The flight home.
That wheel chair option is pretty good! I got into parts of the airport I never was allowed to go before-just sit and let someone else do the work!
I was released from the hospital one evening and on Friday the 29th a year ago I flew home--wrapping my legs in stretch gauze in order to hopefully stave off blood clots. It was a holiday so no drug stores were open and the hospital did not provide any stretch socks nor did they seems concerned for me to take any blood thinner meds. Of course writing this one year after the fact I am foreshadowing. I was aware of the possibility of a clot but was also concerned of the incision, still quite sore, as the immediate concern. And after all I had been flying for ten years without incident. Just one prior clot incident in my history ten years before. Just the surgery and the lack of the aspirin a day different than other flights. That would not be enough to make any difference would it?
We flew business class--thanks to an adjusted ticket and frequent flyer miles. (Sitting is still difficult.) The wife of the couple I was traveling with in Europe went along with me. It would have been difficult to do myself.
Please sustain me, heal me, restore me...with a redemptive added value that has me live for purpose I journaled. In my read through Psalms I read 49--the text of the first message I preached in Hong Kong 17 years earlier. "No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him, the ransom for a life is costly no price is ever enough that he should live on forever and not see decay." I reflected about my life and how I was living it in relation to June, Lia and Austin. And I continued to want to take steps to rectify the pressure and alienation June had expressed at the start of this trip.
I was also meditating on Ps 46 Come and see the work of the Lord thee evolution he has brought on the earth.
But wait! The desolation is totally unexpected, he is bringing desolation to the cultural strongholds and powers of the age. God rises and makes wars cease! He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. And then his invitation:
be still
be still and know
be still and know that I AM God
I will be exalted!
Lord, the ways I want to see you work often seem not to happen. Good opportunities seem missed. but when I "come". When I am "still". Then I notice grace and the ways you exalt your name.
I was about to get a ring side seat--front and center of God's grace and exaltation of his name in unexpected ways.
How good it was to be welcomed back by June, and to sit in familiar surroundings with people who loved me and knew me. I took the big recliner chair by the window in the living room. It was good to be home.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Reflecting One Year Later -- October 26 - 28
The days in the hospital in Prague were long and at times I felt quite alone and discouraged. The autumn weather outside my hospital window was in its pristine beauty, much like today, but I was cut off, inside, not at the retreat experiencing the relational connections that I envisioned would build in to the future. I was waiting for my body to heal. The emotional part was the hardest, not much in English around me, no one visiting after Sunday when my traveling companions needed to go off to the retreat (with my blessing).
Email messages which I only had access to through the data plan on my Blackberry at times routed reply messages to another email address of mine so I thought people were ignoring my mail. Later I found their responses but at the time I was unaware.
But God met me. He met me in his Word. I was reading through Psalms during this trip--and what better place to be when one is laid up medically or for other out of control reasons. Psalm 19:14 says my words and my thoughts you see. That here in this unknown place to me God was aware; and I called out for him to give me a word.
Another provision, beyond measure: In the end next to me, also receiving from appendicitis surgery the same day as mine was a young Czech man also fluent in English. He would translate for me when the nurses came in with medications to inject or swallow. I was glad to know what was going into my body! As we talked we laughed and watching each other holding our torsos because of the pain from laughing made it all the more funny! What a God send! I talked about my faith, he talked about his questions. Instead of spending the week in a retreat setting with resident witnesses of Jesus encouraging and teaching them I was given opportunity for front line practice! I understand the mind and heart of a Czech man whom Jesus loves better than I ever would have experienced otherwise. What a redemptive strand.
At the close of the week I said to him, I appreciate your friendship and help to em this week I del that God arranged for you to be here beside me. His joking retort: Oh! So it was your God that made me sick with appendicitis.
Oh well--maybe that is why I was just given the front line assignment for one week rather than long term.
It did create within me a special heart for our agency sending witnesses into this very God unaware nation. Empower them and sustain them Father! Make their lives and witness fruitful.
Email messages which I only had access to through the data plan on my Blackberry at times routed reply messages to another email address of mine so I thought people were ignoring my mail. Later I found their responses but at the time I was unaware.
But God met me. He met me in his Word. I was reading through Psalms during this trip--and what better place to be when one is laid up medically or for other out of control reasons. Psalm 19:14 says my words and my thoughts you see. That here in this unknown place to me God was aware; and I called out for him to give me a word.
Another provision, beyond measure: In the end next to me, also receiving from appendicitis surgery the same day as mine was a young Czech man also fluent in English. He would translate for me when the nurses came in with medications to inject or swallow. I was glad to know what was going into my body! As we talked we laughed and watching each other holding our torsos because of the pain from laughing made it all the more funny! What a God send! I talked about my faith, he talked about his questions. Instead of spending the week in a retreat setting with resident witnesses of Jesus encouraging and teaching them I was given opportunity for front line practice! I understand the mind and heart of a Czech man whom Jesus loves better than I ever would have experienced otherwise. What a redemptive strand.
At the close of the week I said to him, I appreciate your friendship and help to em this week I del that God arranged for you to be here beside me. His joking retort: Oh! So it was your God that made me sick with appendicitis.
Oh well--maybe that is why I was just given the front line assignment for one week rather than long term.
It did create within me a special heart for our agency sending witnesses into this very God unaware nation. Empower them and sustain them Father! Make their lives and witness fruitful.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Reflecting One Year Later -- October 23-25
I had planned the whole trip, already scheduled close to a year ago, to speak at the European worker retreat for our organization--and indeed the retreat was occurring but I was not attending. Instead I was in a hospital bed in Prague, Czech Republic receiving from appendicitis surgery.
I had arrived from Cardiff, Wales in Prague feeling lousy but assuming it was flu from the daughter of our hosts in Wales. A hope for a night of sleep to "sleep it off" was spent tossing and turning with an intense stomach ache--quite some heavy duty Wales Yorkshire pudding not agreeing with me. But the next morning it was still there and my traveling companion took me to see the doctor. Here the events began which show a divine orchestrating hand.
The hotel provided a taxi to take me to the clinic. Had we simply walked to the street as I wanted to and flagged a taxi rather than waiting for the hotel taxi to arrive the normal taxi would have driven away when we arrived at the first hospital which proved unsatisfactory for foreigners since the doctors did not speak English. The hotel taxi driver took us as his responsibility to see I got appropriate care. He drove us to the University hospital where tourists were supposed to go.
The diagnosing doctor later told me she learned her medical English by watching "Grey's Anatomy". She knew medicine and she knew English but not the appropriate English medical terms so her patients easily understood what she was diagnosing.
After tests and a second opinion she surprised me by saying: Mr Kauffman, we are diagnosing acute appendicitis and recommend immediate surgery. I asked could I get on a plane and go home to America? It is your choice but you must sign a waiver that you did not accept our recommendation she replied; that struck some seriousness into me.
She asked me to return 40 minutes later with a decision.
I discussed with my traveling partner. He advised me that air flights left for the USA in the morning and it was now past noon, this meant I would need to wait almost a day until I could even be on a plane to start the 9 hour flight to America.
I called June hoping she would say, Oh come home and be close to us. But she said, Well, OK, get it done, do not take the chance!
I called my medical doctor brother-in-law. He was up early deer hunting and said he felt certain in the USA I would get the same diagnosis and same recommendation for surgery.
I then realized that the prayer my traveling partner had told me he was praying that our counsel and information would all point in the same direction so that thee excision that should be made would be clear had been answered. It all pointed to getting the surgery done in Prague and I was at the best hospital in the country.
OK, I said to the doctor, let's do it.
Two hours later I had been prepped for surgery and was wheeled to the OR, but not before my church CCF had put the request on their pray mail and people were already praying.
I felt vulnerable stripped of all my possessions including my wedding ring laying on the gurney very naked, very alone wondering: if they mixed up my identity would I have trouble proving who I was? One of the last things I remember was a doctor asking me who I was and what I was there for and then I was waking up in a hospital bed in a room which was to be my home for the next 5 days so sore in my side I could not easily move. Pressed into the bed from the trauma of the incision in my side.
Later I learned from the doctor that the surgery was not easy, my appendix was already rupturing and they needed to handle it carefully. Had I foolishly insisted in going back to America so circumstances would be more familiar the appendix would have ruptured long before I got there.
Why did God not intervene with healing the appendix rather than clearly giving directions and wisdom into the decision. It seems there would have been less pieces to coordinate. However, we do not chose how God moves, we pray, but we do not dictate. We exercise faith based on the word the Lord speaks into our situation; He chooses the word.
In short: The sun does not revolve around us we revolve around the Son.
--Glenn Kauffman
I had arrived from Cardiff, Wales in Prague feeling lousy but assuming it was flu from the daughter of our hosts in Wales. A hope for a night of sleep to "sleep it off" was spent tossing and turning with an intense stomach ache--quite some heavy duty Wales Yorkshire pudding not agreeing with me. But the next morning it was still there and my traveling companion took me to see the doctor. Here the events began which show a divine orchestrating hand.
The hotel provided a taxi to take me to the clinic. Had we simply walked to the street as I wanted to and flagged a taxi rather than waiting for the hotel taxi to arrive the normal taxi would have driven away when we arrived at the first hospital which proved unsatisfactory for foreigners since the doctors did not speak English. The hotel taxi driver took us as his responsibility to see I got appropriate care. He drove us to the University hospital where tourists were supposed to go.
The diagnosing doctor later told me she learned her medical English by watching "Grey's Anatomy". She knew medicine and she knew English but not the appropriate English medical terms so her patients easily understood what she was diagnosing.
After tests and a second opinion she surprised me by saying: Mr Kauffman, we are diagnosing acute appendicitis and recommend immediate surgery. I asked could I get on a plane and go home to America? It is your choice but you must sign a waiver that you did not accept our recommendation she replied; that struck some seriousness into me.
She asked me to return 40 minutes later with a decision.
I discussed with my traveling partner. He advised me that air flights left for the USA in the morning and it was now past noon, this meant I would need to wait almost a day until I could even be on a plane to start the 9 hour flight to America.
I called June hoping she would say, Oh come home and be close to us. But she said, Well, OK, get it done, do not take the chance!
I called my medical doctor brother-in-law. He was up early deer hunting and said he felt certain in the USA I would get the same diagnosis and same recommendation for surgery.
I then realized that the prayer my traveling partner had told me he was praying that our counsel and information would all point in the same direction so that thee excision that should be made would be clear had been answered. It all pointed to getting the surgery done in Prague and I was at the best hospital in the country.
OK, I said to the doctor, let's do it.
Two hours later I had been prepped for surgery and was wheeled to the OR, but not before my church CCF had put the request on their pray mail and people were already praying.
I felt vulnerable stripped of all my possessions including my wedding ring laying on the gurney very naked, very alone wondering: if they mixed up my identity would I have trouble proving who I was? One of the last things I remember was a doctor asking me who I was and what I was there for and then I was waking up in a hospital bed in a room which was to be my home for the next 5 days so sore in my side I could not easily move. Pressed into the bed from the trauma of the incision in my side.
Later I learned from the doctor that the surgery was not easy, my appendix was already rupturing and they needed to handle it carefully. Had I foolishly insisted in going back to America so circumstances would be more familiar the appendix would have ruptured long before I got there.
Why did God not intervene with healing the appendix rather than clearly giving directions and wisdom into the decision. It seems there would have been less pieces to coordinate. However, we do not chose how God moves, we pray, but we do not dictate. We exercise faith based on the word the Lord speaks into our situation; He chooses the word.
In short: The sun does not revolve around us we revolve around the Son.
--Glenn Kauffman
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Reflecting one year later -- October 18 & 19
One year ago a rather unexpected turn in the road started. June and I were in the car on our way to Dulles airport -- rather than the closer and much more user friendly and familiar BWI airport. June was upset that I was headed out on another trip and upset that she needed to take me to the airport; not just the airport but hard to get to traffic congested Dulles! June told me how she was really feeling about this arrangement of living between Baltimore and Washington D C and me working part of the week out of an office in PA and allowing my ministry commitments to ooze across boundaries and absorb almost all of my energy. It was not pretty, not very complimentary to me--I did not feel like a very good husband, and I am afraid June would have rightly agreed.
I got on the plane to Wales with a heavy heart. Enroute, as is my custom, I journaled. "God, please help me, what should I do?" I wrote. I was aware the I needed to take June's cry seriously. And I knew that my commitment was for my marriage to survive and grow in increasing health. If necessary I would step out of my role with the mission I worked in as the international director. But as I recall from the vantage point now, I was ready to do it, if she really said that was what was necessary. I was ready to sacrifice if she knew I was sacrificing--if June was unable to handle this life we had been living the past two years since returning from Hong Kong. OK let me say it; if she was weak I could be strong and sacrifice.
Arriving in Wales the morning of the 19th I wrote a prayer asking God to not let us give way to despair but to pursue God's purpose for us. I was conscious that I was entering a land where a very significant revival had flamed into existence that is still referenced today as a great move of God. And so I wrote: "Lord, here in Wales is there a revival you will spring forth in my life? Please?
I was about to get my world rocked that would put its finger on what needed to transform within me much more than June. It would take 49 weeks to move into the start of the new season which means it is just starting this month.
New ministry sphere: as a pastor rather than a mission director. As a bishop with a focus in a region with global connections rather than as a global leader with some local connections. But that is getting ahead of the story.
--Glenn Kauffman
I got on the plane to Wales with a heavy heart. Enroute, as is my custom, I journaled. "God, please help me, what should I do?" I wrote. I was aware the I needed to take June's cry seriously. And I knew that my commitment was for my marriage to survive and grow in increasing health. If necessary I would step out of my role with the mission I worked in as the international director. But as I recall from the vantage point now, I was ready to do it, if she really said that was what was necessary. I was ready to sacrifice if she knew I was sacrificing--if June was unable to handle this life we had been living the past two years since returning from Hong Kong. OK let me say it; if she was weak I could be strong and sacrifice.
Arriving in Wales the morning of the 19th I wrote a prayer asking God to not let us give way to despair but to pursue God's purpose for us. I was conscious that I was entering a land where a very significant revival had flamed into existence that is still referenced today as a great move of God. And so I wrote: "Lord, here in Wales is there a revival you will spring forth in my life? Please?
I was about to get my world rocked that would put its finger on what needed to transform within me much more than June. It would take 49 weeks to move into the start of the new season which means it is just starting this month.
New ministry sphere: as a pastor rather than a mission director. As a bishop with a focus in a region with global connections rather than as a global leader with some local connections. But that is getting ahead of the story.
--Glenn Kauffman
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