Mike
“Merry Christmas!”---“Happy New Year!”
This is the season and today is the day when the words “Merry” and “Happy” circle the earth on millions of greeting cards, form the subject lines of millions more e-mails, and roll off the tongue in rote repetition to people we don’t really know and for whom we have no clue about what would make them merry and happy now or at any other time. The essence of the human condition, however, has no knowledge of or respect for the times and seasons established by man’s arbitrary divisions called a calendar. In contrast to all those who make merry, there are countless souls who grieve, even on this day.
This morning, at 12:25 a.m., Mike Rogers vacated his earthly tent and moved into his house in heaven not built with human hands. 2Cor 5:1-5 For Debbie and their family, all the joy of any future Christmas will always be tinged with the shadow of the memory of their loss on this day.
Mike was the subject of some of my posts (here, here, here, and here) when his non-Hodgkins lymphoma was discovered about 4 years ago. From that time until this morning, the battle raged on between medical doctors and malignant disease, and Mike’s body was the battleground. When we heard last week that Mike was being moved from California to Colorado to be near his children and grandchildren, it was evident the battle was drawing to a close, and I took time to think back on what Mike and Debbie have meant to us.
Mike and Debbie both came from missionary families working in Brazil (and later, Paraguay and Chile, in the case of Mike’s parents). As missionaries, their families came to churches where Abbie and I were growing up as children. As my father would have said, “the four of us grew up together in different places.” We two couples married within a couple of years of one another and in time, at approximately the same times, we each had four children.
We switched roles. Mike and Debbie left the mission field when they grew up, and they settled in the US. We left the US and settled on the mission field in Brazil, then Madeira. But we still continued to grow up together in different places.
A special relationship
In truth, we have seen very little of Mike and Debbie, especially in the last 10 years, but as I thought back over the many years we have known each other, I realized that Mike was involved at crucial points in our ministry. As some would put it, our destinies were intertwined.
In the early 70’s, when we went to Brazil, it was the church in Arkansas where Mike was pastoring that raised the money for us to buy a car. Until then, we were on foot or dependent on others to get around.
In 1977, when we were forced to buy a house in order to stay and work on Madeira Island, it was the church Mike was pastoring in Kentucky that “single-handedly” contributed over 35% of the funds that allowed us to buy a house, the house we are still living in today.
In 2000, as a result of Mike’s teachings at our home church in Colorado, we lost all our remaining financial support from churches in the US that had supported us for almost 30 years. Actually, Mike resigned from that church on doctrinal principles, and our being cut off was a consequence of that issue, because we had both come to similar doctrinal positions that were not in line with the teachings received by tradition from the churches we were brought up in. I publicly thank God for Mike’s role in this phase of my spiritual growth and that of the church here.
Brother-Friend
Did Mike and I always agree? No. Were we always friends? Yes. I have come to realize that I have friends who are not brothers, and brothers who are not really friends. Mike was both. Because we were brothers in the Lord, we shared a common love for the Lord and His Word; because we were friends, we didn’t have to agree on every doctrine and every decision.
Mike came to Madeira twice, once by himself in the early 80s, and a second time, with Debbie in the late 90s. On his first visit, after I recounted in detail how the Lord had called us to Madeira, he looked at me and said, in essence, “That is a story I would reject outright, coming from anyone else; but I respect you when you tell it.” He told me why he would normally not respect such a tale, and although I had every personal reason to defend my position, I learned some important truths from what he said to me over lunch that day.
And that’s the way it was whenever our paths crossed. Our kindred spirits were in agreement on so much, but when we disagreed on a point of doctrine or a course of action, we listened to each other with respect.
I speak for myself. If Abbie were to add her thoughts, I know what she would say. She and Debbie are also kindred spirits. Besides their being mothers who raised four children who love and serve the Lord, the similarities between their talents in the field of music and decorative arts are uncanny.
Today Debbie and family mourn. We pray for them and mourn with them, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We have been growing up together with Mike and Debbie in different places all our lives; physically, Mike is just more distant from us than he has been. That is only temporary, however; in His time, the Lord will call each of us, and distance shall be no more.
This is the season and today is the day when the words “Merry” and “Happy” circle the earth on millions of greeting cards, form the subject lines of millions more e-mails, and roll off the tongue in rote repetition to people we don’t really know and for whom we have no clue about what would make them merry and happy now or at any other time. The essence of the human condition, however, has no knowledge of or respect for the times and seasons established by man’s arbitrary divisions called a calendar. In contrast to all those who make merry, there are countless souls who grieve, even on this day.
This morning, at 12:25 a.m., Mike Rogers vacated his earthly tent and moved into his house in heaven not built with human hands. 2Cor 5:1-5 For Debbie and their family, all the joy of any future Christmas will always be tinged with the shadow of the memory of their loss on this day.
Mike was the subject of some of my posts (here, here, here, and here) when his non-Hodgkins lymphoma was discovered about 4 years ago. From that time until this morning, the battle raged on between medical doctors and malignant disease, and Mike’s body was the battleground. When we heard last week that Mike was being moved from California to Colorado to be near his children and grandchildren, it was evident the battle was drawing to a close, and I took time to think back on what Mike and Debbie have meant to us.
Mike and Debbie both came from missionary families working in Brazil (and later, Paraguay and Chile, in the case of Mike’s parents). As missionaries, their families came to churches where Abbie and I were growing up as children. As my father would have said, “the four of us grew up together in different places.” We two couples married within a couple of years of one another and in time, at approximately the same times, we each had four children.
We switched roles. Mike and Debbie left the mission field when they grew up, and they settled in the US. We left the US and settled on the mission field in Brazil, then Madeira. But we still continued to grow up together in different places.
A special relationship
In truth, we have seen very little of Mike and Debbie, especially in the last 10 years, but as I thought back over the many years we have known each other, I realized that Mike was involved at crucial points in our ministry. As some would put it, our destinies were intertwined.
In the early 70’s, when we went to Brazil, it was the church in Arkansas where Mike was pastoring that raised the money for us to buy a car. Until then, we were on foot or dependent on others to get around.
In 1977, when we were forced to buy a house in order to stay and work on Madeira Island, it was the church Mike was pastoring in Kentucky that “single-handedly” contributed over 35% of the funds that allowed us to buy a house, the house we are still living in today.
In 2000, as a result of Mike’s teachings at our home church in Colorado, we lost all our remaining financial support from churches in the US that had supported us for almost 30 years. Actually, Mike resigned from that church on doctrinal principles, and our being cut off was a consequence of that issue, because we had both come to similar doctrinal positions that were not in line with the teachings received by tradition from the churches we were brought up in. I publicly thank God for Mike’s role in this phase of my spiritual growth and that of the church here.
Brother-Friend
Did Mike and I always agree? No. Were we always friends? Yes. I have come to realize that I have friends who are not brothers, and brothers who are not really friends. Mike was both. Because we were brothers in the Lord, we shared a common love for the Lord and His Word; because we were friends, we didn’t have to agree on every doctrine and every decision.
Mike came to Madeira twice, once by himself in the early 80s, and a second time, with Debbie in the late 90s. On his first visit, after I recounted in detail how the Lord had called us to Madeira, he looked at me and said, in essence, “That is a story I would reject outright, coming from anyone else; but I respect you when you tell it.” He told me why he would normally not respect such a tale, and although I had every personal reason to defend my position, I learned some important truths from what he said to me over lunch that day.
And that’s the way it was whenever our paths crossed. Our kindred spirits were in agreement on so much, but when we disagreed on a point of doctrine or a course of action, we listened to each other with respect.
I speak for myself. If Abbie were to add her thoughts, I know what she would say. She and Debbie are also kindred spirits. Besides their being mothers who raised four children who love and serve the Lord, the similarities between their talents in the field of music and decorative arts are uncanny.
Today Debbie and family mourn. We pray for them and mourn with them, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We have been growing up together with Mike and Debbie in different places all our lives; physically, Mike is just more distant from us than he has been. That is only temporary, however; in His time, the Lord will call each of us, and distance shall be no more.
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