I have two men in my life who I consider ‘best friends’.  Curiously, Josh is 23 years my junior, and Gene is 23 years my senior.   I don’t think that necessarily has any symbolic meaning, but it is unusual I suppose.

Gene is a wonderful gentleman who, with his wife and two youngest children, moved to Maine from Massachusetts in, I believe, 1989.  Like my dad had been, Gene is a tool maker by trade, although now he is retired.  We get together to cross country ski, play cribbage, talk about raising daughters, and inevitably, eat.

Due to his giftedness, I have often asked Gene to make or repair props for our show.  He always comes through, but he really outdid himself a few years ago when I showed him plans for a new illusion I wanted to perform.  I wanted the prop to teach the story of Lazarus being raised from the grave by Jesus, but what Gene created is more than a prop, it’s a beautiful piece of art. 

The effect, basically, is that a ball – representing Lazarus – is placed in one half of a box designed to look like an ancient grave.  It then ends up on the other side of the box (seeming to spontaneously penetrate a wall) with two other balls representing his rejoining in life his two surviving sisters: Mary and Martha.  But that oversimplifies the effect and doesn’t begin to describe the work that went into the making of the prop.

 The painting of the front is a very realistic depiction of the front of a cave that may have been used as a tomb in biblical days, the effect utilizes (literally) space-age magnetics, and the plans for the construction of the illusion are built into the prop itself.  The man is a genius!  It is amazing how God puts the people into our life who can help us fulfill our mission; It’s a precious gift when one of those people is a best friend.