I am writing this article especially for John. We have discussed this in depth, and finally I decided to share this special desire of John's with my readers.
John with beloved Rev. Edward Brouwer
of Christ Community Church visiting him
Every day when I come to visit John and minister to him, there is one thing that bothers me terribly. I am not able to take him in my vehicle to get him out of the confines of his nursing home. His physical conditions are too restricting for even me to handle (and I have taken many patients out in my vehicle previously for special trips out of nursing homes to minister to them.)
He can no longer stand on his feet. He is too heavy for me to transfer him from his wheelchair to my vehicle (John is 6 foot, three inches tall and weighs over 200 pounds.)
But as John has told me, he so desires to be able to get out with me, go to a restaurant and go shopping for personal items, and see something other than the four walls of his room in the nursing home. And the one thing I CAN do, is push John in the wheelchair that his nursing home provides.
In fact, John has not been able to do this FOR THREE YEARS NOW. He has only seen the inside of hospitals and nursing homes for these past three years! In Tulsa, Oklahoma, he was in the ICU unit for 5 long months, flat on his back and hooked up to life saving equipment. It cost this hospital over one million dollars to save John's life from pneumonia and complications requiring invasive surgery, even cutting through several ribs.
When ROUND-ABOUT WHEELCHAIR TRANSPORT SERVICES (that BEYSTONE NURSING HOME uses to transport patients like John to the nearby hospital for wound care) came to pick up John for his doctor's appointment, I quickly obtained a brochure from them. I so wanted to be able to contact them for private transportation for John so I could take him out on a special trip at last.
But when I contacted this transport company in Asheville, they informed me that it would cost between $140.00 and $160.00 for 2-3- hours of an outing with John that would include shopping in a local store and eating at a restaurant.
I was crushed. This was simply not affordable for me at this time. I had wanted to do this for John, in fact, at Christmas time so he could see the beautiful lights and decorations and displays and enjoy holiday food and shopping...something he has not done in three years now.
And so, John and I have been praying together in his room every time I visit, for financial grace to be able to do this for him at last. I explained to him that my budget was very limited, with every cent having to cover my gas and food and personal expenses (phone, storage unit, car insurance, gas,etc.), plus his vitamins and health food supplements to help him recover. Support is often sporadic, limited, and uncertain at times.
If you would like to help make possible this special gift for John that means so much to him at this time, you can! You can send support marked for JOHN'S TRIP either through my PAYPAL button at the front of the blog, or sending contributions in the mail.
Much of John's depression he frequently battles is linked with his being confined day after day in a nursing home filled with people in various states of illness or dementia. I have noticed that when John gets depressed, his health goes down as well. This deeply concerns me.
He so wants to get out, to go to a church and meet other Christians, and to escape these confines once in a while....and who could blame him? I find that I can only bear to spend so much time there myself. Such institutions can be very depressing.
So CONTACT US if you would like to minister to John's deep need to get out.
Our mailing address is: PO Box 724, Montreat, NC, 28757 (Please make out any check or money order to ME, since John has no bank account of his own yet. He has to be personally present in a bank to set an account up, and he cannot do this yet.)
Or, you can use the PAYPAL button on the front of my blog, and simply leave the message that this is designated for JOHN'S TRANSPORTATION.
(I just talked to Round-About transportation on the phone, and they told me they prefer that I set up a personal account outside of them, and simply bring them the funds when I recieve enough to sponsor a trip for John.)
Thank you from the depths of our hearts for helping to make this possible! I am going to let John personally dictate his message of "THANKS" for reader support for his transportation to get him out, and let him express his thanks and what his experience of finally being able to travel was like...and then post it for all my readers to enjoy.
God bless you all! Thank you for your prayers for BOTH of us. And continue to WATCH AND PRAY as world and national events so rapidly unfold, telling us indeed that we are living in the END TIMES prophesied in the Bible.
We can even see from the nuclear tragedy continuing to unfold from Japan, with ocean life and people and wildlife becoming sick or dying on a major scale (and it's only getting worse)that the words of Jesus are SO TRUE when He warned that IF these days were not cut short (by His return) that there would be NO LIVING THING LEFT ON PLANET EARTH!
How true.
MARANATHA!
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
-Pamela Rae and Brother John Schuffert for American Holocaust blog-
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