Monday, April 7, 2014

ESCAPE - Chapter 13

   After lunch I went to the hospital to see Mrs. Alfritz.
   “Mrs. Alfritz, I’m sorry that you are sick and in the hospital. What is the matter?”
   “Pastor, I am so afraid. I went to the doctor yesterday because I was so weak and short of breath and I just didn’t feel well. After the doctor checked me over, he told one of his nurses to take me over to the hospital for some more tests. At the hospital they put me in a wheel chair and took me to several places for tests. Then they took me to the Emergency Room and put me in one of the examination rooms. The doctor gave me a shot that made me woozy. After a long time, my doctor came in to see me. He told me that he was admitting me to the hospital.
   “This morning, he came in and told me that he was almost certain that I had had a heart attack sometime before I came to his office, maybe several days ago. He said that heart attacks in women often go unrecognized because they can have symptoms different than heart attacks in men. Also, people just don’t expect women to have heart attacks. Later this morning, they will give me an echocardiogram. The hospital will send the results to Heart Clinic Arkansas by facsimile. One of the cardiologists there will read it and then advise the hospital here how to proceed. Believe you me, I am scared.”
   “Mrs. Alfritz, I can understand your fears. Let us pray and put it all in the hands of the Lord. He is the one who made your heart in the first place. He is in control of all things. Let’s ask him to bless and guide the technicians and doctors who are analyzing your problem and deciding how to treat it.”
   I read a Psalm, had prayer with Mrs. Alfritz, and ended it with the Lord’s Prayer.
   “How has your husband taken the news?”
   “I haven’t told him the truth about it. I told him it was a bad case of indigestion, but the doctor made me stay overnight.”
   “I think the Lord would want you to tell him the truth.”
   “Would you tell him, Pastor?”
   “No. After you tell him, I’ll be glad to talk to him about it and pray with him also. You have to tell him first. I am going now. I’ll check back on you in a couple days.”
I went back to the office and called Joe Sheetz.
   “Joshua, I received the money. I told you that you didn’t have to be in a hurry about paying it back. I wanted to talk to you about the Minister’s Data Form. First, I want you to get busy and fill it out and send it back to me this week. Second, let Diane type it for you. She’ll do a better job than if you did it. Have a picture taken this week. Third, you need an address. Use the Presbytery’s address. Any inquiries that come, we can forward them to you wherever you are at the time. Fourth, do you know where you would like to move? I could call the Presbytery exec in the presbyteries near there and find out if there are any openings.”
   “Thank you, Joe. This is all closing in on me so fast. In the beginning of December I am going out to west Texas to see one of my sons. He was never married, but now he has a girl friend that he is very serious about. I’d like to meet her. I could take a couple extra days and meet an exec or a committee in West Texas while I am out there. From there I am going to Montana and I will be there at least until the New Year. Thank you for your help and your prayers.”
   I looked at the pages of the form on my desk. Then I had an idea.
   “Diane, please make me three copies of each page of this form. I am going to use them to make a rough draft using a ballpoint pen. Then, when I am satisfied with a page, I will ask you to type the answers on the good form. I plan to work on this and have it finished by this evening. Then I would like for you to put typing that form at the top of your list tomorrow.”
   “Yes, Reverend Sterner, I’ll do a good job for you.”
   The rest of the day and evening I worked on the form until I was satisfied that it was the best that I could do. All the time I was working on it, I knew in my heart that I was just not searching for a new pastorate. I was wanting to escape – but escape from what?  
   On Wednesday, while Diane was typing the form, I went to the photographer and asked if he could make ten 4”x6” photos of me and have them ready in a couple hours. In this age of digital photography and computers he was able to do that for me. In the older technology of film, which still makes better pictures, he would not have been able to do it.
   With Diane’s dedicated work and the photographer’s cooperation I was able to get the data form in the mail to Joe Sheetz that afternoon.
   On the form where it asked my preference of presbyteries I put Tres Rios and Palo Duro in Texas, Pueblo and Plains and Peaks in Colorado, Wyoming in Wyoming, Yellowstone and Glacier in Montana. In my selection I was trying to stay away from cities and presbyteries with big churches.
   That evening I called the Alfritz home but there was no answer. I went to the hospital and asked one of the nurses about Mrs. Alfritz. She opened a chart on her desk, acted like she had something she had to do in it. She wrote on a piece of paper “She was transferred to St. Vincent’s”. I realized that with HIPPA she wasn’t supposed to tell me.
   I went home, fixed supper, then sprawled on the sofa and before I knew it, I was asleep.
   The next day I went to St. Vincent’s in Little Rock. I found out that Mrs. Alfritz was in the heart unit. I found Mr. Alfritz in the cardiac waiting room. He told me that his wife was having an arteriogram. When it was complete, the cardiologist would come out and tell Mr. Alfritz what they had found.
   Mr. Alfritz was very upset. It had made the shock to him worse to think she was in the hospital for indigestion and then suddenly find out that she had had a heart attack and that they were transferring her to a Little Rock hospital for a test that was almost like an operation.
I had prayer with Mr. Alfritz and decided to wait with him until the doctor came out to tell him what they found out.
   At first our conversation was difficult. Mr. and Mrs. Alfritz had never been friendly to me or to Laura. They kept a distance between us. I found out that Mr. Alfritz had been a land surveyor for the Cotton Belt Railroad until that railroad was bought and merged into the Union Pacific Railway. He liked working outdoors. He still did some surveying work from time to time “to keep his hand in”.
   “Preacher, where do you expect that you will go after you leave here?”
   “I don’t know, Mr. Alfritz.”
   “Well, I don’t think it will take them long before they are sorry that they let you go.”
   “I’d rather not talk about that.”
   He wasn’t about to end that line of conversation.
   “No, sir. They’ll get some woman preacher, or maybe some youngster just out of seminary, a smartypants who thinks he knows it all. Maybe they’ll get some preacher who will come here from someplace else with his tail on fire – been in trouble and can’t get out of town quick enough. Let’s face it. We are a small town. Our church isn’t very big. The salary we pay is in the low tier of salaries in this presbytery. We have been lucky to have you. I doubt if we will be that lucky again.”
   Thank the Lord, the doctor came out before Mr. Alfritz could enlarge on that subject. When he came back, he told me what the doctor said.
   “Mabel, has two blockages. They put in two stints. They are going to see how the stints work out. If they don’t work out, then the next step would be bypass surgery. They said that she may be released this evening depending on how she soon she comes out of Recovey.”
“I’ll be leaving you now, Mr. Alfritz. Let’s have a prayer of thanksgiving for the good news you’ve received.”
   I had been with Mr. Alfritz several hours at least. I went to the cafeteria. The hot food lines were closed, but I was able to get a sandwich, an orange juice, and some pudding.
   When I returned to Prattsville, the church office was already closed. I went home, fixed supper and watched the evening news on television. The rest of the evening I began work on the sermon “Soli Deo Gloria” (only to God be the glory). I decided on three points for the sermon 1) What do we mean by “the glory of God”? 2) How is the glory of God manifested to us? 3) The glory of God is the goal of the Christian’s life.
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   At Camp Dawson that Friday night Nathaniel was alone in the trailer  This would be his billets for the next several weeks. He was having a real crisis of identity. He no longer knew for sure who he was or who he wanted to be. After ten years in the Army Special Forces, he had become hardened to people. They were either fighting alongside of him or they were the enemy. Three tours of duty “in the sandbox”, Iraq and Afghanistan, had made him suspicious and uncomfortable around civilians. The only people he trusted were the men in his unit. He had heard of too many instances of Iraqis or Afghanis dressed in the uniforms of their army or police turning their weapons on American military personnel. He had developed a “them and us” attitude. Moreover, several years of unconventional warfare had destroyed his confidence in his own moral behavior or the ability of others to act in a just and ethical way.
   Being around his father and being around Joy made him realize that there are people outside his unit whom he could trust. Being with Joy and her children was making him question if he wanted to continue being a soldier. That was another part of his identity crisis.
   Still another part was the nightmares and dreams. He had to keep them secret because they could cause him to be put out of Special Forces and into some “Wounded Warrior” unit going back and forth to medical appointments, counseling sessions, and supervising other, lower ranking, wounded warriors while they policed the company area or set up chairs for a concert. Maybe it would just straighten itself out. If he had to go back over there for another tour, he didn’t think he would ever get straightened out.
   Tomorrow evening the troops would be arriving. They would be worn out. They would leave their armories early in the morning, ride in trucks or in buses to Biggs Army Airfield where they would board a chartered aircraft or maybe a military plane and fly to Morgantown, West Virginia. From there they would ride on buses to Camp Dawson. When they arrived, they would be issued tents, winter sleeping bags, and meals ready to eat for tonight and tomorrow.  
   Nathaniel knew that he would be out there among the troops eating ready to eats, putting up a tent, and sleeping in a sleeping bag. And he would have to do those things when they went out in the field. Over two weeks he would be with them in the winter cold, clambering up stone strewn slopes, perched on rocky ledges, listening for the sounds of another group playing “infiltrators”. Every other time it had been fun to him. He had taken pride in the training he had given. Now he was dreading it.
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   That Saturday night Tom’s family were guests at the home of Ofelia’s parents. Tom was looking forward to Rubin Costello asking him what was new at his law office. Instead Ofelia’s parents went on and on about that nice four-bedroom house just a few streets over. What a pity it is that their daughter and her husband couldn’t buy it. Her mother said,
“Dear, I just don’t know how you can live like that with three children crammed into one bedroom. I truly believe that even families living in the housing complexes built by the Castro government have better living accommodations than that.”
   Tom said, “Ofelia and her daughters have a good man, even if I am the only one here who will say so. I don’t cheat on her, I’m not a drunk, I don’t gamble, and I manage our money responsibly. The little house where we live is paid for. It is adequate for our present needs. Our girls are growing. Someday it will be too small. By then I hope to have saved enough money to buy a bigger and better house.
   "My law practice is growing. I have been responsible in my business. A lot of law firms go belly-up the first couple years. My business does not have any debt at all. I started with business no one else wanted. I have handled hundreds of little cases. One thing they have earned for me is a good reputation. These hundreds of little cases have shown the business community that I am a lawyer with integrity. Sometimes I was working for no payment in money.
   “Now it is starting to pay off. I am starting to receive proposals from the business community. My girls are growing, but my business is growing along with them. If I would rush out and buy a house that I can’t afford right now, I would lose the house I now own, I would lose my business, and I would lose my good name.”
   Embarrassed, the others at the table switched to speaking in Spanish.


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