Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2003 5:17 AM
Subject: Fwd: People Who Have Influenced My Life
Dear alL ... I enjoy Art Sanford's daily e mails more than anything else I read. I hope you enjoy this one too. Add it to the thoughts for 'memorial' day weekend. Roger
Arthur Sanford <arthalie@webtv.net> wrote:
People Who Have Influenced My Life
Hannes Rypkema- of Hinckley Minnesota: I first got to know Hannes as a merchant in Hinckley --he owned a "feed and flour" store where dad did most of his buying of feed and flour (often getting half ton of flour in 100 pound sacks) and where we would take our grain to be ground into feed for the cows and we boys got to know Hannes as he was especially friendly to boys who came with their dads to the store. then came that day when Curt, Ray, and I were invited to come to the Presbyterian Church for Sunday School and Church. and we went. walking in was something so new to me - first time in my life I was inside a Church building. but those three boys met us and took us to the place where their class met. AND who was the teacher but Hannes Rypkema. well time for classes to meet and the superintendent came by and asked me if I were 14 and I said not quite, so she said "this is not your class--and pointing to another over in the other corner of the room--said that is your class you must go there. well I looked and nothing but girls and not one whom I knew--and I shook my head, but she was determined so said well you can't stay here, and put her hand on my shoulder to move me I guess but i slipped away from her and out the door I went and started down the stairs to go out to the car (and determined to stay there until Curt and Ray were ready to go home) BUT about two steps down and I felt two big hands take hold of me and I was literally lifted back up and turned around and Big Hannes said emphatically "Art, forget what she said, you are in my class for good" wow I was his forever, and for the next four years (until I left home for school) I seldom missed a Sunday --sometimes when it was too cold and snowy to have the horses stand outside during the Sunday School and Church, we would walk the ten miles each way ... Then one day shortly before I was to be 16, i had taken a truck load of grain to be be ground and just as I drove into the feed store lot, Hannes came up behind me in his car --(He was now the Pine County Sherrif) and said, "Art, I am so glad to see you, I have to go pick up a man and I need help, will you help me?" wow, would I help the
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Sherriff who was my best friend -- so I put a note in the truck about what I wanted done and left the key in the ignition and went-- On the way Hannes shared with me his Christian experience--how he had accepted the Lord Jesus the night before he left to go to France in World War One and what it meant to him as a soldier in a new place and hard time and then how he still found the Lord Jesus to be so much to him, and he urged me to take this Lord into my life Well he had no need of help with that man he picked up -just put him in tile back seat and on the way back kept his sharing with me --as i think back to that morning i see him realizing how I was headed on the wrong path and here was a chance to share with me and urge me to make the Lord my life choice--he called me to "help" him --it worked for two weeks later I accepted The Lord as my Saviour and gave my life to Him to use as He would lead. how many other boys he helped like that I have no way of knowing, but from that class 12 that I know --brother Ray and I were of that 12-- were called into full time Service for the Lord in some type of ministry--and those who remained in Hinckley, like my brother Curt, were tife members of that Church-- thinking back, I don't remember anything he taught in class --tho at the time it was really challenging-- but I do remember his love for his boys and how he made it apart of his ministry to personally witness to each one and how many he led to the Lord only eternity will tell. --and tonight I am thinking of how those two big hands and that big heart not only turned me around that morning but did so much in guiding my life in those early years ... Praise God for that Man whom God so used to fashion my life, and Thank God for the joy of sharing my memories with you all. Art
5/25/2003