I attended a funeral today for the first time in a long time.  I went out of
respect, of course to the 91 year old lady who had died, but mostly for
moral support in regards to her son.  He is probably about 60 years of age,
maybe just under that, and he has been gay most of his adult life.  He was
my best friend for a few years when I was a teenager.  Yes, he was gay then,
too.  His mother and father were two of the finest Christians you would ever
meet.  They were missionaries for many years in Africa.  For the bulk of
their lives, however, they were teachers in a Christian school.  I met them
just when they returned from Africa for the last time and went to work for
the Christian school.  When I went to Bible college, their two daughters
were in most of my classes.  When the girls went home for weekends about
once a month, the mother, the lady whose funeral I attended today, baked me
cookies and the girls brought them back for me.  My own box of home made
cookies.  Their father passed away in 1978 but their mother lived on all
these years and was a grand Christian and nothing was more important to her
than Jesus.  I saw one of the girls today, yes, they are my age, 55 years
old, but I still think of them as 18 year old girls as we took our turns in
speech class giving our 3 minute speeches and then were graded by the rest
of the class.  She and her husband have been missionaries in France since
they graduated from Bible college.  They minister to mostly Moslems.  You
see, this lady's husband, the lady who was in school when I was, her husband
was one of my roommates in Bible college.  He grew up in Nigeria because his
parents were missionaries, too.  He speaks Arabic, French, and English.  In
fact, when Nigeria kicked out all American missionaries, Steve, my roommate,
stayed for his final year of high school in Nigeria all by himself because
the government allowed it.  After Bible college, he and his wife, the lady I
saw today, were going to Jordan.  About a month, or less, before they were
going to fly to Jordan as missionaries, Jordan closed its doors to American
missionaries, too.  You cannot go to any Islamic nation today as an American
missionary.  In fact, you will be jailed as an American missionary or even
if you are caught preaching even in Mexico and are caught and they aren't
even Islamic.  Go figure.  Anyhow, as I was saying, one of the lady's son is
gay.  Homosexual, in other words.  My mother spent hundreds of hours talking
and praying with him when he was a freshman in the same Bible college I
later would attend.  He was suicidal most of the time, confused, to say the
least, and struggled desperately with his homosexual feelings.  He can play
the organ and piano like you can't believe, as can all his family.  His
mother, whose funeral I attended today, taught them all how to play the
piano.  Her life touched literally thousands of people and you have never
even heard of her.  Jesus has, though.  My friend is still gay.  His mate,
homosexual lover, with whom he lived with for many years, committed suicide
one day.  My friend left Bible college after that first year and became a
registered nurse.  That wasn't too popular back then.  He worked as an RN
for 26 years.  Now he runs a funeral home and is a mortician.  My sister
said on the way home that he was always afraid of facing death.  I told my
sister, that's why he is a mortician today.  I don't think my sister got it
but I didn't bother to explain.  My friend is trying to look death in the
face to see if he can stand it.  See?  Makes sense in an odd sort of a way.
My friend has always said that my mom was more his mother than his own
mother.  In fact, when my mother died almost five years ago, he went up to
hospice every night to sit with my comatose mother for 9 nights.  He talked
to her, bought my mother's favorite music on CD and brought a CD player,
plugged it into her ears, and played it softly to her for hours as he sat
with her and talked as if she could hear him.  Yes, my mother, as I
mentioned, knew who and what he was.  She still allowed me to stay with him
on weekends at the school where he was in nurses training.  We still went to
church together and sat together and spent many hours together.  No, I was
not influenced by him but I knew who he was and he knew who I was.  He tried
to shake my hand today when he walked in and I was already there standing by
his mother's casket as he did when I saw him when he was first coming to sit
with my mother as she died.  I hugged him instead today as he cried.  You
know why, too.  It is because Jesus still loves him as much now as He ever
did but my friend doesn't know it.  I have wanted to reach my friend for 40
years and I will, too, but only on God's time.  I was thinking today, it
seems like all the people I knew are either dead or will be pretty soon.
Then I laughed because the woman's, whose funeral I went to today, was
almost 92 years old.  So, if Jesus doesn't come in my life time, I still
have a long ways to go.  I just trust my life touches half as many people as
her's did even if no one knows my name.

Phil.