Moon Landing

July 20, 1969 I was a little girl who had finished the fifth grade a month earlier. I had spent the year before trying to get adjusted to America, since it seemed my family was back from the Nigerian mission field to stay. Late that evening, my dad called me and my siblings to the family room and insisted we watch the moon landing. I didn't want to. I wanted to continue playing but he insisted, so begrudgingly I came.

Fifty years later, I am soooo thankful my dad made me see that piece of history live! Had I still been in Nigeria, where my heart longed to be, I would only have been able to listen to it via the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) or the Voice of America (VOA) across the radio waves.

The week before July 20, 1969 a little boy just out of seventh grade went fishing with his family on Summersville Lake, WV. His line caught in some bushes when he cast it and he could not pull it free. So, he pulled back with all his might. The line snapped and the lead sinker came flying back at him smashing his right eye. His incredibly painful hospital ordeal lasted 17 days.

On July 20, he lay in that hospital bed with patches over both eyes. Since eyes track with each other, the doctors decided to put patches on both of this little boy's eyes so as to take stress off the injured eye. But on that day, the little boy's father insisted he be allowed to watch the historic moon landing, so they gently lifted the patch on his good eye just enough that he was able to watch Neil Armstrong step out onto the moon.

That little boy grew up to be my husband, John Michael. His eye regained some sight though the eye had been damaged so it could never focus again. Through the years, he had to have several surgeries. Finally, after the eye began to lose its structure and developed painful corneal blisters, at the age of 60, he opted to have it removed.

His accident took a lot from him, but thanks to his dad, it didn't take away the ability to see men land on the moon. Thank God for fathers!

Life as I Knew It

This is a reprinted post. It first appeared February 24, 2010.

The Secret of my Birth

I was born in Joinkrama. It is located in what was then the Eastern Region of Nigeria but is today “Rivers State”; in the Niger River delta. Joinkrama was a tiny place across the river from Port Harcourt–a crocodile infested river. In order to get to Joinkrama, my parents crossed the river with their two small children and all their belongings on a thatched roof pontoon type boat, somewhat like the boats at Disney World’s Jungle Cruise except of course, the boat my parents was on, was wooden instead of aluminum (or whatever metal the Disney ride is made of) and the animals and danger in this river were real!

My father, a medical doctor, and my mother, a registered nurse, staffed a small mission hospital with my father as the only doctor there. Joinkrama is located in the small part of Nigeria that is in the tropical rain forest. It is an area of jungles. There were monkeys swinging in the trees outside of my house, elephants that occasionally tromped close enough to the village to be a danger to the villagers, and crocodiles in the river. The buildings were raised, for the occasions when the river overflowed its banks during the rainy season. It was in this remote part of the African jungle that I was born.

There are two stories about my birth…
One story has it that when my mother went in labor with me, she walked down a little jungle path to the hospital with my brother and sister in tow. According to this story, my father delivered me at the hospital once my mother arrived and then sent us back to convalesce at home. My mother was sent home on a stretcher carried by four men. She had me in her arms. Seeing us carried in this manner, the villagers assumed we had both died and began to weep and wail! One of the men alerted my mother to the situation and she quickly sat up, smiled, and waved so the people could see she was alive. Then, she lifted me up for them to see as well. The people’s weeping turned into dancing (literally) and they followed us home in a joyful procession! –that’s one story.

But my dad told me the real story when I was a little girl.
My dad told me that the stork was on his way to London, England–to Buckingham palace carrying in his beak the newest member of the royal family–a little princess (me) but unfortunately, he developed the hiccups, just as he was flying in the airspace above Joinkrama. …I don’t know where the stork lives, but apparently to get to London, it involves a trip over the Niger River delta. Well, overcome by one giant hiccup, the stork did something he had never done before–he dropped his bundle!

My father said he just happened to be walking home down that little jungle path when a bundle fell to the ground right in front of him! He said he knew immediately what had happened! …Now, my father never explained just how he knew all about the royal family, the stork’s hiccups, and all of that–but my father is a man of integrity so I never doubted his story!
“So you see” my father would conclude, “You are really a princess!”

….you can decide which story you want to believe, but I know the truth… I know I’m a princess!

According to the Bible, I really am a princess. I am a child of the King!

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.” Romans 8:16-18

Those Who Fear God

It's Father's day again. I had a story I was going to post about my father but it has been sold to an anthology so I am not at liberty to post it. You can read this story in "Life Lessons From Dads" published by Integrity Press. My story is titled, "Someone Special" - a name derived from a famous quote by Anne Geddes that says, "Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad."

So instead today I will tell you about another someone special, my mother's father.  

Ellis Charles Blankenship was born, lived, and died in rural North Carolina. He was a big man, nearly 6'2" with a strong and powerful body. He grew up poor and spent his life working in a textile mill and on his farm. Because he milked cows every morning and every evening of his life, he had a special small muscle near his elbow that he could flex by squeezing his fist together as if he was milking a cow. I have never known anyone else in my life who had this muscle. I and his other grandchildren would beg him to show us this unique muscle which we didn't have. Becasue of a lifetime of physical labor, he was strong even as an old man. Once when I was a teenager, my sister talked him into arm wrestling her 18 year old football player boyfriend...and Grandaddy won!

Grandaddy worked hard all of his life. He had to drop out of school after only the 3rd grade in order to work in the mills to help bring in some money for his family. Because of this he could barely read and write but he read well enough to read his Bible everyday.

Grandaddy supported himself, 4 children, a wife, and 2 old maid aunts with his farm and the little bit of income he earned from the mills. My mom grew up poor but they had food to eat, fresh milk to drink, and a house he had built with his own hands. He was a good man. He loved his family and his God.

I can still see his sky blue eyes twinkling at me as he smiled. Though he has been gone from this world for many years now, I am still thankful for the legacy he left me...as well as the tall strong body I inherited from his gene pool. Grandaddy, I'll see you again someday and we will worship together around the throme of the God you taught your daughter about...and she in turn taught me.