Band of Angels

By Lester Monroe

Band of Angels is mainly about three individuals—John Wesley Thomas, a pastor; Jason McLeod, a husband and father; and Thirkiel, a leader of a Band of Angels of the Heavenly Host. The pastor tries desperately to impart what the Bible teaches and The Lord Jesus, has left here, on what is necessary for each Christian to live forever in Heaven, in the Kingdom of God. Through many teachings each Sunday, the pastor goes into the depths of the Word of God.

Jason’s upbringing did not teach him what it actually meant to be a Christian, only that to him, it was enough for him to be called himself a Christian by going to church every Sunday and believing that Mary had a Son named Jesus, who was the Christ.

Thirkiel, is an Angel of the Heavenly Host! He is the leader of the Band of Angels whose headquarters was in the attic of the pastor’s church, unknown and unseen by the pastor and the congregation. Jason finally learns what it really means to be a born-again believer one day too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781644689936

Book preview

1

Saturday, October 16, 2027, 02:25 a.m.

Jason McLeod is staring into the burning fire in the fireplace. He is sitting in the third-level family room at Quintero’s Tres Eckes Ranch. He is lost in thought. He is lost in his misery. He is lost. He shifts himself slightly to reach the glass of 180-year-old brandy on the end table next to him. He moves slowly so as not to awaken the sleeping woman whose head is resting on his lap. The two of them have been sitting on this extra large-sized sofa for about two hours. On the floor, lying near the wall in oversized dog beds, are two almost totally white Great Danes, Brutus and Caesar. The family has had them for nearly eight years.

Jason looks down at the sleeping woman. She is his wife’s twin sister, Theresa, and the resemblance always felt somewhat eerie to him. His wife has been gone for two and a half years now, his son and daughter as well. It seems like a hundred years ago; then again, it seems like yesterday that they are still alive.

Alive, he thought. Are they alive somewhere else…or dead? He knew, but then he did not know. He closes his eyes against his mind, trying not to think about it.

The woman on his lap stirs and opens her eyes. She looks up at him softly. How long have I been asleep?

Not long enough, he replies, only about an hour and a half. You need your rest. You are pretty tired. Go back to sleep.

You’re right. Maybe I will, but in the bed. I cannot keep you pinned down watching over me. What time is it?

Just past two, and I am enjoying you sleeping on my lap. It’s been a while since I had a woman take a nap on my lap.

Do you think those hoodlums will be back in the morning? she sits up and asks.

Probably not. According to the lieutenant of the Martial Law Security Force that came from the fort to help us out and who chased and followed them, they don’t usually strike in the same place twice in the same week. The lieutenant of the security forces said that they split up into groups of fifteen or twenty and went into several different directions about twenty-five miles northeast of here, and he is not about to split up his units and chase after them since they are mostly on horseback, and he is in armored personnel carriers, and risk running into an ambush somewhere. I will guess they are headed for either the Safford area or maybe into the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. They will probably stay well clear of San Carlos. Those Chiricahua and Yavapai Apaches are armed to the teeth, and they will give them ‘what for’ if they go near any part of that reservation!

Then I think we both need to get some rest.

Yeah, I will as soon as I finish this brandy.

See you in a little bit. Go easy on my great-grandfather’s brandy. There aren’t too many bottles from his distillery left in the cellar. Maybe two or so dozen bottles, I think.

Yeah, it does have a slow, smooth mellow kick to it. I’ll probably be riding the fence in the north pastures, checking for breaks by the time you get up, Jason says to her as she walks out of the room. I’m gonna sleep down here on the sofa in the den since I need to be up and checking on things by six. I’ll set my phone alarm so I don’t awaken you.

No, I will be up early. I am not going to close the drapes. The Sun will get me up in a couple hours.

Okay, then I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.

Okay. Goodnight. Or rather, good morning.

Caesar gets up and follows her. There are beds for the dogs in any room either of the two of them might be in. Jason has taught Caesar to mainly be her companion, except when he rides fence at night, then they will both be with him. Theresa never rides fence, except to accompany him, and she never rides nighthawk without a couple accompanying riders.

She walks up the stairs to their fourth-floor master bedroom suite, and a twenty-five-foot invisible giant of a man, named Hanniel, rises up through the ceiling, accompanying her. She does not close the door. Doors are kept open for anyone to be able to hear strange sounds and noises. Everyone is aware that raiders or intruders could try to sneak over the fencing and onto the house grounds despite the alarms, although now it is rare, but this is just in case. It is standard procedure that her father, Papi, required. If an alarm is set off, like earlier, everyone will be roused to defend the ranch and compound. Doors in the main house are closed for the brief time it takes someone to clean up and to change clothes, and then they are reopened.

Jason stands up, leaving the rest of the brandy, and walks over to the chair. He starts to pick up his .50-caliber sniper rifle and his web belt with his pistols and ammunition and the belt full of magazine pouches for the rifle and thinks better of it. This stuff will be here in the morning. Jason picks up his pistols and walks into the den, followed by Brutus. He puts down the pistols and ammunition on the chair next to the large sofa. He goes back into the family room and pours the brandy that is left in his glass back into the bottle and places the top on it. He looks at the label: Bottled in 1840, Mondragon Obregon Vineyards, Cordoba, Spain.

Yeah, 180 years old all right, I feel that old myself right about now. He sighs.

In the house with Jason is another twenty-five-foot-tall giant Guardian Angel, Nathaniel. Nathaniel is Jason’s Guardian Angel, his charge. He has been assigned to him from the moment of his conception, the same for Hanniel, Theresa’s Guardian. The two slowly ascend to stand watch above the house. There are many other Guardian Angels standing watch over their charges who are the workers on the ranch.

Tres Eckes has been in a small skirmish over three hours earlier with one of the many roving gangs. This one is about two hundred or so raiders. They are in pickup trucks on horseback, in horse and mule-driven wagons. There are rarely any foot soldiers because they could not keep up, and the vehicles will not wait for them. As they left the skirmish, they are shouting songs as they are being followed closely by the security force northeast, away from the ranch. There are men and women of all races and colors. Since Martial Law is still in effect, there are many large gangs roving the country with unusual names and different colored bandanas or jackets with attitudes. No one else could wear that color hat, jacket, or bandanna and not be a member of that particular gang. Therefore, the people mostly wore black or tan cowboy hats or baseball caps of their favorite sports team. Many of the gangs numbered into the hundreds.

Most of them has originated from one of the cartels in South America or Mexico or has come up from some Caribbean Island and has passed through California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas on their way to Utah or Kansas or Chicago or New York or St. Louis or Florida. Or rather, what is left of the shambles of most of those cities, which is once called The Land of the Free. But because of the Harvest, the number of border patrol agents has depreciated to the point where they could not effectively cover all the entrances and exits and open areas in and out of the country. Some of the prisons in South America are overwhelmed by the sudden lack of Christian correctional personnel, and some of the remaining guards has been bribed and opened the gates and walked off the job, setting the entire prison population free, and it seemed as if they all headed north to the Texas-Mexico border.

When two gangs wearing the same colors happened upon each other, fierce and deadly fighting immediately ensued. When the top leaders of either one of the gangs are killed, the war immediately stopped. The leader of the victorious gang usually assimilated those willing or executed those unwilling and takes captive all women, regardless as to whether their husbands or mates remained alive. Those members that escaped and ran away formed a new gang with new colors. There are no children among them.

After almost three years after the Harvest, there isn’t any nation or country that did not accuse or threaten another nation with war. It is only after over three months of total silence after the Harvest that the United Nations are pressured by the Arab Nations, and the Nations of Islam called for a change of venue, requesting that its headquarters be moved permanently to Switzerland. It is approved unanimously with no objection from the United States. The United States issued ultimatums that all nations are requested to have all embassies closed and all personnel and property evacuated in twenty-one days. All remaining property will be confiscated. All remaining personnel will be incarcerated with no exception, except for Israel, England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany who will be given the option of remaining open.

*****

Sleep does not come easily for Jason. He lies there, thinking back on the events of just a little over two years ago.

He and his wife, Vanessa, and his two children are seated in the church. Vanessa looked beautiful, he remembered. She is wearing a white linen suit with a mauve-colored blouse with a multicolored kerchief around her neck tucked inside the jacket, a beautiful purplish colored lily pinned to her left lapel. Her long dark hair hung down to the small of her back and flowed over her right shoulder, down to her waist. He held that picture in a freeze-frame in his mind. In his mind’s eye, he could see every feature of her face, the contours of her cheek and jawline: the neatness of her eyebrows, the slight subtle hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth, the slight indentation in her cheek that will dimple with her smile, and the ever-present sparkle in her hazel gold-flecked eyes. It is a beautiful day, a couple weeks before the Resurrection Celebration, and he could still hear the Pastor teaching his lesson for the day, just over two years ago.

He could still see the Pastor standing in the pulpit, larger than life…

*****

2

Sunday, March 30, 2027, 06:35 a.m.

Manuel Ortega owns a small sixty-acre farm adjacent to Tres Eckes ranch. The land has been given to Manny by Señor Quintero for being such a great and dedicated vaquero and being a tremendous help to him when Señor Quintero first started the ranch. The land is a reward for his twenty years of service. Manny divided the land into parcels. He has two twelve-acre fenced areas for all of the cattle, and a five-acre separate corral for the horses, and the one five-acre corral for the Hereford bull. Manny grows wheat in one ten-acre parcel and Mexican corn in another eight acres and an eight-acre parcel of fruits and vegetables are to be sold to Señor Quintero or at the farmer’s markets in the north of town and at one of the farmer’s markets in Tucson. He built his home on a half-acre right on the edge of those parcels.

Manuel Ortega is also an Argentinean. He came with Señor Estaban Quintero when he first came from Argentina to Arizona. Manny is in charge of keeping the six Brahma bulls quiet and sedated during the boat trip. Manny is in charge of the building of separate corrals for each bull. Female steers are selected and enclosed with a bull during mating for the first two years after they came to Arizona. Each of the six Brahma bulls is mated with a dozen female steers each month, using the mating schedule Manny set up for each bull for each season. It is Manny’s job to know which female steer is mated with which Brahma bull and to keep tally sheets for each steer and tagging each offspring. The three thousand head of Hereford, mostly female steers, grew to over thirty thousand in ten years under Manny’s careful breeding. After ten more years, Manny is given the sixty-acre ranch, twenty female steers, and one Hereford bull, as promised. Señor Quintero’s vaqueros help Manny build much of his ranch and corrals.

Manny goes out very early Sunday morning before going to church to weed the wheat field while the weeds are just beginning to grow and the ground is still just a bit damp. The weeds come from the desert south and west of his farm blown there by the wind. He carries a breakfast burrito in a cooler with two extra bottles of water with him. He eats lunch every day under one of the several mesquite trees in his fields. He spends most of every morning weeding while the ground is damp from the previous night’s rain or scheduled irrigation, pulling up the weeds out of each of his fields.

This morning, as he is weeding, all of a sudden, he sees a horrible-looking, very tall creature suddenly standing before him. When Manny takes steps back from it, he bumps into something big and hard! To his amazement, he turns to see another huge creature at least eighteen-feet tall. He is wearing a long grey cloak. Manny turns again and sees a very hideous creature with a face like a frog and whose slimy skin crawls and twists all over his body!

Manny turns again to the bigger of them in the long gray cloak.

What do you want of me, Señor? I have nothing! I have nothing to give you! I have no money, Señors!

I am called Tawagon, the man in the long grey cloak replies. I am one of what are called Fallen Angels, and we are sent to torment the people on Earth. This land you call Arizona is part of the domain given to me by my prince, and you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time!

Suddenly, Manny feels himself high up in the air with the four of them floating in the air all around him, high up in a tree. Manny is tied to the tallest branch of the tree with twisted cornstalks quickly made into vines. He starts to yell for help, even though the nearest help is Señor Quintero’s ranch that is over two miles away. But when he opens his mouth, one of the creatures sticks a small corncob deep in his mouth and fastens it around his head with twisted stalks.

Then they are gone! Manny tries desperately to free himself, especially when he sees smoke rising up all around him! Then he feels the heat from the fire. He twists his head to see that the whole tree that he is tied to is on fire! He tries to scream, but he cannot get the corncob out of his mouth. He cannot even make a sound with the cob thrust deep in his mouth!

*****

Sunday, March 30, 2025 11:35 a.m.

Reverend John Wesley Thomas looks out among the sea of faces that are staring back at him. All are dressed in their finery for this beautiful Sunday morning service, the thirtieth of March, the two thousandth and twenty-fifth year of our Lord, and he speaks to the people.

Good morning, Church.

To which the Church responds, Good morning, Pastor.

Reverend Thomas is not a small man. He is a handsome man, and his six-foot-five, 265-pound physical appearance makes him an even more impressive sight behind his pulpit. He continues to look around at his congregation of almost two thousand members.

Okay, Church, let’s go back to what I was taught many years ago, let’s go back to time before time. To the year 5 BC, the Angel Gabriel came to a priest named Zacharias and told him that to him and his wife, Elizabeth, will be born a son. Now Zacharias said to the Angel that his wife is well up in years and has probably passed the age when she could naturally give birth to a baby. And as you remember, the Angel caused Zacharias not to be able to speak until after his son, John, is born, but he told Zacharias that he is to name him John.

Reverend Thomas then walks to the middle of the dais with his reading glasses perched on his nose and leans forward and speaks to the congregation.

If an Angel comes to you and tells you to jump, your only answer should be ‘How high?’

He walks back to the pulpit amid laughter from the congregation and continues.

And so it is that Elizabeth carried John for over five months, hiding her pregnancy from all the neighbors and townspeople. Six months after Elizabeth became pregnant, Gabriel came to Mary a virgin, betrothed to Joseph, and told her that she will bear the Son of God, and she will name Him Jesus. Mary, of course, is betrothed to Joseph, and I’m guessing here that Mary did not know how to tell her fiancé or her mother or father that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Women in those days did not see or communicate with their betrothed again until the night before the nuptials, which is the next morning. She went almost one hundred miles to visit her cousin, Elizabeth!

Reverend Thomas takes off his reading glasses and looks out at the congregation.

I don’t know about you, but I have questions about my sixteen-year-old daughter coming to me and saying she’s going in a caravan with a bunch of strangers to Detroit to visit Aunt Nellie! Nah! Nah! Nah, girlfriend, you gotta give me more than that!

The congregation breaks out in laughter and giggles.

But in that day and time, I guess caravans ran as frequently as a Greyhound bus. I don’t know. But evidently, Mom and Pops said okay. Now, when Mary arrived and called out to Elizabeth, Elizabeth and John, the child that she carried, are both immediately filled with the Holy Spirit!

Reverend Thomas walks again across the dais in front of the congregation. In his right hand, he holds a tablet with notes for his teaching. He takes off his glasses and stops on the far side of the dais and slowly turns to looked at the congregation. One can see tears in his eyes as he walks slowly back and stops and looks at the people. He speaks softly, reverently, Do you remember the day, the moment, the hour you are filled with the Holy Spirit? I do. I was in seminary, and the Pastor is teaching and he stopped, and he walked over to where I am sitting, and he said, ‘I feel I’m being moved by the Spirit’ and put his left hand on the top of my head. Then he placed his right hand atop of his left hand. It is like sticking your wet tongue in a wall socket, and they said I began speaking in tongues. I didn’t remember anything until he takes his hands off my head. The sensation within me is and still is beyond words.

Reverend Thomas walks back to the pulpit, takes a tissue, and wipes his eyes. He looks at his notes.

Where are we? Oh, yes, Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months until the baby John is born. Then Mary goes back and tells Joseph that she is three months pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph intended to divorce Mary until the Angel Gabriel came and spoke to him and told him that the baby Mary is carrying is Jesus, the Son of God, and for him to continue with plans to marry Mary. Six months later, Jesus is born.

Reverend Thomas again takes off his glasses and walks a few feet away from the pulpit and turns and points his glasses at them.

"Now Christians all over the world think that Jesus is born in a stable, and back in those times, it could have been so named. But the word inn, in this case, does not mean Motel Six or Holiday Inn, or though there probably are such things back then. It really means guest chamber or guest room in someone’s home, which really is interpreted to mean that Joseph went to Bethlehem to stay with a relative because remember, Joseph is of the lineage of David. Actually, so is Mary! So Bethlehem is probably chock-full of uncles, cousins, maybe even mothers, fathers, or grandfathers. But when the two of them walked into the house with Mary nine months pregnant—and they probably has not received any notification of a wedding, and on top of all that, Joseph probably stated that he is not the father of the baby that Mary is expecting—they probably has a small fit because the Hebrew law may not have allowed for them to stay inside the house itself that has probably been ritually cleansed so many times over the years, and especially their guest room where the two of them will have stayed. Because after they left, the relatives—the brothers or uncles or whoever—will have to go through goodness knows how many rituals and blessings and cleansing of the house, saying prayers, lighting incense, and who knows what else!

"No, so they made room for them underneath the house where they normally kept their livestock during the winters. But being late summer, early fall, the livestock is mostly still out in the pastures with the shepherds, their hired help. And that is where they are found during the Annunciation by Angels.

"Eight days later, at the time of Jesus’s circumcision, the prophet Simeon is told by God that Simeon will be allowed to see God’s Deliverer for the Jews and the Gentiles before he died. Simeon blessed them and said in so many words that He will be a stumbling stone to the people of Israel! On that same day, Anna, who is 104 years old, gave thanks to God and spoke of Him to all in Israel that expected a Redeemer. Then Mary and Joseph are about to go back home to Nazareth.

"But about this time, the Magi or wise men came and told to Herod that a new king is born in Bethlehem. Herod sent his soldiers to all the cities surrounding Jerusalem within a ten-mile radius with instructions to kill all male children two years old and younger. Joseph takes Mary and Jesus and went to Egypt as instructed by the Angel Gabriel. Now this death sentence included Zacharias’ son, John because John is just six months older than Jesus. Now perhaps Elizabeth fled from their town and takes John, perhaps to live with relatives in the country, far outside of Jerusalem, probably as far as the wilderness near the Dead Sea. She takes him somewhere beyond the reach of Herod and his soldiers. Now Zacharias is probably slain at the behest of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the Temple. No doubt when the soldiers, Herod’s slayers of the righteous, came to the people in the village they told them of Elizabeth’s and Zacharias’ newborn baby, John. We can only presume that Zacharias is slain because he will not tell them where his wife, Elizabeth, and six-month-old son, John, are, as so stated in the Book of Matthew 23:35.

"Now Elizabeth is not a young woman when she has John. When news of the decree reached their village, she probably grabbed what provisions she could, packed a mule, and ran off with John into the wilderness to perhaps live with family members. Now we can suppose that Elizabeth came back with John after the soldiers has done their deeds and found that her husband has been murdered. So she probably takes John back into the country wilderness, and they resided there until John, the man, came out of the wilderness wearing a coat made from the skin and fur of a camel! We can only suppose or surmise that perhaps about the time that John reached the age of thirteen and has his Bar Mitzvah that Elizabeth did not live long after that. People did not live long in those days, and she will have been heartbroken about the loss of her husband of so many years. John then grew up in the country, perhaps with those relatives. One thing we do know is he is blessed with the Word of God to be the messenger harbinger of the Christ who is to come. But what is noteworthy is that Herod the Great is dead, and also are the people who wished the death of the babies!

"Now John came out of the wilderness with a ministry: to make ready a people prepared for the Lord; to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins! To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace! He came preaching and teaching and baptizing when he is about thirty years old and began to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Heaven, who is Christ Jesus. ‘Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth.’ John baptized and preached of the coming Kingdom of Heaven for almost six years. He is beheaded by Herod Antipas, about AD 32., a year before the crucifixion of Christ, and according to my research, he is about thirty-six years old at that time.

"Now, nowhere in the Bible does it give dates of when things happen or did not happen. In my studies, consultations with many study Bibles, commentaries, and documents of that period of time, these are roughly the dates I have uncovered for my own edification, and you can use them in your own studies or not. Now I reason that John the Baptist is conceived around June 5 BC. and is born approximately March 4 BC. Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit close to January 4 BC. and is born in September 4 BC. Jesus, in my estimation through my study, is born before, during, or right after the Feast of Tabernacles, which is normally in the first month or so of Fall and probably at the same period of time the census ordered by Herod the Great. Herod then ordered the killing of children and babies in 4 BC., and it is recorded that he died either in 4 BC. or early 3 BC…

Jesus came and began preaching and performing many miracles from when He is thirty years old until His crucifixion in April AD 33., almost six years of ministry! He is five months short of would have been His thirty-seventh birthday. Now, as I said, these dates are what I calculated based on the documents and commentaries that I used in my research. You are free not to use or believe them or perhaps go on a journey of your own and do your own research. Now let us continue on and follow the life of Christ Jesus as He walked in Samaria and Galilee…

*****

Sunday, March 30, 2025, 1:00 p.m.

After the services, praying with the few who came to the altar, and greeting and speaking with the last of the parishioners as they leave, Wes looks at his watch. It is one o’clock. He has only gone about twenty minutes past the normal time, but it is worth it. It is well worth it. Two very large unseen men stand behind Reverend Thomas as he speaks to almost all of the parishioners on their way out of the church. The ushers are wandering up and down the rows of pews, replacing Bibles and hymnals on the racks, and picking up bulletins and whatever the parishioners have left behind. The appearance of these giants can only be described as awesome as each is nearly twenty-five-feet in height, more than six feet in breadth! The white and gold cloaks that they are in cover them from neck to ankles. They radiate a luminescent light, but their brilliance is unseen by human eyes!

Lemuel smiles and glances at his companion, Jahaziel. They are John Wesley’s Guardian Angels! John Wesley knows that that at least one is around someplace. He has always known that he has at least one Guardian Angel watching over him. His mother has told him so many times when he is young. He has gotten out of too many tight spots in his life not to have has at least one.

Once, when he is attending seminary, he is driving on a highway to visit a friend of his that is hospitalized. He has asked God what the name of his Guardian Angel is. In his mind and spirit, the name Lemuel came to him! So, with that piece of heavenly information, he often talked aloud to Lemuel. He remembered reading in the Bible that Angels report to God the events that happen on Earth. So to him, he kind of hoped that it will be as the old expression, from my lips to God’s ear, especially those times when it seemed he could not get his prayers answered, like the ceiling is made of brass and they are stopping his prayers from going up. Then he will talk openly to Lemuel.

Lemuel and Jahaziel walk slowly behind him as John Wesley makes his way back down the three steps down the hallway that run along the outside wall of the sanctuary to his office. Jahaziel has been dispatched to be his second Guardian Angel and also to be an aide to Aubrey, better known by his Angelic name of Amaliel, when the activity of the enemies of the Cross begin to increase around John Wesley and the community.

José and Angela are both in José’s office, separating the tithing envelopes, paper money, checks, and coins into separate bags before storing them in a safe. It will all be accounted for on Monday and each person’s check or envelope scanned into the computer for their quarterlies and end of the year statements. José calls out to him as he passes by his office door, going to his own office.

Good teaching, Bro! Excellent!

John Wesley smiles. Thanks, Chuy. He always smiles when José calls him Bro. It lends a spirit of togetherness, closeness, brotherhood between him and his Assistant Pastor.

Actually, the congregation is large enough for one or two more assistants or lay Pastors, but they both like the feeling of being able to go one-on-one with their congregation. On the first of every other month, they each take half of the church roster. Each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, for two hours during the late afternoons and early evenings, they each call twenty or thirty families, newer members first, and ask how everyone is and what their spiritual or prayer needs are and what their financial or physical needs are. Those whose financial needs are the greatest find a money order in the mail for all or most of what their needs are. Each night, after they make their calls, they meet in the prayer room of the church, and one by one, they hold them up in prayer, each of those they have spoken with. John Wesley is a firm believer in the fact that a shepherd should know the condition of each member of his flock. He knows that God holds him accountable for each one! "Feed my sheep," Jesus has said. It is his passion to follow the Word of God! Between the two of them, they have spoken to every family, every adult member of the church at least once every six or eight weeks.

John Wesley stops in his office long enough to place his Bible and his tablet on his desk, look around, and sits down at his desk, head bowed for what to him is only a moment. John Wesley sits behind his desk and swivels around in his chair to look at the oversized mural painted on the wall behind his desk. It is a local artist’s rendition of three men walking down a dusty road. It is a copy of a picture John Wesley has purchased while attending a conference in Dallas. There is a small town or village pictured in the distance that the three men appear to be walking toward on a dirt road. It is their apparent destination!

The man in the middle seems to be definitively explaining or teaching the men on either side of him. The brass plate at the base of the framed mural says simply, The Road to Emmaus. The man doing the teaching, of course, is Christ Jesus. The scene always speaks to John Wesley’s spirit that there is always something more to learn, there is always some deeper meaning to the things that are read in the Bible. He envies the two men on either side of Jesus because they are getting instruction that is even more detailed from the Master Himself!

Huh? he says as he swings around in the swivel chair to see José standing in the doorway. He realizes that he has reacted to the sound of José’s voice.

Have a nice day, relax, and kick back for the rest of the day. You’ve earned it. That is another great teaching, José repeats. José’s mother raised José Luis Rodriquez O’Brian by herself after his father has refused to marry her, and her father of a rather wealthy family in Mexico criticized and ostracized her from the family for the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Nevertheless, she came to Arizona, determined to make it on her own! However, she did it with secret help from her mother and aunts. She takes José’s father’s last name, and twenty-year old Cassandra O’Brian started a new life for herself and her son!

At first, she takes domestic work until José’s birth. Between those relatives that helped her and what she has saved on her own, she opened a small restaurant in the home she brought, removing a wall between the living room and an adjacent bedroom and extending the room to an open balcony with a canopy eight feet out in front of the house. The hand-painted sign on the lawn graphically proclaimed it to be La Mariposa Pequeña, the tiny butterfly. And as small as the house is, there is room for fifteen small tables inside and four on the balcony. That is forty years ago. Today, she has four restaurants in the state and drives every Sunday to services from her home in the southeast of Phoenix.

John Wesley nods in agreement. Yeah, Jessica and the kids are planning another lunch and dinner outing for the rest of the day—he looks at his watch—and I’d better get moving. You have a good day too, Chuy. I’ll lock up. Is everybody else gone?"

No need for you to trouble yourself. Aubrey is still here. He’s waiting for us to leave so he can lock up. You’d better not argue with him. You know how seriously he takes that responsibility.

Yeah, okay, I’m outta here! I’ll go out the back. Tell Aubrey on your way out that he can check it.

"Okay, see ya Tuesday. I’ll check the guest and new member roster for any we need to add to our call list. Hasta entonces, Jefe."

Yeah, see you later, and whatever that means, back at ‘cha, John Wesley says laughingly over his shoulder. He turns slowly around again to look at the mural and thinks about the long series of events that brought him to Arizona. Then he gets up and makes his way down the path behind the church to the gate in the fence between the church and the parsonage. He closes the gate behind him and enters the house through the door at the rear of the garage. Jessica and his two children, Rebecca and Jacob, are busy packing the coolers with assorted pieces of fried chicken, salads, sandwiches, and sodas along with a few pieces of fruit and slices of half a watermelon.

Whoa, are you sure it’s just the four of us? Or are we going for longer than an afternoon?

Becca laughs.

We know that one drumstick will never fill you up, Daddy!

Yeah, Jacob echoes.

Okay, okay, go load up The Big Easy. That is his nickname for the SUV he drives.

Let’s get this show on the road. Where are we going anyway?

Organ Pipe National Monument Park, Jessica says, coming out of the door that leads from the kitchen into the garage.

It will be a nice pleasant ride, and I’m driving so you can nap along the way. I packed your laptop and your tablet, just in case you want to make notes for a future sermon or something.

Jess, sweets, baby, you’re the greatest!

Yeah, I know, now go change. I put a change of clothes for you on the bed.

After Service Sunday March 30, 2025, 12:50 p.m.

Deidre Fitzpatrick stands patiently on her way out of the service in the long line, waiting to speak with the Pastor. Finally, they are face-to-face.

That is a great teaching, Reverend Thomas. I’m sorry that my husband is so inflexible about Christianity.

I’m sure given the right time and the right circumstance he will come around. I’ve talked to Ralph several times, and we’ve has mostly short conversations. He’s a good man, just brought up under very hard circumstances and strict teachings from his father.

I pray that he doesn’t wait too late, Reverend. Deidre walks out the church and into the warm March Sun and makes her way to her car in the parking lot, trying to remember what else she might need for dinner before she leaves the stores in the suburban community.

Mr. Wilson walks slowly past Reverend Thomas on his way out of the service. He weakly shakes his hand and tells him that it is a very good teaching. He slowly makes his way down the few steps to the car waiting at the curb. A young man jumps out of the driver’s seat and comes around to open the door.

How is the service, Grandpa? he says as he helps the old man into the backseat of the car, closes the door, and goes around and returns to the driver’s seat.

I’ll ‘Grandpa’ you, Mr. Wilson says as his back straightens and his entire appearance changes. In the limo, with extremely darkened windows, no one can see the metamorphosis of Mr. Wilson and his grandson as they change into Angels of the Host.

Are there many of the Fallen there today? Adriel, the grandson, asks.

"Yes, but they stayed mostly outside and up on the roof. Didn’t want to hear the teachings of the Master’s Words, I’ll imagine. There are quite a few devils present as they sat on or near their hosts. But even they are strangely quiet. You should have seen them scatter when the Reverend gave the altar call and some of their hosts stood up to accept the invitation. The devils tried yelling at them and pulling at their spirits not to go. But there is something a lot stronger tugging at their hearts and spirits as their Guardians separated those devils from them with the tips of their broadswords and handed those devils over to the Angelic messengers who will deliver them into the bottomless pit at Antares-Upsilon in the Omega Galaxy.

The only one that turned around is that young girl who is the television news reporter from Phoenix. Her devil stuck his head inside her ear, and she immediately sat down. I guess it reminded her of something in her past, something it is holding over her. Gaddiel, her Guardian, could only shake his head in regret. Had she given her heart to Christ, Gaddiel could have stepped between them with his broadsword unsheathed and the point of it in that devil’s chest as did the other Guardians when their charges accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior and Redeemer. Adriel turns the car into an alley between two buildings, and the car vanishes, and the passengers fly back up to the attic in the church!

After Service, Sunday, March 30, 2025, 12:50 p.m.

Isaac Goldman and Harold Cooper exit the church after their families, both thanking Reverend Thomas for the inspiring and very educational message.

You got any big plans for the afternoon, Hal? Ike, as he is most often called by close friends and by his wife Leticia, asks Harold.

Yep, promised Hazel and the kids a real day of rest today. How about you?

Same here. Seems like the two of them have been plotting again. Lettie and the kids want a picnic out at the lake. Guess we should get the boat and trailer out when we get there. Maybe we’ll do a little fishing too. My freezer is getting low on fish.

Yep, heard that, Hal replies.

Ike Goldman and Hal Cooper have been close friends for over thirty years. They retired from the military on the same day eighteen years ago. They pooled all their savings and mustered out pay and bought a thirty-five-hundred-acre farm-ranch, some twenty miles to the west-northwest of Tucson. They started out with two quarter horses, one young bull and thirty Hereford steers, four sheep, and one ram, and a dozen hens and one rooster. They have two almost identical homes about fifty yards apart. Their wives and kids have gotten along great over the years. Their horse and cattle ranch has been good for both families. They now have two dozen horses, both Hereford and Angus cattle, over two hundred sheep with two really good border collies to herd them. They could not ask for more. They led good lives. They went to this same church when it is downtown in Tucson and now some twenty or so miles south and east.

Hal and Ike have both gone to the local community college to take courses in