Nancy Hotchkiss is a sweet angel that I have had the pleasure of knowing for many years now. You may know her from our 4-5 year old Moppette class. She has been a faithful loving presence in our children's lives for many years. We have a chance to get to know each other but never the opportunity to really know our wonderful Moppette volunteers. Today, I would like to introduce you to Nancy and her incredible story.
Nancy writes-
My story of
God’s Guidance and Love.
I was born to Leverne and Gladys Wenner in Bissau, Portuguese
Guinea, now called Guinea Bissau, West Africa, on January 27, 1962, known as a
MK (Missionary Kid). The Lord is the
only reason I am here, my Mom has negative blood and I have positive blood and
it was in a small hospital and I was born at 11 pm at night and my mom did not
see the doctor until the next afternoon, it was nurse’s that did the birthing. My mom tells me I bled for 24 hours, and God
is the only reason I am telling this story.
My parents had to leave and come back to the USA when I was
nine months old, because they knew a lot of the people who were fighting for
independence in their country. For the
next 4 years of my life, we lived in Philadelphia, then California with Grandpa,
and my dad working on a bee farm of my great Uncle, then Minnesota with family,
and finally, back to Philly. My brother was
born during this time in Philadelphia, and with Mom’s negative blood she did
not see him for 48 hours, she does not even remember the birth, and I didn’t
get to know him until he was 2 weeks old.
My parents had to decide where to go during this time because they could
not go back to Guinea Bissau, so they decided to go to Senegal, West Africa,
because they wanted to work with the refugees from Guinea Bissau. Also
at 4 years old we went and spent 6 months in Canada for my parents to learn
French.
When I was 5 years old we went across the ocean in a
boat. I do not have a lot of memory of
this time. I do remember seeing some
interesting fish during the trip. We
lived in Senegal until I was 8 years old, and during this time I went to a Boarding
School. I have over the years learned
that a lot of Mk’s do not follow God as savior, but most of us learn and are
brought up to follow the Lord and learn how to bring other’s to Christ. Watching my parents in Africa and the people
who came to know Christ as savior, I learned how accepting Christ you need to
have a strong commitment to Him and that you may have to stand up for Christ and even pay a price for
that, such as having to leave the home and family. The two most influential men I saw there were
men who had multiple wives, one with 4 and the other had 5 wives. After accepting Christ as Savior they both
chose one of the ladies to be his only wife, but did not just kick the others
out of the house and have to live on their own like a lot of men did. But they built homes for them and let them
live in them, helping them out until they could find another husband. Growing up in this kind of life has given me
the strength to keep the Lord in my heart.
When I was 8 years old my dad needed to come back to the USA
for surgery on a knee he had injured a few years before. We flew from Dakar, Senegal to New York City
on January, 1970 from 100 degrees to 20 degrees and snow. It was a very interesting trip. My parents
were going to go back to Senegal, but the Headquarters asked them to stay, my
dad was very good at fixing things, so we stayed. I really enjoyed the time I had there. It was 1970-1977. The Land the buildings are on was called “the
Hill” during the Revolutionary war. The
buildings we lived in were built in 1882 by John and Sarah Fell. There was a lot of history on the land.
Growing up at the headquarters was wonderful!
Seeing people, coming in and giving their lives to God’s work.
During this time I had some great mentors. One of the “Aunt’s” I had was Hellen
Kuleskey, she told me one day to start praying for the man God had picked for
me to marry. She said to pray for his
salvation, his protection and that the Lord would help us meet. Another great influence was the two great
Youth Groups leaders I was involved in at Church and one at the Hill. The Youth leader on the Hill was Steve Estes,
the most memorable trip he took us on was up to the Poconos mountain to meet
Joni Eareckson (Tada) at her parent’s Chicken farm. I have a lot of respect for her and how much
she has been able to give God the glory in all she went through. When I was 16 years old my parents felt it
was time for our family to spend more time together, since we didn’t spend much
time together because of their work. We
moved up to Roseau Minnesota where my Dad had grown up, and had lots of
relatives. It was nice moving up and
finally getting to know relatives that in my sixteen years I had seen once or
twice.
The day I accepted Jesus as Savior was when I was 6 years
old. I was at the boarding school and we
could hear the fighting in Guinea Bissau, and got scared. My wonderful House parents and teachers sat
and told us about Jesus, and His love for us, and that when we accept Him as
savior we have peace. When I was 15
years old I was baptized. At 16 I
decided to dedicate my life fully to the Lord and started looking at missions.
In 11th grade we had to decide where to go to
college. I decided to go to a Christian
College in Bloomington, MN., the one my Mom and Dad went to that taught Missions. So after High school graduation I went to
college.
Now this is where the Lord fulfilled the promise to my prayer
for my husband. I went to Bethany
Fellowship to go into missions but God showed me a change in plans. During the
first year I had three men who were friends.
Over the year my friendship grew closer and closer to Carl Hotchkiss and
he asked me to date the fall of the 2nd year of school. Now at Bethany we had to ask for permission
to date, and the Dean of Women knowing my parents, felt Carl coming from a
single parent home was not right for me, but my parents accepted him and then
we are allowed to date. So the dean
finally said yes to us dating.
This was our second year at college and on the third year we
were to go and help other missionary groups, field work, learn and watch, and
learn how to minister. I was to go work
at WEC Headquarters in Philadelphia, and Carl was to be in the Caribbean
working with the Bethany Missions bookstore.
Towards to end of the Second year, Carl had gotten called into the
Dean’s Office about us talking on the phone after 10 O’clock at night. There was a rule that you were not to be on
the phone after 10 pm, but the Assistant Dean had told the men that if there
was trouble that you could finish the discussion if there was a major problem
and then tell the Dean’s and they would work it out. Well the Dean did not agree with the
Assistant and Carl got called in and we took the punishment, Kitchen duty. The Dean got upset at Carl because he did
apologize, but felt he made a right choice, The Dean was upset at Carl, because
he did not feel he had done anything
wrong, So it went to the President of
the College and when Carl insisted we had followed the assistant’s advice, we were
asked to leave and missed the final test for the year. While this was happening to Carl, my dad
called me and let me know that the College would not give any reason why we
could not finish off the school year. He
and my mom were hurt over this, as they knew the president well. After I had left and a couple years later my
Dad told me the Lord had told him I would be there for two years only. It is interesting that the Lord is in
control. I had gone through 10 years of
hurt and anger at the Collage, but when I finally asked God for forgiveness on
that and forgave them, my parents were doing a missions trip in Haiti and
happened to meet a man from the College and happened to talk about it with them,
how they were hurt over that. The President came and apologized to Carl and I
and offered for us to finish the schooling, but at that time we did not have
the money or time, or housing to do it, but it was great to see that when you
give it back to God, He tokes the situation and works it out.
When we left, Carl drove me to Roseau to stay with my parents
and he was going to live in the twin cities.
When we realized how far away from each other we would be, we decided to
get married. On August 27, 1983 we
became husband and wife at 21 years old.
We are now at 29 years of marriage and have 3 wonderful girls, all graduated
and on the next journey of life. One of
our daughter’s is getting married this year.
Our Oldest, Sonya, was the baby I was looking forward to having. I also found out at 6th months
that I had Pregnancy Diabetes, but I was so far into the pregnancy that it was
not too bad. She decided to come one
week earlier than she was supposed to come.
I had said I would do the turkey for my Husband’s family because she was
not to come until December 3 but three days before Thanksgiving day my water
broke. And the day before Thanksgiving
she came. My Mom had to cook the turkey
for Carl’s family. I took more pictures
and video of her and spent a lot of time with her. She always liked to act and show off and was
always outside when we visited my parents or in Iowa with Carl’s family. She did get into drama at school and was
thinking about it until she looked at the Life style and has changed to Photography
now.
Then the Lord brought Esther, she was a surprise. I was starting to think about having another
child but was not ready for one; Sonya was only 19 months old. We were also living in an Apartment building
where I was taking care of a part of the building and keeping it clean, and
getting the Apartments ready to rent. It
was a pretty stressful job with the manager not being respectful to women. She loved men but women could do no right and
Carl was working two jobs too. So to
find out I was pregnant again was a big surprise. I had a hard time even getting excited about
having the baby. My Diabetes showed up
right away in the pregnancy but I was able to control it so I was not too
bad. But I was not allowed Ice cream and
sweets. But about the 8th month I got to see her in an ultrasound and
my attitude changed and I got excited.
My brother and brother in-law were in town and we thought since Sonya
came early, Esther would too. But she
waited 3 days after they both left to come into the World. She also came all on her own. With Sonya I was put into labor, so I did not
realize I was in labor until she was ready to come out. I was in hard labor for about 3 hours. We left Sonya with Carl’s sister at about
5:30 am and Esther came about 6:30 am.
And Carl’s sister was able to drop off Sonya and go to work. She was a joy to have and that was what her
middle name is. Once we had her we decided
to move out and found a trailer home to buy.
Esther was having a great time growing up until 6th grade and
her friends started judging her, telling stories behind her back that were not
true, and her senior year we had to home school her, and it was hard for
her. She is the one who I have had to
give to the Lord, and let Him do the leading. I love her so much but you cannot always make
things better, and you need to be on your hands and knees praying.
Rachel came three years later.
She was one I was looking forward to.
Though she decided to stay in the womb and the Doctor decided to have
the labor going when she was 10 days late.
It was good that he did, she had the cord wrapped around her neck and he
had to really work with her to breathe.
I also had a very hard time getting her out as she was 10 pounds 5
ounces, and I wasn’t built to have such a big baby. The nurse had to get up on top of me and push
on the baby to get her out. She has been
a joy. She loves the Lord, always
singing as a baby, and because she was quite a bit younger than her sisters,
she learned to play by herself and she could remember a story you would read to
her word for word right after you read it.
We did have trouble getting her to graduate. But she does love babies, she has been
helping out in the nursery at church and was also a nanny for about a
year. She has just decided to go to college
for interior design, and has been dating a man for about a year now. The good news with the Diabetes was that it
has not shown up yet 20 years after she was born.
We have had a lot of ups and down, good days and bad, but it
is a commitment, a gift the Lord gave us to learn to work at it, we also keep
the friendship going too. God chose Carl
for me, and I have put him as the leader and allowed him to follow Christ’s
directions. There was one great time
when he was working days and I was nights and he would come home and I would
leave and we were not talking too much and starting to get frustrated with each
other He stopped me and said that we
need to stop and talk and if we are late for work and get in trouble, our
marriage was more important than money.
During the first 8 years of our marriage we moved about 6
times and were looking for the Church that believed in Christ as savior and
were mission minded. We finally found
one and during this time we had learned to ask for forgiveness and have the Grace
to forgive the past, and the heavy burdens were lifted.
On December 6, 1992 I started to get sick. During the following 10 days, I proceeded to
feel worse and worse. I was unable to
eat, running a low-grade fever and very tired.
The hard part was that Rachel my youngest was 9 months old and my
parents did not live in town, to find someone to watch her while I was
sick. I went to the doctor’s office once
and called there at two different times and they just kept telling me it was
just Flu. On calling them a 3rd
time, after I had been sick for 10 days they told me to come into the doctor’s
office. Thanks to the Lord a friend was
able to take me, as I was having a hard time communicating right, according to
my husband and friends.
From the doctor’s office I was sent straight to the
hospital. I then spent the next 5 days
going through various tests, trying to determine the cause of my illness. During this time I do not remember many
events very well, or the people who came and visited me at the Hospital, even
now I still can’t remember some of them.
On the 5th day at the Hospital, December 19th, I
was brought back to my room after having an MRI, and Carl was told that I had
Herpes simplex Encephalitis in the brain, and they did not have a way for
healing me. The rest of that day is a
quite a blank, I do know that I have a memory of quite a few people praying
over me, but do not remember a lot of it.
The next time I remember anything was a nurse in my room, and I was calling
my husband, and he started crying, and that puzzled me. He later explained to me that the doctor had
told him the night before that he was not sure if I would recover, that I would
either go into a coma or death. We have
found out over the years that anyone who gets this illness; 70% die, and the
others survive end up with being handicapped, blind, or whatever else depending
on where the infection hits in the brain.
Carl has told me that he started crying because I was alive and able to
communicate at all the next morning after he was told that. It is only because we had a lot of people and
churches praying during this time and the Lord had answered their prayers.
After finding the kime of infection they started me on
antibiotics so I did not get any other illness, since they cannot kill Herpes viruses. During the next 4 days I kept trying to get
the doctor to let me go to church on Christmas Eve. I do not remember much, but for some reason I
really wanted to go worship the Lord. I
kept trying to convince them to let me go.
Behind my back everyone was saying that there was no chance I would be
able to go, after all, the doctor was not sure I would be able to go home for a
long time or take care of myself. The
doctors were thinking about letting me go for the service only, but the Lord
was in control and worked it out so that I could go to church and go home too. So I was able to go home and go to church for
Christmas Eve service, because my parents came down to help my husband
out.
That Christmas Eve my Mom and Dad helped Carl get me home and
to church. I did not recognize anyone,
they did not look familiar. I hummed
along with all the songs as I could not read, but it was interesting that I
knew the notes, it is another part of the brain were the infection hadn’t hit
the brain. I was so happy to be able to
worship the Lord on the day He came to earth for us.
The next 3 weeks my Mom stayed and helped me relearn how to
care for myself, children, house and learn to Cook again . The neat thing she
made me do two weeks after I got home. I
do play the piano and she had me try and play the piano, I did not lose the
ability to read notes, that part is on the other side of the brain but I did
have trouble reading the words.. During
this time and for the next 6 weeks our church provided meals every other day
during the work week. When my mom
returned home, a friend two doors down came and helped me learn more.
A month after I came home from the hospital, Carl went back to
work full time, as he had been working half days until then. When Carl returned back to work full time, he
was a bit unsure about leaving me alone to care for the children. But it helped that we had close friends and
neighbors to help, and I slowly became more and more independent.
The next 3 months while I was at home (in Blaine) I had to go to the hospital (North Memorial) to
have Speech therapy 5 days a week, to re-learn how to read, write, recognize
and identify almost everything in my life. And the summer of 1993 I discontinued the therapy
at the hospital because they had concluded that at the present time I was not
improving fast enough to continue therapy with them.
The Last 20 years has been a very interesting journey, a lot
of ups and downs. 8 years ago I was
diagnosed with Breast Cancer and had 2 surgeries and then chemo and
Radiation. But I know that the Lord has
been with me the whole way, giving me the verses and songs to sing, the support,
and giving me the knowledge that He is in control of all things. And this year I have celebrated 20 years of
surviving the Herpes virus. I have come
up to about a 4th grade reading level.
The computers help me write, and my husband always does spell check for
me, before I send email or get letters outHe is helping write this). We have also worked out a wonderful plan, I drive and he reads the books we are reading
together. It makes the trip go faster. And for a while after the Illness I could not
tell where I was and could not remember how to get places. The Doctor gave Carl the right to know when I
was okay to drive on my own, and the Lord has brought that back and Carl has
told the doctor it is okay for me to go whereever I want now. The doctors did not know if I was going to
progress any further that summer, but the Lord has given me the understanding
and comprehension of things, and a lot is coming back. The Lord allowed me to be a full time Mom for
my girls, helping out at Church, school and anything my kids were in. I was a little upset that the Lord did not allow
me to go on the mission field, but now I know why, because I would not have
survived the two illnesses in any other country.
Over the
years I have grown closer to the Lord and have been learning to give everything
to Him. I am so thankful that He has
given me the ability to do what I can.
One of the songs I enjoy a lot in the last couple years is the song “Blessings”,
by Laura Story –
“We pray for blessings, We pray for
peace. Comfort for family, protection
while we sleep. We pray for healing, for
prosperity. We pray for Your mighty hand
to ease our suffering. All the while,
You hear each spoken need Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things.
'Cause what if Your blessings come
through raindrops. What if Your healing
comes through tears. What if a thousand
sleepless nights, Are what it takes to know You're near. What if trials of this life are Your mercies
in disguise.
We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear.
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near. We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love, As
if every promise from Your Word is not enough.
All the while, You hear each desperate plea, And long that we have faith
to believe.
'Cause what if Your blessings come
through raindrops. What if Your healing
comes through tears. What if a thousand
sleepless nights, Are what it takes to know You're near. And what if trials of this life are Your
mercies in disguise.
When friends betray us, When
darkness seems to win. We know that pain
reminds this heart, That this is not, this is not our home, It's not our home.
'Cause what if Your blessings come
through raindrops. What if Your healing
comes through tears. And what if a
thousand sleepless nights, Are what it takes to know You're near. What if my greatest disappointments, Or the
aching of this life, Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't
satisfy. And what if trials of this
life, The rain, the storms, the hardest
nights, Are Your mercies in disguise”
Another
song that I sing a lot is the song by Clay Cross – “I have
wrestled in the darkness of this lonely pilgrim land. Raising strong and mighty fortresses that I
alone command. But these castles I've
constructed by the strength of my own hand are just temporary kingdoms on
foundations made of sand. In the middle
of the battle I beleive I've finally found.
I'll never know the thrill of victory 'til I'm willing to lay down. All my weapons of defense and earthly
strategies of war, So I'm laying down my arms and running helplessly to Yours.
Chorus:
I surrender all my silent hopes and dreams, though the price to follow costs me
everything. I surrender all my human
soul desires, if sacrifice requires, That all my kingdoms fall, I surrender all.
If the source of my ambition is the
treasure I obtain, If I measure my successes on a scale of earthly gain, If the
focus of my vision is the status I attain.
My accomplishments are worthless and my efforts are in vain, So I lay
aside these trophies to pursue a higher crown, And should You choose somehow to
use the life I willingly lay Down. I
surrender all the triumph for it's only by Your grace, I relinquish all the glory,
I surrender all the praise.
Bridge:
Everything I am, all I've done, and all I've known, now belongs to You, the
life I live is not my own
Just as Abraham laid Isaac on the sacrificial fire, If all I have is all that
You desire, I surrender all.”
I have realized that we are not to build our
lives on our Husbands, kids, things, etc.
But to focus on Him first then he will bring everything into your path,
and give you the strength to get through the good times and the hard
times. And as I am now on another journey,
with my kids graduated and now getting married, and seeing that He is guiding
me to care for my Mom’s and husband and giving me a Love for Kids in church –
doing MOPS, Awana, and Sunday School Music.
He has given me a wonderful gift in Quilting, I am getting to the point
where I design my own patterns and also be able to teach it to others. And who knows what else He will bring
along. But it is Letting Him take
control that is giving me the Joy to go on the rest of the journey until I see
Him face to face.
Nancy Hotchkiss.
Pretty incredible, huh? Thank you so much Nancy for sharing your story! This goes to show you that God is still in the miracle business! We are so blessed by you, Nancy, for your unending love and devotion to our children. You have planted many many seeds for Christ! God Bless you, for all you do and give!
Be Blessed and be a Blessing~
Rebecca
Pin It
