This is a special excerpt from my soon to be published book. If you would like to see more stories like this, please go to my website and scroll down to the bottom and enter your email in the box on the Texas flag…………. truetexantales.com 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 by 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.

Actually, we had a big rustic log house there for years, even before I started to Junior High School where we lived each summer. At the end of each summer it became harder and harder to move back into town and leave this beautiful place with such great swimming in that deep blue water and with its fantastic fishing, and its total privacy. So, my parents decided to build a much larger home and just live there year-round.

My mother loved fireplaces with real wood fires. This home had several fireplaces, even one in the kitchen for her. Another interesting thing about that lovely new home was that it had no gypsum wall board or wall paper inside like most homes in the US. Every single room was paneled with a different kind of wood…..like the kitchen had wide vertical boards of white pine with each separated by narrower strips of rich colored red wood.

About 60 yards south of the kitchen was what was called the boat house. It was way up from the lake, but it had large garage doors along the front where we kept the boats on their trailers for fishing in the other many large lakes across Texas. At the south end of the “boat house” was a workshop and on the north end was a large, chest type freezer where we kept not only the regular meat for the kitchen and for barbeques, but it was also filled with deer meat, and deer sausage, and antelope meat, and elk meat.

Then on beyond the “boat house” was another green structure. (Everything was painted pale green.) That was the pigeon house. The pigeons did not fly out, for we raised those giant White King pigeons who don’t much fly. See, my mother loved squabs. Thus, those big white pigeons.

On the other side of the house from the lake were thousands of acres of virgin wooded land. Much of it has white lime stone 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 day’s 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 never see 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 and so close 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 self defense and just started pulling that trigger. I must have been lucky or the Lord just intervened, for I hit him right down the throat through 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!!!

PS. This is a note to the multitude of folks in China who are reading these stories: 令我印象深刻的是，中国如此众多的朋友正在阅读这些故事。 请给我发电子邮件，并告诉我有关您自己以及您对故事的看法。
我的电子邮件地址是……….ronald82@verizon.net

This week is the anniversary of the largest land-sea-air battle in world history. On this Good Friday before Easter, I think that it is only fitting for us to remember all those brave Americans who died to preserve our freedom on this anniversary, and what FDR said about our Faith in God.

Ron

The Battle of Okinawa is considered the largest land-sea-air battle in world history, and the last major battle of World War II. It began April 1, 1945, when 60,000 U.S. troops landed on the Island of Okinawa. It was called “The Typhoon of Steel” because of the hundreds of kamikaze attacks, where suicide bombers flew planes filled with explosives into American ships.

Fighting continued for 82 days. Kamikaze pilots sank 38 U.S. ships, and damaged 368 more, in what is considered the greatest loss of American ships in U.S. naval history. There were over 72,000 American casualties. Imperial Japan lost over 110,000 soldiers, in addition to nearly 150,000 Okinawan civilian casualties, many of whom were ordered by the retreating military to be human shields or to commit suicide, as the Imperial honor code, called “seppuku” or “harakiri,” considered surrender a shame worse than death.

Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed in the battle, April 18, 1945, by Japanese machine-gun fire on an island northwest of Okinawa Island. Ernie Pyle had been embedded with Army infantry soldiers in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific.

Infantry soldiers were given “Government Issued” supplies, resulting in the initials “G.I.”

Ernie Pyle’s newspaper columns were turned into the 1945 movie, The Story of G.I. Joe.

Ernie Pyle wrote in 1943:
“I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end they are the guys that wars can’t be won without.”

The fierceness of Japanese combat in the Battle of Okinawa convinced the U.S. Navy and Marines to expect over a million casualties if they attempted to invade the main Japanese islands. This convinced Democrat President Harry S Truman to drop the atomic bomb on the industrial centers of Hiroshima and Kyoto in August of 1945. Secretary of War Henry Stimson argued to spare Kyoto as a target. The city Kokura was then chosen, but on the fateful day cloud cover blocked the crews’ visual identification, so the bomb was dropped on nearby Nagasaki.

Tragically, Nagasaki had been the most Christian city in all of Japan.

Nagasaki was first visited by Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier in 1549, through whose efforts the powerful daimyo (lord) Ōmura Sumitada had been baptized. Over 300,000 Japanese became Christian by the end of the 16th century. Suffering intense persecution, the Kakure Kirishitan “Hidden Christians” or Mukashi Kirishitan “Ancient Christians” passed their faith on to succeeding generations, century after century.

Martin Scorsese’s movie SILENCE (2016) gives the account of missionaries to Japan and the persecutions suffered by Japanese Christians.

Emperor Meiji finally allowed religious freedom during the Meiji Restoration, 1868-1912.

From 1912 to 1926, Japan experienced unprecedented freedom and prosperity during the “Taishō democracy.”

Beginning in 1926, Japan’s Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito and his generals re-concentrated power politically into a totalitarian, militaristic state.

Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Japan entered into a Tripartite Treaty with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy and Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party on September 27, 1940, being referred to as the “Axis Powers.”

After the Imperial planes had attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt recited the reason the U.S. entered into war in his address to Congress, December 8, 1941:

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage … lives have been lost …Ships have been reported torpedoed between San Francisco and Honolulu …The Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya … Hong Kong … Guam … Philippine Islands … Wake Island … and Midway Island.”

FDR stated January 6, 1942: “Japan’s … conquest goes back half a century …

War against China in 1894 …

Occupation of Korea (1910) …

War against Russia in 1904 …

Fortification of the mandated Pacific islands following 1920 …

Seizure of Manchuria in 1931 …

Invasion of China in 1937.”

Invading Imperial soldiers massacred over 300,000 in Nanking, China, 1937-1938.

FDR concluded his address: “We are fighting today for security, for progress, and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all men, not only for one generation but for all generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world of ancient evils, ancient ills. Our enemies are guided by brutal cynicism, by unholy contempt for the human race.”

“We are inspired by a faith that goes back through all the years to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis: ‘God created man in His own image.’ We on our side are striving to be true to that divine heritage …”

“We are fighting, as our fathers have fought, to uphold the doctrine that all men are equal in the sight of God. ”

“Those on the other side are striving to destroy this deep belief and to create a world in their own image — a world of tyranny and cruelty and serfdom.That is the conflict that day and night now pervades our lives.”

“No compromise can end that conflict. There never has been, there never can be, successful compromise between good and evil.”

“Only total victory can reward the champions of tolerance, and decency, and freedom, and faith.”

This is about the born and unborn children of America…..our posterity.  The Founding Fathers of our country,  whose memory that so many current educators are trying to wipe away, were so very interested in their posterity……..the millions of yet unborn.  The Founding Fathers sacrificed their PROSPERITY for their POSTERITY.  Would you take the time to look at what they said about the yet unborn:  

After signing the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote to his wife:  “I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.” 

“And that POSTERITY will triumph in that days transaction, even although we should rue (regret) it, which I trust in God we shall not.”

George Washington wrote in his Orders, July 2, 1776:  “The fate of UNBORN MILLIONS will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die.” 

At the conclusion of the Revolution, General Washington wrote a Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors of all the States on Disbanding the Army, June 14, 1783, stating:  “According to the system of (government) the States shall adopt at this moment, they will stand or fall … It is yet to be decided, whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse … not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of UNBORN MILLIONS be involved.”

Colonel William Prescott, who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, wrote:  “Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and transmit them to their POSTERITY. Now if we should give them up, can OUR CHILDREN rise up and call us blessed?” 

“Therefore, we resolve, that it is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our country, ourselves and POSTERITY to maintain, defend and preserve those civil and religious rights and liberties, for which many of our fathers fought, bled and died, and to hand them down entire to FUTURE GENERATIONS.”

Dr. Joseph Warren, who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill, wrote the Suffolk Resolves, September 17, 1774:”Whereas Great Britain of old persecuted and exiled our fugitive parents from their native shores, now pursues us, their guiltless children, with unrelenting severity: “Therefore, we resolve, that it is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our country, ourselves and POSTERITY .to maintain, defend and preserve those civil and religious rights and liberties, for which many of our fathers fought, bled and died, and to hand them down entire to FUTURE GENERATIONS.”

Daniel Webster stated in 1852:  “The world will cry out ‘shame’ upon us, if we show ourselves unworthy, to be the DESCENDANTS of those great and illustrious men, who fought for their liberty, and secured it to their POSTERITY, by the Constitution of the United States.”

Henry Clay addressed the U.S. Senate:   “The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for POSTERITY — unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual POSTERITY.”

Benjamin Franklin, who signed the Declaration of Independence, wrote of the Constitutional Convention (Federal Gazette, April 8, 1788:  “I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence, that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance to the welfare of millions now existing, and to exist in the POSTERITY of a great nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent Beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live & move and have their being.”

Charles Carroll, the longest-living signer of the Declaration, addressed the city of New York, August 2, 1826: “Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, He had conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation. I am now the last surviving signer, I do hereby recommend to the present and FUTURE GENERATIONS the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them, and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to remotest POSTERITY and extended to the whole family of man.”

Theodore Roosevelt stated in his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1905:  “No people on earth have more cause to be thankful to the Giver of Good who has blessed us. Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves and to the generations yet UNBORN.” 

“We have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy.  We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to OUR CHILDREN and OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN.”

Franklin Roosevelt stated at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, November 4, 1944:  “We shall be standing before a mighty bar of judgment — the judgment of all of those who have fought and died in this war — the judgment of generations yet UNBORN — the very judgment of God.”

President Ronald Reagan addressed the Alfred M. Landon Lecture Series on Public Issues, September 9, 1982:” I know now what I’m about to say will be very controversial, but I also believe that God’s greatest gift is human life and that we have a sacred duty to protect the innocent human life of an UNBORN CHILD.” 

Reagan wrote in “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation” (The Human Life Review, 1983): “We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the UNBORN — without diminishing the value of all human life.”

In an address “A Charge to Keep,” delivered during his 2000 Presidential Campaign, George W. Bush stated: “I have a reverence for life, my faith teaches that life is a gift from our Creator. In a perfect world, life is given by God and only taken by God. I hope someday our society will respect life, the full spectrum of life from the UNBORN to the elderly. I hope someday UNBORN children will be protected by law and welcomed in life.”

President Trump declared in his State of the Union Address, February 5, 2019: “Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and UNBORN — are made in the holy image of God.”           

“America’s forefathers were willing to sacrifice their prosperity for their POSTERITY, pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to give freedom and opportunity to generations yet UNBORN.”

The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, 1787, states:

I have written about the head of the Rangers who informed me that he had taken care of and protected me all of my life. 

Some of the other Rangers that I have known just seemed bigger than life. There is a popular saying about the rangers, that the local authorities call Austin and urgently appeal for help because of a huge riot that is happening. Austin sends one ranger. The local authorities are just shocked, since they were expecting a big contingent of lawmen. Then the Ranger is asked why more lawmen were not sent. He says……”Well, there is only one riot”.

But I actually knew and spent some great times with the lawman who helped the Texas Ranger from which that saying started. It really happened. He was one big, tough dude. Some of these old lawmen have an authority about them that you can just sense and feel. 

My lawman friend was never more that a Deputy Sheriff for Dallas County, but he was so useful to the Texas Rangers that he was rather adopted by them. They used him on so many of their operations across Texas. 

This fellow was still stationed in Dallas when Dallas had its one and only huge race riot. It had been going on for many days. There was all manner of destruction. Several people had been killed. The Dallas police were just at a stand-off from all that was going on along Hall Street. Hall Street was the center of the riot. Gunfire was coming from the buildings along it, and the Dallas Police were not about to go in there. 

The Dallas authorities wired Austin for help from the Texas Rangers. They sent one ranger and he immediately conscripted my friend as his partner. When the Ranger got to Dallas, the Dallas authorities expressed their dismay that many more should have been sent. That is when the Ranger who was standing beside my friend said: “Well, it is only one riot.” I got my friend to tell me exactly what he did. 

He and the Ranger quickly saw that everything about the disturbance was centered along Hall Street. In those days there was no TV, but everyone religiously listened to the radio. He said that he went down to the local radio station (WFAA) and asked to make a special broadcast. He went on the air and said that he and the Ranger were going to walk down the length of Hall street tomorrow at noon. He said that: “if any shots were fired at them from a building, they were going to set that building on fire, and that they were going to kill every single man and woman that come out of that building.” 

Sharply at noon the next day, they put their shotguns on their hips and walked the entire length of Hall Street. No shots were fired and the riot was over. 

It is the custom in Texas that when a prominent law man retires, he is appointed as U.S. Marshal for most of the rest of his life. This happened to my friend. 

When Lyndon Johnson got his Great Society Program passed by Congress, the anti-discrimination laws were good things, but there was an immediate over-reaction to them. For a short time, a few very aggressive blacks thought that they could just get away with anything and no one would touch them. It was at this very time that a criminal case was scheduled in the Court House in downtown Dallas. 

A group bragged that they were going to storm the Court House and stop this trial. At this “interesting political time” the Dallas Police were reluctant to interfere with this group, but they knew that they should not allow a criminal trial to be stopped by a mob. Their solution………to call out my lawman friend who was now a US Marshall in retirement. He agreed to come down to the Court House and “keep order”. 

He showed-up with his badge pinned prominently on his khaki uniform and took his station at the court room door. Like I mentioned, some of these old lawmen just have a real authority about them. You can tell that they are just “not going to be moved”. The mob showed-up also. But when this big old lawman with his innate authority said to the leader of the mob: “Son, you just stand over there!”. The mob did not set one foot into that court room. 

However, there was one story that he refused to talk about, no matter how much we implored him too. Bonnie and Clyde were considered rather romantic figures by the public until they shot two Texas Highway Patrolmen to death just northwest of Dallas. It turned out that one of those highway patrolmen was this lawman’s best friend. He took it very personal. He swore and oath that he would not eat another bite of food until he shot both Bonnie and Clyde to death. 

He was only 29 years old at the time, but he found out that the lawman, Frank Hamer, who was a former Texas Ranger, was planning to ambush the couple on a back road near the town of Sailes at Bienville Parish, Louisiana. The Methvin family who lived near there had been taking care of the outlaws for nearly a year. 

My friend grabbed his 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle and headed straight to Louisiana. That ambush was actually filmed with quite clear photographic results. I have seen the film. It shows the 1934 stolen Ford V-8 Deluxe climbing the hill to the ambush. It also shows my friend in his white hat standing up and getting in by far the most telling results with his powerful BAR. After his long “fast” he enjoyed a great Louisiana dinner that night. 

When my son, Mike, was about 14 years old, I decided to take him down to hunt ducks in the marshes along the bay north of Brownsville. We got all packed and headed south on a Thursday morning. We got as far as Kingsville (the home of the King Ranch), and it was getting late and time to spend the night. After a restful night in Kingsville at a local motel it was time for breakfast the next morning. 

When you are out traveling like that and needing breakfast in a town in Texas that you are really not acquainted with, there is one rule that will never fail you in getting the best breakfast. There will probably be 3 or 4 places in a town that size that are serving breakfast along the highway. What you want to do is pass them all by that have 2 or 3 cars in front and stop at the one with a large number of pickup trucks in front.  

In Kingsville we quickly found the eating place with a whole bunch of pickups in front. We went in and took our seat among all those farmers and ranchers. At one big table across from us was a whole group of rancher looking guys who were animatedly talking with this much older fellow with a most interesting dark brown leather coat on. His coat was obviously very well worn, but I had never seen a leather coat just like that. 

Just as we were finishing breakfast, the ranchers finished also and all walked out, leaving the old fellow with the leather coat just sitting there. You could just tell that the old fellow had much character about him just as his coat did. So, Mike and I decided to go over and sit down with him. 

It turned out that he was a retired Texas Ranger with a long, long career behind him. I am sure when he was younger, he would not talk much about his exploits, but now that he was really old and a young 14 year old was sitting there, Mike and I got him to relate some of his many exploits and stories. He had worked solo all along the Texas border, mostly protecting the ranches there from predator outlaws crossing the border. 

See, the Texas Rangers were started to protect the first settlers in north central Texas from the Comanches. When most of the Comanche raids were suppressed, the Rangers were disbanded soon after the Civil War. Then in the early days of the King Ranch, it was losing so very many cattle to the predators coming across from Mexico and stealing cattle and horses that Richard King persuaded the Governor of Texas to re-establish the Rangers in 1874.

Mike and I were enthralled with some of the stories that this old Ranger related to us. And I had actually read about one of them. 

See, my mother was a famous Bible teacher and speaker. When she would be going to speak to a large women’s group, she would leave me at the nice public library in Waco. It was in what had formerly been a large home made of fine white stone. 

In the really early days of Texas, they had designated Austin as the capital, but there was little structure across the state and no news papers. Those early settlers felt the need to write-up and record the significant things that were happening…….mostly Indian raids. They would write up the happenings, most times in great detail, and send them in to Austin. Some years later in the early days of the University of Texas, the school took all those hand-written tales and published them. For some reason, the library in Waco wound-up with the whole published compilation. I have never seen it anywhere else. 

So, I would spend hours and hours reading those tales while I was “parked” there in the library. I remember one where these three farmers were riding back home to Groesbeck and were caught by a small band of Comanches. One of them was shot by an arrow in the shoulder, one was not harmed, and the third was shot from his horse. The first two were able to escape, but when they looked back as they were racing away, their friend was totally surrounded by the Indians. 

In two days, a few settlers returned to the scene to recover his body. To their amazement, they found him sitting-up braced against a tree. He had been scalped by the Indians, but he was still quite alive. He had taken off his boot and put his sock over his head to keep the flies away from his exposed brain. They took him back to their community, and in the report that I was reading, they felt that he was for sure going to live. 

Anyway, when the old Ranger was telling Mike and me one of his stories, I realized that I had read every detail of it in the Waco Library. It seems that he was following a small herd of cattle that a group of Mexicans had stolen and were taking back to Mexico. He caught-up with them just as they were crossing back into Mexico, but what made the situation so complicated was that a contingent of Mexican Federales was right there at the river to escort the rustlers back into Mexico. 

They had about 3/4ths of the cattle across the river when the Ranger came upon them. He pulled out his Henry Rifle from its scabbard and (in Spanish) ordered them to: “Put those cattle back across the River” (Poner ese ganado de nuevo a través del río). The Captain of the Federales explained that: “You are only one man; we are many. We will kill you for sure”. The Ranger explained: “You may do that Captain, but I will get at least two of you bastards before I die. Who wants to be the first two bastards to die right now?” (“Puedes hacer eso, capitán, pero conseguiré al menos a dos de ustedes bastardos antes de que muera. ¿Quién quiere ser los dos primeros bastardos en morir ahora?”) 

The Federales put all those cattle back across the River and not a single shot was fired. 

At just that week, Mike was writing a report for his English class about the Texas Rangers. I don’t have tell you that he got an A+ on the report.

I would really like for you to know about one of the most brilliant men that ever lived…..Isaac Newton.  Do take the time to read this short revelation about him that I have prepared for you…….. 

Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642, the same year Galileo died.  Newton’s mother was widowed twice, resulting in him being raised by his grandmother.  He was sent off to grammar school at The King’s School, Grantham.  His uncle, Rev William Ayscough provided the recommendation for him to attend Trinity College, Cambridge, 1661.

 During this time, 24-year-old Issac Newton was studying at Cambridge, but the university shut down as a precaution against the Plague.  Newton left London and self-quarantined himself at his family’s country estate.  And while he was there, one day as he was sitting in the garden, he saw an apple fall from its tree to the ground in front of him. 

In the Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life, written by William Stukeley, there is this story:  “Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself; occasioned by the fall of the apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. 

“Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? But constantly to the Earth’s center? Assuredly the reason is, that the Earth draws it.  There must be a drawing power in matter. And the sum of the drawing power in the matter of the Earth must be in the Earth’s center, not in any side of the Earth. 

“Therefore does this apple fall perpendicularly or towards the center? If matter thus draws matter; it must be proportion of its quantity. Therefore the apple draws the Earth, as well as the Earth draws the apple.’’ 

So Issac Newton from this formed the laws of universal gravitation that we study in our beginning physics courses. 

Newton became a renown mathematician and a natural philosopher. 

He formulated the three laws of motion, which aided in advancement of the discipline of dynamics.  He explained in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687: 

“FIRST LAW: An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force; 

SECOND LAW: Force equals mass times acceleration; 

THIRD LAW: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.” 

Newton was honored to occupy the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, 1669, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1672. 

He was given the position of Master of the Mint, 1699, and in 1701, entered Parliament.           

In addition to discovering the laws of universal gravitation, Newton was a discoverer of calculus.  He helped develop it into a comprehensive branch of mathematics. 

He constructed one of the first practical reflecting telescopes.

 Using a prism, Newton demonstrated that a beam of light contained all the colors of the rainbow.

  He laid the foundation for the great law of energy conservation and developed the particle theory of light propagation. 

In 1703, Sir Issac Newton became the President of the Royal Society, and served in that position until his death. 

This was one of the most brilliant men that ever lived…….just an amazing mind!!!  He has to be considered the father of modern physics………such a brilliant scientist!   

Now here is my point:  All across the U.S. in our universities are a plethora of scientists and professors who say there is no God, that “science” has proved that to be true.  They are atheists who say science has led them to this conclusion.  So, since most of the laws upon which their work and studies rest were discovered and formulated by the brilliant Sir Issac Newton.  Let’s look at what he thought and said about whether there is a God or not. OK? 

Newton wrote one of the most important scientific books ever, Principia, 1687, in which he stated:  “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being … All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the ‘Lord God’ … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called ‘Lord God’ … The supreme God exists necessarily, and by the same necessity He exists always and everywhere.” 

Newton wrote in the last query of Optics, or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (1704, London, 1730, 4th edition, quoted in Sullivan, p.125-126):  “Now by the help of these principles, all material things seem to have been composed of the hard and solid particles, above-mentioned, variously associated in the first creation by the counsel of an intelligent agent.For it became him who created them to set them in order.And if he did so, it’s unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world, or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature; though being once formed, it may continue by those laws for all ages.”

  Newton wrote in Principia, 1687:  “From His true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent and powerful Being; and from His other perfections, that He is supreme, or most perfect.  He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, His duration reaches from eternity to eternity. His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done.” 

Newton was quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster (Edinburgh, Thomas Constable and Co., 1855, Vol. II, 354):  “God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him, and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbors as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts. 

And by the same power by which he gave life at first to every species of animals, he is able to revive the dead, and has revived Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who has gone into the heavens to receive a kingdom, and prepare a place for us, and is next in dignity to God, and may be worshiped as the Lamb of God, and has sent the Holy Ghost to comfort us in his absence, and will at length return and reign over us.”         

Newton wrote in a “Short Scheme of the True Religion” (Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, Edinburgh, Thomas Constable and Co., 1855, Vol. II, P. 248:  “Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind. 

“There is one God, the Father, ever-living, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus …To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. 

That is, we are to worship the Father alone as God Almighty, and Jesus alone as the Lord, the Messiah, the Great King, the Lamb of God who was slain, and hath redeemed us with His blood, and made us kings and priests.” 

Sir Isaac Newton died MARCH 20, 1727.           

So, I am off in Afghanistan 5 years ago doing things that would be challenging for an 18 year old, much less an old dude like me. I am sleeping on the concrete back of those piled-up sandbags and doing things that I can’t tell you about.

In late 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11 we wanted revenge for the attack on the World Trade Center. The obvious initial choice for President Bush and our military leaders was the terrorists who had planned the attacks and their training camps for such attacks that were located in Afghanistan. 

The Special Forces and advisors that we sent in there put together what was called the Northern Alliance. It was really a collection of Afghan war lords let by Afghan General Dostum. They were being supported by US air power, but with a disadvantage. All military flights had to be launched from Uzbekistan or aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. We needed an airbase at Mazar-I-Sharif, for our aircraft had to carry so much fuel to come from those far off locations that they could not carry much munitions. Taking that town was our first priority in that war. Winning the battle to take it was our first significant victory in Afghanistan over the Taliban.  

Meanwhile, General Noor led 2,000 men of the ethnic-Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami forces against the village of Ag Kupruk directly south of the city, along with six Special Forces soldiers and seven U.S. Air Force Combat Controllers who directed bombing from behind Taliban lines.  

The Taliban had taken the city in August of 1998 and had held it ever since. The Taliban were condemned by the United Nations (for whatever good that did) for massive massacres of the civilian Shia population at the time. On November 2, 2001, Green Berets from Operational Detachment Alpha 543 and small elements of the CIA Special Activities Division were inserted into the Dari-a-Balkh Valley. Their role was to support General Mohammed Atta Nur and his militia. Together they fought through the Dari-e-Souf Valley and had linked up with General Abdul Rashid Dostum and his forces and ODA 595 and the CIA team supporting Dostum. They had also battled through an intersecting valley south of Mazar-I-Sharif.  

On November 7 and 8, the Taliban were moving 4,000 fighters across the countryside towards Mazar-I-Sharif in preparation for battle to make sure they held the town. American big B-52 bombers bombed those Taliban fighters who were hiding, all concentrated in the Cheshmeh-ye Shafa gorge. That was the southern entrance to the city. This was one of the heaviest campaigns up to that point. The B-52’s wiped-out most of them. Nevertheless, the Taliban claimed they had infiltrated 500 fighters into the city to prepare for the coming battle. 

What was really interesting to me was the US Special Forces guys saying how amazed they were to see those brave, intrepid Afghan fighters charging the Taliban tanks on horseback.

It has been a long time since US military men charged in actual, real battle on horseback. After these outlying parts of the city were taken, as many as 12,000 Taliban combatants as well as members of alQaeda and other foreign fighters began to withdraw towards Kunduz. However, the fighting for the town was still fierce. At least 600 Taliban died in the battle. 

And here is what was so fascinating to me about that battle. Just as the fighting for the town was beginning, A Mullah from Pakistan led approximately 900 Pakistani Muslim volunteers into the town to defend it. They were mostly only teenagers. They holed-up in the several buildings of the abandoned Sultan Razia Girls’ School and built up their fighting positions. Some officials from the town tried to get them to surrender but they vehemently refused. When they started shooting at Northern Alliance and US Special Forced, those guys shot back. And listen to this, all the while the battle was raging the Mullah was driving around in the school using a loudspeaker riveted onto a pickup truck and blaring out to his volunteers: “Those who die fighting for God don’t die! Those who go on jihad live forever, in paradise!”  

It is for sure most of them are there, for our guys killed most all of them. And following the battle, United States Air Force Sgt. Stephen E. Tomat was awarded the Silver Star for crawling right up under the heavy firing and calling in an air strike on six vehicles and the school.  

Also, approximately 1,500 Taliban were captured or defected. 

We now had an airfield so that our aircraft did not have to fly so far to do battle and could carry many more munitions since their sorties were much shorter.  

Following rumors that Taliban Mullah Dadullah might be headed to recapture the city with as many as 8,000 Taliban fighters, a thousand U.S. Army Rangers were airlifted into the city, which provided the first solid foothold from which Kabul and Kandahar could be reached. 

Also, after the battle was finished, US Army Civil Affairs Teams from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion and Tactical Psychological Operations Teams from the 4th Psychological Operations Group assigned to both the Green Berets and Task Force Dagger were immediately deployed to Mazar-I-Sharif to assist in winning the hearts and minds of the inhabitants. 

I was on the first commercial air flight from Kabul to Mazar-I-Sharif and spent considerable time there. That girls school was quickly rebuilt.

I had several local friends in Mazar-I-Sarif who took me through the several private schools that they had started now that the Taliban were gone. I was able to visit with the young male students, but the girls were afraid to talk with me or even have their picture taken. They were still traumatized by how girls were treated by the Taliban. They were also afraid of what the Taliban would do to them if they ever come back. And I can understand, for in such a case, someone may tell on them and no telling the punishment they would face for having talked to an American male. 

One of my prison boys (that I will tell you about later) was always wanting me to send him pictures of people that will inspire him. Recently I sent him a picture of some guys his very age of when I was in Mazar-I-Sharif. These guys and I really bonded. 

I wrote the prison boy the following: “I am sending this picture to you, so you can see how bright and hopeful these young men are. The reality is that they are stuck in a city in the north of Afghanistan, and have not a chance in hell of ever getting out of there or having any kind of opportunity for any kind of a good life. Because of their crazy customs, most of them will never even get the wife they want, because it would cost them $4,000 to $5,000 for the payment to her family, and they will never have that much. I had one of the older ones email me recently. He and this girl were deeply, desperately in love. But her family was giving her to an ugly old man who had the money to pay them for her. Can you imagine how desperate my young friend there felt. He loves her so very, very much, and she is going to that ugly old man for as long as he lives. 

“You can also imagine how intensely and desperately they desire to be in the U.S. and have all of the opportunities that you guys have. I want you to look at their faces and into their eyes and solemnly promise me and yourself that you will live a successful and special life when you get out from back of that prison fence, since they will never have the chances and opportunities that you have.”

 And as you read this I sincerely, no desperately, solicit your prayers for these particular boys. I can’t tell you all that we went through together that will keep us bonded for life. 

So, I went through all of this about Afghanistan as just background to tell you about a U.S., black soldier that I met there. He looked so whipped and beaten-down that I just asked him: “What in the world has happened to you, fella?” 

He said: “Man, you won’t believe what happened to me yesterday!!!”  

So I said: “Tell me about it.” 

And here is what he related……………….He said that he was out on patrol in his hum-vee and had gotten ahead of his unit. He decided to stop and wait for them. He was right on the edge of this little village. He said that this darling little girl came running across the street and just smiled up at him. He said he didn’t have any candy to give her, so he just gave her one of his water bottles. 

Then at that moment, her father came running across the street. He grabbed her by the hair, reached for that curved knife that the men carry in their belts and just cut her throat right there in the street.  

The soldier said: “Wow”, that he grabbed his weapon and wanted to “blow the bastard’s ass off right there!!” 

But the soldier knew what would happen to him if he did. So, he dared not do it.  

Now that black soldier has no visible wounds, but I assure you that he is wounded for life. Do please pray for him. God knows who he is. He really needs your prayers. God’s Spirit Power can comfort him.

P.S. This is to all my many friends in China who read these stories …………… 这就是说我所有读过这些故事的朋友在中国打招呼。 请，如果您不介意，请给我发送电子邮件，并告诉我您的名字和有关您自己的信息。 我的E-mail地址是…..ronald82@verizon.net

Today, March 2^nd is Texas Independence Day.  But do you know the real history of how it came about.  And have you ever read the real Texas Declaration of Independence.  Every real Texan should read it at least once.

Below I have transcribed a verbatim copy of it for you.  However, first, let me give you a short history of what brought it about, and then show you the document.  See, the Mexican people had been under the control of Spain and then France for so many years.  Finally they gained their independence.  They were overjoyed at what they expected would be their new-found freedom. 

The Americans living in the northern part of Mexico north of the Rio Grande River in the area called Texas were thrilled too.  They were expecting to enjoy new freedoms also.  Most had come to Texas to start a new life and acquire their own land. 

The people of Mexico had their first free election and elected their own president.  His full name was ………Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón or for short, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

However, much to their consternation, he immediately overrode their constitution and became a vicious dictator.  He ruled through executive orders, demanding more control and higher taxes.  Santa Anna decided the people were incapable of ruling themselves, so he ignored the Constitution, dissolved the Congress and declared himself dictator. 

Santa Anna wrote to the U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel R. Poinsett:  “A hundred years to come my people will not be fit for liberty … a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one.” 

Santa Anna demanded citizens surrender their guns, decreeing:  “All foreigners who might be caught under arms on Mexican soil should be treated as pirates and shot”   Santa Anna wrote in his Manifesto, 1837:  “I offered life to the defendants who would surrender their arms and retire under oath not to take them up again against Mexico.”  He incited killings and used his military against those resisting his centralized power.  

In New Orleans there was a Mexican army led by General José Antonio Mexía.  He decided to march his troops down and free the people of Mexico from Santa Anna. In 1835, Federal General José Antonio Mexía marched his troops from New Orleans to Tampico, but Santa Anna defeated him and executed every prisoner. 

None of this sat well with those Texans living north of the Rio Grande river.  They needed their weapons to kill wild game, which was a big part of their diet, and for protection from the Kiowa, the Apaches, and especially the Comanches.  They drew up a Declaration of Independence from Mexico and started to organize for defense. 

So, Santa Anna himself decided to lead his army north and put down these rebellious Texans.  On February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna’s army arrived outside the Old Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar.  His troops, eventually numbering 1,800, flew the blood-red flag of no quarter, signifying that all those captured would be killed.

Texan and Tejano defenders, numbering between 182 to 257, responded by firing their cannon.  In the “13 days of glory at the Alamo,” Santa Anna’s take-no-prisoner policy had all defenders killed, including: William Travis, Jim Bowie, and former U.S, Congressman Davy Crockett. 

Santa Anna ordered those who surrendered to be executed and have their corpses burned.  The few survivors included Susanna Dickinson, her baby, Angelina, and Travis’ young black servant, Joe.

 

The only Texas army left in the field was Col. James Fannin’s.  It departed Goliad to rescue the Alamo but was surrounded in open ground and 350 were captured.  Santa Anna ordered the prisoners executed.  When the Mexican officer hesitated carrying out the executions, Santa Anna sent another officer who proceeded to execute nearly all of them in the Goliad Massacre, March 27, 1836.  Bodies were stripped, piled, burned and left exposed to vultures and coyotes.  A few dozen of the Texans were spared execution through the courageous intervention of Francita Alavez, the “Angel of Goliad,” and Mexican Colonel Francisco Garay.
 

Had Fannin’s troops been left in prison, Texans would have been disheartened, but instead, Santa Anna’s Goliad Massacre aroused world outrage. 

General Sam Houston had by now recruited a crew of tough Texans.  Much to their consternation Houston kept retreating until he had led Santa Anna and his troops all the way down to the San Jacinto area south of present day Houston.  He waited until the Mexican army retreated into their tents for their daily siesta. Then those brave Texans attacked in force.  They loaded their cannons with grape shot and aimed them at ground level.  They say that all across the battle field were the loud shouts of the Texans…….”Remember the Alamo!, Remember Goliad!……Remember the Alamo!, Remember Goliad!” 

The Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 was a massive Texan victory.  Santa Anna was shot through the leg and managed to hide in the swamp, but those Texans found him and drug him back in front of General Sam Houston.  He had no choice but to cede all the territory north of the Rio Grande to the new Texas Republic. 

So, like I said, ever real Texan should read the Texas Declaration of Independence at least once, and here it is for you:

“UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by the delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the Town of Washington, on the Second Day of March, 1836.  When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted; and so far from being a guarantee for their inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression …

… In such a crisis … the inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves and a sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their welfare and happiness …”

The Declaration continued:  “The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez Santa Anna,who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers, as the cruel alternative, either abandon our homes acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood … It denies us the right of worshiping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a National Religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.  It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense – the rightful property of freemen – and formidable only to tyrannical governments …  It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers …”

The Texas Declaration ended:  “We, therefore, the delegates, with plenary powers, of the people of Texas … DECLARE, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas, do now constitute a FREE, SOVEREIGN, and INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC …  Conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations.”

 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 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 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. 

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 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.  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 Lean Valley with great results. 

P.S. This is a note to my many friends in China who are reading these stories:

我为中国有多少人在读我的故事感到惊讶。 它们是我即将出版的书的摘录。 因此，这是给我在中国的新朋友的一封信：如果您不介意，请给我发送一封电子邮件，写上您的名字，并向我介绍一下您自己。 我只会给您一些中国的特殊故事，这是世界上其他任何人都看不到的。 我的电子邮箱…… ronald82@verizon.net

                          

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.

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 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.

P.S. This is a note to my many friends in China who are reading these stories:

我为中国有多少人在读我的故事感到惊讶。 它们是我即将出版的书的摘录。 因此，这是给我在中国的新朋友的一封信：如果您不介意，请给我发送一封电子邮件，写上您的名字，并向我介绍一下您自己。 我只会给您一些中国的特殊故事，这是世界上其他任何人都看不到的。 我的电子邮箱…… ronald82@verizon.net

                                    

Do you know the for real origin of Valentines’ Day?   If not, I for sure want you to know.  Just follow along:

The origin of Saint Valentine’s Day goes back to the 3rd century.  At that time, the Roman Empire was being invaded by Goths.

At the same time, the Plague of Cyprian, probably smallpox, broke out killing at its height 5,000 people a day.  So many died that the Roman army was depleted of soldiers.

Roman Emperor Claudius II needed more soldiers to fight the invading Goths.  He believed that men fought better if they were not married, so he banned traditional marriage in the military.

Rome was also torn from internal rivalries which continued since the assassination of the previous Emperor, Gallienus.  Emperor Claudius II quelled these tensions by requesting the Roman Senate deify Emperor Gallienus, so as to be worshiped along with the other Roman gods.

Citizens were forced to worship the Roman gods, and “deified” emperors, by placing a pinch of incense on a fire before their statues.  Those who refused worship of the Roman gods were considered “politically incorrect” or “unpatriotic” enemies of the state and killed.

Saint Valentine was a priest in Rome.  He risked the Emperor’s wrath by standing up for traditional marriage, secretly marrying soldiers to their young brides.   He was apparently quite romantic and saw how the birds had courtship and were monogamous.  Much of the Roman Army  had become Christian.  Saint Valentine wanted those soldiers to be able to marry their sweethearts.

When Emperor Claudius demanded that Christians deny their consciences and worship pagan idols, Saint Valentine refused.  He was arrested, dragged before the Prefect of Rome, and condemned to die.

While awaiting execution, his jailer, Asterius, asked Saint Valentine to pray for his blind daughter.  When she miraculously regained her sight, the jailer converted and was baptized, along with many others.  Right before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “from your Valentine.”

Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on FEBRUARY 14, 269AD.

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius designated FEBRUARY 14th as “Saint Valentine’s Day.”

The association of birds with fidelity in marital love came about because 90 percent of bird species are monogamous.

Many bird species mate for life, such as varieties of: Swans, Canada Geese, Ravens, Cranes, Blue Jays, Barn Owls, Red-Tailed Hawks, Woodpeckers, Ospreys, Raptors, Penquins, and Bald Eagles.

After elaborate courtships, depending on their species, these birds remain together until one partner dies.

People often sign Valentine cards with X’s and O’s.

The Greek name for Christ, Χριστό, begins with the letter “X” which in Greek is called “Chi.”  “X” became a common abbreviation for the name Christ.  This is why Christ-mas is abbreviated as X-mas.

In Medieval times, the “X” was called the Christ’s Cross, or “Criss-Cross.”  It reminded students that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”

Similar to the ancient practice of swearing upon a Bible, saying “so help me God,” then kissing the Bible, people would sign a document with or next to the Christ’s Cross to swear before God they would keep the agreement, then kiss it to show sincerity.

This practice has come down to us as “sign at the X”, or saying “I swear, cross my heart.”

This is the origin of signing a Valentines’ card with an “X” to express a pledge before God to be faithful, and an “O” to seal the pledge with a kiss of sincerity.