We are here because we desire to give an expression of thanks to God for Sieg, (is it OK if I call you that for a few minutes.) I have the dual pleasure of letting you know, first of all, just how much you are loved by each person whose life you have affected as you so beautifully allowed Christ to shine forth from you. Many of those lives are gathered here this evening as a representative gathering, but not all. Bob has a videotape to give you of greetings from some of those who weren’t able to join us physically because of being out of state or incapacitated. 
	We have a videotape of greetings from Missouri, put together by Paul Casey, which includes birthday wishes from many of your former associates and friends from your days in the insurance business. Even in those years, your life touched people to such an extent that they desired to give you an expression of their heart. The tape also includes a very special performance, just for you, by a Russian Grand Master Concert Pianist, with a little story behind it. This master of the keyboards is trying to get asylum in the United States, with the help of Paul Casey, and Paul shared your testimony with him, including the part about the manner in which the Mongolians killed your parents. He emphasized the fact that the Lord worked in your heart to forgive and to even desire to minister in Mongolia. The pianist is a Mongol, and he wanted to share his talent in a performance just for you because he desired to express a message of his heart to you, even though he doesn’t know you personally. He wants you to know that he appreciates your witness of love and forgiveness to his people. 
	You will receive pictures and an audiotape filled with greetings and love from our loved ones in Germany, even though I don’t know some of them. Ima, your brother, even included a complete sermon for your birthday, it must run in the family or something.  
	Besides these mentioned ones, there are those loved ones in other states like Washington, Pennsylvania, Oregon and beyond who have sent their greetings in cards, prayers and best wishes, because you are loved, Oh Man of God, you are loved! 
	We are here because we wanted to let you know in a very tangible way, just how much your faithful testimony of Christ has meant to so many people throughout the world. Our prayer has been that the Lord would completely bless you as you have so blessed us. Each face here this evening, many with glistening eyes, has been in earnest prayer on your behalf, that you would be the recipient of the fullest measure of the love of Christ unto which this gathered Body of believers can bestow upon you.
	I would like to play a short portion of the tape, sent by your brother, of a special poem which he says expresses his thoughts of you in wishing you a blessed birthday. He asks our forgiveness for his broken English, and he didn’t write the poem, but it did remind him vividly of you. 
	I also would like to share a poem for you, written by Therese on the occasion of your 70th birthday. It is on the videotape that you will receive later, but I thought it should be shared with all gathered together this evening.

	You have faithfully served the Lord for these many years, with no view other than that Christ would be glorified in the lives of those with whom you have come in contact. You have made your life a living sacrifice  for each one to whom the Lord lead you. There was never a time that you felt that someone was unworthy to be loved. There was never a moment when you judged a person in any manner other than how your life could more fully be an expression of love unto even the most unloved among us. We have been blessed to be witnesses to the working of God on this earth through a living vessel of Christ. This fellowship has been shepherded lovingly, kindly, gently, and most importantly, earnestly with a view after the full depths of Christ and Christ Alone. Everyone of us could stand and give testimony to how much your life has brought of Christ, and a living relationship with Him, into reality in our lives, but we know that you will need some rest before morning, so only a few of us will be giving our verbal expression, but that utterance is from all of us, before the Lord, unto you.

	The second joy that is mine tonight, is to acknowledge my love as your son. This might take a few more minutes than what I have been allotted, but as MC, I’ll just cut off someone else if I have too, and hope that your messages of forgiveness will cover any loss of sleep. 
	With the exception of my mother, I can reasonably state that I have known our pastor for the longest time of all the people in this room. I have known him as my father, a stranger - after each of those long trips on the evangelistic field, when he would come home after months at a time of being gone, and we would have to get to know each other again. I have known him as my Dad, the one to whom I could turn as a child, and who would make everything right. Sometimes it was a good relationship, and other times it was a painful one, especially with the board of education that he used very liberally, and there are those among you who thought he was a die-hard conservative. 
	There are those moments that we shared, when all we had was each other. I remember the day that we left our play wagon outside, the wagon to be used for transporting the two of us boys and a few bags of groceries from the store. We looked all over the neighborhood, and for weeks we tried to find it, but it was gone, and boy was he upset and disappointed with us. You know, that hurt worse than the spanking did. To think that we had caused him to get so upset and disappointed in us, his children. The sad part, however, is that it was not the first, and unfortunately not the last time that we caused him such anguish.
	There was another type of anguish as well, like the time that I was in the hospital, with osteomyelitis of my leg. Mom and Dad were both so worried about me, and Dad was even considerate enough to get himself hospitalized with a ruptured appendix so that we could room together. Of course, as I remember, I got out before him, leaving him alone.
	As boys, Gary and I were your normal, well-adjusted fine upstanding young men in the community. Well, to be completely truthful, we tore the place apart. When we moved, which was quite often in those days, our neighbors always seemed to be sad to see Mom and Dad leave, but didn’t seem to shed to many tears on the departure of the two of us boys. 
	We were rather rambunctious. I don’t know how Mom survived until Dad got home from his trips. The first thing he said when he walked in the door, always seemed to be, what did they do this time? Actually, thinking about it, maybe we were the reason that he was always traveling. Who would want to stay home with the two of us constantly arguing, rough-housing, and otherwise being a pair of Katzinyammer Kids. 
	Mom and Dad survived our growing years, just barely, with all the grace of God in operation. How else do you think the two of them can so readily proclaim the triumphant power of the Grace of God in all of our lives today? As we are so often told and encouraged, God will work His truth into us, by whatever means, and through whomever He deems appropriate to make the reality of Christ life in us. We were the unwilling vessels of God in the lives of both our parents, and now He is using me in my wife’s life, and in the lives of my girls, and He is using them in my life. But that’s an issue for another time, in another place.
	Suffice it to say that the Lord was very much in charge of the parentage that we received, for our benefit, and for their growth into Him. Dad, believe it or not, was not the perfect father. We had times of disagreement in our family, and times of dissension, when he was right and we were wrong, just because he was the father and we were the children. But one thing that I can say before the Lord this evening, for both my parents, and it is hard to separate them because they were as one complete parent, just  as the Lord intended, but the one thing that never was an issue in our home was that the Lord was in charge. Our lives as individuals, and as a family was centered around and based in the prayer that God would be pleased with us. My parents kept us in prayer constantly, even to the point of beginning when we were small, an earnest prayer that the Lord would prepare our life-mates, our wives for us. And He has answered that prayer wonderfully.
	We never were without the knowledge that all was in the hand of the Lord, even when we had nothing else but peanut butter and beans to eat, we gave complete thanks to God for that provision. We were taught that God comes before anything else, because He is our life. That was not an easy lesson for two growing young men. It was not an easy lesson for Mom and Dad, but there was never any wavering from it. Even when we were old enough to fend for ourselves, we were very aware that prayers were covering us, and it sure took the fun out of those things that our more worldly friends seemed to so enjoy, but which left us no pleasure.
	Many times, when we came home late, we knew that the night had been filled with the loving anguish of two parents united in beseeching God after our safe-keeping and after ways in which to be able to further express, in life, the greater measure of the Love of God to the both of us.
	My Dad, during those years, became more than just a Dad. He was my friend. It might amaze you to know that I could talk to him about anything. The same was true of Mom, but for now I will concentrate on Dad, if you don’t mind. Your time will be here in a few years, Lord willing, and I’ll just rewrite some of these notes at that occasion. We would discuss things that were critically wrong in my life, things that, at times, I couldn’t even face within myself. He would take me aside, and very gently, and very prayerfully, let me know that He was on my side, no matter what was wrong. No condemnation, no “I told you so”, no guilt trip. It was always a gently, lovingly offered encouragement to trust the Lord TOGETHER.
	He has been my best friend, throughout all these years. When one talks about God the Father, and the loving manner in which He deals with us in our lives, I have never had to look farther than my own father as an expression of that relationship. He loves me, and I love Him. That is the relationship that is to be true of each of us in Christ. It is real, and it is beyond description.
	Throughout our marriage,  both Laura and myself have been brought into this loving relationship of friendship. I must say, however that Dad seemed to me to be playing favorites. Every time I had a problem with Laura, he would always seem to take her side. It never mattered how wrong she was, he always told me to love her, to ask her to forgive me, and to seek after the Lord to soften my heart unto her. It always irked me because I always thought she should be the one to apologize and to humbly and contritely seek after me to forgive her, but Dad never saw it that way. I was the one to forgive and to forget, and to hold no grudges and to never say “I told you so”. I was the one to initiate the changes that would bring about reconciliation. I was the one who had to give in. 
	There was never really a taking sides, because both Laura and I knew that what was needed was a grounding in Christ. We needed to have Christ as the very essence of our marriage, as the only aspect of value in our marriage. That was what we constantly received through Dad’s encouragement. It was never a matter of who was right and who was wrong, but always a matter of allowing Christ to have His way in the situation, no matter how impossible it seemed. He always pointed us to Christ, and that meant that we had to forgive and to be forgiven, and to have our wants and desires crucified for the Glory of God to be the central element of our marriage relationship. It is an on-going process, as each of us in this room knows, but Dad has been there with us through it all, seeking only after the Love of Christ to be established in us as husband and wife, and as parents to our children. The same has been true, I am sure, in Gary and Laura’s marriage, and in the marriages of many in this room this evening.
	For this witness of Christ, I thank you Dad, and I love you. As I have mentioned in many cards and at various times, I know that there will come that day, when the Lord will greet you with those words of  Matt. 25:21 Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.