This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

                                                            More on China

After the trip to China just described, I worked with Chinese Intelligence for 22 years.  But before you question whether that was “good” or not let me explain.  Shortly after 1980 the Chinese authorities were still determined to know about the United States’ “management system”………just like the authorities in Russia wanted to know.  

Since central planning of a huge economy by government bureaucrats has never ever worked, and things in the U.S. economy work so wonderfully well by comparison, they assumed that we had this magically wonderful system as I have explained previously.  Since Dallas is a well-known business center, they sent one of their bright young intelligence operatives to Dallas to find the answer to our system. 

He enrolled in Dallas Baptist University to get a Master’s Degree in Business.  Since I was on the Board of Trustees of the University, he came down to my office to meet me to gather his “intelligence information”.  I wanted him to know our Capitalist system, so I was happy to co-operate.  I actually had him read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations so he could learn about the “guiding had of the market” that works so well under the freedom of Capitalism. 

We became good friends.  However, he had been tasked by the Chinese Authorities with another task.  They wanted to know about these Christians.  Why do they want to come to China ?  Are they a danger?  Should we let them in?  Do they want to overthrow the government?  That is why he had enrolled in Dallas Baptist University, since it is a Christian school.  He eventually sent reports to China that Christians were the most honest people that they would find….that Christians were the ones who could be the most trusted. 

When China first opened-up there is no telling how many evangelical types wanted to go to China a be a missionary.  There would be a Pentecostal pastor in Arkansas who had two churches there.  He would feel that he needed to go to China and convert the people.  China got a plethora of such requests.  So many of such folks asked for permission to go there and teach English as a cover for their real mission. 

My Chinese “Handler” was gracious enough to show me the response of his superiors.  It went something like this:  “Let them come and teach English.  We need the hard currency they will bring.  They are not going to hurt anything.  We will watch them.” 

In 1989 I went to China with my handler and a small group of Master’s Degree students from Dallas Baptist University.  At that time it was still necessary to fly to Hong Kong, take the train to Guangzhou, and then fly to where ever one wished to go in China .  We wished to fly directly on to Beijing .  Right away I learned that there are certain advantages to a centrally planned and managed government if you are one of the “insiders”. 

We were tired and wanted to get on to Beijing, but all the flights were full for the next several days.  Those of us from the US thought what a bum situation that was.  However, that was when my handler opened his wallet and pulled out this little card.  I could not read the Chinese on it, but it looked very “official”.  The airline folks promptly bumped off enough people on the next plane leaving Guangzhou and we promptly boarded and took off.   Not good for regular Chinese citizens and tourists, but great for those in authority. 

In Beijing I met with some of China ’s top authorities.  This would happen at banquets that I would host for them.  One of the most interesting was one where I hosted a banquet for the fellow who was over all of the many minority people groups in China.  It was at one of those typical big round tables.  He had brought many of his top aides.  As at many such business dinners we had the big, common hot pot.  This one was not electric, but coal fired with a big flue on top.   The servers would bring in all kinds of meat thinly sliced and rolled into many small rolls……beef, pork, mutton, goat meat, dog meat, monkey meat, snake, and no telling what else.  The Head of Minorities was from one of the minority provinces, Guangxi.  His home was in Nanning, the capital of that province where I subsequently stayed many times.  At my urging, he gave permission for the Jesus film to be put into several of the many minority languages spoken in Guangxi. 

At this dinner, the hot pot was unusually large.  It had a complete circle filled with boiling water around its base.  People would take turns putting the different meats into the pot to boil and then take it out with their chopsticks to eat.   However, they would take turns dipping their cooked meat into a big pot of extremely hot/spicy sauce to “out macho” each other.  I really detest this macho stuff that some Chinese men do.  So I broke all precedent and decorum and just dumped the whole bowl of the super hot sauce into the common circle of boiling water. 

That stopped all the macho stuff, and as it turned out, greatly pleased the Head of Minorities since he did not like all the macho stuff either. 

On this trip, we were there just a few months before the student takeover of Tiananmen Square.  Deng Xiaoping was the absolute ruler of China from 1978 until his death in 1997.  Late in his life he had others take the title of President of China, but he was still the boss.  He had lived for 5 years in Paris , France. On that trip he passed through Singapore in1920.  However, soon after taking over as the leader of China, he visited Singapore again in 1978. 

On his trip to Singapore he had a full schedule of activities.  However, his first activity was to meet Lee Kuan Yew, Founding Father and First Premier of Singapore.  Lee lived until he was age 91 and did not die until 3/23/2015 after governing for 30 years.  Deng was so impressed with what Premier Lee had done to build that little country into one of the most prosperous places in the world, that he just canceled all of his schedule and spent almost the whole time with Premier Lee, learning how he had done such a fantastic job.  One reason that he was so interested was that Singapore was almost totally populated with ethnic Chinese.  They had most all come there as uneducated coolie laborers, but now they and their decedents were wealthy, sophisticated people. 

Lee showed Deng that his main secret was to give business-people and most anyone wanting to go into business almost complete freedom…….as few restrictions as possible on starting and operating a business.  What Deng saw in Singapore was such a revelation to him that he went back to China, determined to do the same thing there.  He decided to implement these freedoms in stages.  His first stage was to start with China ’s farmers.  When I was there in 1989, the farmers had just received their first freedoms.  They were setting up markets in all of the towns and cities across China and were getting rich.  Later, Deng told everyone to “go and get rich”.  And now, amazing wealth has been amassed across the country.  China will soon have more billionaires than the US according to Forbes Magazine. 

On that trip we visited a farmer’s co-op in Shandong province which was not only selling their agricultural products for good profits, they were generating the electricity for that whole area, they had all manner of side businesses, they had their own private planes, and were even charging money to show other farm groups how to do what they were doing.  I will give more information about the results of Deng’s new policies and their influence on China later. 

On this trip, I really wanted to meet Bishop Ting, who was over all Christian activities in China.  His office was in Nanjing where he was head of a large seminary and where he was training new Christian pastors and was printing bibles to distribute across China.  That printing operation was called Amity Press. 

Before I left for China for that trip, my friends at Campus Crusade (like Dr. Bill Bright) told me that I would not get to meet him, since they had not gotten to meet him.  I was told the same thing by Billy Graham’s folks.  But they each told me that if I did get to meet him:  “Would I please ask him questions that only he would know the answers to…….like, ‘Is there any Christian activity at all in North Korea.’” 

We visited Nanjing, and found that Bishop Ting (he had once been an Anglican Bishop before the revolution) was quite shielded for some reason.  It did seem that it was going to be impossible to meet him.  

In China the Shanghai Language Institute is one of the primary places where Chinese Intelligence people are trained.  If a Chinese ever tells you that is where he went to school, you can be sure that he is probably with their Intelligence Service.  Well, my handler called one of his former classmates from that institution that he knew now lived in Nanjing.  Amazingly she happened to have the private phone number of Bishop Ting.  Bishop Ting was contacted and agreed to meet us the next day out in front of his Seminary, and in front of anyone who may be shielding him.

                                                                             

Of course, I was concerned about how I could ask him the sensitive questions that those in the US had requested of me with official Chinese interpreters in attendance.  There was no worry.  Bishop Ting has a Master’s Degree in English from Boston College.  My English will never be as good as his.  He welcomed our little group warmly and ushered us into his office at the Seminary.  Since he had been out of the country to speak at certain meetings, he was able to give us essays that he had written concerning his speeches at those places. 

His one primary theme was that the United States did not need to send missionaries to China, that Chinese pastors could get the job done with just some support and backing from the US.  He iterated that there had only been a small number of Christians before the revolution, but that there were many, many thousands now….that they were doing a fairly good job of evangelizing.  And he did express his burning desire to see all of China won to Jesus.

Not knowing anything about my handler who was there, present, Bishop Ting urged him to return to China and help to win China to Jesus. 

He showed us through the Amity Press where they were printing all kinds of bibles for China.……….. millions.   He also showed us through the art department of the seminary.  There the senior professor drew one of those popular Chinese vertical paintings showing a bond between their Seminary and Dallas Baptist University.

See the next follow-up story about China next week……….”Miss Lottie Moon”.

Also:  If you would like to watch the Jesus Film also, get yourself all prepared to watch a full length movie, and then go to this site and be really blessed…………….. https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/english.html

如果你也想看耶稣电影，让自己准备好看一部完整的电影，然后去这个网站，真的很幸运………. …………https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/chinese-mandarin.html

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

                                                                    China

In the Summer of 1980 China had just been opened to outsiders.   The people there all still wore those grey baggy clothes……everyone the same.  If one was privileged to be able to “dress up” it had to be in one of those Mao suits.  There was no style, no color as respects clothing.

Except for a very few cars, all local transportation was by bicycle, just hundreds of thousands of them in each city.

Just about the only Americans that the Chinese had seen were a few retired professors and doctors, no American young people.  But in the late summer of 1980 a handful of us along with Campus Crusade took 350 young people into China .  They caused a huge sensation.  Most of them had been following up in places like the Philippines behind where the Jesus film had been shown the previous summer.  They had been starting bible classes and bible study groups, discipling new converts, and even starting new churches. 

We, along with some of the real “tigers” at Camus Crusade wanted to know what the Christian situation was in newly opened China.  Were there still Christians?  Were there any Christians in places of authority?  Were Christians welcome there?  Was there any persecution of Christians?

We were very surprised to find all manner of Christians is very high places.  We found no persecution, anywhere.   And since we came openly as Christians, we were welcomed in the most extra-ordinary manner.

You may know that one of the most important buildings in all of China, right on the west side of Tiananmen Square, is The Great Hall of The People.  It is where the Communist representatives from across the county meet to “elect” their new leaders, and where their new Five Year Plans are announced in convocations.  It could be described as the very inner-sanctum of the Communist Party.

Much to our amazement, because they wanted to show that Christians were welcome, our whole group, including the 350 young people were given a grand banquet right in the Great Hall of The People.  Many of the top Chinese Authorities were in attendance and welcomed us in a welcoming line of introduction.   The food was most grand, some of the best in Beijing.  The tables were typical Chinese, big and round and with their usual large revolving centerpieces.  I co-hosted a table with the official who had been over what we would call the American Desk of their State Department when Nixon and Kissinger went there to help “open-up” China to the outside world.  I think we were the first Americans to receive a banquet there in The Great Hall of the People since the one for Nixon and Kissinger.

I did fairly well with the protocol with my co-host at the dinner.  One of my major tests was when I was supposed to reach way up to a platter being held overhead and offer him one of those slippery sea-urchins with my chopsticks.  I am sure that it was only with God’s help that I got it safely down to his plate without having it squirt out onto the table.  My only snafu was when I had dropped two grains of rice onto the table next to my plate.  He watched those two grains for the longest time before he finally picked them up.  He went on to explain that his grandfather had trained him like others in China to never leave a grain of rice on the table.  It had to do with knowing about all the starving people across China in the past who had no rice.

The Chinese loved to hear our young people sing.  After the dinner for the longest time we sang all the US patriotic songs and Christian songs that we could remember, like God Bless America, Jesus Loves Me, How Great Thou Art, and even The Lord’s Prayer………right there in the very inner-sanctum of Communism.  I don’t know if they knew the meaning of any of the words or if any were interpreted for them, but the Chinese officials smiled and clapped the whole time.

The Chinese official that co-hosted the table with me that I described earlier was most interested that I had spent time in Moscow in the Kremlin.  I had described to him how much the Russians wanted me to tell them about our US “management system”.  He later met with me outside the building beside the hedges around the building where I tried to explain how free market capitalism is our “management system”……how we really don’t have any secret plan or system.  Just like in Russia, government central planning for a whole economy by the bureaucrats under Communism, nothing works.  Spare parts if they exist at all seem to never get where they are needed.  Later, I had some of China ’s top leaders actually read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in which he describes what he calls “the guiding hand of the market” under the freedom of Capitalism.  It gets spare parts where they are needed and makes everything in the economy of a nation work beautifully without any planning.

We knew how these young people are so motivated to share the Gospel with others.   We did not want to cause any problems, so each one of the 350 was given only one little book of The Four Spiritual Laws to take into China.  I thought that it was so neat that each was printed inside of bright red covers, just like Chairman Mao’s little red books had their red covers, and which were carried by the young people that plunged China into that awful Cultural Revolution.  That was where every teacher or professor or even what would be considered an educated person was banished out into the country to work in the fields and was so severely persecuted.  Hundreds of thousands died.  Many books have been written about what an awful time it was.

One of the results of it was to purge the entire population of China from any kind of overt religion or even spiritual philosophy or political thought across China.  In 1980 and later if you would have the opportunity to engage the Chinese in any kind of political discussion, the answer was always the same:  “We are not sure what system we really want in the future, but we are absolutely certain that we never want anything like that Cultural Revolution again.”  It is my opinion that it created such a spiritual vacuum that it made a wonderful opportunity for Christianity to fill that vacuum.

Still testing things in China, we asked for something really bold.  We asked for permission from the very top authorities “to hold a prayer meeting on top of the Great Wall of China to claim China for Jesus”.  Much to our surprise we were given that permission without changing any of those words in the request.

At that time there were no tourist facilities at the Great Wall.  There was not even a good road there.  One took a special train there.  It stopped at the wall and then waited until your group was ready to return.  The distance is only 50 miles, but the train traveled fairly slowly and passes parts of other walls which were built way before the present one.

On the trip there I met a most interesting young man on the train.  His father was one of the top officials in Beijing.  He had learned English fairly well, and was already in Graduate School. but he really wanted to go on this trip to the Wall with all those American young people.  He did remark something about what he called the “interesting spirit” that these young people seemed to have.  I told him that we were going to have a “special meeting” on the Wall and encouraged him to attend and observe the “meeting” and tell me later on the return trip what he thought about it.  I even asked him to see if he could feel anything at that “meeting”.

We went about a half mile east along the wall and climbed up to one of its highest parts.  Every so often along the Wall there is a rock tower built for the guards who were stationed there.  We held our prayer meeting on the east side of one of those towers which loomed above us.  Some great and powerful prayers were offered by the young Campus Crusade leaders.   They prayed earnestly for the Gospel to spread across China in the future, which is now happening.

On the return trip that same young man came and sat down beside me.  I decided that it was a great opportunity to share the Gospel with him.  I got out my one copy of the Four Spiritual Laws that was printed in Chinese and started explaining it to him.

He got so interested that the noise where we were on the train began to bother us for what was becoming a very intense conversation.   We decided to go out between the cars on the train where we could be alone.  This train was so well made that the spaces between the cars were closed-in with glass so it was fairly quiet.  When we got to the part where it was time for him to pray the prayer to ask God into his life, he stopped.  He said that maybe he had done so many wrong things in his life that he should not pray that prayer.

It was at this critical juncture that I needed to say just the right words to him, and I am totally convinced that God put just the perfect words into my mouth.  I have since shared those words with hundreds and hundreds of my prison boys, and they are very effective and achieve amazing results with God’s leading.

So, I asked him if he had ever been “camping”.  Then I said:  “Oh, you wouldn’t know what that means, that doesn’t translate into Chinese.”  However, he quickly said:  “I have a masters degree in English, certainly I know what going camping means…..you sleep out in the woods under the trees, you cook your food over a wood fire, you catch a wild pig and you roast him and eat him.”

So I said:  “OK.  Let us assume that you go camping for two whole weeks.  You sleep out under the trees, you have a great time, you catch your wild pig and roast him and eat him.  He is really good.”

And he said:  “Oh, that would be fun, and I could get away from that dorm and all those guys where I live at college.”

Then I said:  “But the whole second week that you are there, you really begin thinking how great a shower would feel and clean clothes.  You start just dreaming about them.

“You stay the whole two weeks; you have a great time, but by now you are really dirty and you smell really bad, and it is time for you to go back.  You start the long walk back to the dormitory where you live with your friends.  You have had a grand time, but all the way back you are thinking and dreaming about how wonderful that shower and those clean clothes will feel.

“Finally, you arrive back, and you see that all of your friends are getting on this bus.  They are all dressed-up, fancy.  You ask what is happening and they tell you—–’Oh, we have been invited to a banquet in The Great Hall of the People…..It is the chance of a lifetime for us.  We have been getting ready all afternoon…..getting our hair combed just right, getting our shoes shined, and our ties on straight.’

“And you say:  ‘Yes, you fellows really look great.’

“And they say:  ‘Haven’t you heard!’

“And you say:  ‘I haven’t heard anything.  I have been out in the woods for two weeks!’

“And they say:  ‘You were invited to this banquet too!’

“And you say:  ‘No!’

“And they reply:  ‘Yes!  But it starts in just 15 minutes.  We are already late leaving.  Look!!!  The bus is leaving right now.  Jump on!  You must go!  It is the chance of a lifetime!  You don’t have time to change or have a shower or get cleaned up.  Hurry, hurry, hurry!’”

“Oh!  How could you go to such a beautiful banquet with all of those dressed-up people as dirty and smelly as you were.  Those Communist guards would never let you through the gate.”

But the young man saw what I was trying to show him.  God has prepared Heaven like a great banquet for all of us—-for all of Eternity.  He wants all of us to be there.  But how can we be there in such purity and splendor—-as dirty and filthy as we have become?  No matter how much He might love us, it just could not happen.  But that is what the Forth Law is about.

Thus, The Forth Spiritual Law:

We must each one, individually receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  Then we can be in Heaven with Him, and know His love here and the wonderful plan that he has for our life here.

It is not enough to just believe in Him.  The Devil believes in Him, but the Devil will not be in Heaven.  Jesus called such a decision “being born again”…..having our souls washed clean.  He did all the “work” for us when He died on the cross.  But we have to each one individually accept it like accepting a contract.

Here is a person.  The dots represent all the things in his life.  The chair represents the throne in his life…..who is king, who is in charge, who is boss?  This person is like most people we know…..his self is on the throne.  He is in charge of his own life.  I don’t know whether he is doing a good job or not.  He believes there a God.  He prays sometimes.  He even goes to church sometimes.  But as far as his life is concerned; he is in charge, and God is outside.

However, Jesus said in the back of the Bible (Revelation 3:20):  “Behold, I stand at the door of every man’s heart and I knock”.  He will not break the door down or force His way in, but you can open the door of your heart and invite Him in.  His Spirit Power can come in and change your whole life.

That is what this second person has done.  He has asked God to be on the throne of his life.  And the things in his life are now getting arranged around God.  His self is still there, but it is not running things, not in charge, not in control anymore.  He will still sin and mess-up sometimes, because he is still trapped in a human body…..but he is on a new and different road now.

Which one of these two people is you, ?

Which would you like for it to be?

If you wish to be the second person, and ask God into your life, and really be born again, you can do so right now.  I would want you to very be serious, and plan for a turning in your life.

OK, I will pray for a few seconds, and then I will say some words that you can repeat after me, quietly, but out loud, straight to God, if you really mean them.

“Father God, we come before you now.  And as it says in your Holy Book, if we meet here in Your Name, Your Spirit Power will be right here with us, and we know that this is true, for You do not lie.  Father God, this young person wishes to come now and ask you into his heart and life.  He wants his sins to be forgiven.  He wants a turning in his life.  He wants to be washed clean.  He wants to be saved into Heaven, and he needs your Spirit Power living inside him to help him.  So, he is going to come now, Father God, and quietly say these words, to You:

“‘Lord Jesus, I need you.  Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.  Right now I open the door of my heart and receive You as my Savior and my Lord.  Thank You for forgiving my sins, and for giving me eternal life.  Now Lord, just take control of the throne of my life, and make me into the kind of person that you want me to be.  Amen.’”

The young man did pray those words.  Chinese men never cry, but he had big tears in his eyes.

I told him that I wanted to give him a bible.   I went back several cars to a group of young people.  One fellow had a nice, leather bound bible.  He was running short of money and was quite willing to sell it to me.

When I returned to the car where I had left the young man, he was gone.

I went forward through two or three cars and found him right in the middle of a group of Campus Crusade kids.  They had been observing him and had figured out what had happened.  They were already in the midst of discipling him.  I gave him the bible and left.

If you would like to watch the Jesus Film also, get yourself all prepared to watch a full length movie, and then go to this site and be really blessed……… https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/english.html

如果你也想看耶稣电影，准备好看完整的电影然后去这个网站，真的很特别 ….https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/chinese-mandarin.html

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

                                                                 The Take-up Reel

On about the third medical team trip down to Honduras, I got this neat idea.  After our labors in the heat and humidity all day and from the pressures of the mass of people, everyone is just exhausted at the end of each day.  However, as I have related several times, we want to show the Jesus Film on the night where we have had the clinic that day.  But like I related, everyone is so tired at that point.  I send them back to rest-up for the next day.  When we are staying at the old United Fruit compound in Tela, they can refresh in the nice clear waters of the Caribbean and they can get rehydrated with the great limeades they serve there made from the local limes. 

Since Onelia and I have to stay at the clinic site without all those amenities, I thought it would be a great idea to have someone like an electrician go with us on the trip and be in charge of getting all of the electricity set up, and other preparations for showing the film.  Then it would be great for him to run the projector and change the reels and keep the speakers working and set up the string of lights for the people to come out of the dark and stand under who wanted to make a decision to have God in their life.  So, before we left I called the pastor of the church that was to sponsor that trip, and asked him to recruit an electrician from his church or from his community.  I volunteered to pay his way.

The pastor understood and recruited what he said was just the right man.  I called back three different times before we left to ask if the man was bringing extra extension cords, extra wire to splice if necessary, adaptors in case we needed to go from 220v to 110v for the projector.  And I particularly wanted to know if the man had practiced with the projector we were to take and knew everything about running it and changing the reels.

The pastor assured me that it all had been taken care of.  On the third call, the pastor said in exasperation:  “Ronald, just don’t worry about it.  He is ready!”

On this trip we had a whole day to get everything ready for the clinics.  Everyone prepared for their assigned tasks.  A local carpenter had made nice reclining chairs for the dentists which worked great.  However, that morning the pastor and the electrician fellow came to me with this dark look on their faces.  After all the fellow’s preparation and my exhortations, he had forgotten to bring a take-up reel for the projector.

You can’t show the film without a take-up reel.  The 16mm film has four reels.  You run each reel onto the take-up reel and then run it back onto its original reel.  If you have only one take-up reel, you run it back right there and have 3 intermissions during the showing for the people to go to the bathroom or discuss what they have just seen.

I said that:  “You must find one!  Make one of you have to!  I have paid your way down here just for this!   Do something!  David has invited all the black Garifina people in this area to his church to see the film tonight in Spanish!  We have to show it!”

That afternoon I asked them if they had one.  They said they had scoured the whole town without success.  I had told them to check with the two local theaters, but they said that the equipment at the theaters was all 32mm and would not fit.  They said that they could not find anything to make one with.  I had suggested that they check with the manager of our hotel facility, but they found him of no help. I take those 60 member medical people down there to treat people that will probably never see a doctor or dentist or pharmacist the rest of their life. However, my real motive for these trips is to show the Jesus Film each night and have hundreds of people each night make a decision to have God in their life.

So with no take-up reel were we not going to be able show the film at all for this whole trip to Honduras?

That was the afternoon I had promised the group of doctors and nurses and dentists that I would take them off to the village where our clinic was to be the next two days.  It was also the evening that the truck stopped in the village and miraculously started again.  So, before I left with those medical folks standing up in the back of the truck, I told the electrician:  “You have got to do something!”

Several hours later, when I got back to Tela, I drove straight to the new Garifuna church after dropping off the medical folks.  Mirabile dictu,  they were just finishing showing the film.

Of course, I was anxious to know what had happened, and this is what the young man related to me after the film was finished:  He said that as it was getting late in the afternoon and time to leave for the church; he still had no take-up reel.  I said: “But you were going anyway!”  He said: “Yes, but I was praying like I had never prayed in my life.”   He said that just as he was reaching down to the handle of the car door to open it, the manager of the hotel called to him from up at the office and motioned for him to come over.   He went over and the manager said:  “Tell me once more what you are talking about.”  So, the young man explained.  He said that the manager then got a chair and pushed it over to the counter where you check into the hotel.  The manger then crawled up onto the counter and stood up.  He reached along the wall, way up to the ceiling.  The young man said that there was a space between the edge of the ceiling and the wall. 

The manger reached up into that space on top of the ceiling and pulled out and old take-up reel all covered in dust and cobwebs.  It must have been left by the United Fruit people years ago.  The manager had been reaching up there for some reason long ago and had felt of it there.

You can say that this was a very fortuitous coincidence.  But the young man and I considered it and all the timing involved, an overt, miraculous act of God and specific answer to prayer.

                                                                                

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

                                                                  Beijing Area Christians

Up until recently Churches and most all Christian activities in China have had almost total freedom.  The Chinese government only wanted them to register with the government.  There is so much potential unrest in China and so many different ethnic groups with their own “agendas”, this did not seem to be an unreasonable request to me.  Many Christian groups even headquartered in the US , such as China Partner in Colorado Springs , have had great freedom for their activities in China .  China Partner works with and supports the many Christian Seminaries across China by holding training seminars for the students and giving the students extensive quantities of training and pastoral reference books.

Pastor Yu is over all Christian activities in the Beijing area.  We wanted him to come to Dallas and visit, however it took two years and great difficulty to get him permission.  The reason was that when the Communists took over in China , they rounded-up all the Christian seminary students and incarcerated them.  He was one of the ones rounded-up.  They held him in prison for 27 years with consistent torture trying to get him to renounce any allegiance to Jesus. I tried to get him to talk about those years, but he never would.  Finally, when he graciously escorted me to the Airport upon leaving Beijing after my second visit with him, he opened up and told me about it while we were in the back of his private car. 

He said that as far as he could tell, he was the only seminary student being held that did not recant, commit suicide or lose his mind.  With that background, the authorities there were not sure they wanted to allow him to leave the country.  

When we finally got him to Dallas , he wanted the visit the different Christian seminaries there and also visit Dallas Baptist University.  Since I had proviously been Chairman of their Board of Trustees, I personally took him to Dallas Baptist where he visited with some of the religion professors.  However, though I never understood why at the time, he was so interested in one of the life-size bronze statues there.  They have several statues on the campus showing Jesus’ apostles in scenes from the New Testament.  However, one in particular, has become more or less a motif for the University and is used on its stationary and publications.  It is a statue of Jesus washing Peter’s feet.  

Pastor Yu took several pictures of it and had me take his picture standing next to it.  Only later, when I was in Beijing with him did I learn why.  There had been a Christian Seminary in downtown Beijing on very valuable land.  Pastor Yu sold it and used the money to buy a factory on the north side of Beijing .  Factories in China most all have dormitories to house the workers.  This one also had many offices.  With the dormitories and offices and quite a bit of land, it was ideal for a new Seminary. 

Pastor Yu was so proud to take me there to see it and visit and speak with the students.  Upon entering the gate to the grounds of the Seminary there was a roundabout in the road that leads out to the different parts of the facility.  Pastor Yu had taken those pictures from Dallas Baptist University and had commissioned one of the top artists in China to sculpt a life size statue of Jesus washing Peter’s feet out of two great blocks of pure white marble.  He then had the scriptures from that section of the New Testament carved into the base and painted in bright crimson.  He was so proud to show me.  When I wanted to know why, he explained in detail:  He said that the male students in China tend to have an authoritarian attitude when they become pastors.  He wanted them to have a “servant attitude” and he felt that this statue in particular represented that spirit.

After that 27 years of incarceration and torture, I can attest that Pastor Yu’s heart is so very pure and anxious to see the Gospel spread over the Beijing area.  He is proving a very capable administrator with a dedicated staff. When he took over the job, one of his first tasks was with the 2^nd largest church in the city, the Gangwashi Church. 

It had a very old pastor and only an aged congregation.  Pastor Yu replaced the old pastor with a 35 year-old lady pastor named, Pastor Du.  She was very popular and really “on fire” for Jesus.  They were soon holding 5 services a week with overflow crowds. 

In Beijing the original formal buildings such as this church were set back from the street with large, tree covered open areas separating the buildings from the main streets.  However, the land along the streets became quite valuable as commercial sites.  Thus, the open land along the streets became built-up into commercial establishments.  That meant that in order to reach the older buildings, it is now necessary to go down fairly wide alleyways.  At this church, they were covering the alleyway with awnings to shield the sun and rain and setting-out huge numbers of folding chairs to take care of the overflow crowds and then broadcasting the services to these outside folks. 

I became good friends with Pastor Du.  I also took a pastor from the Mid-Cities area of Dallas/Ft Worth who was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Baptist’s Golden Gate Seminary in San Francisco and the Business Manager of that Seminary to Beijing with me.  Pastor Du wanted my pastor friend to deliver the sermon for the Main Sunday Morning Service.  His wife brought a beautiful Christian solo just before he preached.  After his sermon he and his wife and his Seminary friend and Pastor Du went into the church Conference Room.  I stayed and did the follow-up with all of the many people who came forward after the sermon.  

When I finally got back to the Conference Room with the others, I was surprised to find 5 people there from the United States State Department waiting on me.  Like……….”What do you folks want?”  They explained what we already knew, that President Clinton was to be in Beijing the following week.   He was scheduled to bring the morning sermon at the largest church in the city, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was to bring the sermon at this church.  They explained that their boss was a “nice lady” but that she did not have a clue about bringing a sermon at a Christian church.  They wanted her to get up and say a few words and for us to bring the Sermon to the congregation.  We explained that we had to leave, that we would not be able to be there.  I never heard what happened on that following Sunday. 

One of the people that I met doing the follow-up was a lovely older lady who was teaching English at the main technical university there in Beijing.  We later became close friends on the internet and still are.  She explained that those top students wanted to learn English just as it was spoken and written in the US, not as it is spoken and written in England and other places.  This lady was a really strong Christian and wanted her students to be exposed to Christian principles.  Later, I would send her very, very evangelical messages in English and she would use those as examples of just how English is currently written and expressed in the US.  Then she would have those students debate, in English, subjects from my material; subjects like…..”Is there really a God?”, and “What is Jesus’ connection to that God?”  She would then report back to me about those discussions. 

That proved to me that there was religious freedom in China, because I doubt that one could get away with what she was doing at most of our liberal universities in the US……not as evangelical as what I was sending there. 

Like I mentioned earlier, Pastor Du and I became good friends.  We even visited together when she was able to come to the US two years later.  But I was still skeptical on that trip about how really free Christians were.  

I had heard that there was persecution of house churches in China .  Pastor Du explained that such was true only if they refused to register.  She said that there was no attempt to influence them or what they taught and said, that they only needed to be registered.  She then went on to explain, much to my amazement that her church sponsored over 300 house churches for mostly older Christians who could not make it to the main church services and as an aid to spreading the Gospel over that part of Beijing. 

But skeptical me, I said:  “Would you please take me to visit one of those 300 house churches while they are having a service and have a totally unannounced visit?”  She readily agreed.   So, she and one of her male assistants set out to take me and my pastor friend.  She only had the address and time of the meeting.  It was poring down rain.  We wandered all over that really old part of Beijing trying to find it.  Finally, we were successful in locating the place, but the service had already started.  The 40 or so people there were so startled at the four of us arriving, unannounced, that they wanted to stop their service and cut the watermelons right now.  

We insisted that they go on with their service, though my pastor friend and I could not understand the Chinese.  I sat there and wished so much that I could interview those much older Christians.  I speculated in my mind what most of them must have gone through during the trauma of the Cultural Revolution.  When the sermon was finished and the last Chinese hymn was sung, they did cut the watermelons and we had great fellowship time together. 

On this same trip I got closely acquainted with one of the staff members of Pastor Yu’s organization.  He was young middle-age and spoke perfect English.  Late one afternoon we were walking all the way across Tiananmen Square to its east side. 

It was natural that I would bring up the subject of the massive student led rebellion that happened right there.  I made the comment that they had made their statement and that they should have finally left and not remained to be slaughtered. 

Much to my amazement he said, “No”, with very much emotion.  He then said:  “We almost, almost got rid of this oppressive government.”  I was just shocked that he would say such.  Then he went on to explain that he had been there and had been part of the student group. 

By this time we were right on the east edge of that huge Square.  He stopped and looked around and made mental calculations and said:  “It was right here!!!”  To which I said:  “Right here what?”  Then he went on and explained that he had been there several days and really needed a shave and to shower and clean-up.  He said that he left, accomplished his tasks and had just returned right at dark.  He explained to me that he had been in the Chinese Army and knew what that sound meant. 

I asked:  “What sound?”  

He said it was the sound of an incoming mortar shell.  He said that he instantly bolted away from the square toward the east and ran faster than he had ever run in his life.   He said that everyone was killed right where he had been standing.  He was knocked flat by the blast but was totally unhurt. 

It was so dramatic to get this first hand account right there where it all happened in Tiananmen Square.   

It is my opinion that it was God, Himself who saved this young man for the work that he is doing now for the advancement of God’s tasks there in the very heart of China!!!

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

The Truck 

The Southern Baptists had an old bob-tail truck on the east coast of Honduras.  A Baptist missionary at Progresso, a suburb of San Pedro Sula kept it.  I was allowed to use it on most every medical trip that I took to that area of the country. 

The truck was quite old with faded blue paint and with wooden rails around the back where my people could stand as we went along.  It was pre-1973 with an old-fashion ignition system, since most all vehicles post-1973 have a computerized ignition system. 

I want to tell you about one afternoon.  The medical team was scheduled to be in a certain remote village for the next two days.  Two of the doctors and some nurses and a few other folks wanted to go visit the place on the afternoon before.  They wanted to decide where we should locate the different parts of the clinic in the school where we were to be and move the desks and benches aside to be all prepared for the next morning. 

I was supposed to be at a screening of the Jesus Film at a new Garifina church where the young missionary to the black Garifinas was to show the Jesus Film that night in Spanish, which I had brought with us.  However, I needed to take the group on to that village and try to get back for the last of the film.  I commandeered a local fellow who knew the location of the village, and we all piled into the old bob-tail truck and started up the highway.  As I have mentioned, there was one narrow new blacktop highway that ran along to coast all the way from Tela to La Ceiba down near Nicaragua.  After about 25 miles on the pavement, we turned off onto a dirt road.  We went at least 15 miles and forded two rather large rivers before finally arriving at the village.  

There were many houses and shacks scattered around the village, but very little infrastructure there. There was just the one dirt road through it, and a few buildings that went on down to the school. 

We finished our tasks at the school, and just as we were going back through the little group of buildings, the truck suddenly just died.  I tried the ignition, and nothing.  Quite a crowd of people gathered around us and one of them raised the hood.  These people are used to old vehicles so they proceeded to do the first thing that one should do.  They proceeded to take the cables off the battery and scrape the inside of the cable clamps and the battery posts.  They put them back on, clamped the cables down and I was very hopeful.   I got back in the truck, tried the ignition…….and nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not even a grinding sound. 

Here we were with dark coming on soon, so many miles from help, and no way to contact anyone from that remote site.  Even if they had a phone somewhere in the village there was no way to get a call back to our folks.  The phones down there at that time were so awkward, almost to the point of impossible.  We were about 30 miles from San Pedro Sula, which has the highest rate of murders of any town on the planet, even those in the Middle East.  You can check that on the internet…..not a good place for all those folks to spend the night. Really, that truck needed to start, but it was just dead. 

I explained all that to the Lord, but I am sure that he already knew.  But what happened next I will never forget.  I went back and looked under the hood.  I know quite a bit about cars and trucks, but I am just lost as a master mechanic.  At that precise moment it was like a force just took hold of me.  I cannot explain it.  There were all kinds of old wires in that engine compartment and at least 30 or 40 black electrical tape covered connections.  But my eyes suddenly became just riveted on one piece of old, black, dry electrical tape.  I reached down and took hold of it and it just came off loose in my fingers.  And there where it had been were two wires that had been twisted together, but were now just loose and apart. 

A big noisy “aahhh” went up from the crowd.   I had no idea what those wires went to, but I twisted them back together.  I went back into the cab, tried the ignition, and that old truck fired up as smooth as could be.  Much later I figured that the wires must have gone to the coil that that makes the spark plugs spark, and would be necessary for the truck to run.  However at the time I had no idea, nor could I have known that they were pulled apart……..under that piece of old black tape. 

We got on back to Tela just before 9:00 PM. 

You can say that I was just lucky, but, folks, I personally consider that specific, divine intervention!  It proved to me, once again, that God’s Spirit Power and His Powerful Angels are really there and available when they are really, really needed.  How could I possibly have known which one of all those pieces of black tape needed to be pulled off.

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

Ron

The Texas Rangers are an elite law enforcement group. They were originally started to protect the early settlers from the Comanche Indians on the frontier. Then they were assigned to protect the people along the Mexican border from raids by bandits coming across from Mexico.

In my soon to be published book, I have a whole section on the Texas Rangers with some of their amazing true tales and exploits.

For many years I had a large office in downtown Dallas in the Adolphus Tower. It had lovely parquet wood flooring with lush deep green carpeting. There were big green leather chairs and beautiful western art on the walls by famous western artists. I had a faithful secretary who could take short-hand dictation and could check the accuracy of complicated bond and stock prices. I also had two young male assistants who traveled across the country finding specific real estate for purchase.

A few blocks up the street was a large, famous gun store. It was across the street to the north from the Dallas police station. Lawmen from all across Texas would come there to buy their guns which were priced at a large discount to them. It was so interesting to visit there since when some old gun collector would die, his widow would not know what to do with all those guns. However, this store would buy the whole collection and exhibit it before selling off the guns.

I would sometimes go up there on my lunch hour and visit. On one particular day, while I was there, Captain Clint Peoples come in. He had just retired from being head of the Texas Rangers for many years. The people at the store made a big fuss about him being there. However, as head of the Texas Rangers he talked to almost no one in the media, and was still not accustomed to talking to people.

At that time my father was President of Central Freight Lines which just dominated the LTL freight business across Texas. One reason that businesses liked to use Central was that it was the only large freight lines business in the whole United States that was never in a union. Most all in the US were dominated by the Teamsters Union, controlled by Jimmy Hoffa and his thugs.

Central Freight Lines was a particular challenge to the Teamsters, being the only one not in their union. They continually put enormous pressure on Central to get them into their union. And in those days, the Teamsters would not fool with a National Labor Relations Board election to get them in, which was the proper legal process to go through. They would just kidnap the President’s son and hold him until they got a union. If it was taking too long for the company to capitulate, they would start sending back ears and fingers to accelerate the process. As the son of Central’s president, that is why I had to carry a gun for much of my early life. It was another reason that I liked to visit that famous gun store.

Anyway, as I mentioned, the folks at the store were so thrilled that Captain Clint Peoples had come in. They implored him to please wait for a little while. They explained that Captain Will Fritz had just retired and was living in a hotel suite just down the street. They wanted to go get him.

So, I decided to wait too, and see these two famous lawmen visit with each other. You have heard that name…….Will Fritz, but you can’t remember where. Well, he was the Captain of the Dallas Police Detectives when Kennedy was shot. He was the one who arraigned Oswald when he was taken into custody…….the only one who talked with him.

You have also seen the video showing Will Fritz many times. He was the fellow in the white hat just to the left of Oswald when Jack Ruby shot him in the basement of that Dallas Police building.

Anyway, I was not disappointed when Fritz came into the store to meet-up with Captain Peoples. Peoples knew that Fritz would never talk to the media about anything associated with the assassination, much to their consternation. They always wanted to know what Oswald may have told Captain Fritz.

So, Captain Peoples said: “Will, are those people still bothering you?”

“Oh yea, Clint. A few weeks ago the Washington Post said that if I would not answer their questions, they were going to have me investigated by the FBI!”

To which Peoples said with dripping sarcasm: “I’ll bet you were just scared to death weren’t you, Will.”

Those two old dudes were so very entertaining.

However, here is what I wanted to tell you: When the store folks went to get Will Fritz, everyone walked off and left Captain Peoples and me just sitting alone on couches across from each other. It was rather awkward, so I thought that I should introduce myself to Peoples. But he stopped me!

He said: “Don’t bother, I know you Ronald.”

“You know me Captain Peoples???”

And he said: “Son, I have protected you your whole life, but you never knew it.”

I was so overwhelmed that I almost cried.

Later I realized that Waco was Captain Peoples home-town and Central’s headquarters, and that it was a matter of principle with him and his Texas Rangers that those Teamster thugs would never kidnap and harm me.

This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

The Amazing Dr. Youngerman

For many years I took 60+ member medical teams down to very remote parts of Honduras……..doctors, nurses, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists and just willing volunteers.  We treated multitudes of people who had never seen a doctor or dentist or had access to a pharmacist or optometrist and probably never would for the rest of their life.  We would usually set-up in a school that would let-out for the one or two days that we were there.  Many times, out in the jungle, it would only have a dirt floor.

This old optometrist went with us on every group that I took down there. He was very competent and extremely effective. Among his clientele in the Dallas area was a large group of airline pilots. He would give them eye exercises to strengthen and adjust their vision so that they would be able to keep flying without needing glasses. In his office he had all the optometrist’s lenses and instruments, but he really did not need them. He could write a very accurate prescription for glasses without having to use all those instruments.

Dr. Youngerman looked just like his name sounds, very German, fairly short, even down to the little goatee.  Most times he was my only optometrist. He was just incredible under all manner of hardships and circumstances.

I had an engineer friend who worked at Bell Helicopter. He had an instrument that could read the prescription in any pair of donated glasses. He would spend all year going through thousands of pairs of donated glasses and affixing their prescriptions to each one. I don’t think he ever went with us on the trips, but he was so very helpful.

We would take the glasses down in suitcases on the plane and wherever the eye clinic was, a group of lady volunteers would open the suitcases in a room next to where Dr. Youngerman was doing his work in his cubical that we would make for him. He would have each patient take the prescription that he wrote for them in to the ladies and they would search until they found the right prescription. Then before the patient left, we had a lady with a device for heating the plastic frames of the glasses to fit them properly to the patient’s head. If the glasses were wire frames the lady could just bend them to a proper fit.

But here is what I want to tell you about.  On the very first trip down there, after working is some very remote spots, we did our clinic in a school in the central area of the town of Tela.  It is the port from which United Fruit ships its bananas out to all over the world.  At Tela and its whole surrounding area there is only one doctor.  He has one little hospital, but is not set-up to do operations or even close to any kind of sophisticated medical work…..not even one real Registered Nurse.

However, as we ended that trip in Tela, we ran out of reading glasses, completely. And you know that is what most patients need. Later, we learned to buy enough reading glasses so that we would never run out again. We brought plenty of reading glasses, but that did not help us at that moment on that first trip.

I never knew how religious Dr. Youngeman was. I never knew what church he went to or if he ever went at all, but here is what he did. After they ran out, he went into the room with the suitcases of glasses and called all the lady volunteers together. He did not have any prayer with them. He just told them: “Ladies, I am going to keep writing prescriptions for reading glasses, and I want you to search in all these suitcases of glasses and see if you can find just one more pair.” And he just waked out.

Well, the rest of that day and for the next two days, each time, they kept finding just one more pair, all day long…..for real. It got so “spooky” for the ladies that they would not even talk about it. Folks, I consider that a real, tangible manifestation of God’s power and intervention…….a real miracle.

But that is not the end of that story. Dr. Youngerman was a member of a men’s service club that met every month in downtown Dallas. As you know, they usually have speakers at those meetings.

A few years later, as program chairman, Dr. Youngerman asked me to come be the speaker for one of their meetings. Of course, I told those men about the reading glasses and what happened, and they were very amazed.

However, after the meeting, Dr. Youngerman took me aside after everyone else had left and said: “That is not the most amazing thing that happened that day on that trip.” So, after saying “really”, I asked him to explain. He related how that morning the mayor of that town had come in to get his eyes checked. Dr. Youngerman wanted to make a good impression on the mayor, for he knew that we needed permission to show the Jesus Film on the main square in that town, and that we also wanted permission to show it in their high school one night, also.

So, Dr. Youngeman related how he proceeded to check the Mayor’s eyes.  And he said that in his whole career he could not remember ever having a patient with so many unusual and difficult problems with their eyes……just a mass of problems. He told the Mayor that he was going to go ahead and write him a prescription, but that he doubted that he could get such a prescription filled anywhere in Honduras, that he would probably have to go somewhere like Miami, Florida. The Mayor thanked him and went out. So, I asked what was so spectacular about that.

Then Dr. Youngerman related how after lunch he was walking through the room with all the suitcases of glasses and happened to glance over at one suitcase with a very long strip of paper attached to one of the glasses. It was the long prescription that the Bell Helicopter engineer had written for it. Dr. Youngerman said that when he read down it, every single item, verbatim, was exactly the prescription that he had written for the Mayor. He had them call the Mayor to come back. He put the glasses on the Mayor, and he could see perfectly. He went out praising those amazing Americans.

Dr. Youngerman said: “Ronald, you would have to be in my business to realize the sheer, almost impossible mathematical possibility of that ever happening by accident.”  So, I found out how what I considered God’s spirit power was once again manifested in actual, tangible form when it was needed in that remote place. 

 This is an excerpt 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 of it again.

 Ron

 Valle de Leán

For many years it has been my privilege to lead medical teams to some of the most remote parts of Honduras.  They usually consisted of approximately 60 people.  Every trip, we had medical doctors, pharmacists, optometrists, nurses, dentists, and all manner of volunteer helpers.   Every trip I would try to get a particular church to be a sponsor for that specific trip.  The people would not necessarily all be from that church, but it just worked better that way.  Most were either Baptist churches or Lutheran churches. 

There were primarily two purposes.  First, of course, was to treat the people; many of whom would never see a dentist or doctor the rest of their life and had never seen one before.  The other reason was to show the Jesus Film every night, most of the time at the location of the clinic for that day.  We would usually be in a school somewhere in the jungle or in the mountains.  The school would recess for that day or some-times two days and allow us to use their facilities.  Many a time there was only a dirt floor, but it was a school.   Most times, I would go down two days ahead of time and get a doctor from that region when one existed there, and we would interact with the local public health person when there was one.  We would together select the most needy sites.  On two trips I remember that the First Baptist Church of Carrollton, Texas was the sponsor, and the ones going from there expressed the desire to go to especially needy places.  I asked them if they were sure, and they assured me that they were really sure.  

I took them into the Central Highlands of the Province of Yoro on the first paved road ever there which had just been completed.  That whole province is mostly a minority area with many indigenous people.  Even its governor who helped us greatly is an indigenous person.  So, I took them to two Indian tribes who had seen Hispanic people, but had never seen an Anglo person………had never seen a white man.   One Indian group walked all night to meet us at a school way up on a remote mountain top.  Usually, my most critical part of the clinic is the dentists.   They can only see so many patients.  We early on learned that the people in remote parts of Honduras did not want to bother with fillings.  They all wanted only extractions, for they would most probably never see another dentist, and that filling may be lost or have problems.   However, these Indians had few dental problems.  We realized that their diets were mostly wild game, not rice and beans. 

I am digressing but let me tell you one thing about these Indians.  Especially the men would sit in the room on a chair absolutely rigid and face straight ahead, but never move their body or head.   However, their eyes would be darting all over the room.   It was weird.  Only when I got back did my oldest son in Austin explain the answer to me:   “Dad, these guys spend their whole life hunting.  They must sit absolutely still and only move their eyes to be successful.  It becomes a habit ingrained into them.” 

About a third of the way from Tela to La Ceiba on the east coast of Honduras is the De Leán Valley.  When you pass it you see no people, it is just open country, but about 6 miles inland there are thousands of people scattered out under the massive mango trees that grow there.  There is a small general store on the dirt road, but no real village or town.

They do have a really nice wooden school that was all freshly painted blue-grey when we went there.  There are so many people there that we scheduled two days of clinic at that school.  When we are at the same place for two days, the second day is usually fairly calm, since the people know that those who already have numbers are the ones who will be treated, and if you don’t have a number, you are not going to get in.  So, I was looking forward to the second day. 

 I was one of the last to arrive with the big bob-tail truck all loaded with equipment and supplies.  Much to my surprise the place was just a bedlam.  There was a young Peace Corps fellow who had been teaching the people Marxism for several months.  He was gone on our first day there but had come back that night and changed everyone’s numbers, mostly for his friends.  I confronted him and asked him what the heck he thought he was doing. 

He walked up close and ordered me not to invade his space.  He meant his physical space.  I informed him that I was about to eliminate “his space” all together.  When he saw that I was 6’ 3” and 200 lbs and deadly serious, he backed off and promptly left. 

I did not know that one of our doctors was good friends with President Reagan.  He made a call to Washington later that evening, and that boy was back in the US by the next night. 

There was just something about that place that was hard to understand.  I am not sure that I can accurately feel evil, but I sure thought that I could there.  Some of our volunteers said the same thing. 

Our doctors had to treat an unusual number of machete wounds there. 

I had brought the Jesus Film and projector and speakers and screen and the string of lights.  I left them with a group of volunteers.  They promised to start the film as soon as it was dark while I took the truck back to Tela and then returned later.  

When I returned there was no film being shown and hundreds of people were wandering around under those big mango trees.  The volunteers explained that the projector had just burned out.  When I got it back to Dallas, the technicians there said they had never seen anything like the damage.  They could not even repair it. 

On most every one of our trips to Honduras a small group of men from Church-on-the-Rock east of Dallas would go down with us on the plane.  They had discovered that we could get them permission to get into the prisons all across Honduras for their prison ministry.  I would not see them again until we left for home on the plane.  However, they were always telling me how much they wanted to see the Jesus Film with us. 

It turned out that they were passing by the De Leán Valley at just the right time to see the film.  So, they were there.  They expressed their disappointment at not getting to see the film.   They also expressed their discernment that it seemed like the Devil just owned this place, as many of our group had also concluded.

 There were hundreds and hundreds of people still there, so not wanting to waste the occasion, I asked the leader of the Church-on-the-Rock guys to step up there and preach a good sermon.  Some of the other guys in their group supplied some music, so a large crowd gathered.  The projector was not working, but the speakers still were.

He spoke in Spanish, but I could understand most of his message, and I was very disappointed.   I was expecting him to give an evangelical message and invite people to know Jesus.  No, he was speaking about how important it was to forgive people, especially those who have wronged you.  He kept saying in different ways that one just must not harbor hatred in one’s heart but ask God to help you forgive.

There was a businessman there from Tela who had come all the way there to see the film, and who spoke good English.  I expressed my disappointment to him over this sermon, but he passionately told me no, that these people really needed to hear what was being said.  He explained that all over Honduras and especially in this place, that it was almost the custom for the father or man in the family to go off and just abandon the family and take-up with a younger woman.  This fellow explained that there were so very many men who harbored deep anger and hatred in their heart for that father who had abandoned them and caused so much hardship to them and their mother as a result. 

When the speaker had finished he gave an invitation for those present to come forward and pray for God’s Power to help them to free themselves from the anger and resentment that they had been harboring inside themselves for so long.   Then I heard something that I will never forget.  Large numbers of men started just wailing at the top of their voices.  It just kept up and kept up.  They wanted God to help them get rid of that pent-up anger.  It went on for the longest time, and I really learned something new. 

Back in Dallas the next winter at Christmas time, Onelia (my evangelist lady who I wrote about before) wanted to go back down there for the Christmas holidays and minister to the people.  I told her that I would pay her way, but under one condition…….that she would, for sure, show the Jesus Film in that De Lean Valley.   She gave me her word that she would and promised to call back frequently with periodic reports. 

On her first call back I asked if she had shown the film.  She said that she tried, but that the projector had burned up again.   So, I told her to go into San Pedro Sula and rent another projector. 

I asked her about the little Pentecostal pastor that we met there who kept pleading with us to come back and help him. Onelia said:  “Oh they killed him.” 

On her next call back, I asked the same question, had she shown the film?  She said that she tried last night, but just as the film started, blood came all over the screen.  I said:  “What in the world do you mean?”  She explained that a little mouse had gotten into the projector, and it ground him up and caused the screen to have the appearance of being covered with his blood.  Like I said, it seemed that the Devil just owned that place. 

Finally, I got some really “strong” older Christians together in Dallas, and with much powerful prayer, Onelia was finally able to show the film there in the De Leán Valley with great results.   Many of those people took God into their life!

This is an excerpt 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 of it again

 Ron

The Little Girl

On this one trip to Honduras, it was so very hot and humid.  I worked mostly in the dental clinic, for there were always way more people needing relief from severe dental problems than we could possibly treat.

Before we go, I always ask the doctors going for the first time to go back and study some of the things that they had studied about in medical school but have never seen in their practice in the US.   They will most likely encounter them there in the jungle.  On this one occasion I remember that an older man came in with advanced jungle rot.  His whole foot was grossly swollen and just covered in a mass of it.  The doctor came over to me and said:  “Ronald, I don’t know what to do about this.  I can’t do an amputation down here.  What shall I do?”  

I told his nurse to spray it all down with Hydrogen Peroxide and bandage it up.  The old gentleman went away happy and smiling.

Also, on this trip, I was walking through the room where the ladies were finding the glasses from all those that had been donated to match the prescriptions that Dr. Youngerman had written.  They were then adjusting them to fit the heads of the patients with that prescription after those glasses had been found.  Just as I was about to leave, I noticed one of our ladies who was just standing there, quietly crying.

Of course, I asked her what was wrong, like was she ill?  She assured me that she was fine, but that it had to do with this one older Hispanic lady who had just left.  She said that after she had fitted the lady with her new glasses, she just stood there looking at her hands.  She asked the lady if something was wrong with her hands.  Did she need to go see one of the doctors?  The Hispanic lady said that her hands were fine.

She just said:  “This is the first time that I have been able to see my hands in as long as I can remember.”

This just struck an emotional chord with this lovely lady volunteer from Hurst, Texas and brought her to tears.

As you might suspect, finding the optimum job for each volunteer cam be a challenge.  And in that heat and pressure, some folk’s temper gets the better of them late in the day.

On several trips this one guy went with us who was not mean, but just very aggressive.  The other team members called him “Rambo”.   I finally found just the right job for Rambo.  Almost without exception almost everyone down there needs worming.  It won’t last that long with the grownups, but we hope that the children will be able to stay worm free long enough for their mental facilities to develop so that they will not be impaired later in life.  I learned to put Rambo out in the very front of each clinic.   His job was to worm every single person coming into the clinic.  It worked great, and he really “adapted himself” to the task.

But this trip, we encountered a major catastrophe.  We ran out of worm medicine with several more days to go.  I rely on the doctors to furnish the particular drugs that they think that they will need.  Much of the time they are able to use the samples that the drug salesmen leave at their offices.  However, someone slipped up this time and did not order nearly enough worm medicine.

On this trip our pharmacist was the pharmacy director for a Sack-and-Save store in Denton, Texas.  He was a real character.  Some might have described him as a “real piece of work.”  He told me not to worry about it, that he would take care of it.  And he for sure did.  He went to the one agricultural store in that town of Tela and bought a supply of cattle spray.  He was good; he knew what he was doing.  He diluted it down sufficiently with some organic chemicals and that became our worm medicine.  It turned out to be a bright pink, and, wow, was it effective.  I kid you not, for years after that I got calls from down there wanting some more of that pink worm medicine.  They had never had anything so effective.

So, I kept hearing a rumor on this one trip that some of the people had found a little girl and were planning on bringing her back with us.  I did not investigate and did not talk with them, but only when we got to the airport at San Pedro Sula did I see the little girl.  Her mother had dressed her in her best dress, and she was just a darling girl with the most engaging smile.  Her problem was that this massive growth covered the whole area of what would have been her right eye…….that whole area of her face.  I guessed her to be about 9 years old.

One of the doctors with us had called his friend in Mississippi who he knew specialized in such things.  The doctor in Mississippi had promised to operate on her.  Other than that horrible growth, she was just the cutest thing with her very best dress on.  Her name is Valentina.

I did not see her again until we got to Houston.  I waited until most all of our group had gone through immigration.  Then I looked way over where those huge curtains were pulled back from the floor to ceiling windows in the Houston terminal.  There was this group of our people with the little girl.  No one was headed toward immigration so I went over to see what was wrong.

They had panicked.  They had realized that this girl had no passport and no visa, and not even and ID to enter the United States.  No one wanted to be the person to try to take her up to immigration, so they just handed her to me.

I don’t know how to tell you what happened next.  Just believe me.  At that moment this powerful rush of power or energy just invaded my body.  It seemed to permeate every single cell.  I suddenly felt as if I could walk through fire or even walk on water.  I just took that little girl by the hand and said:  “Come on ‘little darlin’ Valentina, let’s go to the Estados Unidos”.  I headed straight ahead to the first open immigration station.

I had my passport out, but, of course, she had nothing, not even any ID.  There behind the counter was this huge black man in his green uniform.  He was not fat, he was just really huge and quit official and imposing looking.  He looked down at that little girl, and she just smiled up at him.  Big tears welled up in his eyes.  All he could say was:  “Lord bless you sir, Lord bless you sir.  You all just go right on.”  

He did not check my passport or anything as respects Valentina.  So, we just went right on.  She sat next to me on the flight to Dallas.  When we got there, I took her on up to my ranch west of Denton, Texas.  She really enjoyed visiting with my two daughters and my two youngest sons by the swimming pool that looks out over the prairie.  They were so kind to her. 

Before dark, I took her back to Carrollton to Onelia.  Onelia escorted her to Mississippi the next morning.

A few days later I called Onelia to inquire about the operation.  She said that it was successful, but that the doctors told her that they estimated that the girl would have died in only 3 more weeks without that operation.

Onelia hopes to get her an artificial eye, later, some day.

On every trip that I took to Honduras, this wonderful, impressive lady went with us.  Her name is Barbara Borre.   She is over six feet tall and perfectly proportioned, not overweight and not skinny and very nice looking.  She was one of the top Immigration Officials in the Dallas Region.  Barbara just effused authority.  Since her shoulders were a little wider than most women and the military way in which she carried herself made her all the more impressive, especially when she put on her Immigration uniform.

It was very helpful to have her on those trips, since she could tell us what we could take out of the US and what we could bring in.  On every trip she worked in the Dental Clinic. 

When she heard about the little Honduran girl that I have just described and how she was able to get into the US with no ID, without a passport or even a visa, here is what Barbara said to me:  “Ronald, I can tell you with authority, that was absolutely a miracle from God!”

PS:  When writing this, I became curious about whatever happened to Valentina, so I called down there to Honduras just now.  They told me that she was living up in the mountains with her father and doing fine.

This is an excerpt 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 of it again

Ron

Onelia

On the second trip taking a medical team to Honduras I worked the projector showing the Jesus film each night, since the Hornstein’s were not there; and relied on the local Baptist missionary in Progresso to help with follow-up.  He was a nice fellow who had previously worked in Nicaragua.  He had been working there in a suburb of San Pedro Sulla for two years and only had a small church.  He did counsel the people for us but did not seem to have his heart in it.  And he finally told me that he did not “consider this to be part of his ministry”.

On the third medical team trip down there I was determined to have an “on fire” evangelist to be there to help us.  Since I was Chairman of the Trustees of Dallas Baptist University in Dallas, I called out there and explained our need and asked whether they had such a person.  They sent a fairly young lady down to my office.  Her name was Onelia Lawrence.  She was from Honduras and had just finished her third year of nursing school.

First thing I took her to lunch at a fine Mexican restaurant two doors down from my office.  At this particular place you ate upstairs.  We went up and got seated, but before our food came, a strange thing happened.  All the Hispanic help came out from the kitchen and stood around our table.  These people could feel the God in Onelia and were just drawn to her.  It was so unusual and interesting.  She said a few words to them about God in Spanish and they seemed satisfied and went back to their tasks.

I wanted to know her story………like why she was a little older than the other students and why was she in Dallas Baptist and how she got there?  So, she patiently told me her story.

She had been a mountain girl in the central highlands of Honduras in the Province of Yoro.  Most of the people are indigenous in the Yoro area, but she was Hispanic.  While she was still a teen she realized that there must be a God, and she wanted to know Him.  She went into the town of Yoro and moved in with a small group of Catholic nuns who lived there.  She did everything she could think of for the Catholic Church in Yoro.  She helped the priest with his tasks.  She cleaned and kept the place spotless, but she said that she never really found God.

Sometime later a traveling evangelical evangelist came through town and held services in a brush arbor on the edge of town.  She said that she went out and attended the services and for sure found Jesus and asked the real God into her life.

At that time they were cutting down the big fir and pine trees in those mountains and sending them to the United States.   The forestry company doing the work there had a forestry engineer in charge of the operation, and Onelia wound up marrying that fellow.  That was really “making good” for a mountain girl, particularly from that poor part of Honduras. He provided for her quite well, and they had three children, though Onelia said that she knew that he messed around with the other women down there.

Being a forestry engineer, he wanted to have a fine home for the family.  He built a really nice place over to the east toward the Atlantic coast.  He built it under the big trees almost right in the river that came down from the mountains so that it would stay cool in that hot climate.  He built it strong and quite high to avoid any chance of flooding and they moved in with the baby and the other two young children.

Onelia then related that about this time she became overwhelmed with the desire to do something special for Jesus.  Her husband did not understand.  He told her that she read her bible and went to church on Sunday……like what else did she need to do?

Onelia said that about that time she had this dream.  She had the same exact dream 6 nights in a row.  She said that in the dream, Jesus came down and put his arms around the family and said that he was going to take them all off with Him.  However, before they left, they were to sing a song together.   Well, Onelia could not remember the words for the song, so Jesus said that she could not go, she had to stay.

When Onelia told her husband about the dream, he said:  “Gee, Nelly, you have one of those church song books.   Go through it and learn all of the words.”

On the seventh night, she was staying awake, reading her bible.  She did want to have that dream again.  Outside it was raining, really raining.  Their area was not hit directly by a hurricane, but the back of one whipped around and dumped an enormous amount of rain.  And what no one knew was that the dam of a large lake up in the mountains was threatened.  It did break and thousands were killed and even the railroad tracks along the coast were washed away.

As Onelia was sitting there, an enormous wind just blew her bible off the table.  It was the wind in front of a wall of water from that dam.  She grabbed the baby up right out of the water as it rushed through the room.  Then the whole house collapsed.  As she was struggling in the water, a big log bore down upon her and hit her right in the face.  She has implanted teeth there now, but they are not hers.  Plus, that log knocked the baby right out of her arms.

She floated downstream for two or three miles and wound up in the top of an orange tree.  She was in shock and dazed, but she estimates that she stayed in that tree for at least two days.  All her night clothes were ripped off and she said that she made some crude covering from the orange branches.

Then she swears that what happened next is absolutely true.  She said that this little dog swam by her tree, and that a deep voice, right out of the sky around her, plainly said:  “Nelly, get down out of that tree and follow that dog.”  She says that was the only thing that would have gotten her out of that tree.  She followed the dog through the water that was about shoulder high, but as the water got more shallow, she realized that the water had been holding her up.  She could now not get her legs to work, so she crawled after the dog as it got onto dry ground and went up over a hill.  Then she crawled over and down the hill toward another body of water. 

Just then a man saw her and came and took her to safety.

She says that they found the bodies of the two younger children and her husband, but that the vultures and already “gotten to him”.   They never found the older boy.   She always had hope that he may have survived.  I even helped her try to find him later, but we were not successful.

Some wonderful Christians helped her get to Dallas and enroll in Dallas Baptist’s nursing school.  And that is Onelia’s story.

She went with me on every trip after that.  She was extremely effective in counseling after the Jesus Film was shown each night.  Many nights there would be several hundred people who had come out of the dark to stand under the string of lights we set up, signifying the decision they were invited to make about having God in their life.

We also wanted to tell the people about Jesus in our medical clinics.  If a pastor from the sponsoring church had gone with us, we would have him speak with Onelia translating, but most of the time it was just Onelia. 

She had taught me to select a particular room in the different schools where we would hold the clinics.  She insisted that we put only “room number 4” on the door.  We would ask the people to go to room numero cuarto after they had finished their respective medical treatments.  She explained that if we put “counseling” or something like that on the door, those macho men would not go in.  So, we just put número cuatro on the door or on a sign to go out to meet with her under a big tree in the yard when there was no appropriate room.

So, I was curious how things were going.  I would slip into that room or out under the trees, and what I found was hard to believe.  Without exception, almost every person was making a decision for God.  I told Onelia that they were just being courteous or being grateful for their treatment.  But she insisted that she was making it really tough.  She said she was insisting that they be very serious and sincere about making a decision to ask Jesus into their hearts……that they should never just “play around” with God.

It took me three years to figure out what was really happening.  These people had been reared in a culture where they thought that only a very wealthy person could be sure that they were going to heaven.  They were the only ones who had enough money to pay the priest for enough dispensations to be sure they would get there. Then Onelia would explain that with Jesus, they could have a relationship with God, himself, have him as part of their life, all for free.  Then they would look around at me and the doctors and nurses and say to themselves:  “These people are from the outside.  They are educated.  This lady must be telling us the truth.”   So, they would readily make the decision, and Onelia would make sure they sincerely meant it.

PS:  As a highly trained surgical nurse, fluent in Spanish, Onelia could be making big money here in the US; but no.  She is back down there in a poor area of Honduras without an income (other than a few donations) teaching the people Bible and ministering to their medical needs.