Snow

 Sunday it started snowing in Tennessee.

This is always dramatic and adventuresome.  Everywhere that I have lived the first snow of the year is hard on drivers, lots of accidents!  The first year that I started driving I was driving a red Volkswagen Beetle from the 60's, this was in 1974.  The first snow of the year my brother, sister and Exchange student from the Philipines, Jun were all freezing together in the car on the way to school.  About a mile and a half from home on M-19 I shifted gears and the car started spinning in circles, which completely surprised and scared all of us.  The car had one snow tire on the rear and we hit a patch of ice.  It felt like it would never stop spinning, it was like a ride at the county fair.  When it finally did we were almost in a neighor's field. Everybody but me got out and pushed us back on to the road and we went to school.

My dad was an inventor, always making stuff in his tool shed.  When my brother and I were pretty young he built a snowmobile.  The track was from an old manure spreader, the engine was from a garden tractor and everything else he welded steel and used wood and sheet metal to make the skis.  It worked pretty good but was really heavy and the track flew apart occasionally.  It pulled a toboggan well and you could skijor on snowskis with a water ski tow rope.Winter was full of fun adventures and it stayed snowy and cold for more than three days unlike Tennessee.  More stories to come!

November 6, 2010

Maybe a week or so and we find out about Elizabeth’s FBI fingerprint records.  In the meantime we have been learning patience.  We have been reading our Bibles, praying, being Jesus to people we meet and encouraging people to do more than they thought they could through Christ strengthening them. 

We would like to say it has been all joy but life isn’t like that.  We can count it joy, which we are trying to do but some days are much more thrilling than others.  We were not promised continuous happiness but peace, knowing that life is going to happen according to God’s plans not ours.  I have been scanning all of our old pictures into the computers.  We will take an I Mac and Toshiba 17” laptop with us. No more desktops. It is a very long process to scan 1000 pictures and then I have to scan documents next.  We will move with just six suitcases. 

We are enjoying spending time with our family and friends.  I have been going hunting and fishing more than I have in years with Joe, Elijah and my friend Buster from church and Nissan.  Lots of great conversations!

We will send another update as soon as we know something about Elizabeth’s process, please pray hard and if you know anyone who would like to help us by praying or giving please let us know!

Dan and Elizabeth

Missionaries to Belgium

CLICK HERE TO GIVE

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If you would like to contribute financially by EFT, click on the link above.  Please put our name in the "Memo" section.  Otherwise, send us an e-mail at dan.christensen58@gmail.com and we will send you the information. 

30 Years later

In the  fall of 1976 I went to Bible College in Toronto, Ontario Canada.  The name of the school is Toronto Baptist Seminary.  They had basically the same classes for everybody but if you already had a Bachelor's Degree and wrote a Thesis that was accepted you received a Masters Degree. I have recognized that I did not finish because I am not very good at Languages. You see I failed Greek twice and didn't even try Hebrew.  That convinced me to be interested in History.  I was pretty good in History but then I have to admit my classmates were those that had failed at languages also.  By the end of the second year I had fallen madly in love with Elizabeth. We decided that she would graduate and then we would get married and go to school somewhere else for me to finish my degree.  By the way, even though she wasn't good at Hebrew, we are both good at relationships - we have been happily married ever since that spring.  But then I have to get back to the main story.  If things had gone as we thought they would, I would have been ordained the fall of 1980.  It never happened.  We heard about making "shipwreck" from our Principal Dr. G.A. Adams several times a month.  It was something that really laid heavy on his heart for the students who did not see the course through.

We have not made any wrecks out of any ships, so far.  Everything hasn't been perfect, but it has been a blessing.  We were allowed to be part of a multitude of life-changing experiences doing our part in the Great Commission.  We have seen people follow Jesus on several continents; we have grown in grace and in the Word; we have studied many courses and read many books and read through the Bible many times.

September 15th, 2010 I was ordained in Smyrna, TN at LifePoint Church by wonderful friends and with three other men my sons' age.  It was a moving experience.  The following Sunday we were commissioned along with the Goen family, to go to Brussels, Belgium as missionaries, something we have been preparing for all of our lives.

I guess that we are slow learners, but we have learned patience along the way, knowing how to wait upon the Lord.  Please pray and support us along the rest of the Journey with Him!

No Fingerprints!

On Friday the 3rd. of September our long awaited FBI results arrived in the mail just as we were getting ready to Fly to Seattle for a real vacation.  My results were clear, no criminal record.  Elizabeth was rejected because they said she didn't have good enough fingerprints.  The problem is she started out life as a vegetable farmer in Canada and now she works for the Gideons International and she has worked her fingers to the bone.  The explanation sheet said that you could do lots of things to make them grow back.  It also told how to take them better.  After checking with others who have had similar problems during the Foreign adoption process, the best solution was Corn Huskers Lotion.  So after waking up in Tukwila, Washington we sent out for Corn Huskers Lotion.  In Metropolitan Seattle they must not have much of a need to shuck corn, after several stores we found a bottle at a Walmart in Renton.  Elizabeth applied it constantly during the Vacation.

We visited the Pifers on Saturday Evening they had moved to Renton from Smyrna in the last year.  We had a great time catching up about old times and their new life in Seattle.  Sunday morning we went to Lynnwood and worshipped at the new campus of our church.  We had a great time hearing the Radical series and later we were able to have lunch with several members at their favorite Restaurant.

Monday morning we went to Edmonds to ride the ferry to Kingston and went to Port Angeles and the Olympic Peninsula National Park.  We drove up and down mountains while it was raining in the Rainforest.  It was still an amazing adventure and the trees and mountains were beautiful.  For lunch we ate at the Lake Crescent Lodge.  It was delicious and after lunch we went kayaking on the Lake very nice, but very cold and wet.  The following day we drove out to Sol Doc Hot Springs and enjoyed the pools with tourists from Japan and Germany very international feeling.  We missed reservations on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria where you can see across the straight of San Juan de Fuca, so we had to drive back to Kingston and take the Ferry back to Edmonds and drive to Vancouver and take another ferry to Victoria.  That made a 90 minute trip take about five hours.  The Vancouver ferries are very impressive, they travel at 20 knots and do not leave a wake.

We did all the Vancouver Island things including Whale Watching, tons of fun and well worth the price to go with Prince of Whales fleet. We also drove out to the west to see the Tidal Pools everything was just like we read in magazines and saw on travel TV.  A great blessing!

Now we are ready to go to Brussels, which is very similar except for the mountains.  The people and the culture are remarkably similar.  We do have the problem of Elizabeth's fingerprints though.  When those prayers are answered, we are ready to apply to the Belgian Embassy which can take one to four months.  Then we buy the tickets and take off.  So if you have been waiting to be part of our financial support team the time is here.  Contact us at dan.christensen58@gmail.com for details.  We are at a very blessed time of our lives right now.  God has been good all of the time! 

Sandy the Wonder Horse

When I was in the fifth grade at Sandusky Middle School in Sandusky, Michigan, I was in love with horses. This is because my family, being from middle class, middle America, watched Bonanza and Gunsmoke every week on TV along with whatever western movies came on TV.  We never went to the movies in town; we watched them on TV when they were a few years old.  

So one fall my Dad found a deal on a big pony and a beagle named Cindy about fifteen miles away from our farm. So we drove up there to see the pony and the dog.  We really liked the two of them and Cindy the dog came home with us and Sandy the pony arrived later in a trailer.  The only problem was that my younger sister's name was Cindy also and she was not the least bit happy sharing her name with a beagle!  We told her that beagles weren't smart enough to survive a name change and she would just have to learn to like it.

The reason my Dad got my brother and I a big pony was that one of my school friends had a old work horse that he inherited form his older brothers.  He would ride it a mile down the road to our place and I would ride the horse while he rode our minibikes that our dad built for us.  The horse was huge, old and gentle.  He never gave his rider any trouble and he made the rider look good.  

After we got the pony, I mostly rode Sandy when we had the time, and  my brother and my Dad would ride motorcycles in the woodlot across the road.  I had a minibike called the Bumblebee that was homemade.  It looked great but rode like a hay wagon - no suspension other than the airplane tires which didn't have any tread.  So you could not keep up with motorcycles that had at least three inches of suspension and knobby tires.  So Dad and Glen would be riding motorcycles on the trails and Sandy and I would catch up with them.  Sandy had a few problems; he wasn't very well trained.  Every time I rode him he tried to buck me off and he wasn't very good at doing what he was told.  When he would get over in the woods he wouldn't walk through the trails like the horses did on Bonanza; he would run as fast as he could to catch up to the motorcycles.  Now I have always had a need for speed but Sandy and I were much taller than a motorcycle or a deer and that was how high most of the brush canopy was.  Sandy was just a little bit taller than a big buck.  So when he took off at a gallop the thornapple bushes didn't smack him, just me.  My pain and shouting just encouraged Sandy the wonder horse; he just went faster and faster as the brush got thicker and thicker.

His favorite trick though, was to gallop as fast as he could, start bucking and if he didn't manage to throw me off, he would stop dead in his tracks and just skid his hooves until I flew over his head with a loud thump and landed in a heap.  When I recovered I had to chase him down and put him back in the pasture.  Eventually God blessed me I continued to grow until I could wrap my legas around his belly and he hardly ever bucked me off anymore.  But then most of the fun was gone too.

You see there is great fun in working through adversity and mastering it and getting ready for the next challenge God blesses you with.  Sandy the Wonder Horse taught me the power of "failing forward" literally!

The Post Retirement Journey

May 28, 2010 arrived.  The countdown clock went down to zero.  My work group at Nissan had two parties for me.  Willie Prazak sponsored one at Toot's restaurant in Smyrna and the official party was on Thursday at lunch at our break area.  Calvin my supervisor cooked pork shoulder, country ribs and chicken.  It was delicious.  People said nice things and gave me a beautiful engraved multi-tool to replace all of the tools that I will have to leave behind when I fly to Belgium.  On Friday morning I came to the morning start-up meeting where I received a Certificate of completion prepared by Troy Kirby.  I had everyone sign it so it looked like a college diploma.  Then I went up to the HR office and received my really big check and went to the security office to turn in my ID card and they made a retiree card that won't let you in the gate.

Next I went to the bank and deposited the check.  I went back home and waited to have the long awaited lunch with one of my mentors, Jim Ferrell.  I waited and waited; the time dragged on.  Finally Jim arrived and he said that he was waiting on UPS for his business.  He said that he really liked Hickory Falls.  I told him that I did too.  We went in and I was scanning the restaurant for people I might know and walked into my surprise retirement birthday party.  My brother and sisters were there along with my kids and grandkids.  It was pretty overwhelming!  My family from Michigan had chartered a friend's plane to fly Sherry, Cindy, Glen and his wife Sue to Smyrna. 

That evening we were supposed to go to Tony and Brandi's house for a get-together.  It turned out to be the second surprise party of the day!  My old small group was there along with Kyle and Amy.  It was quite a day!

12days299hrs.

In twelve days (299 hours) I  will be finished at Nissan, Smyrna, TN.  I started there the first Monday of October 1984.  I had attended state-sponsored training at their training facility for several months.  I learned about hydraulics, pneumatics and welding before I was hired for the Sentra project.  We would attend school for several hours each Saturday.  That cost me and most of my co-trainees a lot of money, and the companies we worked for knew all about where we were when we were not working for them.  But finally I was interviewed by several supervisors from the Trim and Chassis department.  They asked me all sorts of questions an electrician shouldn't have known the answers to.  They asked me trick questions and tried to upset me; they really ran us through the ringer.  If my Dad had not made me work on farm equipment, motorcycles and snowmobiles, my mother instilled in me a love of reading and Ms. Mary Jo Wilson made me love learning in the fifth grade, I never would have done so well.

I started out in the tire room and we completed lots of training.  It felt like we were back in High School.  I went to several computer schools.  About one hundred days into the employment I found out that I had cancer and missed the next ninety days.  I had great disability and insurance and was receiving a bigger check than my previous job.   Elizabeth and I found a great church that took care of us and the boys - First Baptist Smyrna.  The Trim and Chassis plant manager came to our apartment and prayed for us.  As well as most of the members of our previous church, the Gospel Tabernacle, Tullahoma, TN.  I recovered and went back to work in June of 1985 with a head that was as bald as a watermelon and except for the stripes it looked like one too!

In 1989 I moved to the Stamping Plant which is the beginning of the process of building a car.  I have been there ever since.  I was able to go to Japan twice while in Stamping.  It was an amazing experience for a farm boy from Michigan.  When I was picking up rocks in a wheat field, I never imagined I would eat horse meat and Tuna Sushi served by a Geisha.

More than a year ago I was offered a buyout to leave.  I always thought that if someone offered you a lot of money to leave a job you should take it, so I did.  That opened up the opportunity for my next career - being a missionary to Belgium.  In addition to the cash, I have my health insurance, and in three years I will be able to draw some pension.  It seems that God planned it for us.

So thank you, Nissan, for the opportunities to meet great people,  the salary to travel around the world experiencing Missions in Brazil, Canada, Africa and India.  It has been a great ride!

Joe Dale Lemonds

Another one of my friends retired this week from Nissan,  JD Lemonds.
When JD first came to work in Stamping in 1990 I had no idea how close we would eventually become.  He arrived from the Whirlpool Corporation up the road in LaVergne.  Originally he was from Michigan the same as me.  So we knew about a lot of the same things and of course we were both Yankees.

JD eventually had friends from Whirlpool join him, Ed and John, Bobby came from Mississippi, Tim from North Dakota we were a tight group within our Department.  We would play Solitaire and swap stories at break and lunch or whenever we had the time.  Always laughing and cutting up. JD and some of the others liked to hoist a few mostly more now than then.  Me being a Deacon, I never joined in that part of the fun, although I probably should have.  The ones that liked beer always made it to work the next night.  I was the first to make it to day shift.  We always kept up with each other.  My boys were close to the same age as his girls.  He went on juvenile hunts with us in the fall we had a great time, never shot any deer but lots of good eating and great stories.

Eventually his wonderful wife Alma became ill, very ill.  That shook up his life, it made him take stock, he decided he needed to be a Christ follower.  That is what his life revolves around now, Jesus and others.  JD can talk to a wall and get a reaction out of it.  I always told him that if I ever started a church he would be in charge of evangelism.  He knows everybody.  I went to his ordination as a deacon.  It was a very moving service.  Now he goes out on visitation and keeps the building maintained at his church.  It is very obvious he turned a way toward Jesus. A radical change.  So now it is twenty years since I first met him and he is retiring from Nissan.  He is the last of that group of  those new hires from 1990.  Life will be different now in my remaining two months before I leave also.  I am praying for the best for him and his family.  They were the first members of my Belgium support team.  JD and Alma God has great things in store for you!  Blessings!
 


 

Another Saint goes Home

On Sunday February 7, 2010 a great Saint passed on to be with Jesus.  Dr. Ken Hubbard died on Super Bowl Sunday, the Day the New Orleans Saints played the Indianapolis Colts led by the former University of Tennessee Quarterback Peyton Manning.

Dr. Hubbard had been suffering from the ravages of Alzheimer's disease for the last several years.  This was very hard on all of those who loved him and his wonderful wife, Faye.  If you are a Tennessee Baptist you probably already know how influential he was in Baptist circles.  For my family he was our pastor from 1988 to 2005.  Our son Jeremiah was the first person Baptized when he first came to First Baptist Smyrna.  It was a cold morning with cold water in the Baptistry.  The heater had quit again.  Dr. Hubbard said that it was a bit cold but Jeremiah would do fine because he was a brave boy.  So the time came in the service for Jeremiah to be baptized he went into the water and it hit him this is cold!! His teeth started chattering and he started walking on the water.  Dr. Hubbard quickly dunked him.  Jeremiah said that he was a believer and that he was following Jesus and wanted to for the rest of his life.  He was in Kindergarten so it was a big decision for a young boy; it ended up being more memorable than he could ever have imagined.

Jeremiah grew up in stature and the wisdom of the Lord at FBC Smyrna, receiving a good foundation from the Children and Youth Workers.  He has helped in a Church Plant and taught children in several churches.  He married a wonderful Christian girl.

Dr. Hubbard started the transition from a midsized church to a very large Church where lives are changed and people sincerely care about being a Christ follower and realize what it costs.  He made several courageous decisions that were not always popular.  He mentored several people who are strong leaders today.

Towards the end of his pastorate at fifty some years in the ministry I was in charge of the benevolence ministry.  I would work from 6:00 to 2:30 at Nissan as a maintenance technician, then I would drive over to the Church and help people in need.  Sometimes it was food and electric, other times it was a place to stay because they were homeless.  I worked in the Stamping Plant where it is very noisy so we hardly ever received phone calls.  Dr. Hubbard would call and after I made it to the phone he would say in his deepest Holiest voice: "Dan this is your Pastor calling".  This was very disconcerting because I felt for sure that something had happened to my family.  It was always about whether we should help someone in need.

Last week Ken Hubbard hear the call from his Shepherd calling, "Ken come home,  we have your place ready, many are waiting to greet you!

Dr. Hubbard thank you for influencing our family,  you truly made Jesus proud.