This story might be said to begin in 1983 when I was visiting East Germany. My task was to cooperate with German colleagues in writing a book on education of disabled and handicapped children in the Deutsche Democratic Republic (DDR) and the United States. But in reality the story begins in 1726 . That was the year in which architect Georg Bahr was engaged to design and build a magnificent new Protestant cathedral in Dresden, Germany. The Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) turned out to be a masterpiece of singular beauty and ingenuity, and for centuries it dominated the skyline of Dresden. Its grand pipe organ designed by Gottfried Silbermann was famous in its own right and attracted great musical figures from Johann Sebastian Bach onward.
When I arrived in Dresden for that first visit in 1983 to collect data for my book, I was shocked to see what remained of the beautiful Frauenkirche. On a fateful night in February 1945, British and American bombers dropped phosphorous bombs on the center of the city, and virtually every building, including the cathedral, was competely destroyed. I took a few pictures of the rubble and walked away with tears in my eyes. The last comment from my colleagues at that time was that the East German government was considering paving over the ruins and building a parking lot where the cathedral had once stood.
A few years later, I began my own radio talk show on station WKBK in Keene, New Hampshire. Each week I would have a guest on my show to discuss a topic that I though might interest my listeners. I heard from an architect friend that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, citizens of Dresden were considering rebuilding the Frauenkirche. Friends of Dresden was a new US-based organization trying to raise money to help in this multi-million dollar project. I called Friends of Dresden in New York City and learned the President and founder was a famous medical doctor named Guenter Blobel and he would be delighted to be interviewed. When I asked for a resume on Dr. Blobel his secretary commented. “Dr. Blobel has won just about every possible award for his medical research except the Nobel Prize for Medicine”. Dr. Blobel came on the show in a telephone interview that was outstanding. We made a small contribution and thereby became official “Friends of Dresden”.
In 1999, Hazel and I took a pleasure trip to Germany and decided we had to see the progress on the Frauenkirche. We booked a room at the Dresden Hilton which is right across the street from the construction site of the church. We could look out our 6th floor room window and see the stone masons, bricklayers, and steel workers working to all hours of the night on this enormous building on the very site where the East Germans had planned to construct a parking lot. After hours of circling the construction site and having dinner at a nearby traditional German restaurant, we went to our room and turned on CNN, the only English language TV station available. The nightly news came on and one of the first items to be presented was the announcement of the Noble Prize for Medicine for 1999. Can you guess who won that prestigious award in 1999 while we were looking out our window that very night at the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany? You are right; it was Dr. Guenter Blobel. I learned later that Dr. Blobel contributed one million dollars of his Nobel Prize to Friends of Dresden.
I simply do not believe in the word “coincidence”. Throughout my book, My Problems God’s Solutions, I describe similar experiences in which I have seen God’s hand in my life in a way I never could have even imagined. St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians Chapter 3: 20 says it better than I could ever do it: “Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.” Write to me if you have had experiences similar to mine. Maybe you can write a book too!
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