Tuesday, August 27, 2013

First chapter excerpt

My dear friends,
I appreciate so much how you’ve interacted with my family over the years as we’ve been figuring out how to be the best parents we can be to Allie. Some of you have been tracking with this blog since even before the Spring of 2007 when our granddaughter Allie was horribly abused and put into a coma.
What we have below is an excerpt of my unfinished first chapter of the book I’m organizing around the story of our little Allie.
I’ve been gathering scraps of records and memories I’ve written down. The emotions that have tattooed those memories into my psyche have come rushing into the present as I remember and write.
Some of you were right there with us as extended family and community. You prayed with us and encouraged us and even walked physically with us in the early days of this experience. If you were one of those who did, could you write me a few sentences about how the news about Allie first hit you when you heard it?
People who didn’t know us in the department of children services in San Francisco where these incidents took place judged my family harshly at first. They didn’t know us and I don’t hold it against them. They became our biggest cheerleaders once they came to know us. They really put a lot of effort into getting to know us.
Here’s a tough question: if you knew us personally and had criticisms of us, I want to welcome your thoughts as well. I want you to feel totally free to share. I’ll be honest, if I wasn’t in the middle of this, I would have had a harsh thought or two for us as well. Many of you know how coarse my personal interactions can be, so let it rip. I deserve it. You can leave me an anonymous comment below if you like, or you can email me at bryon.mondok@gmail.com.
I really want to hear about the emotions you experienced whether empathetic or harsh. This will be helpful for me as I write this book. I think will be helpful for future readers as well.

The call
A pre-dawn phone call wrenched me from sleep. The display on the caller ID read "Charity."
Charity is my prodigal daughter.
"Dad!" she gasped. Her voice was strained with panic. I braced myself. My wife Susan was standing near me and I grabbed her wrist and gave it a squeeze. "You have to pray. Allie's on the way to the hospital with Timmy. They're in an ambulance. Allie isn't breathing."
Allie is my daughter's daughter. She was born four days after Charity's nineteenth birthday. The two of them shared Charity's bedroom in our Florida home until about three months before this call. When Allie was seven months old, Charity moved with her to San Francisco to make a life with Allie's father, Timmy. Now, at ten months old, Allie was speeding through San Francisco streets in an ambulance. This is a nightmare.
"Why isn't she breathing? What happened?" I asked.
"I don't know! Timmy only told me she isn't breathing. I'm on my way to the hospital. Please, you and Mom pray."
We prayed. I called my best friend, Dan, and got him and his wife, Cheryl, out of bed to pray, too. Dan and Cheryl wanted to know what happened, too. I told them I didn't know - that Allie wasn't breathing.
Waiting for more news made us feel helpless and useless. Our minds raced as we tried to fill in the blanks. Why isn't Allie breathing? What did she get into? Were drugs left in reach? Did she get her little hands on something poisonous? What else could have possibly happened? We didn't want to think it. Please, Jesus! She's only a baby! Please bring her back to us whole and healthy.
We were in shock. I felt like I needed to do more than pray. I needed to fix this. But all we could do is pray. There was nothing else in our power to do in this moment so pray we did.
We didn't know it yet, but our lives needed to get more connected to God. Our lives were about to enter a vortex of chaos. Prayer is supposed to be easy, but even prayer was going to be a monumental task in the near future. We needed more prayer than I knew.
Susan and I were in a holding pattern as we waited for more information. We wished the phone would ring.
The second call
Be careful what you wish for. The second call came from Charity. She said the one word Susan and I were silent about. We refused to let the thought surface. We were afraid that if we spoke the word, we might come to pass. So, instinctively, we kept that word in the darkest, most guarded hiding place in our minds. We wouldn't let that horrible monster into the world.
Then Charity said the word. Abuse.

Friday, August 23, 2013

I can’t do this without you

anniversary27

I cannot live, I can't breathe
Unless you do this with me
”The Adventure” -- Angels and Airwaves

 

You only get to do life once. I’m doing life with the perfect person.

Twenty-seven years ago today, I married Susan. According to my father, God gave me this woman to tame me. And that she did.

I refer to this woman one way: the Charming and Beautiful Susan. Every single day I can’t wait to come home to be with this woman and spend time with her. To share life with her.

I’ll never forget meeting her. All my buddies were after her. But somehow I convinced her to climb onto the back of my motorcycle for a ride to the beach. That was our first date. Impromptu. Unplanned.

I inadvertently parked my Suzuki in a tow away zone at the Fort Lauderdale A1A strip on the beach across the street from the Elbow Room. My bike got towed and we were stranded. Impromptu. Unplanned.

That was the first time I kissed her. The memory makes me dizzy. Who cares if my bike got towed. Keep it. This hot girl was letting me in close enough for a long kiss. The first of many. Impromptu. Unplanned.

This is the first memory I made with this woman. She was nineteen. I was twenty. I was on the beach in October in Florida. I was euphoric. We got married eight months later. The memory of that first night still makes me dizzy.

Monday, August 05, 2013

Sharing the Gospel

A friend of mine asked me to write a piece for a document he’s working on for training missionaries. Here’s what I wrote:


sudan

The times I've had to share the gospel on the mission field always happen when I'm least ready. "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching." That's what the Apostle Paul told young Timothy. This is what he needed to have up and running in order to serve the church at Ephesus. Whether you feel ready or not, sharing the Gospel is something you'll always be expected to do. Always be ready to creatively connect your story and the gospel with the people you meet for one-on-one conversations or public addresses you may be called upon to give.

No matter where God directs your path as you head to the mission field, because you are an American (or are being sent by a church in America) you will be given a platform. You will be called upon to pray, speak to, or greet groups in public. Be the guy or girl known for sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with every opportunity.

The first time I went to Sudan, I worked with soldiers out at the front during the Sudanese Civil War. I was on a short term mission trip serving in a Bible college setting training chaplains who would be deployed to pastor soldiers. Our hosts had planned a special outreach to soldiers living and training in the bush. We took a generator, a movie screen, projector with a portable sound system, and the Jesus Film produced for the purpose of evangelism by Campus Crusade. We were heading to the most remote setting you could imagine in Africa's Equatorial Interior. The generator we brought was the only source of electricity in the region. Many of the soldiers had never seen a movie, I had been told. This was going to be a real treat for them.

The drive into the camp was surreal. It was near the border with Uganda and land mines were marked with flags and barbed wire all along the border. These soldiers were the most malnourished looking men I've ever seen. They wore clothes that were so thread-bare, you could see right through them. Most of the men wore cheep rubber sandals - the same kind you've probably used as shower shoes - and many were barefoot. The sun was setting and in the fading sunlight I thought I was on another planet. As I was given a tour, I was very aware of the landmines.

The time to show the Jesus Film was drawing near and a couple of our guys set up the gear and prepared to fire up the generator. But it wouldn't crank. The 1,500 men that had gathered to hear from the American visitors and watch a movie stood by watching and waiting with expectancy.

My host asked me if I would address the soldiers and encourage them.

So it's come to this. "Be ready in season and out of season." This is what "out of season" must feel like. If ever there was an "out of season" it was here in the bush in remote Sudan along the Ugandan border surrounded by landmines and soldiers dressed in rags.

I prayed with my team and then lifted up my voice and informed these men that I was an American, a former U.S. Marine. When I was called upon to serve my country by learning to shoot a weapon and fight with hand-to-hand combat, I began to fear what would happen if I died.

Would I see God?

I told them that is was then, at seventeen years old, that I began to read the Bible and learn about Jesus, the Man who was God. I shared the gospel with those Sudanese soldiers and called on those men to give their lives to Jesus. And many of those men took me up on the offer.

I had no idea when I got up that morning that this was how the day was going to end.

Saturday, August 03, 2013

Über Christ Follower John Michaels

johnmichaelsPastor John Michaels went to be with the Lord on 31 July, 2013.

John Michaels, was the founding pastor of Calvary Chapel Spring Valley. He is a former nuclear physicist. He served in Viet Nam in the U.S. Navy. He has and incredible talent for making science and math interesting as he uses them to illustrate biblical concepts.

Remember algebra? Remember how you used to ask, “What will I ever need algebra for in real life?” Michaels turned algebra into dynamic biblical illustrations to teach truth about God.

In algebra we learned about formulas and equations. Every equation has two things: a constant and a variable. We, in our spiritual lives have a tendency to view our circumstances as the constant and God as the variable. But that's backwards. God is the constant and everything else in existence is the variable.

Michaels mentored countless young men and women in ministry as a pastor. I first met Pastor John when I was in Bible College at Calvary Chapel. He taught the Inductive Bible Study method used by a vast multitude of men and women in ministry around the world.

He opened Calvary Chapel Christian School in Las Vegas, began the Calvary Chapel Bible College and Training Center in Dumaguete City, started a missions training base in La Gloria, Mexico, where my son and I went to Missions Training School. Michaels also established Send the MEssage missions conferences and seminars where many men and women had there eyes opened to God’s heart for reaching the nations and where many had their calling to the foreign field confirmed.

Michaels lead missions teams to Southeast Asia, India, Central America and Mexico. He served on the board of Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators. As a local pastor, he referred to himself as a frustrated missionary because his heart was in the international mission field but God had him pastoring families locally and training men and women preparing for ministry abroad.

He will be missed. He was a successful leader with the valuable ability to duplicate himself in others and pass his experience, wisdom and vision to a generation of young people eager to take Christ to the nations.

A memorial service will be held at Calvary Chapel Spring Valley on Tuesday, August 6, 2013 at 6:00pm with an international dinner reception following the memorial. Please contact the church office at 702.362.9000 for more details.