Phil, you have touched many more people then even you will ever know I 
suspect.


Lelia
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 9:26 PM
Subject: A Funeral Today


>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.
>
>
> __________ NOD32 2396 (20070712) Information __________
>
> This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
> http://www.eset.com
>
>