A Speed Skating Coach, a Dream and a former Drug Dealer

 
Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
23 July 2007

Just got back from a fast trip. I hitchhiked out of Jackson on the 19th of July. I was walking north of Ashton, Idaho when this tractor-trailer pulled over to pick me up. I climbed up into the cab and the truck driver said that he had picked me up before. His name was Stan and after a few minutes I recognized him. He said he picked me up in Billings, Montana a year or two ago and took me to Sheridan, Wyoming. Stan said that he never picks up hitchhikers, but that he has picked me up twice now.

I remember the first time Stan picked me up he told me that he was a speed skating coach in Holland. He was born in Holland and then was raised in Poland. His English wasn’t so good, so it was a bit difficult to understand him. Stan said that he coached speed skating in Holland for fifteen years and then came to America and coached speed skaters here. He helped coach Ard Schenck (Olympic Gold Medalist from Holland), and later, Eric Heiden and Dan Jansen (Olympic Gold Medalists from the United States). He is now retired from coaching and drives a truck for a living. Stan lives in the Salt Lake City area. He dropped me off in Bozeman, Montana and I slept in that junked van for the night.

The next day I walked outside of Bozeman for a mile or two and got a ride with a truck driver all the way to Norfolk, Nebraska. I then hitchhiked south through Columbus and made it to Stromsburg where I slept at a construction jobsite a few miles south of town. That night I had a dream. In the dream I was in a room (it might have been a bathroom) in a house that was filled up to the shins with water. There were a lot of clothes floating in the water--looked like someone’s dirty laundry. I saw a dark cloud in the water. A former housemate of mine from Ames, Iowa was in that same room. We lived together in the same household with a few other Christian men for two and a half years [they went to Great Commission Church]. I walked up to him and asked him, “Have you repented of your sin?” He didn’t say anything. Throughout the dream he was always looking down--he never looked up at me--it looked like he was convicted of sin. I later found the drain, uncovered it and all the water drained out of the room. I walked out of the house and then the dream ended.

I was a bit curious as to why the Lord would give me a dream about a former housemate whom I have not seen since the early 1990s--we lived in the same house from 1987 to 1990. It was just over twenty years ago when I had hitchhiked from Ellensburg, Washington to Ames, Iowa. I think I arrived in Ames around 10 July 1987; within a week I got my job back at Hanson Lumber Company. I lived in that same house for seven years. The two and a half years I spent with the above housemate were unpleasant: he was very carnal, he went to a church that hated the power of the Holy Ghost (praying in tongues, healing, deliverance from demons, etc.); we really had nothing in common; he made my life fairly miserable while I was living there. We were living in a Christian household, but I was always leaving the house looking for Christian fellowship--I would even go out into the woods and pray and praise the Lord--I didn’t know what else to do. Why would the Lord give me a dream about someone I knew twenty years ago? I am sure that in time the Lord will reveal more to me about this dream.

The next morning I got rides south on U.S. 81 to Salina, Kansas. I waited for quite some time in Salina and finally got a ride to Colby, Kansas on I-70. I then got a ride to Seibert, Colorado where I got a cheeseburger. From Seibert I got a ride with a guy named Dave all the way to Jackson, Wyoming.

Why the fast trip? The Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts; the Lord’s ways are higher than our ways. The trip from Montana to Nebraska went very fast and was very blessed--the truck driver even paid for my supper in Gillette, Wyoming and my breakfast in Murdo, South Dakota; in Belvidere, South Dakota, he stopped at a rest area and slept in his sleeper and I jumped over the fence and slept in a grassy field that night. After he dropped me off in Norfolk, I got a ride with two Hispanic teenagers to Columbus. The one guy told me that he was very interested in my travels and that he really wanted to learn to speak English well--he was going to be a sophomore in high school this coming fall--he had come from Mexico just three years ago. South of Columbus this man and woman and their three kids picked me up. He used to be a drug dealer and had spent some time in prison. He told me that he was a real bad ass at one time. He told me that he once drove to this guy’s place so that he could kill him, but the other guy sprayed his car with bullets and two bullets grazed his arm and shoulder. He told me that he should have been dead. I told him that the Lord protected him because He had a purpose for his life. After he got out of prison (he became more committed to Christ in prison), he got a good job and now is taking care of his wife and children. I told him that the Lord was using him as a light for the Gospel in his hometown. We had a real good talk. Maybe the Lord had me hitchhike so quickly from Montana to Nebraska to talk to that Hispanic kid and that former drug dealer (I gave both of them my CD). If the Lord wants you to get someplace fast, you get there fast, let me tell you.

Looks like I will head up into Montana tomorrow.