What If There Were Windows in Heaven

By Harold P Adolph MD FACS

The inspiring and thrilling stories of a few of God's miracles observed over many decades of healing ministry to multiplied thousands around the world will encourage you to trust God more completely. It bears glad witness to God's unfailing faithfulness to provide, protect, guide, and do the impossible. Born to missionary medical parents in China, Harold Paul Adolph felt called to medical service early in life. When his life was repeatedly snatched from death's jaws, he knew that he was on assignment from God. Since 1966, Dr Adolph and his wife, Bonnie Jo, have served in Ethiopia, Wheaton, in short terms around the world, Liberia, Niger Republic, the USA, and Ethiopia, setting up a two-hundred-bed surgical training center in South Central Ethiopia with a dedicated staff of expatriate and Ethiopian specialists. Both their children, David and Carolyn Joy, serve as missionaries in Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640280847

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What if

There Were

Windows in Heaven

That couldn’t happen even if the Lord

opened the windows of heaven! 2 Kings 7:2

Harold P Adolph, MD FACS

ISBN 978-1-64028-083-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64028-084-7 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Harold P Adolph, MD FACS

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

You performed awesome miracles.

2 Samuel 7:23

Chapter 1

Across the Seas

I had just finished my first two schools giving me their best in kindergarten preparation for a future acceptance into college and a bachelor of science degree. They were wonderful Friends and Quaker schools with teachers any school would be most proud of.

I was never quite sure what I had done to be moved to the second school after only a six-week trial at the first school. It did make it possible, however, for me to later say that I had attended twenty-two different schools to win a student admission into college.

The city of these first two academies was Philadelphia where we were staying with my father’s German immigrant parents. Grandfather was involved in engraving beautiful pictures, which took many months to produce. Grandfather could be seen bent over a well-lit tabletop with magnifying lenses in place, using special instruments that delicately marked the bright wax-topped metal surface to produce an artistic dream production.

Before entering these kindergartens, I had had excellent prestudy preparation by being taken with my father to his own scientific laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine while he took a Master of Surgery degree in preparation for a returning tour of service with the China Inland Mission and its mission hospitals scattered over the country.

My specific assignment in my father’s laboratory was to hold white mice by their tails while feeding them a milky liquid laced with a new substance termed an antibiotic with the dignified name of sulfa. Judging from the reaction of the white mice, they were very happy to receive what I was giving them.

The results of our study were that my father was able to take the very first of this medicine to China with us when we left Philadelphia the last week of November, just before I turned five. This medicine resulted in my brother’s rescue from certain death approximately three months later in Peking, China.

For several months, our family—and especially my father and mother—was given all the reasons why the timing of going back to China at this time was a very bad choice. The well-equipped Japanese armies were invading China in several locations and were nearing my father’s former mission hospital in the northeast of China in Changhzi, Xianxi Province. Travel and communication in China was very problematic because of famine, war, and situations related to the resulting devastation and suffering.

No area of China was immune to these problems. Battle lines moved back and forth across major rivers almost weekly. A major Japanese offensive had been thwarted when a major dam was blown up by the retreating Chinese army, causing massive flooding of the enormous invading armored divisions.

Notwithstanding, the mission made bookings for our family on the Empress of Japan. We were soon traveling by train on the Canadian Pacific from Toronto. Our favorite location was the lounge on the last railcar of the train. This had a beautiful veranda off the back where we could stand carefully guarded by two anxious parents.

Another favorite was bedtime, when our Pullman sleeping car was made up for the night with an upper double bed for my brother and me and another double bed for Father and Mother below. The climb up the ladder was half the fun. We were fortunate not to miss the most beautiful Canadian Rockies during our last twenty-four hours.

Mission representatives were ready to meet and help with the transfer of our luggage, medical supplies, and items to assist our living situation for the next seven years.

My memory of my first voyage across the Pacific Ocean from one year previously was actually still fresh in my mind. I was four when we suddenly had to pick up from our location in North China because a Communist invading army was causing devastation across the north. We left when they were only fifty miles away. It was two weeks before my father’s seven-year commitment was to be completed, but he had five sick missionaries in the hospital and it appeared best to evacuate with them to Shanghai as soon as possible.

My only other special recollection of that trip was when a teenage friend decided to find out my reaction to being hung upside down over the side of the ship from the fifth deck. I think I did not disappoint my unknown friend, who was known by the name Mr. Christmas. About ten years ago, I ran across Mr. Christmas at a conference seminar, and he had no trouble remembering his involvement in my very close meeting with heavenly angels. I was glad that my mansion in heaven had not yet been finished and therefore I had another chance.

The trip to Yokohama, Japan, on the Empress of Japan was pleasant. I suspect that it would take a great deal of displeasure for me to ever be upset with a sea voyage across the Pacific. I was always so impressed with days of waves and sea as far as one could see. The occasional storms with real waves that tossed the passengers and furniture of the ship violently about, requiring rope tie-downs, holding on to the hallway rails on both sides, and going up and down the stairs very carefully as a step up might actually be a step up five feet instead of just one foot.

I loved to watch the bow of the ship disappear into a large wave and then be swung up, as if by magic, as the wave rolled under the rest of the ship. It frequently felt that it would be very easy for the ship to break in half. Fortunately, I had not read stories of this happening, so my ignorance protected me.

In Yokohama, we were transferred to a smaller steamship headed for Tientsin, the port city for Peking. It was to be a three-day trip through the North China Sea, just south of the Korean Peninsula and just north of Shantung Province of China. We were scheduled to arrive in Port on January 1, 1937.

The date should have prepared us for our trip more than we realized. The weather was anything but friendly at this time of the year. Perhaps we should have waited until summer to make the crossing.

Our second night out in continuing heavy seas, the captain himself made a startling announcement to the eagerly awaiting passengers: "Tonight I have to tell you that the storm is worsening. There is no safe harbor that we can reach. The ship is experiencing its maximum stress levels, and we are aware that the major structure of the ship is in danger of disintegration.

I want all passengers to wear their life jackets in bed tonight. I want everyone to be held in bed with sheet wrappings to avoid being thrown out of bed against the wall, ceiling or floor. I expect the ship to sink tonight! Because of the present air temperature of twenty degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the fact that the sea has frozen out to more than ten miles from the shore, there is no chance of any survivors. I advise you all to say your prayers for the last time. I don’t see any chance of the ship surviving.

With this good news, we said our prayers and slipped into a deep slumber.

Instead of finding ourselves in the ice water that night, we awoke refreshed to find a sea so calm that there was hardly a ripple. When we pulled into the port city of Tientsin, we saw an icebreaker was leading us to our berth. When we left the ship with our mission reception committee, it was easy for me to believe this was the coldest day of my life. It was another evidence of God answering prayer!

Dr. Paul & Vivian Adolph

Doctor Paul Adolph’s Changzhi Hospital in 1931

Baby Austin in Changzhi

He opened the heavens and came down.

2 Samuel 22:10

Chapter 2

Are You Afraid of Rabies?

We slowly walked through the bright Chinese red moon gate of our new home. Inside was a quiet and peaceful courtyard. Straight ahead were three steps to the main