I was acquainted with him through his son-in-law (one of my best and closest friends) and daughter. His son-in-law planted the church my brother now pastors just a few hours north of us. Through this connection I got to know Dr. Ashbrook a little bit. I got to know him better through his writings. What a blessing to have known him. What glory for him to now be in the presence of our Saviour!

The obituary is here.

An article by another young man he influenced is here.

His publication ministry is here. I am not sure what will happen to this ministry, but perhaps you can still obtain some of his books through them.

Our grand-daughter arrived last night, about a month early. Some circumstances made the docs concerned that the baby needed to come early, so here she is. From what we can tell, everything is fine!

And we’re kind of tickled!

Of course, Grandma jumped on the first plane she could, leaving me and Susan to finish packing for our move on Friday.

Not that I am complaining though – just wish I could have gone with her and left the whole job to Susan!!! (heh, heh)

We miss him. Mom talks about him all the time. I think about him every day.

For him, though, things are better than they ever were among us.

One day we, too, will know what he now knows.

We know that a dog is just a dog, but we can’t help but think this end is not the way God intended things to be.

NAU  Romans 8:20-22 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

I think this is among the reasons we grieve for the loss of ‘just a dog’. There is of course the end of a loving relationship between man and dog, something different from human relationships, but like them. But there is also this… that the creation in which we live is broken and awaits restoration and repair in the day when the Master sets all things right.

We don’t expect to see our dog in the resurrection. He had no spirit as men have. We do expect to see the setting right of all things.

In the meantime, we remember the delight we enjoyed in our crazy, lovable, gentle Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. His official name was Kentanna London Bobby. He was affectionately known to us by various terms, including “Dumb Dog”. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he always looked good, no matter what he was about.

Here is a picture from his first visit to the vet:

The kids in that picture are now 25, 21, and 19.

And one more picture, coming home from family camp some years back.

If you look closely at that picture, you will see the lettering from my truck mirror: “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”. Indeed they were.

Kentanna London Bobby
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
March 25, 1997 – October 14, 2011.

Just a dog.

Duncan and Meg are shortly on the move from Greenville, SC to Edmonton, AB, the place of my birth (and, really, the place of choice if I could live anywhere in the world!! Who needs the ocean and the mountains and the trees when you could have all that sky! And those fields! But I digress…)

So big changes are coming in our family, and especially for Duncan and Meg. We are looking forward to an eventful year.

“My name is Don…

“I am a blogger…”

This was due to Dr. Bob’s noted antipathy for blogs.

My wife has typically shared his view and can’t imagine what I find so compelling about my blog. Until today! She found a use for ‘blog’…

She scored 38 points with it AGAINST ME in Scrabble tonight! The Nerve!!!

I still won, though… I got most of the good letters, and we really boxed ourselves in, couldn’t get into the upper left quadrant at all.

For those scoring at home, she stuck blog on underneath OR to make ORB, the DO came later.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday evening. My wife made a tremendous effort with mostly vowels the whole night. She tends to be a better positional player than me, I’m always looking for the big plays, especially the seven letter words.

This Poor Man Cried

We have also posted my eulogy, a spoken version of my earlier post about my dad:

Poor Boy off the Farm

May these files be used to edify saints and perhaps even bring a soul to Christ.

I gave the eulogy, basically going through my last post, ‘poor boy off the farm’, but adding a few more details and correcting a few mistakes from the first written version.

Following the eulogy, one of the men of the church sang a solo of “The Ninety and Nine.” The hymn was my grandmother’s favorite, I was told by some older cousins. It was one my dad loved as well. The man who sang was our next door neighbour during our growing up years. His boys were among our best friends. Our soloist stood as the representative of several families in this little church that have had a lifelong relationship with our family – all united in Christian work, raising their children in the church and ministering to others through the church. As I looked at these now much older faces, I reflected on the grace of God represented in these life-long relationships. I counted at least five families who were connected with my parents and were workers in this church through the years – more than fifty years in several cases. There are some families in the church now that are the fruit of that labour then. It rejoices the heart to see that the labours of previous generations of Christians were not in vain in this place.

My brother, Rev. Paul Johnson, preached the sermon (he doesn’t have a church web site, but pastors the Grace Baptist Church of the Comox Valley in Courtenay, BC). I didn’t think I could hold together emotionally to preach the message myself and I have heard my brother preach funeral messages before. He is really a tremendous preacher.

His text was Ps 34.6. He tied in a story from his turn in staying with my dad in the hospital and helping to care for him in these last weeks. During that time my dad was in great pain from a broken hip and other difficulties. Paul heard my dad cry out in a weak, pain ridden voice, “O Jesus, help me, help me, help me…” This Paul related to the cry of the poor man of his text. He told us that the poor man of the text was not a man poor because of poverty or poor because of suffering, but poor in spirit, utterly defenseless and helpless in soul. Paul taught the congregation that this poor man is really all of us, and we must admit it. I had earlier given the testimony of my dad’s salvation, and it my dad’s cry to the Lord for salvation is the parallel of the cry of this passage.

The rest of the story about my dad in that hospital room is that after crying out to the Lord for help, my dad said, “… and I know you will.” This is the confidence of the believer who believes the promises of the Bible, the promise that the Lord would hear him and save him out of all his troubles.

Paul concluded the message by issuing a call to the audience to make the faith of the psalmist personal for themselves. He pointed out that my dad’s faith did no good for me, or for Paul, or for anyone else. I had to believe myself. Paul had to believe himself. All who hear the gospel must believe for themselves.

We closed the service by a congregational hymn, “Surely Goodness and Mercy,” then followed the casket out of the auditorium to my nephew’s rendition of “O Danny Boy” on the bagpipes. It was a glorious ending, although one dear wheel chair ridden long term friend of the family had to endure the pipes ‘full blast’ as she couldn’t escape the lobby where the pipes were being played.

We spent the rest of the day visiting with guests in the basement of the church. In particular several of my dad’s unsaved friends were in the service. My brother had an opportunity to speak at length to one of them, but he still quite clearly doesn’t get the gospel (or at least gives no sign of getting it). My unsaved uncle and aunt were present, along with several unsaved cousins and other friends of whom we are uncertain. We will see some of them tomorrow at the burial (too far from our home town to do it in one day). Pray that there might be some response. I’ll be seeing some of those unsaved friends next week also, so pray for continuing opportunities to speak to them.

Thanks for the expressions of concern and the prayers. We really appreciate it. I’ll return to my regular themes next week, but for now we are busy with some great opportunities to preach the gospel as we honour the passing of my dear believing dad to his heavenly home.

We will also hold a special service in my uncle’s senior citizen’s home tomorrow. My uncle spent 12 years in India, established Berean Baptist Bible College in Bangalore, pastored a church in Edmonton for many years following the India ministry, and continued to support mission work in India and Pakistan through these many years. My dad was his ‘rope-holding’ partner in this ministry. Since Uncle Jake (Dr. J. A. Johnson) can’t travel outside his home, we are going to bring the service to him.

(An earlier article on my dad – here, here, here, and here.)

A few years ago, my dad began writing his memoirs. His title was “Poor Boy off the Farm”. It reflects the reality of his life story and something of his insecurities as he battled honorably through life. He was far from ‘poor’ in my mind, though he began life in humble circumstances.

My dad was born as the fifth of six children to a prairie homesteader and an immigrant school teacher from Ireland. My dad’s father could have been better circumstanced, but he rebelled against his father’s insistence on good behaviour at college and decided “I’ll show him,” coming out to Alberta to homestead. My dad’s mother was the daughter of a temperance worker and fine Christian gentleman in Ireland, a charter member of a Baptist church that still stands.

My dad came into the world just in time for the Great Depression, followed by the Second World War for the backdrop to his teenage years. He turned eighteen the year the war ended, so thankfully was spared that conflict. Growing up on the farm during those years meant a good deal of privation – everyone lived in tight circumstances on the prairie farms in those years. But those years made for wonderful stories that my siblings and I will always treasure. “Tell us a story about the farm!” we used to beg, and he would begin, “Once upon a time, there was a farm where lived Charlie, Nancy, Betty, Tommie, and Jakey…”

I am afraid the details of those stories will fade into mist for me now. I won’t be able to ask him about them for a while. Once they cured a dog of stealing eggs by filling a shell full of mustard and hot sauce. Another time they were up and after a fox or a weasel trying to get at their chickens. Once he confronted an aggressive badger out in the fields, armed only with a machete-like knife – no blood ensued, the badger backed off… but for us, what excitement to hear of it later! There was a story of revenge against the bully of his one-room school house… perhaps not too glorious, but we all felt that justice was done.

My dad was a self-taught man, for the most part. His one-room school house only went to grade 9. High school was twenty miles away and meant boarding in town. Dad was needed on the farm, so he took grade 10 by correspondence. It took two years, but I guess that would have caught him up to his age group, he had skipped a couple of grades early on. Later, when I was a little lad,  he took some grade 12 by correspondence also. But he was a reader and a thinker. He read constantly, books on business and Christianity mostly. He read a lot of John R. Rice, as I remember, as well as commentaries and theology. His books are going to be a problem to me, shortly! I think I am going to open a used book store!

As a young man, my dad worked very hard. He spent one winter in a logging camp, somewhere in BC, I think. He worked on a ranch in southern Alberta another winter. And, like many an Alberta lad, he worked in the oil patch after the big discovery in the 1950s. He had stories about that, too. Working on the drilling rigs was tough, dangerous work. The oil patch brought him eventually to my home town where he met my mother. But I need to tell another story before I get to that one.

On one occasion, my dad was headed to his home in east central Alberta, but he stopped off to see an acquaintance from one of his jobs. The man offered him a drink, which led to several more, before my dad got in his car and continued his journey. Fortunately, a police officer spotted him and provided him with an overnight jail cell to sober up. My dad was so embarrassed about this incident that he went to his mother’s pastor when he got home and confessed his misdeed. His pastor counseled him wisely and led him to Christ. My dad never touched another drop of alcohol again. He used to be quite fierce about it. “You’ve never tasted the stuff,” he said to me one time. He didn’t want me to go sideways with my university learning and take any kind of a weak stand about alcohol.

When my dad got work near my home town, he started attending a little church there. It was the first church in our town, part of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). My mother was working at a drug store in the town in order to be a help in this particular local church – she was an RN and had also gotten a degree in church work at a Christian college in Oregon. Well, you can see what happened. They met, they fell in love, they got married. And they started a Christian home.

In their first home after marriage, they furnished it partly by making chairs out of orange crates. It was humble beginnings. Dad spent a couple of years trying to sell life insurance in the big city. (I had come along by this time.) After some frustration with that business, he headed back to our home town and the rigs. But he had another idea, general insurance (fire and auto).

While working the rigs, he opened a tiny office to sell insurance. His desk was set on a landing he rented from the local bakery. It couldn’t have been more than 8 x 8 feet – I remember being at his desk as a little boy. He would work graveyard on the rigs, then come to his office during the day and sleep in the afternoons. He told me that sometimes customers would wake him up at his desk in order to buy insurance. After a while (he was too cautious and waited longer than he needed to, he always said), dad quit the rigs and went full time at insurance and real estate. That is where he spent his business life. He was modestly successful at it, expanding his business to a neighboring town (60 miles away, this is the Canadian prairies we are talking about…), and served several terms on our town council as well as most of a term as acting mayor.

Work is not all that defined my dad’s life. His Christian life was not just church attendance on Sunday’s, but lived out in various ways in his life. He personally supported mission work, including the missionary work of my uncle, J. A. (Jake) Johnson. He and my mom supported the education of several young people besides their own in Christian colleges. They faithfully served and supported their own local church.

In our home, my dad was a spiritual force… He was a loving disciplinarian. That meant, at times, corporal punishment. He was always just – except, he thought, one time, when he disciplined me in anger (he says). When I think back, I think he was justified… but we both remember the even vividly, so maybe he is right. But it was more than discipline – he could effect that with just a look… no one ever looked at me like my dad. That look could straighten up Lombard St in San Francisco.

My dad had our respect. He spent many hours talking to us, when we were little – taking us for walks. Reading to us. In Canada we had no Sunday papers at the time, so the coloured comics came on Saturday. I remember when I was only about 5, sitting with my dad at the back of our house one Saturday night. We lived in a ‘skid shack’, an oilpatch house without a foundation, just creosote soaked skids. We had dirt piled around the sides for insulation – and comfortable seats on a summer evening. Dad always took his glasses off to read, but this time, when he was done, asked where he put his glasses. Sure enough we found them, he had sat on them and broken them. A week or two later, we were doing the comics reading routine again and Dad asked again for his glasses. I said, “You aren’t sitting on them, are you?” Sure enough, he had broken them again!

Dad’s reading was particularly significant to me. When I was about 5 or 6 years old, he was reading Bible stories to me from the Egermeiers Bible Story Book (still the best, in my opinion, especially the 1954/6 editions). He would read to me three times a day, after each meal. At that time I started asking him to read the record of the crucifixion. I still remember the picture on the page of a Roman centurion looking at the cross. In my mind, it is in colour, but in the book it is B&W. I used to weep when he read the story and kept asking my Dad, “Why did he have to die? If he was a good man, why did he have to die?”

My Dad patiently explained to me that Jesus died because of our sins, everyone’s sins. He explained to me that I was a sinner and could not save myself. I couldn’t understand it. (After all, I had not yet robbed any banks or murdered anyone – I was only 5 or 6. [Still haven’t done those two things, BTW.]) Dad kept explaining that we are all sinners, we have all sinned. He pointed out times when I had indeed sinned, that proved I was a sinner and Jesus had to die for that.

This went on for several weeks. My mother asked why Dad kept reading the same story when it upset me so much. I kept asking for it, he said. Finally, one night, lying in my bed, my father kneeling at my side, he thought that I seemed to understand. I remember that night vividly. The light from the hall was streaming into my darkened room and the light of the gospel streamed into my heart as I understood I was a sinner and that Jesus died the death I deserve to die. My Dad led me as I prayed and was born again.

Well, my dad didn’t tell my mom what had happened. I was just a kid, after all. A few weeks later, as my mom tells me, she asked him what had gotten into me, I had been so good lately. Then he told her the story.

What do I owe my dad? Everything.

More than that, I owe everything to the God whose grace worked first in my father’s and mother’s hearts and led them to make a Christian home.

I could say a lot more about my dad. But that, I think, is enough for now. Thank God for him, and may God still use my dad’s influence in the lives of me, my brother, my sisters, their families and my own.

After the euphoria of a successful procedure this afternoon, my dad is not responding well to continuing treatment. One lung is retaining some fluid, the doctor says that the only hope is to get his blood pressure up and he *might* turn the corner. The doc doesn’t sound too hopeful, however.

Dad is in the Lord’s hands. He is a born again child of the King, and the victory over death is alredy his. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson, Jer 33.3
sent from my phone, please excuse bad thumb tpying