Larry Youngdoff, Military Member Ministry

This Memorial weekend, Larry Youngdoff will be honoring those who have served in the military by placing 30 small flags around his property. A career military man himself, Youngdoff has great respect for veterans, and displaying flags serves as a visible symbol not only to himself but to passersby.

Larry Youngdoff, earlier in his military career

Youngdoff’s career path began at Kansas State University, where he was in the ROTC. “I liked the military,” he said. “It was a good fit.” Then he had the opportunity to learn to fly, and that cemented it. He got his private pilot’s license, which obligated him to join the military for active duty. After college, he went through training, and became a helicopter pilot with the Army.

He was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he remained for the next three years. Then his military career took a detour. When his obligation for active duty was up, he decided to try civilian life, moved to Kansas City, and got a job with Hallmark Cards. He worked in career development, inventory control, personnel and product management for the next eight years.

“But while I was in Prairie Village,” he said, “I saw these little helicopters flying around, and asked about them. I started missing flying again.”

Youngdoff found out the helicopters were connected to the Kansas National Guard, and that they had an opening for a pilot, so he became a weekend warrior. Again, it clicked. He served as an instructor pilot, then a Brigade Supply Officer. “I provided food, water, gas and ammunition for a brigade, about 1500 to 1900 people,” he said.

He was eventually promoted to Major, and moved into the logistics field, where he became a Supply and Service Battalion Commander. He oversaw an aviation company, dump truck company, bridge building engineering group, firemen and medical personnel. Following that, he served as the State Public Affairs Officer, 35th Division Inspector General, and retired as the Kansas Army National Guard Director of Personnel, with the rank of Colonel. He said he wore the uniform a total of 32 years.

When Youngdoff and his wife, Judy, came to Holy Cross, they were looking for some sort of ministry in which to participate. They had been part of a small group at their previous church that wrote to shut-ins and those who were ill. Youngdoff decided to merge that with his military experience. “It’s the most lonely feeling to be a soldier at mail call and not get a letter, “ he said, “especially when you’re overseas.”

Thus, the Military Member Ministry was born. When Youngdoff receives the name and address of a Holy Cross mission partner or family member who is serving, he asks the congregation to step forward to write letters, and send cards and care packages. A bulletin board in the hallway left of the sanctuary displays pictures of those currently serving, provides addresses to send mail, and sometimes even posts the correspondence received.

Youngdoff and his wife had two children, a son and daughter. Their son, David, followed in his father’s footsteps. Where Larry had been a head cheerleader at K-State, David was a cheerleader at Pittsburg State University.  And like his dad, David joined the ROTC in college, and eventually joined the military as a pilot. The photograph is of Larry pinning David’s wings on him at graduation. “His fiancée is in the background, and she was supposed to pin them on, but she couldn’t do it and handed them to me,” Larry said. 

Larry Youngdoff pinning wings on son David Youngdoff

David retired from service last Aug. 31. About six weeks later, life took a tragic turn. “His wife called me and said David wasn’t feeling well,” Larry said. So Larry made arrangements to take him to the V.A. hospital. The night before the scheduled appointment, Larry was sleeping on his son’s couch, when he heard something and went to David’s bedroom. Suddenly, David, only 48 years old, suffered a massive heart attack and died in Larry’s arms. That was October 23.

Youngdoff said he has always had a strong faith. “But I feel a great deal more faith as a result of this,” he said. “I am so glad I was there for him. If I hadn’t gone to his bedside, we might have found him on the floor.”

David’s daughter graduated a couple of weeks ago from BVNW, and wore her father’s dogtags as she walked across the stage, Larry said. Truly a beautiful tribute.

So, this year, Memorial Day takes on a whole new significance for the Youngdoffs. A heart-wrenching grief is now a part of it. As Larry places the flags in his yard, he will also be remembering and honoring his son.

Police K-9 Unit, Extra Protection

My focus in this blog is to illustrate how faith and life intersect in usual and unusual ways. Sometimes God is mentioned and the illustration of faith is overt. And sometimes you have to look a little bit, such as in the piece below. Think about God the protector.

These two events occurred some years ago, during my journalism days, but the photos are current, courtesy of the Lenexa Police Department.

 Police K-9 officers are really dogged about their jobs. As a newspaper journalist, I did a couple of ride-alongs, once with Officer Dan and his Belgian Malinois, Reza, who was trained in narcotics detection. Reza kind of did a scratch and sniff method, and had recently found more than 200 pounds of marijuana in a pickup truck. Her reward - play time with her favorite toy, a piece of plastic PVC pipe.

Another evening I did a ride-along with Officer Phil and his assistant – a German shepherd named Woody. Woody was something. He didn’t wear the typical police uniform, but he wore the attitude of protecting those he was assigned to protect. His loyalty was his badge. His bite was his weapon.   

K-Nine Officer with Belgian Malinois
Photo courtesy of Lenexa KS Police Department


On this particular evening, I was in the front passenger seat of a squad car driven by Officer Phil. In the back seat, separated from us by a Plexiglas shield, was Woody. The car reeked of dog. Wet dog fur. Dog slobber. And an impossible-to-describe smell of dog excitement. Woody loves to go to work, according to Officer Phil. 

We headed out on the interstate, Woody poking his nose through the opening in the Plexiglas shield, paws resting on the front seat. Officer Phil wanted to show me what happens when a motorist is pulled over for an infraction, and a K-9 officer is part of the mix. It took only moments to spot an erratic driver speeding across lanes. The siren and lights went on, the driver and our car pulled over, and Woody was panting with what I can only describe as job lust.

Before Officer Phil got out of the car, he made sure the passenger window was open. He had explained to me that Woody was trained to watch body language, and if he detected any sort of threatening gesture towards Officer Phil, he would be out of the car like a shot to “contain the threat.” That’s K-9 unit-speak for taking a big walloping bite. And here’s a sobering thought - the judgment call is Woody’s.

I was to remain in the car during the stop. Officer Phil told me not to speak to Woody because he would be absolutely focused on his job. I have to confess here that as soon as Officer Phil got out of the car, I turned slightly in my seat and whispered, “Hi doggie.” My greeting was met by a deep and very serious sounding growl, even as Woody kept his eyes trained on his fellow officer.

The stop only took a few minutes, and thankfully, the driver made no gestures that could be perceived as a threat, Officer Phil got back in the car, and Woody did what I suppose was a happy pant, a job-well-done pant, as he added another layer of slobber to the Plexiglas. And the ride continued.



Dogs on the outside are Belgian Malinois. Center dog is a Dutch Shepherd.
Photo courtesy of Lenexa KS Police Department

 We have several police officers in our congregation. I have great respect for the work they do, the service they provide their communities. Keep watching this spot – I hope to share their stories one of these days. In the meantime, ponder this: God has your back.  







Fostering a Home Filled with Love

Finding your sweet spot was our sermon theme these past few weeks. The thought is that when you are

doing what God has called you to do, your life becomes that much sweeter.

For Tony and Carin Bockelman, their sweet spot is serving as foster parents. It’s not the sort of calling that necessarily results in orderly days, appreciative children or happy endings. Rather, its sweetness comes from taking heart in knowing that you made a difference in a child’s life, if even for a moment.

“It’s a sense of peace that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Carin said. “I used to laugh when someone would say, ‘God put that on my heart,’ but that’s exactly what it is.”

When Tony and Carin first discussed wanting to foster, they had a vague idea of what it entailed. All they knew for sure is that they loved children and wanted to help families. Now eleven years have passed since they first became foster parents, and they have experienced highs, lows, reward, heartbreak, and everything in between.

“I think everything has been tougher than we imagined,” Carin said. “The issues the kids were dealing with, the things the parents were dealing with, the challenges of parenting kids in foster care, the slowness of the foster care system. We took classes to prepare, so nothing was a total surprise, but it was all harder than we could imagine. I think we were surprised how well we took to it, though.”

Foster children can remain in a home for a few hours to days to months to years. It can be respite care for foster parents who need a weekend break, emergency care for a child whose family is in sudden trauma, a short-term commitment while a family is working on healing itself, or a long-term commitment for a child who is in the adoption process.

Rewards can be in the form of rejoicing with a child who returns home to a parent who worked hard for that return, or perhaps in a thank you.

“We heard that a young man who had stayed with us was using some budgeting skills we taught him here,” Carin said. “That really made our day!”

Conversely, a difficult experience was returning a child to a home where they had serious doubts about the mom’s ability to care for the child.



From left: Zeke, Carin, John, Gladys, Tony, Hassani



Tony and Carin have two biological children, Zeke, 13, and Gladys, 10. They have fostered numerous children, and adopted three of them. Prayer and discernment were part of each adoption process. John came to them as a 15-year-old and they adopted him when he was 18. Hassani joined the family when she was 3, and a year later entered the adoption process. Her adoption became official a couple of years later, and she is now 12.

 

Their third adopted child is David, age 6. He has spent a lot of time in hospitals, dealing with medical issues. David has rickets, a bone disease, and uncontrollable seizures. A year or so ago, he was diagnosed with subclinical seizures – seizures that occur in the brain but aren’t visible. Sadly, it’s a fatal diagnosis for him.

“For that whole first year, I was convinced that it would happen (his death) any day, and that was exhausting,” Carin said.

David is now under Hospice care, which allows Carin and Tony to simply enjoy the time they have with him rather than worry about every little thing that goes wrong.

Carin said she is appreciative of the Holy Cross community, the way so many people offer support, greet David when they see him, ask her and Tony how David is doing. She also has praise for our Sunday School program, and the work our children’s ministry director, Amy Viets, has done to ensure that Hassani and David both feel welcome and comfortable.

Tony and Carin are still licensed foster parents, though aren’t fostering anyone right now. But they remain active, using their acquired knowledge and experience to mentor other foster parents. They want people considering fostering to have a realistic picture of what’s involved – how awesome it can be, and how difficult too at times.



 “The thing is, when you decide to be a foster parent,” Carin said, “you do it because you’re willing to suffer.”  Carin explained that when a family is in trouble, someone needs to step in for the kids involved. “Those kids need someone who is willing to say, ‘I’ll love those kids. It’s ok, I’ll get my heart broken when they leave.”

 

From left: Zeke, Tony, Hassani, Carin, Gladys, David



She could say that now about David. He will surely break their hearts when his short life ends. But that’s okay, because in the meantime, they have shown him love, he has known the love of adoptive parents and siblings, and he has enriched their family by his presence.

Life Lessons from a Dog

The sudden death of their beloved pet dog 13 years ago, followed less than a month later by their teenage nephew’s suicide, left David Castle and his wife, Sonja Erickson, reeling with grief. But only hours after attending their nephew’s funeral, Augie Doggie bounded into their lives and set them on a path that brought them invaluable life lessons and ultimately healing.



Augie

Augie was a Shetland Sheepdog, commonly called a Sheltie, a friendly, social puppy with a love for children. But it was the need to find an outlet for his non-stop energy that led David and Sonja into the field of dog agility competition, of which they had not previously heard. Agility competition is basically an obstacle course for dogs, where they are judged on time and accuracy. They run off-leash, with no incentives such as food or toys. Their handler serves as their coach, but the coaching is limited to voice, movement and body signals. The handler can’t touch either the dog or the obstacles.

 

David was Augie’s handler, and Sonja accompanied them as they trained and competed. They became part of a close-knit community of agility competitors, making friends, traveling across the country, and staying busy. In the years since, Augie competed and excelled in dozens of agility competitions, Sonja got her own Sheltie to train and compete, and the family moved to the country where they had the open space they needed.



Sonja said that Augie was the sort of dog that children were drawn to, the sort of dog they knocked on the door for to ask to come out to play, a dog ambassador who made it his mission to win over the children who were afraid of dogs. She even posted a tribute to him after he died last August.

Sonja and David now have three Shelties and one Border Collie that they train and compete. But according to Sonja, the dogs train their handlers too.



Kellen



“It’s like God says, ‘Here’s what you need to learn and this dog is going to teach you,’” Sonja said.

From Kellen,  her Sheltie that had nearly every problem a dog can have in competition because “his sole interest was to see how fast he could run and the heck with listening to my coach,” she has learned problem solving skills, patience and perseverance. “And humility,” she added, “because the dog was pretty embarrassing a lot of times.”

 

Those life lessons have also aided her career in human resource management with Traveler’s Insurance. Her dogs have taught her that it’s important to keep the relationship positive, and to redirect rather than criticize.



Sonja Erickson (right) and Kellen

“There’s a better way to treat people,” she said. “If they’re not doing the job right, you don’t get mad and yell at them. That’s not a good way to treat people. You need to recognize their strengths and build on those.”  All this insight can be traced back to Augie, the dog who wouldn’t stop to sleep the first couple of days in the Castle/Erickson household, the dog who earned his handler a sort of time-out in his first etiquette class but went on to earn “Top Agility Dog in Class,” the dog who eventually lost his hearing but continued to compete, the dog who earned this tribute from Sonja and David: “God blessed us with this absolutely wonderful, once in a lifetime, fantastic, awesome little doggie,” who “added so much to our lives.”

May you be similarly blessed with such a divine companion.