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I spent my early years growing up in Anchorage Alaska. We lived in an area called Nunaka valley; a collection of hundreds of small old homes in the city, surrounded by hills. Our house was within walking distance of the elementary school and my sister and I would make the trek to and from school every day.
One day, when I was very young, I remember walking home from school, entering the house and seeing my mother hunched over a roll top desk, hands on her face crying. I have very few memories from those days, but I can still remember many of the details of this event, such as sunlight shining into the house from the screen door.
I asked my mother what was wrong and she explained she was thinking about her mother (my grandmother). Prior to that day (I don’t remember the exact day) my grandmother had been at a party, was drinking and fell down the stairs of the house she had been at and died. All I really remember about my grandmother to this day was from pictures; I was very young when she passed.
As my mother talked to me she shifted the conversation and shared Jesus with me; and in that moment I was saved. I know this for many reasons, one of which is that this memory is so profound in my mind while I can remember virtually nothing else from that age.
Over the next several years most of my schooling was in Anchorage, but I spent one year with my father who was also a Trooper and was stationed in Bethel. I returned to Anchorage and finished High School with one year at the Anchorage Baptist Temple Christian School and the remainder at East Anchorage High School.
I joined the military right out of high school and then hired on as a Alaska State Trooper after a few years of college. For most of my adult life I really was just a Christian in name only. I believed and was saved…I even tried to pray every day, but I rarely went to church and never read the Bible.
Over my career I had a number of close calls that I now look back and wonder if it was God working to get my attention. I had two separate instances involving bad people with guns that could have ended very differently.
In one, I went to arrest a lady who lived near Talkeetna who had a warrant. She was known to be mentally unstable and I approached her house to contact and arrest her. As I was knocking on the front door, she exited the side of the house through a sliding glass door, walked around on the porch and came up from behind me with a shotgun. I should have been paying better attention, but I didn’t hear her because she had no shoes on and was very quiet. Most Troopers have no backup with them in the rural areas and I had none with me that day.
I turned around to a shotgun pointed at me and a person with a gaze looking right through me. I talked to her…it was all I could really do…and she eventually lowered the shotgun and went in the house. I called for backup from Palmer and about an hour later she was arrested. Her defense at trial was that she thought I was a bear and froze, she was acquitted.
Another close call occurred for me near Willow Alaska. I received a protective order to serve on an individual who lived just outside of town. I contacted him, read the entire protective order and made sure he was aware that if he violated it he would be arrested on the spot. I had the feeling he could care less about the order, but I recorded the service as required and left. A few hours later I received a call that the man was back in the house in violation of the P.O. I sped to the residence and upon reaching the front door he burst outside with a hunting rifle in hand. I jumped behind the side of the house and then ran to my patrol car in the driveway.
Back then our portable radios were hit and miss for reaching dispatch that was miles away near Anchorage; I needed the radio in my car. I opened the driver’s side door and ducked below the dashboard while I sped the car in reverse. As I backed out the driver’s side door caught a snow berm and bent forward (first car I dinged, fortunately they considered it battle damage). The man was still visible inside the house with the rifle and I moved to safety until backup could arrive. He was eventually arrested and spent a fair amount of time in jail.
Two close calls, many other dangerous situations all in the same region over a few years from 1994-98.
Then came an accident that should have woke me up. In the late 90’s I was flying in a Trooper Helicopter with Sgt. Chuck Feller; we were both assigned to Talkeetna Post at the time. Our mission was to put a portable repeater on a mountain top about 20 miles northwest of Palmer to assist search teams in their effort to find a missing woman.
The pilot looked for the highest mountain in the region and found one with an area just big enough to land on. The side of the mountain had a steep decline going down thousands of feet. As Sgt. Feller landed one skid on the mountain and I was getting out to place the repeater, a mechanical failure caused the tail rotor to seize and the helicopter started to violently shake itself apart. All I could do was jump behind a rock as the pilot tried to keep the aircraft from bouncing off the cliff. After what seemed like minutes, but was only seconds, Sgt Feller was able to power down the aircraft and we were stranded on the mountain until we were rescued.
Later we were told that a one-in-a-million failure occurred that was probably initiated when the pilot adjusted the throttle while hovering on the mountain top. Had the accident occurred a few seconds before, or a few seconds after leaving we would have faced certain death.
Having the benefit of hindsight I think God was speaking to me; the problem was I wasn’t listening.
Then towards the end of my career my health took a turn for the worse. A severe stomachache turned into a major medical emergency. At our local hospital in Ketchikan I was told that I had a major infection that would require surgery, but they wouldn’t be able to complete the surgery until they got the infection under control. It took nearly two months to get me healed enough for surgery and then six weeks past that to recover.
That got my attention…I’m not going to live forever and had that happened years ago I would be dead. I had pretty much been doing my own thing my adult life, I needed to change. I remember having one of those quiet moments, thinking about my own mortality, pondering that if I were to die today I will meet Jesus never having read the Bible. I thought…what would my excuse be for not having read the Bible once in my entire life? From my military days I remember the instructors and supervisors who would say “The only excuse is that there is no excuse” and I thought that would be it for me.
The reflection in that moment created a sense of urgency in my life. This is something I need to do and I need to start now. I started with an old Kings James Bible that I had for a long time, but never opened. Starting at the beginning I read a few chapters a day and will be the first to admit that parts of the Old Testament were difficult to understand, but it does get easier as you go. Eventually I got to the New Testament, and finally all the way through to the end.
The Word is powerful. I was amazed how multiple authors (inspired by God) over hundreds of years could right 66 individual books and how they all fit perfectly together. It was like a light bulb had turned on and I was beginning to see things differently.
The most important concept to understand is the Gospel of Grace… that God sent his son Jesus (fully man and fully God) to earth to live a perfect sinless life, to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, that he was buried and rose from the grave on the third day. That all who call upon his name and believe in him in their heart will be saved. I learned that we are not saved by works, or kept saved by works, but we are saved for works which God prepared in advance for us Ephesians 2: 8-10.
My perspective on life started to change and I started to look at life as “Every day is a test, and we will be graded at the end”. I worked on changing my behavior and actions towards others and tried to follow Gods commands. The truth is it is God who completes the work in us and it’s a process; for me is has taken “many” years. I realize that I’m just as messed up as everyone else, we are all guilty and in need of a Savior.
As you grow as a Christian its amazing how you suddenly start to see things you never did before. I compare it to buying a new car and driving it. Suddenly you notice everyone else that has the same type of car, something you never really noticed. It also gives you a new perspective looking back at trials and events in your life to see the presence and interaction of God in so many ways.
With the things I just mentioned in mind; the following is one of the most profound moments in my life and it occurred while I was serving the borough a few years ago.
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In early 2019, I was scheduled to go to Washington DC on a Borough advocacy Trip with then Mayor Dave Landis. As part of our trip we had been invited to the White House to discuss policy issues for the Borough. At this point I had been to the White House a number of times and was developing fairly close contacts in the administration.
In each of my previous visits the ultimate goal was not just to get our community issues before the White House, but to have a few minutes of the Presidents time. The thought process was that if we make our problems the Presidents problems…then they become everyone’s problems.
A few months out, I began reaching out to my contacts in the White House, starting with the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. I wrote we are arriving at this date and would appreciate a meeting with the President; I knew he was busy and the more notice the better I thought. This went on for weeks and as the day approached, I was doing everything I could to arrange this meeting. Weirdly, I had a feeling this would be my last opportunity to meet the/a President (I guess time will tell).
During this time I was really trying to grow as a Christian as well…and was praying for a meeting with the President. Matthew 17:20-21 tells us “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
I prayed and prayed and prayed. My prayer was, dear God, please let me meet the President, shake his hand, thank him for what he has done and tell him about Ketchikan. Eventually the day arrived and we traveled to DC. We had a full schedule of meetings with heads of various agencies, our Congressional Delegation, White House staff and others. We arrived for our White House visit, made it through security and were taken to a briefing room in the Eisenhower Building. This room always reminded me of the briefing rooms you see in the movies where the pilots on the Aircraft Carriers received their orders.
We heard from a number of Administration staff that day on topics involving mostly rural America. As this was going on I was texting my contacts in the administration reminding them that we were in the building and still hoping for a meeting. The thing about meeting the President is that they will never commit to it…if it happens it happens. On a prior visit we came close to meeting the President but were told at the last minute that an issue in Syria had come up that required his immediate attention.
As our meetings in the White House progressed I knew we were running out of time to make this happen. Getting invited to enter the White House requires weeks of arrangements and once you leave your not coming back in without another invitation. As the end of day approached, I received a text about 30 minutes before our briefing was over that the President had become unavailable and would not be able to meet with us.
I was disappointed, it was a let down for sure, but I knew I did everything I could to make it happen…it just didn’t work out this time. The meeting ended and the room cleared. I remember we were dragging our feet about leaving. We took a few photos and talked a bit, but from my perspective it feels like everything you do in that building is watched…and it probably is. On a prior visit I wandered too close to the White House lawn and was quickly met by a Secret Service agent who told me to move along. All that to say that you feel you can only hang out in any one place for so long when you are there.
After several minutes Dave and I felt it was time to go. We had been in this briefing room before and simply taking a left outside the room leads directly to the exit and street. Dave was leading and decided to go right and we began a walk down the long halls of the Eisenhower building. The Eisenhower building is the big office complex on the White House grounds directly next to the White House. There are several floors, long hallways scores of offices and stairways every so often.
Dave led and walked halfway down the hallway on the second floor. As we reached the mid point of this hallway Dave saw a stairway to his right and began going down the stairs. He walked down a few steps and then just stopped. After a pause, Dave turned around, walked back up the stairs and said lets go another way. Dave, if you are reading this I am convinced God was working in your life that day as well.
We reached the end of the hall, took a right, walked down that hall, took another right and circled the other side of the building. I think we all started getting that uneasy “its time to go” feeling and Dave picked a side exit directly between the Eisenhower building and the White House and we left.
We walked down the steps to an area between the buildings where the Presidential limos are parked. Immediately as we came off the last step, Vice President Pence exited a limo. He was going to the Eisenhower building but turned, raised his hand as if to signal “stop” and walked directly at us. He came right up to me and shook my hand while Dave was taking pictures. In the next few moments I got to thank him for his efforts and talk to him about Ketchikan.
Vice President Pence is a self professed Christian and so is my friend Dave. To my Christian friends, I am absolutely convinced that the Holy Spirit was working in all of us that day and made that happen.
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We left the White House almost shell shocked…did that really just happen? Think of the timing, the coincidence? We took a cab back to the hotel and I sat in my room thinking about what took place. In that moment I heard that still small voice of the Lord saying to my heart “I answered your prayer…I just did it in a way you would know you had nothing to do with it”. It was as if I had been hit with a ton of bricks. That realization was so profound and intense I just broke down and wept for a long time. The power of that was beyond belief. I did get to meet the President (I didn’t specify in my prayers) I got to shake his hand, thank him and talk to him about Ketchikan. Friends if you don’t know the Lord…your missing out. I still can’t believe that the Creator of everything would take the time to show me such a thing. To this day it is an emotional event for me to even think about this moment in my life.
I share this story only as a testimony of the greatness of God. I am no one special and just as bad as everyone else. There is nothing I can do to save myself, Jesus did it all. My challenge to you is to dust of your Bible and read it. Start with Romans and then go to the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Don’t miss out, God is great and he loves you more than you will ever know; he has plans for you as well. For more information on how to be saved, please go to the following link. https://www.jdfarag.org/abc
| Rodney Dial ©2022 |
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