April 2025 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

April 24, 2025April 23, 2025

Family Ties

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder.

This reflection attributed to Playwright Charles Morgan, brings a soul-warming smile this day.

I was not smiling those several weeks back at Christmastime upon learning my twenty-seven-year-old grandson was being wheeled off to surgery. T.J. would soon be left without a colon. The culprit – advanced Crohn’s Disease.

The procedure complete, T.J.’s body then faced a string of bewildering, daunting and very worrisome hurdles. The hospital’s I.C.U., his new address. Seven weeks into the journey, T.J. and his (rock star companion) wife Ashley are breathing a bit more easily. This week’s physician report thankfully signals a turn for the better.*

The expressions of love directed toward T.J. and to our whole family certainly did not come as a full surprise. Many readers of this column can relate.

A number of those praying and caring supporters cheering us on are people already near and dear in our lives. Still, the parade of well-wishers, friends and acquaintances, shoring up our feeble faith through their voices and their unrelenting praying seemed at times super-human. Indeed , the Divine element is irrefutable – his strong presence.

Our brother-in-Christ and past co-laborer Pastor Wangombe in Africa – adds his voice to many of our international student friends, past and present, “It is war; and in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ our Lord”.

South Asia friend, Raj, chimes in, “Amen, rock on TJ and team. PTL”!

Smiles, indeed.

*further update: T.J. is out of hospital. With family, gaining strength

April 17, 2025April 17, 2025

Primed and Ready

Scene ONE: “I’m sorry, Ann, can I please ask a favor of you?”

The South Asian scholar, Bao, had become a brand new father and his wife and baby boy were set to be released from hospital. They needed help. “My academic advisor is just now assigning me extra duties and this is keeping me from getting my family back home to our apartment.”

“Sure”, Ann replied, “just give me the information and I will be there.”

Scene TWO: A year or two passes. Our phone rings.

“Hi Ann, are you very busy this afternoon. . . my wife and baby; they are at the hospital. .” (Déjà vu was in the air).

Such calls can readily spring out of the blue for campus workers in service to international students. My wife adjusted some things and, in each instance, headed to the medical facility. A mother herself – (now grandmother) – a smile visited her face as she navigated city traffic.

Her professional training – first as LPN, afterward as Registered Nurse – had simply reinforced Ann’s natural bent. Wired for responding to people (friend or stranger) in time of need, my wife was once the focus of a family chat around our family dining table, I posed a question to our children,

“So kids, which of these five qualities would you say most hits the mark as your mother’s ‘primary love language’. . Physical touch – Quality time – Gift giving – Acts of service – Words of affirmation.

“Their response was immediate and unanimous – each of them chiming, “Acts of Service!”

In an earlier season a couple decades prior when our home rested atop a remote hill at an Africa mission station, Ann launched into action one night to speedily fashion a makeshift bandage from a set of bedsheets. A young man brought to our screened back door had been laid open at the hand of an angry, inebriated fellow tribesman. The downward swing of the attacker’s machete left a grotesque open gash. Ann’s stop-gap measure (bad pun) met with success.

“To the servant of God, every place is the right place, and every time is the right time”*

April 3, 2025April 2, 2025

Seasons Rhythms

Nothing comes to Spring save through Winter.

Since the long-ago decade when I first snagged this anonymous quote (sketching it there in the flyleaf of my Bible) its wisdom has revisited me often. On my better days I’ve paid attention.

Over coffee a friend and I puzzled, “Would it be possible for us humans to appreciate and honestly savor the good of life without drinking of the hard – the ‘difficult’ – of life?”

Winter preceeding Spring. As a pre-toddler I met with an episode of Polio that left me with a forever limp. This was followed by yet another tangle with the same nasty virus shortly before I celebrated my tenth birthday. This encounter nearly ended my life.

In the case of both these afflictions, Spring emerged, a Springtime of thankfulness. Even now a smile of gratitude visits my eyes and face.

A winter of wanderings as a stubborn, self-willed teen somehow gave way to sunshine’s warmth in the form of generously forgiving parents and persistent, rescuing Lord. Exodus 34:6 puts it well, “the Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love”

When an esteemed institution misconstrues motives and stridently calls into question a team member’s integrity. Winter

When self-reflection, prayer, and straightforward dialogue seasoned with grace characterize engagement with whatever ‘powers that be’. Spring.

And on the personal front. Where long Wintry seasons of remorse, fed by insecurities from mistakes and general brokenness, dog the soul. To such a dreary scene, what an unspeakable relief comes when one awakes one morning to the drenching of the sunlight of grace through an East window.

When Spring begins to dawn, signaling Winter’s soon retreat, no one needs declare it to us. The gray cold must yield.

It is time.