August 2005

A Day My Family Will Never Forget
 
Today August 14, 2005

one year ago is the day that our lives were changed forever.  As Gaye and I were spending time with our good friends in Prospect Heights, Illinois we received a phone call that there was a problem.  Mitch was missing on a rafting trip that he and a group of his friends were on.  For about an hour our friends were calling trying to get information from the remote area they were rafting at in northern Wisconsin.  Then the information came that they found his body.  I remember calling Gaye to the room and telling her Mitch was gone.  The loud scream and then her collapsing into my arms. I will never forget the look in her eyes, they were just pleading with me saying, please say it's not true.  As we drove home that night we just kept talking about Mitch, the pain was so much, at times we couldn't talk but over all of that we had a peace and calmness.  This peace we had is only something that Jesus Christ could provide for us.
 
I say this all for a reason; yes, our lives are changed forever, there's not a day that goes by that we don't think and grieve for Mitchell, but it's different for us.  You see Gaye and I have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, just as Mitch had.  Our promise from God is if we have that personal relationship with him we will spend eternity in Heaven with him.  We know Mitch is in Heaven and we will see him again.
 
You see none of us know when our time to die will be but God does.  Before we were even born God has appointed a time for us to die so we can stand in front of Him for our judgment.  When you stand before God what will he say?  Will you be ready to enter His kingdom?  There's only one way to enter Heaven and that way is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  It's so easy and it's free.  To have this relationship and the assurance of everlasting life this is all you need to do; Believe that there is a God, Believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again, and Believe that you are a sinner.  In Romans 3:23 it says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  In Romans 6:23 it says, "For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."
 
When Mitch woke up Saturday morning August 14, 2004 he had no idea that he would be in the presence of God that day.  We are so proud of Mitch and what he accomplished here on earth and I know when Mitch stood before the Lord on August 14, 2004 the Lord said to Mitch, "Well done thy good and faithful servant," and welcomed him into his kingdom.
 
We look forward to see what God has planned for Mitchell's Foundation this next year and our promise to you is that we will continue to carry Mitchell's legacy by serving others just as he had.
 
To all that have supported The Mitchell Swaback Foundation,
 
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,    
 
Bob and Gaye Swaback

Peru Trip 2005

On September 16th 2005 thru 23rd The Mitchell Swaback Foundation will be sending twelve individuals to serve at the same orphanage that Mitch served at.  This trip will be a new experience for all of us who are going because none of us have been on a mission's trip before.  Our work will mainly consist of remodeling five classrooms in the orphanage's daycare center, installing a roof and drop ceilings.  The ladies that are joining us on the trip will work with the kids at the day care and orphanage.
 
Each one of the twelve going will be bringing two bags each.  One bag will be for their personal items, the other bag we will load up with supplies for the orphanage.
 
The following list of items are supplies that the orphanage is in need of, we will be purchasing these items or receiving them in donations and bringing them with us.  If you would like to donate any of these items or would like to make a donation to help us purchase these items please email Bob Swaback or send your gift to The Mitchell Swaback Foundation 201 Crossen Ave Elk Grove, IL 60007 and mark Peru trip on your check.
 
Donated items need to be received by September 9, 2005
 
Items needed:

  • Disposable diapers large and toddler size
  • Disposable gloves
  • Baby wipes
  • Durable educational toys for ages 1-6 years
  • Dress pants boys sizes 5-16
  • Boys flip flops
  • Watches-not expensive for all ages
  • Disposable cameras
  • Dish towels and dishrags
  • Vitamins-children and adult

We ask that you will keep us in your prayers as we prepare for this trip.  We will post a complete report with photos when we get back on October's e-mail blast.
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A Father's Love
By Dr. James MacDonald

One year ago this week, a dynamic, vibrant, 23-year old man was taken from the arms of his loving family and ushered into God's presence.  From earth-veiled eyes our unanimous viewpoint has been that Mitch Swaback was taken "early, way too early," and we ask with broken words why God allowed his time in this world to be so short.
 
As Mitch's pastor and friend, the grief is still fresh and I see many blink back tears every time his name comes up, which is often-even daily.  I remember so clearly standing with his parents when the news first came of his death.  I was with them when his body came back from Wisconsin and with them still when the casket was opened for the first time.  I personally witnessed the heartbreak and grief and all that it means to lose a son.
 
I am blessed to have a wife, a daughter, and two sons.  I desperately love my wife. And I love my daughter.  But I've come to understand that you love people from different places in your heart and a parent loves a son from a heart-place that is deep and wide. 
 
Shortly after Mitch's death, I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours one night, and rose in the dark to put words to what I was feeling.  God met me in an amazing way that night and it began with a poem of grief entitled: "We've Lost a Son."

"We've Lost a Son"

It's three a.m. and my mind is bursting with sadness. 
I cannot sleep, I only weep.  How can that be? 
I always sleep, even when my mind is racing, even when my heart has lost its song. 
I'm wide awake.  I'm gonna break.  We've lost a son. 
 
I dropped my own boy off at college today. 
I didn't sigh, I didn't cry.  How can that be? What's wrong with me? 
My son, so loved, has left the house and altered family feeling for all time. 
It's a day of dread, but no tears shed.  We've lost a son. 
 
Parents die; it's part of life.  They leave, we grieve. 
Time goes on unbroken, as the cadence of the clock cannot be stopped. 
But not like this, a grief that flows and grows and shows.  We've lost a son. 
 
No words can say what echoes in the heart.  It now appears our deepest fears. 
These lines must fail to capture what the human soul can never comprehend. 
We're shocked and rocked.  Can time erase his wondrous face?  We've lost a son. 
 
I sense a warming touch upon my spirit.  I'm wrong, I'm shown.  I'm not alone. 
The kind of understanding that can only come from sharing something deep. 
God's heart is broken too.  So He forgives so I might live.  God lost a Son. 
 
"What kind of Father makes this staggering choice?" 
Only a love that's from above would crucify Heaven's Treasure
So that my unworthy soul could be redeemed. 
 
God's love is awesome.  Yes, now I see. 
For one like me, God gave His Son.

Grieving in that dark night, I learned about a Father's love unlike what I had ever known. Of all the ways that God could have connected with us, He chose to model Himself in a Father/Son relationship.  When God Almighty wanted to communicate to us what His love was doing on our behalf, He chose to refer to the second person of the Trinity as a Son, a relationship so intimate and tender that we could finally identify and say, "Oh, now I get it.  A Son!  God gave His Son!"
 
- Hebrews 1:2 says that "God has spoken in many ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son." 
- John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son."
- First John 4:10 says, 'In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son.'"
 
Who can comprehend a love like this?  God didn't lose a Son.  God didn't just give His Son.  God sent His Son. If you've lived and lost, you understand the depth of love God shows by reaching out to your heart and mine through His Son.
 
If you have never embraced Jesus Christ by faith, a decision each of us must come to in our own heart, then you may not know the reality of His living presence in the world today.  Yes, we come to God through Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life when we die, but also in Christ we find real life  here and now.
 
I know because I have seen it in Mitch Swaback's family this past year.  If Jesus is not alive, who is supporting and sustaining them in a sorrow that swallows so many others?  If Jesus Christ is not alive how has the Swaback family rallied through their grief to start a foundation in Mitch's name?  How else can you explain the countless hours spent funding and rebuilding the Tabitha House for battered women in the city of Chicago or reaching out in loving support to Mitch's many friends who were so lost and alone in their grief?  This kind of loss often obliterates the lives of loved ones and drives them off to a barren place of loneliness and grief.  But I have loved and laughed and embraced the Swaback family's joy and selfless mission even as the grieving continues. 
 
I'll tell you how this can be explained; Mitch's family is living the message: "yes we sorrow, but not like those who have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13.) They have the living presence of Christ as their reality and you can have it too.  First John 4:14 puts these pieces together,  "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him." 

You might read that and think, "Live?  I'm already alive; I don't need to live.  But did you know that the Bible says that apart from Christ, every one of us is spiritually dead?  But if you believe and receive the gift of love God wants to give you in His Son, then you can experience life.and life to the max! 
 
We smile when we remember the passion with which Mitch lived his days.  We called him, 'Maximum Mitch.'  Mitch chose to live his life to the max and that includes admitting that you need forgiveness and eternal life that can only be found through faith in Christ. There's no shame in saying, "I'm not ready to die," or "I'm not sure I'm really living." I saw Mitch admit that and I saw him changed by the power of God's Son.  He had received the love that God offered him through His Son Jesus Christ and it transformed him.  Over the last two years of his life, crazy, party-Mitch became selfless missionary-Mitch.  Mitch had a current, genuine thing with God.  Do you? 
 
One hundred years from today many of us will be rejoicing in heaven with Mitch; will you be there?  One hundred years from today all that will matter is this:  What have you done with Jesus Christ? What do you believe about the forgiveness of sins offered freely to all who believe through God's own Son? 
 
You can choose by faith to receive God's love.  Nothing would bring more honor to Mitch's memory than for you to decide today to respond to God's offer of eternal life.  God reaches out to you in love. If you'd like to know more about this, then write us.

— Dr. James MacDonald

For more from James MacDonald on “igniting passion in the people of God through the proclamation of the truth,” visit Walkintheword.com.


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