Current Events and Updates of the Ministry

You will be aware, if you have been keeping up with my latest blogs, that my father, Alvin Frey, has had a major setback in his health of late. Thankfully he is at home from the hospital again after having spent a couple of weeks in a very touch-and-go situation under direct hospital care.

He has a very much weakened heart, and suffers from the

symptoms of congestive heart failure. This is replete with extreme shortness of breath at times associated with fluid buildup in the lungs. He has also has edema in his legs. He is further tormented with extreme restless leg syndrome (RLS) which is more recently affecting his whole body beyond being restricted to his lower extremities as before.

Dad has also been having attacks of what was being attributed to TIAs (transient ischemic attacks). In a TIA the blood flow to a part of the brain stops for a brief period of time. When having a TIA a person will have stroke-like symptoms for up to 1-2 hours. Dad did indeed have these symptoms. However during his recent time in the hospital this diagnosis was ruled out, and it was discovered that he is actually having seizures. At some point in the past, prior to the CT scan that was taken about a year ago he must have had a slight stroke which affected the back of his brain. The neurologist feels that the scar tissue left from that stroke may well be causing the seizures that he is, and has been experiencing.

Dad is on a whack load of medication, and is being followed closely by doctors in Steinbach, the small city near their home in

Mitchell, Manitoba. But truthfully, as my brother Paul recently wrote, “Physically, Dad is frail and declining somewhat day by day.  But there are days like today when he does feel better.  Hopefully there will be an increasing number of the better days, but I don’t know that we can bank on that.  Mentally, Dad remains quite sharp.  Mom seems to be coping well enough for now”.

So, that is ultimately the frailty of this “tent in which we all dwell”, as the Apostle Paul referred to our human bodies.

We all certainly appreciate your continued love and prayers for them, especially now in these more difficult times of their lives.

Both my mom and dad have been huge examples of godliness, servanthood, love, and Christlikeness in my life. I wish to post a short blog in honor of them. This comes with all of my love and respect for them as the exemplary man and woman of God that they have been all of their lives. They have literally touched and changed the lives of men and

women for God in many countries, from the highest to the lowest levels.

Please accept this post as an honor to a great man and woman.

In many ways my parents, Alvin and Lydian Frey are giants. As I look back over the years I realize that they have touched the lives of people across the world. In my case, both my physical and spiritual birth is directly due to them.  However, I know that a multitude of others will also testify that their spiritual growth, if not directly its birth, is linked to them as well.

It is amazing to me to see how God has used two kids, born into southern Ontario conservative Mennonite, farming families and made them touch the world. You may already know the story – my father’s family was conservative horse-

and-buggy Mennonite when he was born.  Later his parents joined the Black-bumper Mennonite church, where they stayed until they died.  My mother was born into a somewhat less conservative farming family.  My parent’s first years in school were very difficult as they needed to learn English rather than their native German tongue (incidentally, a language that was not an asset on the playground during the anti-Nazi days in which they grew up).

Others would be better in telling of their teenage and courting years (I wasn’t around then).  However, I do know that there were the usual struggles and soul searching of normal teen years.  My father – most will not know this – left home in his later teenage years and went north and west.  He worked for some time in the harvests in the Canadian west.  Later he worked for the forestry service in northern Ontario.  The most interesting chapter, I believe, was his gig on a freighter in Lake Superior.  The ship captain was grooming him to move up the line and begin a career as a captain himself.  How different that would have ended!

But, God – that is the key phrase in my parent’s lives I believe – “but God” had other ideas.

The life of faith is not always easy.  Just because you are in God’s will and purposes does not necessarily mean that things will be easy or “nice”.  I know that many times in their lives my parents lived uncomfortably, lonely, and misunderstood.  This was perhaps especially true throughout the years that they were missionaries at Deer Lake, a tiny isolated Indian village in northern Ontario, Canada. We ate bannock and snowshoe rabbit cooked in stewed tomatoes more often than I care to mention. Beaver, muskrat and elbow macaroni were often our fare.

My mother soon learned that it was folly to attempt to mop the floor all winter since at -50°

Fahrenheit the mop froze instantly to the floor.  Many times we ate breakfast huddled around the kitchen wood cook stove with the oven door open and all of our feet in the oven in a vain attempt to keep our toes warm during breakfast.  My mother spent many lonely years without another woman with whom she could speak as the women of the village spoke only Cree.

My parents were often misunderstood, mistrusted and wounded by the very ones closest to them who should have been there to support them. As God began to reveal more and more of himself to my parents, they found that they were being rejected by their fellow missionaries, and on one occasion at least, called “heretics” because their newly discovered understanding of the person of God. These are the times of pain and suffering that don’t make good anecdotes, but they do make good and noble character.

I stand in amazement at how God has taken these two backward, German speaking, Mennonite kids and touched the world with their lives.

Mom and Dad, I honor your lives. I love you. You have lived like giants.

Blessings,

Steven and Theresa

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at 5:05 pm and is filed under VitW Blog.