ARRIVAL IN PINEHURST, NC

I like to take my time while driving. I am a rest stop kind of guy. I go in the rest stops and look at the maps. I buy coffee. I will check out the brochures on whitewater rafting in the area, without there being a chance in hell I will ever whitewater raft. My averages speed on the road is probably 25 miles per hour.

Oh—I now realized that we in Windber, Pennsylvania, live in a snowbowl. I carried my suitcases and things down the treacherous, ice-and-snow-covered outside stairs from the Upper Room, making several trips. I did not fall down the steps once, but by the time I had dragged all my belongings to the car, my hands and feet were well refrigerated. 

Off I went.

It took 40 minutes for my feet to thaw. After ten miles, there was hardly any snow. My first reaction was: “What th—” Now, I’m not saying I saw palm trees after cresting the main mountain outside Windber, but it wasn’t the North Pole, either.

                                                           

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I arrived here around 8 p.m. Anne Brechtelsbauer is a dear, wonderful lady. I'd never met her, though she'd been a friend of the ministry for a handful of years, and a mutual friend of our dear brother Dick Rush of Oklahoma, who died last year. Anne teaches bridge on cruise ships, and is afloat six months of the year. Back in November, when I was just settling into Pennsylvania after an emotionally traumatic summer and fall, Anne called and said, “Martin, you are welcome to just come and stay here any old time. Just come down and rest; I would love to meet you. Maybe we can have some Bible studies over coffee.”

A great place to teach the eons.

Well, that is precisely what we have done. Yesterday, I used five bricks atop Anne's fireplace hearth to teach her some of the finer points of the five eons. Anne scribbled notes furiously onto a yellow notepad; she is not only a student of the game of bridge (actually, she is a master teacher as well); she will consume the daylights out of the Word of God.

She is also a champion amateur golfer.

Check out a page of her notes in The First Idiot in Heaven:

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

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This is a beautiful home, to which the photos will attest. Anne and her husband moved into this place in the early seventies. Sad to relate, her husband Paul died in 2002, and Anne has lived here alone since then—that is, when she's not cruising to the most exotic locations in the world and being the life of every party. 

Here was the room awaiting me:

On the bed was a very smart cat reading the Bible, along with his copy of Martin Zender’s Guide to Intelligent Prayer. Cats are so much more sophisticated than dogs, I think. Doesn't this prove it?   

Having arrived after dark, I was unable to grasp the breadth and depth of this house. Here are some photos I took yesterday morning:

It's called, "Cotton Cottage." 

View of the back. It's hard to get the whole thing in the picture.

In the afternoon, Anne took me to a Thai restaurant at one of the country clubs here in Pinehurst. Off we go to the Thai restaurant:  

Anne and me, we ain't afraid of the close-ups.

Pinehurst, you may not know, is the cradle of golf in the United States. The U.S. Open was last played here in 2005, and is rebooked to host this major championship again in 2014. Pinehurst hosts the U.S. open every six to eight years.

After lunch, Anne took me to the Pinehurst Hotel, an historic building hosting many of the U.S. Open golfers. I met a wonderful woman there named Jan who not only served us tea, but was very interested in The First Idiot in Heaven.

More on this unexpected evangelistic adventure tomorrow. I have quite a social calendar here, and it looks like afternoon tea is brewing. Sometimes suffering evil for the sake of the evangel isn’t so bad.

The big meetings are this weekend, and I’ll be telling you more about these as the week progresses.

Fore.

© 2013 by Martin Zender