A Battle with Alzheimer's

I wrote this about a year before my father's death, but it chronicles quite a few years previous to that. Part of the reason I took down the blog was because this was the primary thing on my mind most days. It was a journey for us that was hard, but one that I was not ready to make public, especially because my dad did not want people to know how bad it was for him. I respected his privacy. 

Now, however, it seems that this road our family took together of watching my dad struggle with the effects of Alzheimer's might be helpful for someone else, so I post this here. I loved my dad. I hated to see him suffer. Now he is in the presence of God, surrounded by the angels and his loved ones. I am quite sure that if this perspective could help another family who is dealing with Alzheimer's, he would want me to post this.

So with tears in my eyes and an ache in my heart, I share with you our journey. If you are watching a loved one go through this, you are not alone.

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The Silent Thief

What in the world is wrong? He never used to be like this. He was the best preacher and teacher around. He stood strong for God. He knew right from wrong and would not waver. But now things were happening that confused me.

While Dad may not have been the best preacher in America, he was good. His family and his church learned from him. He studied well, and it showed. He had enough humor and stories to keep us intrigued, and enough depth to keep us studying and growing. Then we began to notice that he got off track more easily and his rabbit trails were becoming super highways. He had a hard time staying on task, and his sermons were not as "meaty" as they once were. What was happening?

Dad was also a wise counselor. As a pastor and missionary, Dad kept myriads of other people's secrets. He knew the value of a safe place to talk and receive counsel. When I was growing up, people came and went from his counseling office. We never knew what the problems were, and we knew better than to ask. Their secrets were safe with him. Then one day we noticed that sometimes private things were repeated at inopportune times. Mom had to remind him that the information he just spilled was private. What was wrong? This was not the dad we knew.

For me, that meant that I sought Mom's advice when Dad was not around. Dad could still give sound advice, and I wanted to hear it, but I was no longer sure that my concerns would not be repeated. I could no longer trust him to remember that something was private.

One day I realized that the debater and critical thinking side of him had disappeared as well. Dad comes from a family who expresses their opinions. It was not unusual for political and theological discussions to become noisy affairs at family gatherings. This carried over into our family as we were growing up. We were encouraged to research things thoroughly and to not accept the standard teaching without study and thought. We could not simply state an opinion without being able to back it up. Whether it was our political leanings or Biblical teaching, we learned to defend what we believed after studying various points of view. We also learned to say, "I guess I don't know about that. I need to study some more." But now when a debate would circle around at a family gathering, he withdrew and did not give his opinion.

This was definitely more than simple forgetfulness. A silent thief had entered our midst - Alzheimer's. We grieved. We realized that the dad we knew was slowly disappearing as Alzheimer's continued to nibble away at the remaining parts of his mind and abilities.

Later it stole a handyman. "It's nice to have a man around the house," he used to say when he would take time out to fix my car or help me with a carpentry project. I loved it. No matter what went wrong, he could figure it out and fix it. If he was around, I would not have to call a repair man. Then the day came when things that he used to fix were beyond him. Instead of volunteering to fix something, he would ask my husband to fix it for him.

When Alzheimer's robbed us of the head of the family, it took time for my mom to adjust. He had always been the one to set the tone for the family. He led in family devotions. He made sure that things ran smoothly. Decisions came quickly to him, and he could juggle many responsibilities at the same time. After we left the home, he still set the direction for family gatherings. Now my mom makes most of the decisions. While she asks him for his opinion, he usually just defers to whatever she thinks is best. Reluctantly, she has stepped into the role that he used to have.

It stole an adventurer. My dad grew up in a large family during the depression, fought in World War II, traveled the world and lived in several countries. His adventures were part of his everyday conversations. Now conversations center around he had for breakfast and who called on the phone. The world has closed around him, and his mind is no longer a storehouse of interesting stories and facts he learned in the past.

It jettisoned a storyteller. Familiar stories that he told helped to solidify our place in the family. He loved telling stories of how God answered prayer and kept him safe. He loved repeating familiar stories that helped his children understand his love for them. But now, when we repeat a story that he originally told us, it is not uncommon for him to say, "Really? That happened? That's something."

As the disease progresses, we continue to find other things that are gone. So far, though, Alzheimer's has not stolen his connection with God. He is still a prayer warrior. He struggles now to put into words what he wants to pray for us, but he still prays. He still tells others of Jesus and asks if they are sure of their eternal destiny. It is still obvious that he knows and loves His Lord.

For now, he still knows his family, and I'm grateful for that. There are days when things are fuzzy and he cannot remember the names of his seven children or he will not recognize one of our voices on the phone. His grandchildren and great grandchildren are starting to fade from his memory. Even some of his friends from church whom he still sees every week have faded from his mind.

Alzheimer's saddens me. I am glad that there is no Alzheimer's in heaven. There my dad will be even better than the man I knew, and that makes me very glad.

Reviving the Blog

I closed down this blog for a while as it had been a long time since I had written. This week I decided to reopen it.

Since I last wrote, some of our circumstances are the same. Some have changed. Let me list some of those.

Many things stay the same. We are still living in Georgia. We are still working with IPM. We are still wanting to grow more in knowing and serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

However, there have been some changes. The biggest change in my life has been my father's passing on August 8 of this year. In the next few days, you may see some posts that I wrote surrounding those circumstances. During the year leading up to his death, Charlie continued to make trips as usual, but I cut back my travel in order to help my mother care for him. Now that he is gone, we are looking at the coming years and trying to determine our course for the future.

Charlie preaching at the closing of the VBS in Peru.

One other change. I have begun a new blog. Since writing is part of my ministry now, I thought it would be good to have a blog where I could write something short each day, (or at least most days). Since prayer is something that I want to encourage in both my own life and in other peoples' lives as well, it is a blog on prayer. In order to link the feeling of the two blogs, I have called it "Sojourning in Prayer."You will find it at https://sojourninginprayer.blogspot.com.


This blog will continue to be used to update people on our trips, but I want to keep it about our ministry. Occasionally, it may still include other insights, but for the most part, it will now focus on our travels.

Obituary for My Dad, Harold Lovestrand

Harold Lawrence Bernard Lovestrand worked for the fairest, yet the most merciful, boss possible. Throughout his years as a missionary, pastor, and in various supplemental jobs, other people signed his paychecks, but Harold knew that God was his real boss. On August 8, 2019, at 93 years of age, he received the promotion that earned him rights and privileges he never knew before: perfect health, wealth unimaginable, and the privilege of a face-to-face meeting with the One he served so well all his life.

When God radically changed his direction from funeral director to missionary after serving in World War II, he enrolled at Bob Jones College. There he learned, despite his shyness, to speak to strangers about his generous Boss. He chose a verse to live by: “To lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:10 (RSV)

He lived to hear his Boss’s “Well done!” Every morning he consulted with Him for the day’s instructions through prayer and the reading of his Boss’ written instructions in the Bible. He was ready to go or stay depending on what God required. God’s assignments led him to Indonesia, Trinidad, and the Philippines as a missionary and to five different states in ministry as a pastor or Mission Coordinator for AMG International. He started a Bible school in Indonesia and an orphanage in the Philippines, both of which continue to carry on their ministries.

He taught his seven children to honor and serve God with all their being, demonstrating by his own example that it was worth it. He sought to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He prayed, preached, counseled, gave to others, supported missionaries, and worked as though his final evaluation was imminent. He helped build nine houses for missionaries in Indonesia. He authored three books. He and his wife fostered more than forty children. He introduced countless people to his Boss, often asking strangers, “If you were to die today, do you know where you would spend eternity?”

He will be missed by Muriel Lovestrand, his wife of almost 71 years, seven children and their families, 17 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren, and two brothers. His resonant bass voice will no longer sing at Center Grove Baptist Church in Rock Spring, GA, but his life’s devotion to his eternal Boss will be celebrated there on Friday, August 16, 2019,https://amginternational.org/product/home-of-hope-orphanage/. Please mention Harold’s name when you check out.

at 12:00 noon. Visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to AMG International for the Home of Hope Orphanage:

In Celebration of My Parents' Seventieth Anniversary

His blue eyes twinkle when he looks at her. When he smiles, the wrinkles around his eyes crease even deeper.

At their seventieth anniversary celebration

“Do you know what?” he says, with a conspiratorial whisper. “I still love her.”

She laughs. “After seventy years, too! He has an amazing way of overlooking all my faults and only remembering the good things.”

Her statement seems to encapsulate the carefree joy they have in each other.

“I got a good thing when I married her,” he tells me.

I hear this story almost every day now. He does not remember that he told me the same thing yesterday. Every day she’s just as sweet to him as she was the day before.

Sometimes, though, he is sad. He knows that he is weak and cannot do much. “I guess it’s the women who do everything,” he says with a sigh as he watches his wife fold and put away laundry.

“Sure,” she replies, sarcasm underlining her words. “It was the women who built our daughters’ furniture and built our house in Indonesia. It was the women who trekked through the jungle. It must have been the women who started the Bible school and the orphanage too.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

“You,” she says. “You did all of that and more.”

“I did?” he asks incredulously. “I can’t remember.”

It’s true. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember the army man who was assigned to the communications division in Italy during WWII or the man who thought he would become a mortician. He doesn’t remember enrolling at Bob Jones College or even meeting his wife. She says that he pursued, but she was cautious. She was following God’s call to be a missionary and thought that meant she would be single all her life. Yet God called him to be a missionary too, so on a hot summer day in August of 1948, they joined their lives together. Four years later, equipped with bachelor's degrees and a couple years of experience in the pastoral ministry, they set off for Dutch New Guinea (now called West Papua, Indonesia) to teach, preach, and establish churches.

It was hard at first, especially when they found out about the brutal murder of the two missionaries who were supposed to meet and train them. But they persevered - learning the language, adjusting to the climate and culture, and being so far from home. By the time they had been there 14 years, they had seen God save many people from their bondage to sin and churches were established. Harold started a Bible college to train pastors and leaders. Then, in a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was accused of being a CIA spy and sent to solitary confinement in a prison in Jakarta. It took seven months of negotiations to get him released. Hostage in Jakarta, a book on the table next to his recliner, reminds him of that time.

The years after Indonesia are foggy too. Unable to return to Indonesia, the mission sent them to Trinidad. After three years, they returned to the U.S. where he pastored churches in Illinois and Iowa. Yet the desire to serve abroad was still strong, so when an opportunity arose to work in the Philippines, they went.  Their adopted Filipina daughter is the jewel they brought back when they returned. She is now a constant reminder of his time there. When Harold’s aging mother needed them, he became the Missions Director for AMG International in Chattanooga. He still traveled the globe, balancing a myriad of details and obligations, while his wife stayed home. As his secretary, she was his right hand both at work and at home.

Most people thought his retirement from AMG at 77 years of age ended his ministry career, but retirement did not suit him. He still had more to offer. Was there a church that needed a pastor but could not afford to pay one? With his retirement income, he could do that. He found one in Maine. Many of their contemporaries thought they were crazy to move again, but they loved serving God together. He pastored there for five years before the Maine winters and his arthritis forced him to move south again.

Muriel’s adventuresome spirit is evident when she reflects on the way God led them. Over the years, they have moved at least 30 times. Every time, sadness engulfed her as she left friends behind, but she was ready to embrace the next adventure. She stood behind him, encouraging him to go forward for God. She gave birth to six children, and then they adopted one more and fostered more than 40 others along the way. Harold enjoys telling people that they have one and a half dozen children. “One,” he says with a pause, “and a half dozen.”

Muriel admires him. Sure, he is weak now and his memory is failing, but he has given his all for God. Together, they have followed God’s leading all along the way. Now it is not as easy to pick up and go, though Muriel is still active. She seems to think that it is normal to be teaching Sunday School at 92. And why should she give up on helping with Vacation Bible School? If you were to ask her if she wanted to go on a missions trip to Africa, she would ask, “When are we leaving?” She is still ready to go and do whatever God asks at any time, though right now that is at her husband’s side.

They are a good match. For seventy years, they have put each other’s needs before their own. Choosing to overlook each others’ faults, they have found joy in supporting each other. With hard work and prayer, their dreams and goals have been focused on pleasing God. And although they know it is impossible, they wish they could have seventy more years together.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I wrote this in the weeks leading up to their seventieth anniversary. God enabled them to have almost seventy-one years together before He took Dad home.

A Real Christian Man

My dad was my first hero. As a child, I thought he could do anything. Oh, I knew he could not fly like Superman, but he was certainly more capable than Batman. After all, he could preach, teach, ride a motorcycle, fly an airplane, play a ukulele, sing with gusto, build houses, fix almost anything, and teach us cool stuff like how to fish, swim, and ride a bicycle.  He could even read us books and change his voice to sound like the characters in the book.

Dad planing a board for our house.

We learned a lot from his teaching. He taught us how to mow a lawn, plant a garden, wield a hammer, build things, and use power tools. He spent hours with my brothers rebuilding a car engine. He was at home in the kitchen.  On our birthdays, he made a tall stack Norwegian pancakes so that we could eat until we waddled away from the table, holding our bellies and declaring to the others how many pancakes we wolfed down. Now when we make Norwegian pancakes for the next generation, we use Dad's recipe, perfected through years of birthday celebrations.

However, the lessons I learned by observation were even more special. While I may not have admitted it while I was growing up, he set a standard for me of what it meant to be a real Christian man. When I got married, these were the things I wanted in a husband. I wanted someone who was authentic in his faith and who was a real Christian guy.

1. A real Christian man spends time alone with God.

In the morning when I arose, I usually found him in the living room. His Bible lay open on his lap and when he was done reading, he took out a list, scrawled in his own handwriting. As his prayer list covered the page of his Bible, he closed his eyes and talked to God about his concerns.  Occasionally I watched him, wondering how he could pray for so long.

One morning he was missing at breakfast. Later I asked him where he was. "I so wanted to stay up all night and pray like Jesus did when He was on earth," he told me, "but at about three in the morning I had to go back to sleep. One day I will try again." There were times when he was missing from the dinner table because he was praying and fasting.

2. A real Christian man loves his family.

Many pastors take Mondays off because they find Sundays exhausting. For him, Sundays were filled to the brim with teaching, preaching, counseling, prayer, and hospitality. He must have been tired on Mondays too. Yet because his children were in school on Monday, he chose to take his day off on Saturday so that he could spend more time with us.

His favorite stories to tell and retell were often about his children. Whether it was Steven's exposition of Scriptures, Dan's miraculous recovery, Tim's natural leadership, Joel's cute antics, Andrea's inexhaustible energy, Reza's adoption, or my fear of monsters in the night, his stories remain with us as part of our heritage. They give us a sense of identity and belonging. They tell us we belong to him.

While there was not a lot of money in the house, we knew that he considered us a priority. Birthday and Christmas gifts were simple and practical, but they were part of our celebration and a reminder that our parents cared. Vacations were spent as a family - either camping or visiting relatives. When special events like graduation arose, there was always a celebration and Dad was there, laughing and smiling with us.

3. A real Christian man tells others of Christ. 

My dad was shy, but he was also determined to let his light shine for Christ. At a gas station, he'd ask the attendant, "If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go?" Depending upon the response, we might be there a while as he continued to share his faith with him. At restaurants, he'd say to the waitress, "We're going to pray in a minute. Is there anything I can pray about for you?" He kept gospel tracts in his pockets when he was traveling so that he would be able to leave information with people he encountered along the way. He was always ready to tell others of the hope he had in God.

I remember the day that he called me to tell me that Marcus, an Indonesian pastor, had died. "Now I know for sure that there will be someone to greet me in heaven when I get there because I introduced him to Jesus," he said with a mixture of sorrow and joy.

4. A real Christian man stands up for what he believes.

It would have been so much easier to keep quiet than to let people know his convictions were different from theirs. He could have kept his mouth shut when he saw people straying instead of encouraging them to go hard after God. He could have preached safe sermons rather than stepping on their toes. How he longed for people to take sanctification seriously and to do what they could to walk as closely to God as possible. So he chose to call sin evil and warn people of choosing the wrong path.

I thought it was normal for Christians to take a stand and to pursue heavenly goals with dogged determination. I thought every Christian tried to put God first in their lives. After all, all of the men I admired were like that, but especially my dad. Now I realize that his commitment is more rare than I realized. While it may be "normal," it is certainly not common.

5. A real Christian man is authentic all the time.

There was no difference between the man we saw at home and the man others saw at church. What he preached from the pulpit, he preached to us at home. If he said he hated sin, we heard him say it first at home. We never had to wonder what mood he was going to be in or how he would react to us. His moods did not affect his behavior. If he was wrong, he admitted it.

Sometimes I meet people who tell of a very different home life from what we see in public, and I grieve with them. It is hard for me to imagine the weight of having to put on a face in public to cover up what is really going on. I am glad that my dad taught me to be genuine at home so that we did not have to be hypocritical.

6. A real Christian man leaves a lasting legacy.

My dad is 91 years old now. He is weak and can no longer climb mountains to find jungle tribes that need the gospel. He tires easily just from daily activity, let alone the stress of juggling the myriad responsibilities of those many years of being a missions director. So I am glad that he spent his strong years doing things that would matter long after he is gone.

Fifty years from now, when he is celebrating in heaven, his legacy on earth will live on. An orphanage in the Philippines and a Bible school in Indonesia may still remember his part in their inception. Grandchildren may recount stories of his life. But even if they don't, there will be people in heaven who will thank him for his steadfast faithfulness to the God that he worships. I know because I will be one of them.

Fathers

Today I want to give tribute to my dad, a man who blessed me in many ways through the years.

First of all, I appreciate his dedication to God.  That dedication was demonstrated to me as a child in many different ways.  One of my clearest memories of that commitment was my father's morning ritual.  Every morning I could find him sitting in the living room with a Bible open on his lap.  Then his prayer list would come out and his eyes closed as he prayed for his wife, his children, and so many other people God had placed on his heart.

It also saw his dedication in his willingness to stand for what he believed.  As a young man, it meant giving up a lucrative career as a mortician to go serve God in the jungles of Dutch New Guinea.  Later in life, it often meant standing alone.  Sometimes it meant being misunderstood and rejected.  At home, it meant having definite standards for what we would and would not do as a family.  During difficult times, when God's voice was not clear, I saw him pursue God in late-night prayer and fasting.  At every turn, if you were to ask him why he had made a decision, the answer was the same.  It was what he believed God would have him do.

One of my treasured memories of my father was when he taught me to play softball.  We had arrived home on furlough, and I was playing the game for the first time at a family reunion.  I was eight years old.  While I could play soccer and shoot a bow and arrow, I had never encountered a softball.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not make contact with that ball.  I ended up in tears, feeling like a failure and rejoined my family.  My dad took me aside and taught me to watch the ball.  Under his direction, I made contact.  From that day on, I could hit that ball.  I never did very well as an outfielder, but I could hit and run.

Reading to his two eldest children

Another favorite memory is storytime.  Both my parents read to us, but when my dad read, he took on different voices for the various character in the story.  He roared like a lion or purred like a kitten.  His version of the story was so dramatic that we were immediately pulled into it.

Yet as much as I adore and respect my dad, he does not come close to my heavenly Father.  Dad could not provide eternal salvation for me.  He did not give His Spirit to be with me constantly to guide, convict, and direct me through life.  His advice was not flawless.  He will not be with me here in this life forever.  While there are times when Dad is only as far away as a phone call, my heavenly Father is always by my side.

I am thankful that my dad taught me to trust my Heavenly Father.  I can think of no greater truth that an early father can teach his children, and I can think of no better way to teach it to others than to live those truths each day.