My Brother Hoshea Saves Girl from Suicide

Valentines Day is not a happy day for many people like it is for us.
Sunday evening I spent quite a while talking on the phone to my brother Hoshea up in frigid North Dakota. The weather there has been as cold as 37* below zero!

Hoshea's wife had told in their last newsletter about an attempted suicide that Hoshea helped to avert.

After checking on the chapel one Sunday when it had been too cold to have Sunday School, Hoshea drove up the road to turn around. Up against the maintenance building, he saw a person huddled under a blanket.

  After asking if the young person was all right, he was told that she had been "kicked out" of her home and wanted to die.

Hoshea had not recognized the girl, but she knew who he was because she had been to their Sunday School!

 Hoshea's wife Laurie wrote, "This precious girl showed Hoshea marks across her wrist where she had previously attempted suicide with some sharp glass.

Here she was now, huddled against a building with some more glass--contemplating suicide.

The temperatures were very frigid that evening, and she was already starting to feel numb and sleepy."

Hoshea asked for the piece of glass, but she would not give it to him. 

She questioned, "Why did you come back here?"

Hoshea explained that he was just turning around when he saw her sitting there.

She allowed Hoshea to pray with her and decided to walk to a friend's house and maybe even give them the glass.

"Will you watch me and make sure I get there ok?" she asked my brother.

How you wish you could wrap your arms around young people like that and provide the safety and love that they so desperately need!

This is just one of the many incidents that my brother is constantly running into there by the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.

Another Sunday, as Hoshea ventured out to do some calling, he saw a woman walking toward town to find food. The weather was way too cold to be "out for a stroll," as Laurie said,

and Hoshea had his family provide some food for her.

 

Another day there was a shootout in the community, killing a suspect who had stolen a car,

and killing a sheriff.

Since both Hoshea and his youngest son Andrew are volunteer members of the fire department, they were called upon to direct traffic for the fallen officer's funeral, at which the governor of North Dakota spoke, and attended by 1200-1500 other people as well! 

Hoshea has also recently volunteered to drive sometimes for the EMT's since there was a need every couple weeks on average. He told me that he feels this kind of involvement in the community offers him so  many opportunities to share Christ and show love that he could not otherwise have.

Hoshea traveled a day's journey to help a stranded medicine man and family that were with him, getting a big hug from a medicine man!

They went calling on another family and discovered that their shanty had burned, leaving the family destitute.

He fixes many vehicles for people like a woman in recovery from alcohol, whose son was in a shootout, and another man who had frostbitten fingers from trying to repair a vehicle by himself. 

Just this last  Sunday, Hoshea filled in at two different churches in the area.

One is a Lutheran Brethren church where the pastor died suddenly from a ruptured appendix, and where Hoshea has been preaching the last three weeks. He had been asked in the past to be their full time pastor, but did not feel he should take that responsibility due to many major differences.

The other church was an Assembly of God!

I am totally amazed at the opportunities Hoshea has been given, along with his mechanics work, ranch job for his boss, jail ministry and nursing home ministry.

I'm thrilled at how God is using him and his family and ask my blog readers if you would, to lift him and his family and ministry in prayer today!

Apart from God we can do nothing, but with His Spirit we can do all things!