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Through a Simple Touch

Earl Traylor, a long-term employee of the LaClede Steel Company attended the Alton Seventh-day Adventist Church every weekend he wasn’t scheduled to work – for more than 20 years. He tried to get Sabbaths off so he could come to church.  He was close to joining the church many years ago, but had some difficulties, such as his work schedule, so he was not accepted into membership in the church.  His wife, Jackie was a member and did not give up on him.

Now retired from the steel company, Earl, began to attend church regularly.  He was diagnosed with some extreme health conditions . . . and is now on oxygen.  A year ago Earl fell and broke his hip.  He was admitted to the hospital.  Lloyd Stone, his wife Denise
and another couple, Mike and Kathy Reed, began visiting him in the hospital.  They took some books, visited with Earl, and had prayer with him each time they came. 

When Earl was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility the two couples continued their regular visits.  In church on Sabbath, they asked members to send cards, and letters, and to pray for Earl.  It has been a year now since Earl gave his heart to the Lord and was baptized. 

Four individuals, doing simple things to help their brother, brought this man to the foot of the cross.  In loving him, they touched Him for Jesus. 

Along the Highway

"Last night we had an evangelism planning meeting in Mattoon," reports Joe Arner. Arner was on his way home when he noticed a van along the side of the road. It was late, but he knew he must stop and help. Jeane and her twenty year old daughter, Jenny, had been to a funeral and were trying to make it back home when they had a flat tire.

 
"As I began changing the tire," reported Arner, I told the lady that I'm a pastor and we just had a planning session for evangelistic outreach in Mattoon. 
 
"Oh" said Jeane,"Which church do you pastor?" Arner responded, with "Well, four to be exact -- Mattoon, Stewardson, Noble, and Fairfield. I'm a Seventh-day Adventist pastor," he explained as he loosened the lug nuts on the wheel.
 
Jeane was quiet for a moment and then she said, "I used to be a Seventh-day Adventist." At this response Arner knew for sure that God had brought them together on this stretch of highway.  As Jeane continued her story, Jenny listened intently. Her mother told how she was baptized after coming to some meetings. "I went to church for many years, faithfully. I would go from door to door and tell people about Jesus and the Sabbath. I was the Adult Sabbath School teacher among other things," she continued. 
 
"What happened?" Arner probed. Jeane told him how a "new" pastor came to their church and began to "clean house." People were removed from the church books rather than be allowed to grow in grace,experiencing the redemptive power that comes through Jesus Christ. 
It wasn't long before the spare tire was on the vehicle and the flat had been placed in the back along with the jack. 
 
"It's not by accident that we are here together on the side of this highway" Arner told the woman and her daughter. "God loves you and your family and somehow he wants you to know that again," he continued. As he put his arm around her, Jeane began to tremble from the brokenness inside. Arner asked her to come back to the church and trust God for the rest. Having already swapped contact information, he concluded their chance encounter with prayer. 
 
It was 11:15 pm when they both pulled back onto the highway. Arner thought about the plans being made to "Touch Every 1 for Jesus" and it occurred to him that there may have been just such a plan years ago that led to Jeane into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 
 
"Once you have touched someone for Jesus it's not over. You must love them!" he continued. 
 "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:11,12