When God provided the beautiful facilities of the Gospel Tract Center, retirement was far from our thoughts, but not of the Lord’s. We had thought in such terms as “one day when,” the Lord willing, and were agreed that we would not continue to live in the same area and become a problem to whomever the Lord should send to take our place. We were thinking along the lines of perhaps after fifty years when I would turn 75, but really had made no financial provision for retirement at all.
God, who knew all, stepped in. The buildings were bought, improved, and totally without debt, thanks to our Lord’s provision, entirely outside our personal budget. The Tract Center Plaza as we called it, provided a home for the Central Christian Church, the Gospel Tract Center, and the Bible bookstore, and also an apartment for our own home. That enabled us to sell the home we had paid for from our own salary over the years, so we set that aside for retirement. We did not realize that it would not even have provided a starvation salary as we had left America many years before, when our “salary” had been a hundred dollars a month for each of us and fifty for each child. That had, of necessity, been adjusted somewhat over the years. Those funds were placed in our personal bank account, and it stayed there until our bank suggested an investment at a greater interest, which advice we foolishly followed. What happened was that the major insurance fund later went bankrupt and our bank took over the management of it and paid out a fraction on the Rand value.
About that time, several things happened in rapid sequence. God was replacing that loss. An aunt I greatly admired died, and left her bank balance and investments to me. The investments were in the form of annuities and had been bought in her’s and my names. One day I tripped on the way back from the Post Office, and shattered my left elbow. Thanks to the Lord, it healed well not even requiring therapy. But it shook me to realize that it could have been my forehead and not my elbow that hit that stone studded concrete foot-bridge approach. I began to think seriously about finding a replacement, and then God took over. The elbow healed, the Lord sent a family whose work permit for Zimbabwe had expired, and I was able to hand over absolutely everything to their care for the Lord.
When I was 73, I officially retired and we flew out from Johannesburg International Airport headed for Dallas, Texas where our daughter, Donna and her husband Jim lived. We shipped one crate of things we really wanted to keep, and with our allowed air luggage we made a completely new start, in a totally new place. I never thought of the Republic of Texas as being a new country, but it may as well have been yet. We had “culture shock” all over again. The prices of everything! We needed everything immediately. And they drove on the right side of the road! We had driven on the left side for forty seen years, except for our trips to America.
A day later we were in Texas, and a week or so later we had American driver’s licenses and an apartment at the Christian Care Center’s Independent Living apartment building, in Mesquite, Texas. We loved it there, and it was just what we needed. Our “non-instrument” brothers accepted our presence with love and we found the Lake View Christian Church only a few blocks away on a quiet side street to the interstate that passed our door. God had sent us there to recover and adjust, but it could not be permanent. I am certain that there was another reason for this exact stay.
It was a requirement that we have an established medical connection that would accept Medicare. This was solved by the proximity of the Baylor Hospital’s Senior Care Centre just up the road. It was those dear people who in giving us a full medical check over, found that Phyllis had a tumor on one ovary, the other was dried up, but this one had grown enormously. The biopsy, after the surgery, revealed that, as our doctor said, “We found it just in time, another six months and it would have turned cancerous.” God knew that when I tripped and fell back in South Africa! It was he who put us where we needed to be at exactly the right time so that it would be found. South African doctors would never have found it in time. We would have been content to stay at the care center permanently, but unfortunately, our funds were being eroded rapidly. Much more was going out than the annuities and the really tiny Social Security checks were bringing in.
A move was necessary. We started a search for an acceptable Manufactured Home community and found one just four miles from our daughter’s home in Lewisville. At the right time, we also found a new double-wide Fleetwood home that we loved and could still afford. It was promptly installed on site 404 in this more than 600 homes community. The Lord provided.
Our church home is now at the Valley View Christian Church, a little over twelve miles away in Dallas, where I am now at 80, on the roster to “Greet” people, usually at the main entrance; I served as the Wednesday morning Bible Study Class; and bring the devotional thoughts at our monthly Sunday school dinner in a private home. We are also volunteers for one of the Lewisville Senior Center’s Senior.net computer classes. Our several blog sites and weekly "Search the Scriptures with Bob" newsletter give us ample opportunities to continue spreading the word via the web. I stopped teaching the class full time when I realized I was loading myself back up like I had done in Africa. We thank the Lord for His leading, and look forward to what He has in store for us ahead. No one ever retires from the Lord’s work. Africa or America, his field is the world. We are presently consdiering selling the Manufactured Home and going to an apartment in an "Evergreen" retirement home nearer the church, the Lord leading. It is much nearer the church, but also near our doctors, dentist, and the Baylor hospital. Now we make several trips back and forth the hour drive across Dallas for those things.
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