Paul Maxwell's Last Words

Jim Francis on the left, Paul Maxwell on the right.

Paul was scheduled to speak at the Houghton College Chapel on Friday morning, September 27th. He and his roommate, Jim Francis, were killed in an auto accident on September 25th. These notes for his chapel message were found on Paul’s desk, written the night before his death. Even after 20 years, he has something to say. Make sure to read all the way to the end.

Three years ago I had the incredible opportunity to spend part of a summer in Japan working with high school students through an organization called Hi-B.A.

It was amazing to see such a different part of the world, bu even more amazing to witness what God was doing over there—changing the lives of Japanese high school students.

This summer I was invited to return to Japan as part of a summer college team for a period of two months. I would work alongside the Japanese and American missionaries and my college teammate Mark from California. I was excited when I got there, as I had been to Japan before and knew a few words of Japanese and would meet old friends. My friend Mark, on the other hand, was without a clue. So it put me one up on him.

That excitement I felt when I thankfully stepped off that DC-10 after nearly 20 hours of flight only increased up to the day I sadly had to leave. What god did this summer through Gospel Team outreaches in the cities of Osaka and Tokyo to over 700 high school students astounded me. Japanese students were anxious to see and hear about the “God of the West”, which they have only heard on TV and in movies when used as a cuss word.


But even then, through the loud actions of love and acceptance, the power of God’s Holy Spirit made on impression on hearts that will have altered lives forever. And later on, towards the end of the summer, during the week-long camps at the coast, God brought a happiness to dismal lives that a week of making friends, playing sports, and swimming in the Pacific could never come close to doing.

For in that time, high school students met THE GOD of LOVE that they knew their parents and families would disown them for. But what they experienced they held onto with a tenacity that we as Americans only read about.

 This was incredible stuff to witness and actually be a part of. But there was something that happened during the first week of my stay in Japan that turned me upside down in fear but resulted in turning me right side up for God.

I don’t know what God has in store for me tomorrow, let alone three years from now. But I do know this—that I must seek God earnestly in faith with all my heart, soul, and strength—today!

Here's a video showing much of what teams like Paul's did in Japan.

If knowing Paul, or hearing about him touched your life, we'd love for you to leave a comment to let us know!

Search for Civilization

Well, anyway, Chuck and I got up and put our ponchos on. After we were dressed, we got the bear bag down out of a tree that I had to climb the previous night and quickly devoured a ‘high-energy’ breakfast (chocolate, hard candy, pop-tarts, trail cookies, beef jerky, etc.). We saved some granola bars for food on the way and then headed out, back-tracking our trail to the road we were on last night.

But before we got started a long way, we stopped and prayed. For we had no idea who or what we would find, or if we would find anyone. We had no real solid or sure idea of where we were, but we trusted fully in God, knowing He had brought us safely thus far. We had faith He would see us through.

 We hadn’t walked more than a quarter of a mile and we were really feeling it in our legs already. At that point I prayed to myself, “Lord, give me your strength, for I can’t make it on my own!” it was that split second of the looking upward to God that I suddenly walked swiftly in a steady, untiring stride. I told Chuck that I felt  better than ever.

For I couldn’t look inward for strength—I was completely drained from the previous night’s hike. But with God’s strength, through Christ Jesus, I can do all things! 

Isn’t that awesome?!

Water—finally! And Rain.

All of a sudden someone, I think it was Sarah, said they heard Eric and Ana returning. My eyes strained through the darkness in search of their light and sure enough, I saw it glimmer.

I prayed incessantly and hoped they’d be walking slowly because that would mean they were carrying the heavy and awkward water jug. As they drew near, I could faintly make out the water jug that would block the light from their flashlight with every other step and I yelled, “Do you have water?” with an exasperated cry of hope.

 I heard Eric reply with his notorious confirmation of, “You betcha!”

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! We’re saved. For Chuck and I would have had to go that very night in search of help if they didn’t. So with water now, we could put it off till morning. I ran to them and helped de-contaminate it with Polar-Pure. But my thirst was so intense that I drank some from a ‘contaminated’ water bottle anyway.

Well, that night what we really needed was rest. So we set up two tents. The four-man and one two-man. There were four who decided to sleep outside on their plastic.

We all sacked out, unaware that it would pour cats and dogs later that evening! I slept horribly on a bed of jagged roots and had to get up to go find help with Chuck at about seven or eight in the morning. Two of the four outdoor sleepers ran into the tents, after being soaked to the skin. The other two, Dan and Eric, ignored their extreme lack of dryness due to their excessive exhaustion.

More tomorrow.

The Fork in the Road

During the hike in the dark I came to what seemed like a triple or possible quadruple fork and there were no markers.

I sensed and felt the Lord’s leading, because without a moment’s hesitation I turned right and sure enough I saw a trail marker. Praise the Lord!

The three of us came to a steep, sloping hill going down into and along a ravine. We saw another sign which just said STS. The three of us were getting real tired but wanted to press on. We dropped off our packs at the signs near the base of the ravine and hiked on until we couldn’t see anything anymore.

 We headed back to our packs and suddenly saw another flashlight in front of us. It was Eric, leading the rest of the group! They made it, and in good time.

We got together and thought things out. Shirley needed rest and a doctor, and everyone needed to sleep. So we set up camp. 

There was one thing that we really desperately needed and that was water!  

We were nowhere near it, as far as we could see or hear. We sent Eric and Ana down the ravine with the jug and a couple water bottles.

I made a fire and we tried to comfort all the others. The girls were in tears and I was sooo thirsty. I had hiked for so long without water. I can’t express in words how much I needed a drink.

I prayed so earnestly that Eric and Ana would come back with water. The situation we were in was the most stressful ever on this trip, because we all didn’t know if we were on the right track or where we were or how we would ever get out. 

It was a time of total trust and reliance on the Lord for we didn’t know what lay ahead.

The Longest March

So now we had a long trek ahead of us. We were headed toward Prouty Park, but we blew four hours. We hiked and hiked and hiked some more. We had to make it to Prouty before nightfall.

The sun was setting slowly in the west and we hiked on, still in search of Prouty Park. We hiked over high ridges and mountains, which at their base looked promising. But they just went up again, onto another mountain.

We hiked for about four and a half hours when we entertained the dreadful thought of possibly having passed our destination. By the map, we should have reached it hours ago. But we saw no sign. So we hiked further. We crossed several roads and we were losing our strength.

Shirley, who was very sick, pressed on amazingly, but needed to rest. Julie started hyperventilating. Everyone was hurting pretty bad. We stopped on one road. It was the fourth or fifth road we crossed.

We again got in a circle and prayed. We prayed for strength, patience, courage, and health. Also wisdom in finding our way.

At that point Chuck, Dan and I went ahead to see if we could find our site. The sun was almost down, so we needed our flashlights. The markers on the trail were hard to see, so we went without packs. 

Chuck told the group that stayed behind to wait a half hour, and if we weren’t back, to head after us.
The sun set and it was dark. Real dark. 

We were moving quickly and prayed we wouldn’t get lost. I led the small group since I had the strongest light. During the hike in the dark I came to what seemed like a triple or possible quadruple fork.  

And there were no markers.

To be continued . . .

Desperate times call for desperate measures

"Mom and dad" got together to formulate a plan. The plan was to send two people down in search of a stream to get water. Chuck and Dan went back-tracking to find the trail markers or to figure out where we got screwed up. The rest of us would just sit tight and rest. The water was found and we drank our fill.

We were sitting about a half an hour, wondering how nice it would be if Chuck and Dan came back with the good news that they found the trail, and the next sound we heard was, “Yahoo! We found it!”

Chuck and Dan had found the path. We had gotten on an old path and had missed the sharp turn of the correct path. So we all hiked back up and found what we thought was the path. I was in the back, and I realized the path looked mighty familiar. There was another path we thought we had already crossed, but we didn’t.

So pretty early on and after I recognized two familiar signs, I told Chuck and we all realized we’d been there. We got back to where we were and took the correct path. We finally got it right. Praise the Lord!

Lost!

The Hike! I’m writing this after the fact. But the plain truth is that the Ingalls Family Highlander group got LOST!

We hiked for hours and came to a crossroad where we lost our signs and trail markers. We decided to go left, which was seemingly all right, but was wrong. We ate lunch and headed out with different couples to find the right way.

Dan and I went off and found what we thought was the trail, but when we all got there, we found out the trail ended very abruptly. We all wandered aimlessly for about an hour, then decided to go back to where we had lunch and go beyond that point to try and find a trail.

After about a mile and a half, we decided that wasn’t the right way, either. So  next, we stopped to pray, asking the Lord for strength, wisdom, and guidance. At that point, we voted to turn around to try the other road. So we went all the way back to the crossroad, and walked down the other path about two miles until the road just ended.

Now what were we supposed to do? We were so tired, and desperately needed water. The map was no help to us. It was getting late in the day and we were in need of rest.

To be continued . . .