A parishioner of mine got this in the mail from a friend and I thought I would share it with you.  The author is unknown.

Most of you know John Wayne as an actor.  You may not know what happened to him before he died.  This is a true story.

Robert Schuler’s teen-aged daughter, Cindy, was in a motorcycle accident and had to have her leg amputated.  John Wayne was a big fan of Robert Schuler.  He heard Dr. Schuler say on one of his programs that his daughter had been in an accident and she had to have her leg amputated.  He wrote her a note saying,

"Dear Cindy, Sorry to hear about your accident.  Hope you will be alright.  Signed, John Wayne."

The note was delivered to her, and she decided she wanted to write him back.  She wrote, "Dear Mr. Wayne, I got your note.  Thanks for writing to me.  I like you very much.  I am going to be alright because Jesus is going to help me.  Mr. Wayne, do you know Jesus?  I sure hope you know Jesus, because I cannot imagine heaven being complete without John Wayne being there.  I hope, if you don’t know Jesus, that you will give your heart to Jesus right now.  See you in heaven!  Signed, Cindy"

She had just put that letter in an envelop and sealed it, and written across the front of it "John Wayne," when a visitor came into her room to see her.  He asked her what she was doing.  She replied, "I just wrote a letter to John Wayne, but I don’t know how to get it to him."

He said, "That’s funny.  I’m going to have dinner with him tonight at the Newport Club at Newport Beach.  Give it to me and I will give it to him."

She gave him the letter and he put it in his pocket. 

There were twelve of them sitting around the table for dinner.  They were laughing and cutting up when the guy happened to reach into his pocket and felt the letter.  He remembered John Wayne was seated at the end of the table.  He took the letter out and said, "Hey Duke, I was in Schuler’s daughter’s hospital room today and she wrote you a letter.  She wanted me to give it to you.  Here it is."

They passed it down to John Wayne and he opened it.  They kept laughing and cutting up and when someone happened to look down at him, he was crying.  One of them said, "Hey Duke, what is the matter?"

He said, "I want to read you this letter."  He read the letter.  Then he began to weep.  He folded it, put it in his pocket, pointed to the man who delivered it to him and said, "You go tell that little that little girl that right now, in this restaurant, right here, John Wayne gave his heart to Jesus Christ, and I will see her in heaven."

Three weeks later John Wayne died.  You never know how your witness to another will effect their eternity. Be a witness for Jesus.

In my coming blog entries I will be writing about my experience at the Western Iowa Synod School of Evangelism I attended in Oct.  I have made mention of this in previous entries, but I have not fully flushed this out.  Now I will.  I will have other blog entries mixed in that deal with Christmas so go the menu on the right hand side of your screen and click on the catagory heading "Evangelism" to easily find these evangelism entries.

"If the church is not about evangelism then it is not a church at all."  That is one of the many quotes from that weekend.  Please keep checking back and lets learn together how to be an evangelizing church.  There are people out there that need YOU.

God bless and Merry Christmas.  -EDH-