Ontario 1st Church of the Nazarene

We heard about a church close by called Ontario 1st Church of the Nazarene. We didn't know much about it. I think Jen's sister had a kid in daycare there or something. All I know is here we were. It is always difficult starting at a new place, but we went. I remember we received a letter from the pastor thanking us for visiting. A couple from the church left a baggie of cookies in our mail box. We started going there in February 1993 and we really liked it. The pastor, Larry Pitcher was a really nice, likable guy. His wife, Sandi was very friendly and took to Jen pretty quick. Some of Nick's friends from elementary school went here too. We soon got to know the families of these kids and the parents became our friends. Pretty amazing how that works. Another huge help was a young adult Bible class. It was taught by Rick Morrison. This guy was extremely knowledgeable and had a way of explaining things pretty clearly.  He helped me to get really grounded in the Word.
 Honestly, I didn't get the hymns at first. I spent most of the time trying to figure out the language. It was in English, but Old King James English. Words like hath, doth, thy, thee and the abbreviated words of com'st, ne'er, e'ver, heav'n. What did these mean? What was the writer of the hymn trying to say? How can I try to sing these songs if I didn't know what they meant. Okay maybe I'm making too much of this, but I really, truly wanted to know what these songs were about. Over time, I got the tunes down. I would sing the word "doth" while thinking "does". I also remember working nights and my week would start on Sunday night. I went to Rick and asked him about working on the Sabbath. I was worried that I might be doing something wrong. Rick reassured me that I was doing fine and wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't trying to be a legalist. I just wanted to do the right thing. I didn't grow up in the church and felt like I needed to make up for lost time. They were very warm and friendly. I'm very thankful for the people of this church.

Church on TV

After we left the Pentecostal church, we didnt know where to go. We did what a lot of people do. We stayed home. We still prayed and read our Bibles, but didn't know what to read or how to interpret it. We saw a couple of pastors on a local channel and watched for a while. We read along and even contributed to a couple of them. One was Charles Stanley. He was really good and easy to understand, but he always said that his program was never meant to take the place of the local church. We learned a lot from watching Dr. Stanley.
Some others caused a lot of confusion. There was Ken Copeland and his group. There was also Fred Price. We'd watch Dr. Stanley first and then these guys would come on. A lot of what they said seemed to sound pretty good, but they would take some things out of their context. If you had any problems at all, physical, financial, emotional, or any other kind, then you simply didn't have enough faith. I know this caused me to have doubts about my own salvation. I would pray and ask God to forgive me for doubting and basically asked to me saved again and again. I know it sounds pretty dumb, but this is what I did. I didn't know any better. I didn't really care about my finances or anything like that. I did want to make sure that I had the proper respect for God. I believed He was all powerful and all loving and I still struggled with my own insecurities. I was still trying to fix things. I thought God wanted perfection. I mean He is holy and I'm not, but what I didn't grasp for the longest time was that no one is perfect. No one is able to come to God in his or her own goodness. Those first couple of years, I read through my Bible. I read it a lot. I heard some many different things. One person might say this and another that. I wanted to know what the Bible had to say. I had also heard that Jesus was coming back at such and such a time and a few people even speculated as to where He would arrive. It felt like I was taking 2 or 3 steps forward and then 2 or 3 steps back. It was time to find a regular church.

Backin' up a bit

Sometimes I get excited telling my story that I jump around. I jump around A LOT. My apologies. One day when Nick was three, he brought a Bible to Jen and said to her, "Here. Read this." After that he went back to playing. She thought it was strange, but she started reading the Bible. She had been to church before with his grandma and cousins. She had always had a Bible, but never really read it. I had a couple of Bibles myself and never really read them. I thought it was a good book. A book full of good stories, full of wisdom and good morals. Nothing much more. At this time, we were attending a friend's church. It was a Pentecostal church and I really didn't like it. I felt like the pastor was bragging about his own goodness and his personal spot in heaven and that I was just out of luck. No hope for me. I also had heard people discussing how some people are chosen by God and others are not. Predestination is what they called it. I only heard a little and it sounded confusing.

When Nick got sick, we stopped going. Along the way, Jen had become a Christian. At Loma Linda, I did too. I wasn't too sure about myself though. 

On the mend

Even though I slept for just a couple of hours, it was the most restful sleep I had in a long time. I thought it was strange, but I wasn't on stress overload any more. I had a feeling that things were going to work out. I couldn't really find the words to explain it. Its just you know that you know. Nick went through a bunch of different tests. He was never really diagnosed at the other place and the doctors at Loma Linda leave no stone unturned. They discovered that he just had a bad kidney infection that was made worse by his "treatment" at the other hospital. All the test took about a big chuck of the morning and almost all of the afternoon. In the late afternoon/ early evening I went to get Jen. Either that or her sister brought her. I don't really remember which. She was also relived that Nick was doing better after just a couple of days. He was able to come home at the end of the week.
I continued to work at the same place for about another year or two. In the meantime, a friend who worked at a temporary placement service told me about a temp to hire position at a steel company. Jen, Nick, and I started going to a Nazarene church in Ontario, CA. Things were on the mend for all of us.

Loma Linda Hospital

After a week of no answers, we were hoping that moving Nick out to Loma Linda might change that. We were glad to see that the staff was on top of things and very attentive. Even though, Jen was still pretty worried. She had been staying by Nick's side, night and day ever since he was first admitted back at Doctor's Hospital. It was taking a real toll on her. She wasn't sleeping and she wasnt eating. Her sisters took her back home and I stayed overnight. While Nick was sleeping, I went and got something for dinner. I told the nurse that I was running to Del Taco and would be back in few minutes if they needed me. When I returned, I checked back in at the nurses station and looked in on Nick. He was still sleeping. I took my food out to the patio and thought about everything going on. I had a lot of questions. Questions about what Nick really had going on, how Jen was doing, what if I did lose my job, and so on. I had so many questions. My mind was on overload.
At Loma Linda, they give you a small stack of books to read through. Most of them were religious due to Loma Linda being a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I looked through them a little. Mostly just to pass the time. Nick was sleeping alot better and the nurses were taking really excellent care of him. I was there but wasn't needed to be on duty. I continued wrestling with my multiple questions. I took one of the books, Steps to Christ, into one of the visiting areas. I was by myself and turned on the TV. I was kind of bored with what was on TV. Watched some news, flipped through so more channels, and went to check on Nick again. He was fine and I think I was becoming a bit of a nuisance. I went back to watch some more TV. I stumbled on to a music video channel and watched it for a bit. It showed videos by a lot of the alternative bands I was currently listening to and some ones I had never heard before. It seemed like it was one great video after another. Even though I was really getting into the show, I kept going back to this book. I couldn't take myself away from it. I stopped skimming and read the thing the whole way through. At first, it reminded me alot of the stories I had heard going to Released Time in the Fourth Grade and the ones I heard at the churches I had visited with neighbors. The more I read, the more I saw that my life wasn't where it needed to be. I mean I had always tried to be a good person. I tried to do more to help others. I thought I was pretty close to Boy Scout status. At the same time, I realized that I had been spinning my wheels. I never really dealt with anything. I never let people know if  I was hurting. I knew I had anger problems and other issues and  I stuffed them somewhere deep down. Whenever things would begin to "bubble up", I'd stuff it all down more forcefully. I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself. I just needed to work extra hard to keep up my "good guy" appearance. I just wanted people to see me as normal. Not someone with problems. I worked two jobs most of the time so Jen could stay home with Nick. I made sure that I did stuff with Nick. I still enjoyed being a dad and wanted to do things that I missed out on as a kid.
AsI was reading, some of my questions were being replaced with other questions. Deep probing questions, that make you skirm. Questions that keep people up late at night. As I was reading through this little book, I was made to look at myself as I really was. This God that I had heard so much about was actually concerned with me and my family and I had been avoiding Him. I had been running as fast as I could, but I could not hide. I had many things that either I had done or things that were done to me that I was ashamed of. I didn't want this God to see me. I knew I wasn't a good person, but I wasn't a horrible person. I was very convicted. I knew that I was trying to carry the whole weight of everything myself even thought this was God's job. I went out on the balcony and cried out to God. I dont remember exactly what I said, but I do remember admitting that I was hopeless and no longer able to keep things going. I said that I had heard alot of good things about, but if you're real, I willing to give you a shot. That was about it. Just as I finished praying, a lady came out and made some small talk with me. Her daughter was in the hospital and had been coming there for a very long time. She assured me that Nick was in good hands and left. I stayed out a little longer thinking about what I just did. I felt at ease. I knew that I wasn't so overwhelmed anymore, but now I had new questions. I went back into the visiting room and fell asleep on the seats in there.

Nick goes to the hospital

Thanksgiving 1991. Something wasnt quite right. Nick was lying on the living room floor, curled up and looked like he was in a lot of pain. I got down next to him. "What's wrong?" "UH, NOTHING" So I ask, "Does something hurt?" NOOOOOOO." Time for a trip to the hospital. The closest one that took my insurance was Doctor's Hospital in Montclair, CA. Something was obviously wrong, but Nick wouldn't say where he hurt. Just picking him up caused him a great deal of pain. We got the hospital and was asked the questions they always ask. What happened? When did the pain start?  What is he saying hurts? After running some tests, they discovered it was his kidneys.
Nick had always been very heathly and got all his shots. We moved and he didn't have a regular doctor. He never needed one. He got minor cuts and scapes and the occassional cold. I think I can count the number of times he got stomach flu on one hand.
When you go to the Emergency Room and you don't have a regular doctor, the hospital assigns one to you. There are some doctors who are really great and some that are just okay. We got neither. The doctor we saw took me aside to speak with me. After his intial assessment, he had a possible diagnosis. He said it was either a kidney infection or he needed a kidney transplant. SERIOUSLY! This was what he told me. It was easy to tell the Nick was very sick and they admitted him. Jen would stay with him all day and almost all night and I would stay as much as I could. I would arrive at the hospital after I got off work.
We had discovered that real fruit juice and Nick didn't get along. We told this to the doctor, the nurses, etc. They even put a bracelet and wrote "NO JUICE" on it. He was severely dehydrated. They had him on IV's, but they kept giving him juice saying it was "doctor's orders". The juice caused him to have severe diarrhea. The nurses would come around to check on him from time to time and ask us why he had diarrhea. We said because you guys keep giving him juice and we pointed at his ankle. They would leave and say they would back to change his bedding. We got tired of waiting for them to come back. I did some snoping around and would the linen room. I came back with clean bedding and gowns and we cleaned up EVERYTHING ourselves. They didn't back for a couple of hours and they were actually mad that we didnt wait for them to come back. I told them that you cant leave someone in that.  After that they just let us clean him up and change his bedding. Something needed to be done and done quickly. Nick wasn't getting better. He was getting worse! At the same time, things were changing at work. Hours were getting cut and I lost my insurance. After a lot of phone calls and forms, we got emergency medi-cal and Nick was transfered to Loma Linda.
As soon as we arrived at Loma Linda, we met the doctors, filled out the forms, and got Nick into a room. I noticed in the main lobby, there was a giant picture of Jesus. Just from the shoulders up, but it took up the whole wall. There was something about the picture that put me at ease. I really couldn't put my finger on it. I think we were just glad to in a better hospital than Doctor's. They should have called it "QUACKS PLAYGROUND" rather than Doctor's Hospital.

Nick part#1

My son Nick was born when I was only 19 1/2. It was really awesome. Jen and I were really excited and very nervous. We just wanted a healthy baby and we were planning on doing our best and loving him like crazy. We were very, very happy. He was the perfect baby. He slept through the night at one month old.

He has been a gift to us. Never got into trouble. He was always a good kid. He always got really good grades. The worse thing he ever did was when he set off a model rocket engine in his room. He had a giant glass jar and he thought it would just spin in the jar. It built up too much pressure and busted the bottom out. We had just finished having lunch on a Sunday afternoon and Nick went to his room like he always did. That's when it happened. We heard glass break followed by those words that every parent dreads. "UH OH!" I went running into his room, asking if he was all right and trying to assess the situation at the same time. I really couldn't see too much. His whole room was filled with smoke! Wall to wall and floor to ceiling. He got his window open and I grabbed his chinchilla and hamster cages. I opened every window in the place. I got every fan we had and ran them on high. Nick was okay. We didn't know that a small class C rocket would put out quite so much smoke.
He would also build all kinds of things. He still does. He would see something and try to replicate it. When he was 4 or 5, he saw a laser one some show and He pulled the wiring out of an old guitar I had built. I asked him why he ripped out the wiring. He told me that he really need the wires and I was home to take him to the store. We used to go to the "trash truck" store a lot. That what called Home Depot. The backup alarms on the forklifts made him think of the trash truck.
When he was in kindergarten, he had a really bad kidney infection and was hospitalized for two weeks. We found out later that he didn't use the bathroom at school. He thought that if he did, he would miss out on riding the bikes. He has been fairly healthy every since, but that was a very scary time for us.