For a now ancient group called The Beatles, this was the date of true old age, and it was one of the nostalgia songs sung by our friends and near-family Jim and Dee Patton with two of their children for my surprise Birthday Party, Saturday 2nd (August 3rd in N.Z.)Surprise it was too! I should have concluded something was up from whispered conversations between my wife and son, and much talking on the phone to friends in other rooms. Still, it is a known characteristic of old age that you may miss things, and I plead guilty to blissful ignorance of a carefully-planned and schemed secret scenario that culminated in an amazing gathering of friends from far and near held in our church hall in Lindale. I was surprised at seeing two old friends from Agape Force days join Jim at the airport when I flew in from War Week in Detroit Friday evening; I did suspect that we might go out and eat with them the following day sometime. I didn’t know when we “dropped by the church on the way to going out to eat” that it would be with over a hundred others some driving or flying from thousands of miles away to honor me.The previous week I spent over six hours being interviewed both in Tyler and in the Revival Library in the YWAM ranch on my life and work by Patrick Butler, a friend who is now the Religion Editor of the main Tyler newspaper. Patrick was the one who made the area aware of what was happening to me when I was in critical condition in Korea, and I looked on this lengthy interview and photo shoot as some kind of follow-up on that story last year. The spread came out Saturday on two pages with some great pictures, his birthday gift to me, with copies for people that came.Dee, our faithful servant companion, gifted with administration skills carried out with great kindness and care, somehow perpetrated much of this planning of amazing effort in secret. E-mails sent to hundreds of friends, replies turned into cards that could be read aloud, coordinating places to stay at and hide out in until the evening of the event all had to be done under my nose. She said that as she was working on sending out the E-mail invites from our kitchen table (their internet service is presently untenable) that I looked right at what she had done and even asked – “What is this?” I cannot remember this at all, so perhaps as God’s Smuggler used to pray, I was “blinded by God” from seeing what I was looking directly at. Either that, or from being near to sixty-four.Besides the music ministry to open the party from the Pattons (known now in their performances as “Bongo And The Point” for reasons once explained to me that I can’t now remember (64?) long-term friends from other parts of the country also shared. Buddy and Caroline Hicks, now pastoring both street and church kids in Houston who played such a large part in our lives during the early days of the Agape Force and were largely responsible for our initial move to Texas came down with their adult children, helping hugely providing the food for the 14 tables crammed into the room. Jim Barrier, now in the Austin area as both a radio talk show host and pastor, played M.C. (without the Hammer). Ribena Burton made a massive and scrumptious chocolate cake large enough to hold enough candles that I couldn’t blow them all out. (64).Jim & Jannie Rogers from the early days of our marriage and Sonny and Margie Jaynes shared a table with us also, recalling the early days when they were in charge of the rehabilitation ministry of Gates of Life. He even did an impromptu solo dance during one of the early songs which I of course, could not and did not join in on. (64 for sure. And besides, “white guys can’t dance”. There are of course, exceptions, but I am sure l am not one of them). One of the special blessings also was a first-time meeting with Shawn Carey, the trial lawyer who gave his life to the Lord in New York two years ago when Marc Scibilia set up a meeting there (Can God Be Trusted?) with me. I mentioned his wonderful story in a previous Christmas blog as an example of the blessing of still being alive to serve the Lord. Shawn came down with his wife and three of his boys from New York to share his testimony again live with the whole audience. His description of the work of the Holy Spirit in personal conviction is still of the best I have ever heard. Marc, who also sacrificed a long drive to come down also with Julian his videographer shared in song. As Buddy pointed out, young musicians discipled from generation to generation.My dear wife, beloved of my heart for all of these years, who so successfully carried out deep deception of her unsuspecting husband, is also greatly to blame for the bombshell. When she asked, after I walked into what I thought was an empty hall to find an overwhelming explosion of light, noise and mass of people – “Was it a surprise?” my initial answer was “No. It was more like a shock heart-attack”. (64) My innocent-looking son, smiling all the while as he chauffeured his dear old Dad to the place of party, played it straight and cool during the entire time he was party to the subterfuge of silence. Oh the depths! That I could live so long and not notice. I can only blame it on being sixty-four. For all of you who were also “party” to this, thank you so much. Your kind comments and encouragements have been overwhelming.The part amongst so many other small and significant scenarios on that wonderful night that touched me deeply to tears was another song by Jim and his family. I know and love it, but heard it then anew in a context that helped me see again how much we owe to those God has moved on to help us on our journey with Jesus.

The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where?
Who knows where?
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

So love shows in the little things and the large, the unselfish giving of what we have also been given, the innumerable and sometimes unnoticed random acts of kindness and care. Such is the transformation of a heart from darkness to light, from the power of the Matrix to the arms of the Master and Maker, the great commandment in majestic summary so long ago given and as powerful and practical today as when uttered so long ago –

“So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We’ll get there … “

For the rest of the journey –
thanks again for you allIn Jesus love –
Winkie, Fae and William