This picture of my mother and I was taken just before Joanne and I entered into the MTC in Provo and subsequently left for Europe in early September 2019.
I have been wanting to add this story to the blog for a while,
but things have been very busy here in the Europe Area with the COVID-19 virus.
On Monday, February 10th I had just finished a
long day of counseling with seven missionaries and had updated their files in
the computer. Joanne and I had just gotten back from a grocery run to Metro about
9:30 p.m. when I received an urgent call for help. A missionary from a neighboring mission in
Germany, who had suffered a psychotic break, was being transported to Frankfurt
in order to catch a flight home the next morning. It was very important to get
him home to his parents and high-quality care in the US right away. One of my colleagues, a fellow mental health
counselor, was escorting him along with another senior missionary from his
mission. Unfortunately, when they arrived
at the Frankfurt train station the Elder took off and left the escorts when
they looked away for a moment.
The urgent call I received was a request to go to downtown
Frankfurt and look for this young missionary. A good number of fellow
missionaries (young and old) scoured downtown Frankfurt late at night looking
for him in vain.
Tender Mercy #1: The police captain at the train station that
night was a member of our church. Even
though the normal policy was to not process missing persons for 24 hours, he
saw to it that this young man’s picture was sent to all local police asking
them to look out for him. After three
hours of being missing, the police found him sitting on a street curb two
kilometers away with no shoes and very disoriented. Rather than process him at the main police
station, where he would have likely been admitted to a psychiatric unit of a
local hospital where even his parents would have had difficulty intervening on
his behalf, he was transported back to the train station and put back into our
care.
Unfortunately for my older colleague, who joined with us in
searching for this missionary on the wet streets of Frankfurt that night, had
slipped and fell and hit his head hard enough require stitches. He could no longer escort this missionary to the
US. Since it was imperative to have a
mental health professional escort this missionary home, I volunteered to do
so. My left hip had been bothering me
quite a lot and all the walking around that night had aggravated it. Two other senior missionaries stayed in the
same room with this young man to ensure that he didn’t flee again. He was hallucinating, seeing things that were
not there and was very paranoid. We had
him taking anti-psychotic medication, but it was only marginally effective.
The flight in the morning required us to leave our
apartment at around 6:30 am.
Unfortunately, instead of getting two or three hours of sleep after
quickly packing for the trip, I couldn’t sleep at all due to the pain in my
hip.
The other escorting senior missionary was a very nice guy
but had very little experience flying internationally. He required a lot of
assistance in addition to our psychotic missionary who had demonstrated he was
a flight risk. Having over 30 years of international travel experience was a
real benefit in lowering my stress. I had to take charge of our little group
flying from Frankfurt, Germany to JFK airport in New York, then to Minneapolis
and finally to Omaha, Nebraska. Not a great itinerary with a flight risk as our
charge.
Fortunately, the young missionary was lucid enough to
clear German customs and the security checkpoint with some coaching from me.
However, a surprise awaited as we had to board a bus to take us to our plane
out on the tarmac. As the young
missionary approached the bus with me by his side and saw how packed it was
with people, he stopped and said, “I can’t do that”. It turned out that he was also
claustrophobic! With some urging, he got on the bus. Once seated, I had him
close his eyes and with my hand on his shoulder for comfort, I had him do
breathing exercises repeatedly to help him calm down. With some further reluctance, he succeeded in
getting on the plane and we were off to the USA for the first flight of nine-hours.
With divine intervention and more coaching, he was able to
clear US customs and we made our way to another concourse for our flight to
Minneapolis after a three-hour layover. With
a psychotic missionary that was a flight risk, every movement had to be managed
and worse-case scenarios considered.
Even going to the bathroom required all three of us to make sure the
door was protected while he was in there.
Walking with the other missionary in the lead and me taking up the rear
with a hand free to hold onto the young man if he tried to wander off. Having to be acutely aware and managing the
situation all the time was what was required.
Tender Mercy #2: It
seems ridiculous to number these, since there were numerous tender mercies this
whole trip, but I will anyway. During the whole
lengthy ordeal of this trip, I was able to stay alert and largely without pain
even though I had not slept the previous night and had been in a lot of pain
just hours before.
This young man was so scared, and my heart went out to him. He knew something was very wrong but didn’t
know what it was. I continually
reassured him that we were headed to his home where he would be safe and asked
for his cooperation in getting there. I
grew to feel some of God’s love for him and recommitted to do all I was capable
of to get him home safely.
The arrival in Minneapolis and layover was uneventful. As
we boarded the small jet to Omaha, he hesitated a little but ultimately boarded
using his new breathing skills. When we
touched down in Omaha at about 10:30 pm and were able to deliver this fine
young man to his Stake President and parents, it was a massive relief. With God’s help and I believe, angelic
assistance, we had made it. The tearful
parents were very gracious in their thanks for getting their son safely home
for the help he needed. Before I retired
that night, I thanked Heavenly Father for all the tender mercies in our trip
and fell asleep immediately.
My Mother: Before I left for the states, I had been told
by my Mom that her arrhythmia was getting worse and as a result she was finding
it harder to breathe. At almost 86 years
of age and a life-long struggle with asthma and damaged lungs, breathing has
been a challenge in her every-day life for many years. She sounded reasonably upbeat and told me
that she was going to the local hospital in St. George, Utah to get checked
out. I later found out that she was
admitted to the hospital and they were working on ways to get her heart rate to
normal. Since Mom had been in and out of
the hospital a lot, this wasn’t all that alarming.
In Omaha, I laid over one day after returning the
missionary home and got up in the morning of February 13th ready to
fly back to Frankfurt to a very full counseling schedule with my nine missions
in Europe. Appointments with 30 missionaries needed to be rescheduled due to my
last-minute trip to the USA.
Upon arriving at the Omaha airport, I found out my flight
was delayed to Atlanta from where I was supposed connect to my flight to
Frankfurt. The flight delay would cause
me to miss my flight to Frankfurt. I noticed that another flight was leaving
for Atlanta in just 20 minutes. I told the ticket agent that I wanted to be on
that flight. She said, “that’s not
possible, the gate closes in 20 minutes and you haven’t even been through
security yet.”
I told her I would like to try, and she said skeptically,
“Good luck”. When I approached Security, the line was very long and would have
taken longer than 20 minutes to get through.
However, as I looked over to the TSA precheck line, it was empty. I didn’t have a TSA precheck boarding pass,
but I went over there anyway. I
explained my dilemma to the TSA agent, and he let me go through but asked me to
go to the correct line for further screening thus allowing me to jump ahead of
the big group. The scanning booth was
backed up with people but then a TSA agent came over to me and said, “starting
with you, go through this other scanning station”.
I made the flight and was one of the last passengers to
board. At that point I remember
thinking, “Heavenly Father must really want me back in Germany”. Little did I know at that time, there was a
completely different divine plan well underway.
God’s Plan Revealed: Upon arriving in Atlanta, a main Delta
Airlines hub, I learned that my mother was not doing well in the hospital. My flight to Frankfurt was to leave soon and
I was faced with a decision. My choice
was either to fly to St. George and be with my mother and siblings or fly back
to Germany.
As I pondered the sequence of the events of the whole
trip, the Spirit opened my eyes for me to see that it was God’s will that I fly
to Utah to be with my Mom. I then called the Missionary Travel Department and
cancelled my flight and told them what was going on and I would let them know
when I needed to return from St. George, Utah.
At that point, the cost of traveling to Utah was my responsibility. Amazingly, in another instance of God’s hand
in all of this, I was able to fly from Atlanta to St. George and get there by
midnight. The first cost quoted by Delta
was over $1,400 but they ultimately reduced it to under $500.
I arrived in St. George as scheduled, rented a car and
went to a hotel Joanne had arranged. I washed out some clothes and
crashed. The next morning, I got up and
made my way to the hospital Mom was at in St. George. Upon arriving, some of my siblings were already
there. A couple couldn’t be there and some were still on their way. There are
eight of us in our blended family and I am the oldest.
I walked into Mom’s room and her eyes lit up. She was on a breathing machine, not a
ventilator, to help her receive more oxygen.
I hugged her and kissed her and was able express my love for her. She in
return was able to share her love with me. It was a very sweet, tender moment
and I realized more fully that my mother had literally prayed me to St. George.
She didn’t want to die alone was something she said
frequently. Now she was being surrounded by family and I could see her
relax. My stepfather had passed away
over two years before and she has been so lonely. As her physical challenges
multiplied, she was ready to move on the next chapter of her existence. Prior to Joanne and I going on her mission
she struggled with supporting our decision to serve. Ultimately, she did support us and was happy
for us, but I think she believed that when we parted for our mission that we’d
never see her again in this life.
As the day progressed, she was in and out of consciousness
and by 9:00 pm, all the family that was able to come had arrived. In her last moments as her breathing was more
shallow, I urged her to let go and to “go home” and be with God and her family
on the other side of the veil. At approximately 9:30 pm she slipped gently from
this life with a serene look on her face to once again embrace her husband, her
parents and two siblings that preceded her in death. Mom died on Valentine’s Day just as she had
desired, surrounded by family and her oldest son whom she had prayed to her
bedside from Germany.
I thank God for His love and grace that allowed me to see
my mother again before she died. It
boggles my mind to consider all the pieces of this puzzle that had to fall into
place to make my presence possible.
If my colleague hadn’t fell searching for our runaway
missionary in Frankfurt, I wouldn’t have made the trip at all. I have since apologized to him, fearing that
an angel may have tipped him over that night in order for this to happen.
God is involved in the details of our lives and at times
like this, we can plainly see His hand revealed. He truly does love us and sent His Son to
redeem us and enable us to return to His presence and live with our families
for all time. These series of events
testify to the truth of this. In the
name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
