Introduction Wake Up and Smell the Coffee The conversation on the veranda became a hum of background noise as I daydreamed about Vicki’s two African safaris. Her first, in 1993, was as a member of a building team. It was on that trip she fell in love with the young men and women attending Arusha Bible College. We were there to construct two new classrooms. Vicki served most of the time as the meal coordinator, grocery-market strategist, and chief cook – an important position given that team members with happy bellies usually have high morale and do better work. While she did a great job in the kitchen she had the most fun at the job site, interacting with students, visiting with husbands and wives, and playing with children who seemed inexorably drawn to her. After that trip Vicki would, for the rest of her life, pray for those students and the people of Tanzania and Kenya.[1] Africa. Vicki. Such were my espresso dreams on the plantation veranda the fall of 2004. And the reason my sons and I, along with twenty friends and family members, had come to Tanzania? We where there to build a chapel on the Arusha Bible College campus. It would be known as The Victoria Winstead Qualls Memorial Chapel. Vicki had a great life. She accomplished so much in a relatively short period of time. Thank God, she kept a record! She documented much of the last twenty-two years of her life in journals. They are a fascinating read. She went deep when she wrote. She was unfailingly transparent about her feelings, and literally honest-to-God. That is, Vic kept her writings real. Her journals will serve as the framework for this book. When she and I had talked about making her writings public, Vicki asked me to provide the context for her entries, meaning that I would fill in the blanks, expand on her observations a little, all so that things would make more sense. Vicki would correct me sometimes if I talked about “her book.” She’d say, “It’s WE, not ME! It’s not my life story alone, Lowell. It’s the story of how our lives overlapped.” That said, I’ll try not to get in the way as Vicki shares her perspectives on life, love, boy-raising experiences, husband-raising experiences, and her walk with God. When Vic recorded her private thoughts she never thought one day others would read them. That changed a little after a day-long conversation in July of 2002, when we talked about how her story might help people deal with the great challenges of facing, and battling, a life-threatening disease. She could relate to many people who had received the bad news that their body had turned against them. But we both knew our story would help other folks, too, especially people like me, who lived with, cared for, and loved a dying friend or family member. We talked about how our experiences might provide a better understanding of the conflicted feelings loved ones often have – the inner battles that go on and on and on. Vicki also believed telling our story might help inform “the lucky ones” who don’t have an incurable, terminal disease but know or – inevitably – will know someone who does. I once told Vicki, “I think most people know we live on a flawed and fallen planet, where something disastrous or evil could come calling, and I think everyone would like to be better prepared for a personal crisis … possibly a crisis of faith. Our story might help do that.” She agreed. Vicki asked me to tell our story using dance terminology. Real dancers will know right away that I’m no dancer. I confess that I feel hopelessly clumsy when it comes to the art. But, as you will see, dance was the hook Vicki and I knew we had to hang our story on. On a day not long after our decision to write “Dancing With The Healer,” when one of the journal volumes was so full that she could only fit in a few more words, Vicki wrote (on November 18, 2002), This journal has run out of pages, and so I go on to the next. I feel like I’m saying “goodbye” to an old friend. For FOUR YEARS and ONE MONTH you have been a constant source of comfort and release. This is where I have come to express my deepest fears and highest joys. You are so comfortable and comforting to me, but I have no choice but to move on to a new book … and phase ... of my life. I pray that God will use these pages to encourage and comfort others. But more than anything, I hope and expect that they will point many to the faithful, loving, powerful and compassionate heart of God, who will never leave us or forsake us. A few minutes later she wrote in her new journal: Hello, new friend. Your pages are blank and new. What words will fill them in the days ahead? What will my future hold, and will it last long enough to fill these pages and move on to another journal? I am full of questions and a thousand confusing thoughts. The CT scan two days ago revealed that my enemy had returned … it doesn’t feel real. We know it’s bad, but our hearts aren’t breaking – yet. Is it God’s peace or just denial? I can’t get my mind around it … Will I die? I could fill pages with my questions, but for now I will ask God to help me “take every thought captive,” and put my trust in Him. I will focus on the things I know – God is good, faithful, loving, merciful and wise. “Faith is not believing in my own unshakeable belief. Faith is believing in an unshakeable God when everything in me trembles and shakes.” (Beth Moore) Just as I told you, Vic’s style was honest and transparent. Why not settle down, then, with a cup of your favorite hot beverage, and open your heart to a new friend

Introduction

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

The conversation on the veranda became a hum of background noise as I daydreamed about Vicki’s two African safaris. Her first, in 1993, was as a member of a building team. It was on that trip she fell in love with the young men and women attending Arusha Bible College. We were there to construct two new classrooms. Vicki served most of the time as the meal coordinator, grocery-market strategist, and chief cook – an important position given that team members with happy bellies usually have high morale and do better work.

While she did a great job in the kitchen she had the most fun at the job site, interacting with students, visiting with husbands and wives, and playing with children who seemed inexorably drawn to her. After that trip Vicki would, for the rest of her life, pray for those students and the people of Tanzania and Kenya.[1]

Africa. Vicki. Such were my espresso dreams on the plantation veranda the fall of 2004. And the reason my sons and I, along with twenty friends and family members, had come to Tanzania? We where there to build a chapel on the Arusha Bible College campus. It would be known as The Victoria Winstead Qualls Memorial Chapel.

Vicki had a great life. She accomplished so much in a relatively short period of time. Thank God, she kept a record! She documented much of the last twenty-two years of her life in journals. They are a fascinating read. She went deep when she wrote. She was unfailingly transparent about her feelings, and literally honest-to-God. That is, Vic kept her writings real.

Her journals will serve as the framework for this book.

When she and I had talked about making her writings public, Vicki asked me to provide the context for her entries, meaning that I would fill in the blanks, expand on her observations a little, all so that things would make more sense. Vicki would correct me sometimes if I talked about “her book.” She’d say, “It’s WE, not ME! It’s not my life story alone, Lowell. It’s the story of how our lives overlapped.” That said, I’ll try not to get in the way as Vicki shares her perspectives on life, love, boy-raising experiences, husband-raising experiences, and her walk with God.

When Vic recorded her private thoughts she never thought one day others would read them. That changed a little after a day-long conversation in July of 2002, when we talked about how her story might help people deal with the great challenges of facing, and battling, a life-threatening disease. She could relate to many people who had received the bad news that their body had turned against them. But we both knew our story would help other folks, too, especially people like me, who lived with, cared for, and loved a dying friend or family member. We talked about how our experiences might provide a better understanding of the conflicted feelings loved ones often have – the inner battles that go on and on and on.

Vicki also believed telling our story might help inform “the lucky ones” who don’t have an incurable, terminal disease but know or – inevitably – will know someone who does. I once told Vicki, “I think most people know we live on a flawed and fallen planet, where something disastrous or evil could come calling, and I think everyone would like to be better prepared for a personal crisis … possibly a crisis of faith. Our story might help do that.” She agreed.

Vicki asked me to tell our story using dance terminology. Real dancers will know right away that I’m no dancer. I confess that I feel hopelessly clumsy when it comes to the art. But, as you will see, dance was the hook Vicki and I knew we had to hang our story on.

On a day not long after our decision to write “Dancing With The Healer,” when one of the journal volumes was so full that she could only fit in a few more words, Vicki wrote (on November 18, 2002),

This journal has run out of pages, and so I go on to the next. I feel like I’m saying “goodbye” to an old friend. For FOUR YEARS and ONE MONTH you have been a constant source of comfort and release. This is where I have come to express my deepest fears and highest joys. You are so comfortable and comforting to me, but I have no choice but to move on to a new book … and phase ... of my life. I pray that God will use these pages to encourage and comfort others. But more than anything, I hope and expect that they will point many to the faithful, loving, powerful and compassionate heart of God, who will never leave us or forsake us.

A few minutes later she wrote in her new journal:

Hello, new friend. Your pages are blank and new. What words will fill them in the days ahead? What will my future hold, and will it last long enough to fill these pages and move on to another journal? I am full of questions and a thousand confusing thoughts.

The CT scan two days ago revealed that my enemy had returned … it doesn’t feel real. We know it’s bad, but our hearts aren’t breaking – yet. Is it God’s peace or just denial?

I can’t get my mind around it … Will I die? I could fill pages with my questions, but for now I will ask God to help me “take every thought captive,” and put my trust in Him. I will focus on the things I know – God is good, faithful, loving, merciful and wise.

“Faith is not believing in my own unshakeable belief. Faith is believing in an unshakeable God when everything in me trembles and shakes.” (Beth Moore)

Just as I told you, Vic’s style was honest and transparent. Why not settle down, then, with a cup of your favorite hot beverage, and open your heart to a new friend – Vicki.

Let the dance begin.

Good coffee is a true déjà vu agent for me; a good cup calls up some pretty exotic locations. For example, I once emerged from a Sherpa tent at 18,300 feet with a cup of hot Java in hand just in time to watch a blanket of clouds roll back and reveal Mt. Everest. The bluest skis on the planet provided the backdrop while the North Face displayed its snowy majesty. (The picture at left is at the Base Camp, June of 2004, looking up at the North Face.)

Few experiences can “top” Everest, but one did just that in the fall of 2005, when my sons and I were visiting a coffee plantation near Arusha, Tanzania. We were sampling Kenyan blends and quaffing espressos with friends on a veranda when the aromas triggered poignant memories of Vicki, my late wife. (During our thirty-year marriage not many mornings had gone by when I hadn’t awakened to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Vic was an early riser, and by the time I came downstairs to join her she would typically be wrapped in a quilt, sipping on a mug of decaf with a Bible in her lap.)

Everest Base Camp - 18,550 ft.

The North Face

Ten years later Vicki made her second and final safari to East Africa, this time traveling throughout Kenya and Tanzania with missionaries Ron and Gloria Hanson and me. Our time was crammed with ministry and adventure. One day Vicki spoke to over a thousand men and women gathered in a large Tanzanian city church. On another she spent half the night talking with a lone Kenyan lady who worked at a game park. The girl had been seriously depressed and considering suicide, but all that changed after she talked with Vicki. Her questions were the Big Ones – “Why are we here?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “Is there anyone who loves me?” As the morning sun peeked over the horizon Vicki had done her best to answer her questions. Vic prayed and then listened as the lady prayed her own prayer – one to become a follower of Jesus. Whether she was speaking to thousands or one lost and lonely lady, Vicki was in her element.