I got a phone call one day at the General Conference (GC). You know how the system works: Someone calls; if I’m not there, they leave a voicemail that I can check from wherever I happen to be.”
Jim Lanning worked for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, and he was seldom in his home office. Appointments took him all around the United States and into almost every country of the world. If you wanted to reach him, you called his office, left a voicemail, and waited.
“I called to check my messages almost every day,” says Jim. “I’d just dial the voicemail number at the GC, enter my own extension, and then listen as the system played all the messages that had been left for me.”
One week Jim had traveled to Seattle, Washington, clear across the United States from the General Conference headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he was to meet with some engineers at Boeing. One evening, before enjoying a great spaghetti dinner, Jim decided to check his messages. The first several voicemails were urgent, but easy to attend to. But one was different.
“It was a very long and rambling message that had been left for me by a woman named Susan Headley. She said she was calling from Leavenworth and then proceeded to go off on this long tale about a microscope that she had been hiding in her closet for many years. Her message just kept going on and on and on and on until she finally took a deep breath and then said, ‘Please call me.’ ”
Unfortunately, that’s when the voicemail timed out. Instead of hearing her recite her phone number, Jim heard an annoying beep.
“Call me,” but no phone number!
An Audacious Mission
Remember, Jim was in Seattle, Washington, a very long way from his home office. And he didn’t know anyone named Susan Headley! He’d never even heard of her.
A friend joined Jim for the spaghetti dinner, and Jim told him about the odd microscope call.
“The woman said that she lives in Leavenworth. Well, the only Leavenworth I know is a maximum-security prison the federal government runs in Kansas. Maybe she’s a prisoner in Kansas or something!”
Both men laughed; then Jim’s friend held up his hand.
“Wait. There’s a Leavenworth in Washington! In fact, it’s one of the most beautiful spots in the whole world! And it’s up U.S. Route 2 on the other side of the Wenatchee Pass. Since you’re at Boeing, you’re just a couple hours’ drive from Leavenworth. You ought to go up and find Susan Headley.”
Jim started dreaming about a weekend field trip into Washington’s mountains. “They have the best hanging flower baskets in the world,” his friend had said. “And the road up over the pass is so beautiful . . .”
Jim chose Sabbath afternoon for the trip to Leavenworth, but had no idea how to find Susan, even if she lived there. Until he saw a post office mail truck parked at the side of the road.
I know this is going to sound a bit odd, but Jim drove over to the mail truck, got out of his rental car, and walked up to the delivery woman.
“May I ask you a crazy question?” The woman looked down at Jim and nodded an OK. “Do you know a woman named Susan Headley? I think maybe she lives here in Leavenworth.”
“Sure do,” the mail carrier said. “She’s a great person. Lives right up that road. Would you like her address?”
Someone Might Have Use for It
Jim drove to the address and knocked on the door.
“Hello. I’m Jim Lanning. You called me about a microscope.”
Turns out that Susan had worked as a park ranger in several U.S. National Parks. She also was a Pathfinder Master Guide and a quiltmaker. She showed Jim a couple dozen of her favorite quilts, and then took him to the room where she kept her amazing rock, butterfly, and bird collections. There was so much to see!
“You called me about a microscope, ma’am,” Jim reminded her.
“It’s right here,” she said, pointing toward an odd-shaped box on her kitchen table.
“I took the microscope home with me on the plane,” Jim remembers. “Then I hauled it upstairs to my ADRA office and set it down beside my desk. I was only in the office for two or three weeks and was so busy I nearly forgot the microscope was even there.”
Jim’s office was a museum for medical equipment that had been given to ADRA. “Maybe you might be able to use this somewhere in the world,” donors would say. Several times a year Jim would send container loads of equipment and supplies to small hospitals or clinics around the world.
His next international trip was scheduled for South America, where he would be visiting medical clinics in Peru and Bolivia. As he was leaving, his assistant said, “Jim, you ought to take the microscope with you. Someone down there might have a use for it.”
“She boxed it up and even tied a cute little hemp rope handle on it. I took it with me on the plane.”
Jim’s very first stop was at a small Adventist clinic in Cochabamba, Bolivia. They did not have access to regular electrical power, so they were using a 12-volt battery to power the lights in their operating room. Jim was bringing them a portable generator that would provide regular electricity for the clinic.
“The day we arrived they were doing a biopsy on a woman who had been diagnosed with cancer. One of the nurses was literally in tears because their microscope had just broken, and they were not able to see the tissue biopsy they had just taken. The biopsy would show them whether they could do a lumpectomy or would have to perform a much more significant surgery. They were just beside themselves!”
Jim listened, then rushed out to the van, grabbed the odd-shaped box with the cute little rope handle, and sprinted back to the surgical rooms.
“I handed them the box and told the nurse to open it quickly. When she saw the microscope, she screamed for the doctor to come, and they both just stood there, completely overwhelmed! Susan’s microscope was the same as their old one—exactly what they needed!”
The new generator kept the lights on, and the other supplies Jim brought helped the Cochabamba clinic provide hundreds of patients with quality care. Best of all, Susan’s “perfectly on time” microscope (the one with the cute little rope handle hanging on the wall behind it) was busy saving lives every day.
“I am compelled to believe in God’s leading,” says Jim. “Especially when I think of all the things He had to fit together, each at just at the right time, for me and that microscope to arrive in Cochabamba when we did. Yes! I am a believer!”
