Toby, if not better.

Toby had the most interesting habit.  When a person comes up, the squirrel will always slip around to the other side of the tree so you can’t see it.  When you were by yourself as I most always was, the squirrel would move back to the first side of the tree when I would go around to the back side of the tree.  But every time, Toby would go around to the other side of the tree from me and grab a little bush and just violently shake it in his teeth.  He would scare the squirrel back around to my side of the tree so that I could shoot it.  He greatly improved my hunting success.  I have no idea how he learned this.

I know that I am probably boring you with all of this but let me tell you about one morning in the late Fall.  When I would bring out the gun, the dogs would just go “nuts” jumping and turning flips.  They just loved to go hunting.  By this time Toby had gotten killed, so I took Toy and three half grown pups that I was trying to train.

We had gotten at least a mile down in those wild woods before Toy treed.  I was down in a dry creek bed with steep sides at least 12 feet high.  It was very strange, because it would sound like Toy was way off, and then sound like she was up close.  Finally, I heard her just above us.  I was able to go around a little bend in the creek where the creek sides were not as steep.  The pups and I scrambled up onto the flat ground.  Then we saw why her sounds were different.  She had something in a big, hollow log that she was after.  She would bark with her head just inside the log and sound way off.  Then would bark outside the log and sound close; but she would not go into the log.

However, when those boisterous pups got there they just bolted straight into the log.  All of a sudden big ringed-tailed civet cats just started pouring out of several places from the log.  Most people have never seen those cats because they are totally nocturnal.  

They are tan and grey like a fox, but they have this really long black and white ringed tail.  They can be very aggressive, especially when surprised and disturbed.

One of them grabbed one of the pups by the leg and they went round and round.  This big female came running right at me, but just before she reached me, Toy bolted forward and grabbed her by the throat.  They went rolling over and over and both fell off down into the dry creek, but Toy never let go of her throat.

Then out the far end of the log came this huge male civet cat.  He was not about to run away.  He ran right at me and ripped my blue jeans with his claw, but never stopped.  I was so startled and he was so close that I could not get a shot at him.  I really needed a shotgun; not that little Browning 22 semi-automatic.   He went straight up this little tree next to us and out onto one of its limbs.  I shot two or three times, but he was going so fast that I missed.  At this point he was just even with my head.  Then, “so help me” he bolted through the air, right at my throat.  I threw the gun up in defense and just started pulling that trigger.    

He was so close that I could not aim, and I am certain that a “Higher Power” directed the last bullet.  For it went right into his open mouth.  He fell dead right at my feet.  I had heard about it but had never experienced it.  For my legs just gave way and I sank right down onto that log.

What I remember at that point was this awful screaming of the big female civet cat down in the creek with blood in her throat; just a chilling sound.  Toy had never let go of her throat and finally choked her to death.  And the pup had gotten away from his adversary.  It was quite a violent scene.  I took the big male home to show my father.

You can say that I was just lucky, but you will never get me to admit it.  I just know that God had some tough angel direct that bullet into that cats open mouth as it was right in mid-air, almost to my throat!!!

                                    Fairly  Young Ringed Tail Civet Cat Near Austin Texas

This is an excerpt from my soon to be published book.  I have sent it before, but in this edited version I am sending it again since the huge number of people in China who are reading these stories every day have not seen it. 

Joe Foss

One of the greatest heroes of WWII and the epitome of the Greatest Generation was Joe Foss.  He grew up really poor on a farm in South Dakota .  He learned to hunt and was quite the outdoorsman.  He did manage to enroll in the University of South Dakota and was big in all their athletic programs, but had to drop out to go back and help his mother on the family farm.  However, he later enrolled again and graduated with a degree in Business in 1940.

Joe on South Dakota Football Team

He had seen Limburg at an airfield when he was younger, and was determined to fly.  He had already scraped together enough money for flying lessons and had his civilian license, so he joined the Marine Reserves and went to flight school.  When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he was Officer of the Day at Pensacola and rode around the base on his bicycle looking for Japs.

He was not allowed to train as a fighter pilot as he desperately wanted.  They said at age 27 he was too old.  He was instead assigned to an aerial photographer’s squadron.  Joe just could not abide that, especially after he saw one of the new F4F Wildcats.  He put up such a ruckus that they assigned him to a squadron of Wildcats.

He and his plane were loaded onto an aircraft carrier and sent straight across the Pacific.  He arrived at just the time that we invaded Guadalcanal .  The Marines captured the Japanese airfield there and set up residence.  Joe’s carrier was sent straight there and he was catapulted off for his only takeoff from a carrier.  He landed on the bomb pocked field which the Marines had named Henderson Field and became part of the Cactus Air Force on Guadalcanal .

Cactus Air Force on Guadalcanal

The Japanese were determined to push them off that island.  They mounted attack after attack by land, and mounted daily air strikes.  They came up what was called “The Slot” between the islands to shell them from the sea.  They even flew over at night to keep the guys from sleeping.  The Grumman F4F was no match for the agile Japanese Zeros, but Joe Foss was absolutely ferocious.  He led their daily flights and many times afternoon flights.  The Japanese bombed daily with their Betty Bombers protected by their Zeros.

Joe became an ace in only 5 days.  In only a few more days he had 11 kills, but lost 4 Wildcats from getting shot-up because of his daring maneuvers.  Because they had so few planes and even less ammunition Joe learned to get in really close before firing.  The Japs made it hard to get fuel and ammunition and supplies into their base by patrolling up and down what became known as Iron Bottom Sound.  Joe even led his small squadrons out to strafe the Jap destroyers and shoot down the Zeros protecting them. 

Within the first 13 days, Joe had wracked up 14 kills, and on October 25, 1942 he became the first Navy pilot to ace on enemy planes in one day.

The pilots would bath in the river there and try to get some sleep.  The men there mostly slept in the daytime since the Jap night fighters made it so hard to sleep at night.  For sport, Joe and his pilot friends would roam in the jungle on afternoons they were not flying, hunting Japanese soldiers to kill.  But Colonel Bauer put a stop to that since they were too valuable as pilots to risk such hunting.

After 23 victories on Guadalcanal Joe caught malaria like so many others there.  Since he was so valuable, they flew him off to recuperate in Australia for awhile.  But they couldn’t keep this ferocious South Dakota fighter away.  He went back and rejoined the Cactus Air Force and had 3 more kills for a total of 26. 

It was No Match for the Jap Zeros, but Joe loved that F4F Wildcat

His most important mission resulted in no enemy kills at all.  The Japanese came with a big task force of ships and a huge contingent of Betty’s and Zeros.  Joe was credited with leading a daring performance.  He circled above the enemy aircraft and ships in such a way as to trick them into thinking he was leading an advance squadron of a much, much larger strike force of US planes.  It resulted in the Japanese calling off their whole mission without a shot being fired.

While the war was still young, Joe was called back to the States to rally morale and stump for the War Bond selling effort.  He traveled all over and was a huge success.

 He already had a bunch of medals, but in May of 1943 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt. 

In later years, Joe Foss became Governor of South Dakota.   He was the first Commissioner of the American Football League.  He even served as President of the National Rifle Association for 2 years.  But he would always be a Marine!

Now to what I really wanted to tell you.    A few years ago, I had the privilege of spending several days and a weekend with Joe Foss and his good friend, Roy Rogers at a Here’s Life Meeting in Palm Springs .  I can attest that they are both not just strong Christians, but are personally really close to the Lord.

I asked Roy Rogers if he was reared on a ranch as a cowboy out west.  He told me:  “Naw man, I am from Duck Run Missouri.  We were so poor; the road did not even go past our house.  It stopped at our house.”   I said. “But you are a Hollywood cowboy that has blessed so many people”.   And he said,  “Well, I thought that was the best route to take.  My biggest step up the ladder was when I married Dale Evans, who was way farther up the ladder than I was.”  Then Dales Evans, who was standing there with him, chimed in:  “Yea, and he almost lost me when I found out that he came together with all those hound dogs of his.”

Roy, and Joe Foss were big quail hunters.  But I got the chance to ask Roy if he had any other hobbies than hunting quail and chasing foxes with his hound dogs.  So he told me all about his hobby of diligently collecting the songs that the early pioneers sang around their camp fires at night on their wagon train trips to Oregon and California .   He has collected as many of those as he could before they were lost to posterity.

I asked Joe Foss when was the last time he and Roy went quail hunting.  He said last season. “When we almost lost Roy .”   Then he related how they were getting lots of quail one afternoon when they shot one quail that fell way across a creek.  So Roy said:   “Don’t worry I will go over and get that quail, because the dogs don’t even see it.”  However, Joe Foss said that Roy never came back.  He and their friend went down there and found Roy by the creek.  He had turned blue and really looked bad.  They got the pick-pup truck and loaded him in the back and headed for town.  Joe said they kept watching him through the back window.  They said he kept fishing around in is pocket with his finger and finally found his bottle of nitroglycerin pills and popped some in his mouth.  In a few minutes he was banging in the back window of the truck wanting to go back hunting.  But they took him on to the hospital.

Now let me get to the real point, and theme of this book.  I asked Joe Foss, “Governor Foss, (I could have said General Foss, for he was later promoted to Brigadier General in the Air National Guard, but he liked ‘Governor’) it is for sure that God protected you in the Pacific.  Time and again you were given up for lost, and here you would come back, walking out of the jungle with a stalk of bananas over your shoulder.   But is there one specific occasion when it was very obvious that God’s Spirit Power just came down and saved you when everything was totally lost and there was no way out”.  And he said, “Yes there was, Ronald, there certainly was”.   So, I asked him to tell me and my group of friends there about it.

So, Governor Foss said that late one evening off a strongly held Japanese island his plane got all shot-up.  His engine sputtered and quit.  He glided low way off the end of that island and ditched in the water.  He managed to get out and into his little yellow life raft just as it was getting dark.  He knew that the Japanese saw him go down and that, in the morning, they would be coming for him.  They knew who he was as flight leader on all those raids and air battles.  He had heard about their torture tactics.  He knew that they would not give him a quick death, but what was going to happen to him could be described as worse than death.  So he floated there in the water dreading tomorrow morning.

Something else happened, though, as he splashed into the water just before dark.  Some natives on that island, who really hated the Japanese, saw him go down, also.  He was quite a ways out there, but they rowed all the way out in their outrigger canoes and were able to find him in the total darkness.  They took him back and hid him, and then passed him along to other natives until he finally got back to his unit.

Governor Joe said you could consider that a fortuitous accident, but that he considered it “a divine, life saving, intervention of God on his behalf.”

This is a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in Chin did not get to see it.  And because they want to see it, I am herewith sending it again. 

Miss Ella

Ella Graham lived west of Waco , west of Crawford right close to where George Bush’s ranch is now located.  She was a good family friend and totally blind.  She went blind when she was only 4 years of age.  She thought that she could remember colors but was not sure.  She was in her early 70’s and had been the first blind school teacher ever in Texas in the little Crawford high school. 

She was very cultured and very romantic.  Even at her age she was still a beautiful white-haired lady.  When she was a student at Baylor they say she was just gorgeous.  Though the young men just lined-up to read her lessons to her back then, she never married.  She said that she felt that being blind, she would have been too much of a burden on a husband. 

But she was such a romantic person that she had gotten her degree at Baylor in Browning.   You know, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning the famous poets who wrote all those romantic poems and that romantic prose. Surely you have read it or heard it…….. like Elizabeth ’s Sonnet 43 as she wrote to her lover, Robert………. 

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.   I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.  I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.   I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.  I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.  I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” 

Wow!  Now that’s romantic!  And Robert Browning’s famous poem/song………Pippa Passes…….as innocent Pippa sings as she passes by……    

The year’s at the spring 
    And day’s at the morn; 
    Morning’s at seven; 
    The hillside’s dew-pearled; 
    The lark’s on the wing; 
    The snail’s on the thorn: 
    God’s in His heaven— 
    All’s right with the world!

The famous Browning Library at Baylor has a bronze statue of Pippa out in front of it, and inside it has all the memorabilia of the Brownings’…….most all of their complete works and even their actual desks from which their writings were done.

                              Statue of Pippa at Baylor’s Browning Library

Yes, Miss Ella was such a romantic.  She wrote to me on an old typewriter with blue ink ribbon.  Her prose was like reading poetry.  I have kept all of her letters.   Many times when I would have a date with one of those beautiful Baylor girls, I would drive out to Crawford and take her along with us.  She would so enjoy it.  The girls would not mind as she lightly looked them over with her fingers.  She was always so interested in their hands.  She judged them some way or other by how their fingers were shaped.

She would particularly enjoy it when we would take her to the movies.  I think it was because this was something blind ladies never did. 

So, one time she was visiting our home at Rainbow Lake .  It was late in the afternoon.  We were sitting in front of that big picture window that looked down over the lake.  The other windows were wide open to let in the lovely Spring air.  And this daddy Cardinal was just singing his Springtime song at the top of his voice.

See, Miss Ella just loved Cardinals.  They would sing to her outside her bedroom windows near Crawford.  She would mention it sometimes in her letters as she was typing.  Her lovely stationary even had a picture of a red daddy Cardinal at the top of it.

Then, as we were listening to the bird’s song, Miss Ella said:  “Oh, Ronny, I do so wish that I could see a Cardinal!” 

And I must have just prayed, for I distinctly remember thinking:  “Lord, why can’t this lovely, Godly woman see a Cardinal?”

But I was jolted to attention, for my mother called to me to go out to the boat house and get some meat for supper out of the freezer.  I jumped-up and went out the kitchen door and opened the side door to the boat house.   Someone had left one of the big garage-type doors up off the floor for a few inches.  And this bird had gotten into the closed boat house.  There on the floor, right in front of the freezer was this gorgeous, scarlet Cardinal. 

He didn’t bolt up and fly against the glass windows as one would expect.  He just let me catch him.

Of course, I forgot about the meat and took him right back into the house.  Miss Ella got to carefully and lovingly see a real live Cardinal.  Her delicate fingers traced its whole body, especially that beautiful peak on its head from which it gets its name.

We eventually took it back outside and she let it go and it flew softly away.

Now you can say that was just a fortunate accident, but I know with the perfect timing and all, exactly where that bright red Cardinal really came from.   It was no accident for that bird to be right there at that exact moment just for Miss Ella to “see”.

If you would like to watch a wonderful, life changing movie, get yourself all prepared with the time to watch a full length movie, and then go to this site and be ready for a life changing experience. .…………….. https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/english.html

 如果您想观看一部精彩的、改变生活的电影，请准备好观看一部完整电影的时间，然后访问这个网站，为改变生活的体验做好准备………..…………https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/chinese-mandarin.html

This is a chapter from my 400+ page book.  I sent part of it out to you two years ago, but the plethora of people reading these stories in China did not get to see it.  And because they really want to see it, I am herewith sending it again.  Please consider its message!  It really happens.  It is not some theory!

The Fish Fall

I would usually take our medical teams to the east coast of Honduras.  There are so many really poor villages of people there along the coast and inland from there.  However, we went two times into the Province of Yoro in the central highlands, and the town of Yoro with teams sponsored by First Baptist Church of Carrollton, Texas.  This is an extremely poor area of Honduras.

Homes in La Union at Yoro

At Yoro there is a strange thing that happens every year, and sometimes two to four times a year.  Fish fall from the sky.  The locals call it, lluvia de pesces.

When I first heard of it, of course I did not believe it.  How could such happen.  But I met so many people from there, including my eventual evangelist lady, Onelia, that herself had gathered the fish in baskets and had sea food that they only get to eat that one or a few more times a year.  They consider it a gift from God, and so many of these people are so desperately poor that they really need the protein, especially at that time of the summer.

Poor Couple in La Union

This has been happening for generations.   They say that in the mid 1800’s a Catholic missionary named Manuel de Jesús Subirana came to Yoro to minister to the people.  He was so distressed over their poverty and lack of food that he fasted and prayed for three days and three nights.  The people say that immediately after that the fish started falling and have done so ever since.  A team from National Geographic actually got to be there and record it in the 1970’s.  And on our second trip to Yoro I missed it by only two weeks.

There is a mountain range just to the west of Yoro.  Onelia said that when the clouds got extremely black coming over those mountains she would ask the priest if it was time.  He would say that they need to be even more black.  Finally, he would say:  “Get your baskets, it is time”.  And after those clouds have passed, they would go out to this field and fill their baskets with fish.

Having an engineering degree and having taken all those science courses, I really wanted an explanation; so I set out to find the answer.  Sometimes the fish are small and silver colored like sardines, but more often they are much larger.  I got Onelia and some of the other people there to draw me pictures of exactly what the larger fish looked like. 

I have had some great times with my father catching big sail fish in the Pacific fairly near shore in southern Mexico.  Every time we went out, we would pass large schools of bonito schooling right on top of the water.

Those pictures that they drew looked exactly like the bonito, which are related to tuna fish.

Almost every afternoon, cold air would drift out from the mountains there and water spouts would drop down and just “play around” over the water.  Sometimes we would have to wait until they went back up into the clouds before we could get back with our boat to where we were staying.  I just know that sometimes those bonito were sucked up and carried over the mountains to Yoro.   But you say, how could a storm be that strong?

On the afternoon that our medical team was coming back from the mountain where we had ministered to the Indians that had never seen a white man, I saw what it looks like.  From our eclectic caravan of cars and trucks, we saw a storm coming toward us from the west.  I have seen lots of weather, but I have never seen clouds that incredibly black and lightning that intense.   Sometimes in Texas storm clouds will look dark blue, but these were absolutely black.  I did not hear of any fish coming down that day, but I could see how a storm that intense could keep fish up there and carry them east.

So I thought that I was so smart for figuring out how this happened.  Then I saw the pictures from National Geographic, the New York Times, and the History Channel and others that had recorded those fish falling.  And I knew that I was not correct, for there were all kinds of fish and different colors.  I have no “rational” or “practical” explanation. Some of those pictures showed fish with no eyes.  They had to have come from some cavern or underground river to have no eyes.  And why do those fish fall every year just in that spot……most in just one field adjacent to Yoro at La Unión.  Maybe the people are correct.  Maybe God is sending them protein as was promised to the missionary, Manuel de Jesús Subirana, so many, many years ago.

Fish that have just Fallen on a Street in Yoro

Of course, the people there consider it a direct gift from God, and I would not dispute them.  They really need the protein.  Sometimes the fish fall in town, but almost without exception, for several generations the fish fall in a particular field next to a suburb of Yoro called, La Unión. 

Field where the Fish Fall at La Union

 They even have a festival and parade in little La Unión every year where they elect a “Miss Falling Fish” as queen…..Senorita Lluvia de Peces…….or, Miss Fish Rain.   She rides in a float dressed as a mermaid.

Festival at La Union

Since I know some of you still won’t believe this, here is an article from the New York Times from last summer: 

Every Year the Sky ‘Rains Fish’

By KIRK SEMPLE

JULY 16, 2017, THE NEW YORK TIMES

YORO, Honduras — “Things don’t come easy in La Unión, a small community on the periphery of Yoro, a farming town in north-central Honduras.”

(Click on this site and read about it, or paste it in your browser, or better still, paste it in Google Search)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16//world/americas/honduras-rain-fish-yoro.htm1

Like I wrote before, here in the U.S. which has so many churches and Christian media, evidently God does not need to show his Spirit Power so much.  However, you get far enough away to places with little Christian influence, and one gets to see actual manifestations of God’s Spirit Power.

If you would like to watch a wonderful, life changing movie, get yourself all prepared with the time to watch a full length movie, and then go to this site and be ready for a life changing experience. .…………….. https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/english.html 

如果您想观看一部精彩的、改变生活的电影，请准备好观看一部完整电影的时间，然后访问这个网站，为改变生活的体验做好准备………..…………https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/chinese-mandarin.html