Dear friends of Vital Signs Ministries, December 2024
My original plan for this month’s letter was to tell you a story — a pretty dramatic story that occurred east of Colorado’s La Veta pass in November of 1969, an all-too-true story of God rescuing me from a couple of perverted thugs and then from life-threatening freezing weather that was leading me to commit a crime. Do I have your interest? Good. Because that story is available for you to read over on Vital Signs Blog…that is, right after you read this letter!
The reasons I decided to forego using that story for this LifeSharer is because I suddenly realized just how much November news there was to pass along. Also, I wanted to help encourage you to make a habit of checking in from time to time to Vital Signs Blog and our other social media platforms. I can promise you’ll find some enlightening, encouraging, and helpful material there. But for now, let’s get to my list of 12 November news subjects.
1) Our November schedule included several important opportunities to strengthen our ministry alliances with pro-life colleagues. Those events included our attendance at a Saturday morning breakfast fundraiser for Abortion Dialogue Academy, dedicated pro-life college students who are having a tremendous impact in changing minds about abortion. A second item in this category would be my participation in a November board meeting of the Business and Professional People for Life as we discussed who might be our next luncheon speaker.
A third networking event was our attending the Bishop’s Annual Pro-life Banquet in Lincoln. As you can guess, given the election results (Trump’s victory, Republican control of the Senate and Congress, and the defeat of 439), the banquet was certainly a celebratory gathering. Yet its primary purpose was to “fan the flames” for the audience’s renewed and re-focused commitment to the “least of these.” It was a very inspiring evening and we delighted in connecting with such longtime partners from around the state as Bishop Joseph Hanefeldt, Sandy Danek, Jim and Suzanne Gage, Karen Bowling, Rich and Barb McPhillips, Nate Grasz, Julie Lostroh, Dennis Waggoner, John Horsechief, John and Mary Zak, and more.
But November had yet one more networking for us as we attended (for the first time) one of the Greater Omaha Pachyderm Luncheons. The Pachyderms are a group of local Republicans who sponsor 3 luncheons a month and, on this particular day, three of Nebraska’s state senators were on hand to answer questions from the audience. We went mainly because our own state senator, District 18’s Christy Armendariz, was going to be there. She did an absolutely excellent job (the others were good too) and Claire and I were really glad we went. An added blessing was that the program’s emcee surprised us by seating us at the head table, introducing us with very kind words about our decades of pro-life service, and then being applauded by the audience. Wow. But, of course, the most important benefit to our attendance was what we learned from the state senators about a wide variety of issues, including the wild ways the Nebraska unicameral works. Also of great delight to us that afternoon was the chance to hang out with another old friend and mentor, our former Mayor, Congressman, and Regent Hal Daub!
2) I don’t know if winter is bringing us harsher winds but with the falling temperatures, it certainly seems like that’s the case. And there’s no doubt that winter weather adds another element of challenge to our prayers and pro-life witness outside the Planned Parenthood business. Please remember this part of our ministry in your prayers, including appealing to the Father for protection, fortitude, and good cheer for the hearty saints who most frequently join Claire and I at that tragic place: John and Barb, Bev, Don, Keith and Carol, Mark, Jan, Ruth, Matt, Isaac, Zach, and Karla.
3) Along with the privilege of teaching the Bible every Sunday afternoon at our church services at Aksarben Village Senior Living, I was honored in November to teach the adult Sunday School classes and then preach the worship sermons on two consecutive Sundays at Herman Community Church.
4) November saw me writing and posting several of what we believe are noteworthy articles. We encourage you to check them out at — you guessed it — Vital Signs Blog. Among those that we most highly recommend (in addition to the hitchhiking story) are:
* “Far As the Curse Is Found: A Yuletide Reflection”
(The above title is the first of this season’s Christmas posts.
You’ll find several more there at Vital Signs Blog as December rolls through.)
* “Stranded at La Veta Pass: A Rescue Story”
* “10 Prayer and Advocacy Priorities for 2025”
* “Thoughts About the First Thanksgiving” (18-minte Video)
* “After the Election — Round 2 (Including My Top 10 Pro-Life
Requests of the New Administration)”
* “The Election is Over. What’s YOUR Next Step?”
* “After the Sigh of Relief: 7 Post-Election Observations”
And while I’m listing resources, we’re offering you, let me remind you that both of our seasonal compilations (“A Thanksgiving Present” and “Making the Most of Christmas”) are available for reading (even downloading) at the Vital Signs Ministries website. And then there’s The Top 5 we put on our social media every Saturday morning.
5) By the time you’re reading this letter, we will have already hosted our two Christmas card parties on December 2. But to help encourage and assist those of you who could not attend, we have posted on Vital Signs Blog many of the specific letter targets, addresses, and even some sample letters to help you write a few cards or letters yourself. Among the most popular recipients this time around were the Nebraska women college athletes whose pro-life commercial was of such profound influence in defeating 439. We also wrote newly-elected political officials, key leaders in the fight against the mean-spirited zealots who sought to enshrine unlimited abortion in the Nebraska constitution, businesses, and more.
6) Also by the time you’re reading this, Claire will have taken her tea party outreach to nearly 20 ladies who attend our church services at Aksarben Village Senior Living. Dainty dessert items, pretty and delicate cups and saucers, sparkling fellowship…and tea! Many thanks to Ruth Denzler (one of the regulars on our church team) for partnering with her in this effort.
7) The November showings of “When Swing Was King” all went extremely well. This program is so deeply loved and appreciated by the residents of the several senior facilities where we present it every month and, though we are halfway through our 14th year of “When Swing Was King,” we are more excited and blessed than ever to bring it to them.
By the way, if you have never experienced a “When Swing Was King” show (or if it’s been some while since you have), we highly recommend you check our schedule on the VSM website and come along to the Christmas version that we will be presenting throughout December.
8) November’s correspondence wasn’t as heavy as some months, but it did include several thank-you and encouragement cards. And it included this open letter I sent to our local newspaper.
“My, my but the Democrat party has undergone a strange evolution. Indeed, the Democrats that once embraced such pro-life advocates as Hubert Humphrey, Sargent Shriver, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Ed Zorinsky, and Bob Casey Sr., now requires of its members a devotion to absolutely unlimited abortion. That was the paramount priority of the Harris/Walz campaign and they spent $570 million in abortion ads in desperate hopes that American voters would back them up.
It proved a most disastrous plan as the Party suffered a drastic loss in credibility and influence, not only with religious-minded voters, but with scores of others who understand the state’s legitimate interest in parental rights, rights of conscience, informed consent, and various other health and safety concerns for moms and preborn children. If the Democrat Party desires to remain at all relevant in the future, it will look to its less exclusionary history and drop like a hot potato its abortion extremism.”
9) November’s blessings included our hosting dinner and brunch parties and several small group fellowship opportunities with dear friends. Among them? Keith & Carol Moran, Pat and Linda Osborne, Larry & Deb Harrold, Jim and Jean Lawson, Harold and Mary Dee Berry, LaVerne and Marlene Smith, Quint Coppi (via phone from Florida). Karla Struble, the whole Garvey family, John & Barb Malek, Scott Lawson, Don & Alberta Kohls, Dick Wilson, Sharon Struve, two young international students from India, and visits with neighbors.
10) Speaking of Thanksgiving, our efforts to educate and inspire our friends to a greater appreciation of the holiday (and the biblical virtue!) really kicked into high gear this year.
I preached on the topic twice —- We compiled a 27-page “A Thanksgiving Present” composed of Scriptures, quotations, excerpts from Presidential Proclamations, history, poetry, and more which we then uploaded it onto the VSM website. —- I recorded (and uploaded onto the Vital Signs YouTube channel) “Thoughts About the First Thanksgiving,” an 18-minute review of the providence of God acting through the Mayflower Compact and the Pilgrim’s adventure at Jamestown. That last project, by the way, was born out of a conversation with a neighbor whose reaction to my telling him about the Pilgrims was, “Man, Denny; you ought to tell more people about this!” So I did.
11) Of course, November had plenty of more pedestrian activities too. Several sessions of mulching leaves in our yard — and the neighbors on each side of us.—- Getting the carpets cleaned in our back rooms, necessitating the cleaning out all of the furniture for a couple of days. —- Some autumn cleaning projects (which involved getting up the ladder. No comfortable matter for a guy with my vertigo issues.) —- Getting the Christmas lights on the House. (Yes, even greater heights on that ladder! Yipes.) —- Dealing with a major and yet-unsolved electrical problem with our Hyundai Tucson. —- Shopping for (and packing up) 6 shoe boxes for the Samaritan Purse Operation Christmas Child.
And oh, yes; November also saw us doing a bit of celebrating for our 53rd anniversary!
12) Okay, to make this list a “delightful dozen,” I’ll quickly drop in a few of the things coming up in the next couple of months that we would dearly love your prayers for. December will require all of our regular ministries, of course, but folded into the schedule will be an awful lot of dinner parties and “Santa runs.” December also will see our prayerful deliberations in making our New Year Resolutions for 2025. And then January will add the Nebraska Right to Life Gala, the Walk for Life in Lincoln, accompanied by the Vital Signs informational outreach afterward. And this just in — Claire has booked our flights to Washington D.C. so that we will once again (after our absence in the disastrous Joe Biden years) be joining a few hundred thousand pro-lifers for the national March for Life.
So, there you go — quite a bit of November’s news, a few quick peeks ahead, and a reminder for you to check into Vital Signs Blog, the VSM website, and the Vital Signs YouTube channel for more. Again, you will find there the “Thanksgiving Present,” the post-election essays, and much more…including “the rest of the story” of that freezing Colorado night way back in my misspent youth!
Thank you so much, dear friends, for reading this letter and for all of your loyal and generous support of Vital Signs Ministries over this past year. May God bless you with the merriest of Christmas holidays!
