During the summer of 2005, I was offered a job opportunity to work for the City of Troutdale Parks in Oregon. God had provided summer work. What I didn’t realize was that God was providing a different opportunity when I returned to Oregon a year later.

That opportunity was named Fran Claus. I had worked with him during my first month on the job. Fran had a bit of a limp, but I never asked about it. In the same month my parents were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. My mother had expressed a desire to put a fire pit in our back yard with wooden stumps around it. One day I asked Fran if there were any trees that needed to be cut up. The next week he took me to a beautiful fallen tree and asked me how I wanted the pieces cut. The rest of the day he spent using the chainsaw to carve three stumps and two long benches. God had provided a gift for my parents through Fran, who did this for two people he did not even know.

At the end of June Fran and his wife, Debbie, left for Hawaii to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. When they returned, I was excited to see Fran back at work. Then a day came when he didn’t return. A second day came and went—no Fran. Then I received the news that Fran had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a degeneration of the nervous system, in which over the course of two to five years the person becomes immobile, has difficulty breathing, and loses all ability to communicate. This news stunned my parents and me, as we had been astonished also by his determination to cut the benches for two people he did not even know while dealing with this disease!

ALS meant that Fran would not live many years. I wanted to see Fran in heaven. I remembered one of the times I was driving with Fran when we had talked about religion and he told me that he had been raised Roman Catholic.

I went to Bethany Lutheran College for my senior year and graduated. When I returned to Oregon, Fran was still alive but the Lou Gehrig’s Disease had progressed. A few of us from work went over to do yard work for the family. He could no longer walk or sit up on his own and he could only mumble some sounds. But he could still lift his eyebrows and slightly smile. One day I asked Fran and Debbie, “Do you have a pastor coming to visit?” The answer was, “No”. They did not belong to a church either. Wanting them to have the comfort of the Gospel I invited them to contact my pastor, who is my father.

A month passed. We returned from a family reunion and the answering machine had a message. It said that Fran had trouble breathing and was in intensive care. Would my father come visit Fran? Twice a week Father went to visit Fran and spoke to him about the comfort of the Gospel in Jesus as his Savior.

The last time I saw Fran was on July 27^th, when I went with my father to the hospital. Fran’s family was all there. His breathing difficulties had increased, his eyes were closed. Pastor reminded him of God’s promise: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life…neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). While he was listening to the Gospel promises God called Fran to be with Him in heaven. What a blessing for him!

What an opportunity God gave my father and me to bring the Gospel to a dying man. At the funeral service, father proclaimed to Fran’s friends and relatives that God is for us even in the midst of affliction because Jesus gave Himself on the cross for the sins of the world.

God provided me with summer work and the opportunity to work with Fran for a month. But God gave me an even better opportunity, to get His Word to Fran in his last days. That is ultimately what the Christian’s life here below is about, giving His Word to others. Our God IS an awesome God! Fran will be greatly missed on earth, but what joy I have in knowing that he heard and believed the Gospel before he died! I will see Fran in heaven. To God alone be the glory!

Jessica Bartels is the daughter of the Rev. Timothy Bartels, is a graduate of Bethany Lutheran College, and is a resident of Portland, Oregon.