How The SOS Campaign For Refugee Relief May Have Saved My Life (Well Sort Of. Maybe.)

Hospitals are sometimes dreaded but also life saving places,

Background: As someone who strongly supports the Virginia Relief Sale's SOS (Sharing Our Surplus) Campaign to raise cash, check and credit card donations for Mennonite Central Committee (and especially its work with refugees), I recently came up with an idea. Why not do an eight-mile Prayer Walk for Refugee Relief that would take me from my house on Hamlet Drive to the Fairgrounds (where the Fall Mennonite Relief Sale takes place) on my 80th birthday June 30?

I hesitated airing this at first, fearing people would see it as focusing attention on myself and my brainchild SOS project rather than about simply raising consciousness about the unprecedented refugee crisis around the world. But after some discernment with  friends and family I decided life was too short not to go for it, subject to my doctor giving this his blessing.

But soon after I had made the decision I began to feel some shortness of breath on my minimum mile-long walks. So while I was at our local hospital with Alma Jean for one of her appointments recently I made one for myself with my cardiologist, which led to my having a 2 1/2 hour stress test Friday.

Within hours afterwards, my wife got a call saying that based on the results of the test I needed to schedule a heart catheterization, a procedure we have now set up for 7 am Monday. Meanwhile, no exertion of any kind, including walking any distance, I was told, which of course puts my hoped for birthday venture on hold until I get the results from the catheterization, which will clarify whether I need a stent in my heart, or not, or even bypass surgery, which is less likely.

All of which led me to reflect on what might have happened if I hadn't started intentionally walking more. Since I never even thought of myself as being a candidate for heart trouble, my higher than desired cholesterol level might have just gradually put me at ever greater risk until I could have at some point overexerted myself and had a full blown heart attack, something that happened to my oldest brother a number of years ago.

Who knows?

One thing I do know is that though not all things are good, that in all things God works for our good.

And for that I am deeply grateful.

Postscript: The walk wasn't to be a fund raiser as such, but a way of reminding others to prepare to give generously at the SOS table at the October 4-5 event, as one way to help multitudes who often have to walk much, much further than this as they flee famine, war or other forms of violence, and who aren't blessed with the kind of healthcare I have come to take for granted. And some of my children and grandchildren were interested in walking with me, without my planning to ask others to accompany me.

Here's a link to more information about the SOS project, which has raised over $75,000 over the last two years. 
https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/04/top-ten-reasons-to-support-our-fall.html

Or you can give now via this link: https://vareliefsale.com/donate/