My Ruth

My Ruth!    The most wonderful gift that God ever gave me in this life – Sorry Mom, Sorry sons!    Yes, my mother is wonderful but there comes a time in life when there is an unexplainable push to leave and cleave with someone else.   And so God created my Ruth.

A couple years ago now but My Ruth looks even better today.

Recently, when Ruth was off to England to Celebrate the life of her beloved Nanny, Grandma Cox, I especially felt the amazingness of my wife.   The freezer was stocked to the hilt and I mean to the hilt – nearly took a strap tie to hold it shut.   There were nearly a dozen loaves of bread and at least a dozen entrees.   There was a breakfast idea’s list complete with all the exact instructions.    That’s especially meaningful to a man like me who is hopeless in the kitchen – Well not really, I just like being the Dame in Distress or the Lad in Limbo in the kitchen.   Or then again ask the boys about the time when dad confused the all purpose flour for gluten flour.   That made for some rubberized inch thick pancakes.   Now we know what they make bouncy balls out of.   Call it Home schooling Science with Dad.   Ok back to the subject!   My Ruth!!!! 

 

One of many lists of things we guys were suppose to remember while Ruth was in England for her Nanny’s memorial service.

My Ruth!   In her excitement to see her family, or was it her worry that dad/I would accidentally kill the family if I actually did pour the wrong ingredients together, Ruth had each of our favorites for breakfast ready on the day of her departure to England.   Hot cereal with peanut butter for me and a fruit smoothie --- Shh! don’t tell Ruth but even I can do that meal and not add gluten flour.   But I was impressed that Mrs “must leave everything in absolute order before a major trip” because “who wants to return to a messy house”, had the time to cook specialty breakfasts for her family of 5 men.   Come-on guys, eat your hearts out, I got the Prov 31 gal – Nah!  Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah!

 

Our fruit smoothie and my hot 8 Grain Cereal with peanut butter stirred in.   Now that’s a Breakfast.

At 5 a.m. I rolled over to let my Ruth know that it was time to start getting up only to find there was a void where she should have been. . . Wait she shouldn’t be gone yet!   I followed my nose to the kitchen.   “Honey why are you cooking more?  It’s 5 a.m.”

“’Cause I want to!” Ruth giggled.   “I can’t let my men starve.”   

“Don’t worry we won’t starve!    Do you realize how tall our freezer is?   Do you realize that we use to put a whole winters supply worth of foods in a freezer like that in America?   We aren’t going to starve.  Relax woman!   We’re going to be okay!”

But Ruth being determined as she is was worried about too much food in England.   So she went to her ‘boot camp’ work out at Hill Crest International school on the way to the Airport.   On the way to the airport, My Ruth,  ran up the “Hillcrest Mountain” several times and then did Sworkit (S-work-it) with her fellowess moms who are determined that “when you go on furlough Thou Shalt not return with the Furlough 15.”  15 pounds that is.    My philosophy is, enjoy it, cause when you travel like I do you’ll lose that furlough 15.   So bring on Grandma Joyce Draughns Banana Pudding or a few boxes of Little Debbies.   Extra sour cream, Please, on my Three 7 layer Taco Bell Bah-Reet-Toes.  But My Ruth is on a mid life exercise kick that has her lookin’ ummm!   Hmm! So fine!!!!!!

Relax woman!   We’re going to be ok. . . But I must admit, for a brief moment as I watched Ruth walk into the Sentani Airport at 9:00 a.m. that morning I thought,  “I sure hope you come back cause I don’t know what we’d do without you.   I sure love being the Dame in Distress in the kitchen.”   One blessing of being at the end of the food chain is that they don’t have Gluten Flour to screw me up in the kitchen.   Flour here is flour but my Flower keeps on blooming in my life – My Ruth.   Thank God she is back safe and sound!  My Ruth!

A brief moment of panic hit me as Ruth disappeared into the Sentani Airport hear our house.

Club Sehat–The Healthy Grocery Store Ministry

As I write I’m in Jakarta for several meetings.     I had some time yesterday and I decided to go look up a ministry I’ve heard a lot about – Club Sehat – or Club Health we’d say in English.    Club Sehat is the brainstorm of some Adventist businessmen who wanted to follow the counsel of our Adventist forefathers written over 100 years ago.   Here’s my paraphrase of that 100 year old counsel “In our Cities and in Resort areas let Health Restaurants with treatment rooms connected to it be started.   Let them be connected to our churches as centers of influence.    As customers come, the workers should be always be alert to the spiritual, physical, emotional and mental needs of those who enter the doors.   Offer classes on health, cooking and treatment, etc.”

I called my friend Pastor Kaleb Segala who graciously agreed to take me on a tour of Club Sehat.   The first of 2 stores we toured was the Club Sehat in Pluit (North Jakarta).   As we arrived I was impressed by a nice looking store front in a nice area of North Jakarta.   This is an old China town that has been majorly re-made into a modern area of mega malls and shopping centers, interspersed by high rise town homes and golf communities of Jakarta’s wealthy and mid-class people. 

As we entered the store the store manager met us and introduced us to the staff. 

4 or 5 full time employees work in this particular store.   In every store they always hire 1 or more pre-Adventists who’ve been touched by Club Sehats ministry and usually they will be a member within a year or two.   On first glance you think it’s just a health store.   But as you read nicely designed advertising you see up coming Seminars are “How to Prevent Cancer”, “Weight and Diet Management”, “The Best Diet” and “Heathy Exercise”.  

Then there is the large poster for the upcoming Club Sehat 2 week course in a Mountain retreat a couple of hours away from Jakarta.   “Oh, Cool, there’s a cool class coming this Saturday,” I think to myself, “Wish I could come.”

Second Floor

Then they take me to the second flour where they teach the classes.   It’s a simple room that seats 65-80.   “How full do you get here on Saturdays I ask?”

“Well when we do our teaching about Cancer we usually have over flow to the 3rd floor.  We have a closed circuit camera on the 2nd floor so we can project to the 3rd floor.”  

I quickly calculate in my mind.   “So you have 80 on the 2nd floor and how many on the 3rd floor?”

“Sometimes that many again.”  Ellen answers

One Section of tables on the 3rd floor where they have healthy food potlucks.

We go to the third flour where I see the cook school room and potluck room and the consultation room for when they do seminars.   The forth flour is still under construction but will house hydro-therapy and massage therapy rooms.   Man, Jakarta won’t seem so stressful when they get that built.

“So what does your Saturday services look like?”   I ask.

“We usually have Sabbath School first at 9:30 followed by a health teaser and then a sermon.   Then we invite the guests, which are usually double or more than our members, to eat a healthy potluck meal that we plan.   Then they can join us for the health lecture.   After the sun goes down on Sabbath night we open the store because often the guests want some ingredients that they’ve tasted in the healthy potluck.”  Ellen tells us.   “We sometimes stay afterwards and eat popcorn and fruit salad and play games.”

Me:   So have you had any that come back every week?   I mean that’s a long day!

Ellen:   Most. . . We collect their names and information all week as they come to the store and then we invite them on Fridays to come on the weekend for seminars or sometimes week night programs.   Club Sehat has grown so fast that we’ve started 5 in 5 years and 3 of our locations have become organized Seventh-day Adventist churches.  (Note: Pastor Segala tells us that no other ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist church in Jakarta has had this kind of success in growth).

Me:  So who comes?   Is this mostly Chinese Christians that we steal from other denominations or is this from Vegetarians in the city?  And how do they come to find out about your Club Sehat?

Ellen:  Let me answer your second question first.   We get on local radio stations, usually the government station, and have them interview us about health.   With millions of listeners its not hard to get people interested.   Now your first question:   We have a majority who are not going to any church when they first come to us.   There are Buddhists, Hindu’s, Muslims, Christians and some who are no particular religion or some other type of religion that maybe I forgot to mention.   If you want exact statistics we can tell you on our computer.    (We laugh) (Note: I’m not use to such scientists of souls here in Indonesia or anywhere for that matter.)

Success stories written on the wall.

Me:   Tell me a success story.

Ellen:  On the wall in the grocery store and on our web site www.clubsehat.com you can see testimonials.   There was one lady who came to us with Stage 4 cancer in her breasts, ovaries, back bone and neck. . . the Docs had given up.   But she heard us on Radio and looked us up.   We started working with her and within 4 months the cancer was seriously reversed – To God be the Glory.   She joined us and continues to live the healthy lifestyle that we advocate.   She has a tractotomy as her proof that the cancer was indeed so bad before.  She was one of our first customers back 5 years ago.   We worked together with a Doctor who prefers to practice prevention and we could watch her getting better.   This was an amazing miracle.    When the traditional Western Medicine had told her she only had a short time to live God did something to help us.

On the Forth floor will be a Hydrotherapy and Massage Clinic.  Its still being built out.

As I shopped the grocery store I couldn’t help but think. . . wouldn’t this be cool to have in Papua?   There were things like Flax seed and raw sunflower seeds and nuts of all sorts and whole wheat flour and then there were hundreds of little things that I have no idea what they were because I’m no cook. To you cooking sorts. . . next time you’re in Jakarta check out their amazing stores and ministry.   You can shop online and see what they have.   www.clubsehat.com  More Club Sehats are in the plans.

The Screenshot of where we were at the Pluit Store.