Sharon and I met Don and his wife Ann when we began to attend the First Baptist Church in Newburyport. We both attended the new members’ class. During that time, Don was recovering from a stroke and had almost severed his index finger on a table saw. He had to have a metal insert in his forefinger, and for weeks he was in a cast and sling which caused him to have his right index finger at shoulder level, pointing to the sky. Don was a retired carpenter, and ex-military, 101st Airborne special forces group, having served in WWII in the Pacific.
During the time that the First Baptist Church was going through the turmoil in dealing with the Gifts of the Spirit and new worship style, I came to know Don in a new way. One Sunday Morning, during the morning service at First Baptist, I was praying and pondering the fate of First Baptist Church, whether the leadership was strong enough or capable to carry it through this time of conflict. I was looking around the sanctuary and my eyes fell on the three members of the morning worship band at the right front of the church.
These three men were known as “the three old farts” by the leadership of the church. They were seen as old aggravators. Don played the bass drum, Walter played the trumpet, and Justus played the trombone. Don and Justus worked together several days a week maintaining the old church buildings and were seen as getting in everyone’s hair about the work, and Walter had a ministry to the elderly at local area Nursing homes. Walter wanted to be acknowledged as a minister, supported by the church in his ministry, and ran into conflict with the pastor and leadership over a title and support for his work.
As I was looking at the three of them the Lord spoke to my heart: “These are my three strongest warriors.” I was amazed. How could this be? Thinking that this was unbelievable, and just my imagination, the Lord spoke again to my heart. “Their strength as my warriors lays in the first three Beatitudes.” I grabbed Sharon’s Bible and looked for the Beatitudes. I knew they were in Mathew. “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Don was first in line and this applied to him. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This applied to Walter. He was passionate about the Lord and his work with the elderly. He very often wept in talking about both. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Justus was the meekest man in the church, and had been a member of the church, with his wife, since he was a teen, over 50 years.
It was not too much longer after this time that I happened to meet Don on the sidewalk in Newburyport. As we were talking, I felt the Spirit urge me to encourage Don. I told him that I felt like the Lord was telling me that He was going to use Don in a powerful way, and come very close to him, and that there would come a time when people would line up to have Don pray for them and minister to them.
It was several weeks later that Ann, Don’s wife, called me, concerned about Don. She said that he had not been sleeping and was claiming that God was talking to him at night. Ann was a nurse and deeply concerned for her husband. I told Ann that I thought the Lord was filling him with His Spirit, preparing to use him.
Later, I talked with Don, and he told me, again, what Ann reported. Don said he heard the audible voice of the Lord speak to him, saying “Remember the first prophet.” Don did not know what a prophet was, let alone who the first prophet was. This started Don on a path that would bless his family and many others.
Don Arrives
At the second church group meeting at our home, Don arrived at the door. He was surprised to see me when I opened the door for him. He said the Lord told him to get in his car and drive. As he was driving, He told him where to turn, and Don eventually ended up at our front door. He didn’t know I lived here.
I was concerned. The group had already started, and Don came in and sat in the chair that I was sitting in. I was worried that this was going to be the end of the group. Don seemed unstable.
As others began to talk, I remembered a dream I had the night before. I don’t know whether it was a dream or a vision because it was so real. I was watching a man crawl through the desert, and he was dying of thirst. He was a well to do guy with a business suit, shoes and tie, etc., but they were ragged and dirty. I watched him crawl to the top of a sand dune where he found an earthen bowl filled with water. He looked at the water and saw that there was dust and sand in it.
After looking at the water for several minutes, he crawled on. I remember screaming out, “NO” in my bed, knowing that he would die. I asked the Lord why he would not drink and save his life, and the Lord spoke to my heart: “He will only drink from a silver chalice.”
As I was sitting in our meeting, I realized that I was the man in the desert, and the Lord was offering me a drink. Don was filled with the Spirit, but I perceived him as “gritty” and unstable. I began to sweat profusely. Here I was a leader, called by God, to this new group which could be over any minute. What was everybody going to think? It was ten or fifteen minutes of this ongoing debate inside of me, before I had the courage to do what I felt the Lord was telling me to do.
In front of the group, I asked Don to pray for me. He smiled and came around behind me and laid his hands on my shoulders. I was unbelievably blessed and thankful to Don and the Lord. Don and I became close and the Lord began using him in powerful ways not only within our group, but also with the leadership at the Melrose Vineyard. The Melrose Vineyard leadership met several times with Don to have him minister to them.
Don’s Miracle
It was June, one year after Don had open heart surgery, an incredibly hot day, and Don had asked me to help him remove a large oak tree that had fallen in his son’s yard in Amesbury. A wind storm had blown the tree over, and part of it was in his son’s neighbor’s yard, with the trunk resting on the corner of the garage foundation, four feet in the air.
We trimmed the branches off the oak and proceeded to cut the trunk in sections. As we were doing this, the chain saw got pinched or stuck in one of the cuts, and we needed a way to relieve the tension on the saw blade by lifting up the trunk. We found a six foot section of nailed together two by lumber and decided to use it to try to pry up the Trunk to release the pressure on the blade. As I pushed to leverage up the trunk, Don was going to pull the chain saw out, and as I did this, tragedy struck. The Oak trunk, four feet in the air, slipped off the corner of the foundation, and onto the nailed together planks crushing Don to the ground, hitting him on the top of the knee and pinning his leg to the ground, with the large oak on top of the plank. Don’s leg was twisted in the opposite direction from where it should have been.
I was horrified. I called out to God for Don. I lifted the plank with one hand and pulled Don with the other to get his leg out from under the plank and tree. Don’s leg was a mess. From above his knee down, his pant leg was ripped off, and Don was crying out in pain, with what looked like a very serious leg injury. The whole front of the lower leg was badly scraped, and just below his knee, what looked like a broken bone was causing a huge protrusion under his skin, and this was red and black, with his foot turned the wrong way.
I fell to my knees, calling out to the Lord, and placed my hand over the protrusion on his leg. Don cried out not to touch it. I was now the size of a tennis ball. We were crying out for the Lord to heal Don. It was extremely hot weather, and I knew I had to call an ambulance.
Don asked me to get him to the steps of his son’s back door, which I did, and by the time we got to the steps, the protruding lump below Don’s knee was totally gone, and the discoloration was gone. I took Don inside the house where it was cool, and while he was sitting on the couch, very pale, he said the Lord told him to get up and walk, which he did.
I called Ann, Don’s wife, a nurse at Anna Jacques Hospital, and explained what had occurred in the best way I could. She said if he was walking and not in pain he was OK.
We had lunch and went back out to finish cutting up the tree. The weight of the trunk had pushed the flat side of the planks which were on Don’s leg, two inches into the ground. Don asked how I could lift that kind of weight off him. I told him I didn’t remember it being that heavy.
Sharon, Surgery
Sharon’s doctor advised that she have a hysterectomy and should have it done right away. Sharon was hesitant because her health benefits for the operation would not be effective for some time. We had not talked to anybody about this but were concerned.
One afternoon, Don and Ann showed up and we invited them to have lunch with us on our back patio. It was a beautiful summer day. During lunch, Don told Sharon that the Lord had told him everything was going to be OK, and not to worry about the operation. He said that the doctor would be so elated with the operation that he would be jumping up and down.
Sharon and I were amazed. I thought she might have told Ann, but she said she hadn’t. At the time I thought Don was getting carried away and exaggerating the doctor jumping up and down thing, to make Sharon feel more comfortable. At that time, a hysterectomy was no small matter. It was painful and a long recovery with a two-week hospital stay after the operation.
Two months later, Sharon’s doctor scheduled the surgery. Her doctor was one of the most well-known and recommended gynecologists on the North Shore. On the day of the surgery, Sharon was in pre-op for a long time. She had agreed to have the doctor perform a new type of surgery: arthroscopic surgery. The operation before Sharon, which was causing the delay, was taking much longer than expected. We found out later that Sharon was only the second patient of the doctors to have this done. The first procedure was right before Sharon that morning.
It was late afternoon when the doctor came to see me in the waiting room to tell me about Sharon. He was incredibly excited, and while he was telling me how well the surgery went with this new procedure, he was jumping up and down. He said they were going to keep Sharon overnight, and that she should be able to go home the next day. I immediately thought of Don’s word to us and was incredibly thankful to the Lord. Sharon had no pain and was home in two days!
The group continued to meet and grew to twenty or thirty people. They were wonderful times. Many were saved, and many filled with the Holy Spirit.