September 9, 2009

Connection Restored

2009 1525 page14 capicki’s dead.

 
She died last weekend, a week ago today. Her house was like a fortress with high walls and a padlocked gate. The police had to break into her house to find her. She died alone. They buried her at 11:00 o’clock last Thursday morning.
 
Friends Forever
Vicki and I grew up together as kids in the same church. We were part of a large group of teenagers in the Avondale church. We did things together. It was sort of a family church. There was little pairing off—just a bunch of girls and boys, mostly girls, doing things together.
 
We all went to the prayer meeting each week. We picked one another up, sat together in church, and went out for milkshakes afterward. Then we took the girls home. I doubled Vicki on my bike; none of us had cars.
 
It was the same on Sabbath. We did things together. Saturday nights we all usually met at someone’s home. We sang around the piano and played games. Then we doubled the girls home on our bikes before heading home ourselves. They were simple times, wonderful times.

As we grew into our late teens we all split up and went different directions. It seems that most of the group drifted out of the church. Vicki left the church as well. Where did they go? Only God knows.
 
An Unexpected Pleasure
My wife and I were on our annual pilgrimage, visiting my parents in New Zealand. The two Sabbaths we were in Auckland we visited the old church where I grew up. The outside of the church looked about the same, but the inside somehow seemed smaller. I saw lots of faces I didn’t recognize.
 
2009 1525 page14I spoke to the church that Sabbath morning, and as I spoke I noticed a stranger—a woman—sitting against the wall on the left side, three rows from the front. After talking to friends after the service, I went to the car. My wife, Marj, came running up and said, “Don’t you know that woman over there? Don’t you recognize her? It’s Vicki!” It was the same woman I had noticed inside the church.
 
“You’re joking!” I said.
 
“I’m not,” Marj replied. “She recognized you. Come and speak to her.”
 
I went over and hugged her.
 
Then she told me why she was back at church.
 
A Personal Invitation
Several weeks earlier Vicki had heard a voice one Sabbath morning: “This is the Sabbath; you ought to be in church.”
 
She ignored it, but she heard it again the following week. As she had arranged to visit a friend that Sabbath, she attended church the following Sabbath. She had not attended church in many years. She knew practically no one, but she was made to feel welcome. She had been attending church the three or four weeks prior to our visit. No one knew that we knew each other, so no one told me Vicki was there.
 
It was wet that Sabbath afternoon when we dropped Vicki off at her home. She had to unlock the padlock and open the gate to get through the high fence.
 
Next Sabbath I made a point of telling the church how thrilled I was to see Vicki. We hugged again after the service. I never saw her again.
 
The week after we returned to Australia, I wrote to the church folk and asked them to nurture and care for Vicki—a special person who had been lost, but now was found. Vicki was rejoicing in the church fellowship and renewing her experience with the Lord.
 
My dad wrote to us: “Vicki phoned at noon, and we had a lovely visit by phone. It was wonderful speaking to her. She is bubbling over with joy at having again found her Lord after being out in the world however many years, and is experiencing joy in witnessing to her friends of the love of Jesus in caring for her and bringing her back to the Lord.”
 
The friends we had stayed with, and to whom I had written, called us a few days later, just after midday. Marj took the call. She came to me and said it was a call from New Zealand. “Is it my dad?” I asked.
 
“No,” she said, “they just found Vicki. She’s dead.”
 

What Do You Think?
 

1. What memories about church from your
childhood and youth do you recall with fondness? Why those?

2. As we get older, what distractions typically interfere with the joyful enthusiasm of our youth?

3.  What role does the local church play in keeping its young people involved and engaged? Is it spontaneous, or does it have to be planned?


4.
What concrete strategies should every congregation implement to keep its youth and young adults close? List at least five.


Vicki hadn’t attended church that Sabbath. The church folk were concerned. Earlier, she was planning to attend a prayer meeting, and someone was going to pick her up, but there was no answer to her phone. Her sister was contacted, and at her request the police were called. They broke into Vicki’s home and found her. Vicki had been diabetic all her life, and it seems she suffered a diabetic coma and died a few days earlier.

 
I wept. To renew a friendship after our short visit, and after so long a time, then have it broken again.
 
Then I rejoiced. Wasn’t God good to her! He spoke to her. She answered by attending the Adventist church, was accepted by the church family, and rejoiced in that contact. We met, and I know that she was touched, as was I.
 
What if Marj hadn’t come with me on that trip? No one else may have told me that Vicki was there. Vicki never married and was living alone. We hugged in an expression of joy and caring. I was able to express my joy to her and to the church and ask them to care for her. And for the remaining four weeks of her life, it did.
 
At the funeral church members cared for Vicki’s family and friends. A friend commented: “It was an excellent service. A gentleman there was impressed by what the church was doing, including the catering afterward. He was also impressed by the service and said it almost converted him.”
 
Short as it was, Vicki witnessed to the end.
 
That’s why I rejoiced after the initial shock of hearing the news of her death. Vicki sleeps; but the Lord will awaken her. That’s good news! 
 
 
___________
Daryl Martin, an ordained minister, wrote this from Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia.     
 
 

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