PASTOR LODY, HIS PAST REVEALED

Pastor Lody DeRidder was born in 1940 on the island of Java formerly known as The Dutch East Indisch, Indonesia during the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945) he spent 3 years in prison camp with his mother, Frieda C. DeRidder Eschweiler until 1945 when the war came to an end.
At the age of 9, he repatriated to Holland where he spent his youth and was educated in the fields of Structural Metal Design and received a satisfactory completion certificate as a Draftsman.
In 1959, he married at an early age after having finished his preliminary schooling in Holland to his wife Peggy V. DeRidder Voll and then emigrated to the USA (California) where he and Peggy now reside for the last forty five years.
After many years of additional training and schooling, he set up his engineering firm in Taipei, Taiwan and Torrance, California that lasted under his management for approx. 26 years.
He, with the help of the Lord, advanced in metal, plastic tool and die and in the heavy hydraulic press machinery/ manufacturing business in a way that was extraordinary for him with the result of having additional offices in Tel Aviv , Israel; Sheng Yang, North China; Osaka, Japan; and Jakarta, Indonesia.

It happened in Israel on or about the 2nd week of October 1987 while on a mandatory week of holiday, as all was at a stand still in Israel during "Yom Kippur", he received a vision from the Lord.
At first he did not accepted his experience and had written it off as just a short lived "emotional experience", which later proofed to be a wrong assumption on his part.

HERE THEN IS HOW IT ALL PLAYED OUT

While he was entertaining his business partner/ secretary Mrs. Teresa Wu from the Taiwan office who was in Israel translating and managing a Taiwanese crew, that was installing Hydraulic
Machinery in the town of Carmiel and his younger brother Peter DeRidder that came from Holland just for this week's holiday occasion, an experience came on all three of them that completely changed their lives.
Their first outing was to the city of Jerusalem and to Capernaum near the sea of Galilee and stopping at the biblical location of the sermon on the mount, where they noticed 3 large city buses packed with tourists from Northern Italy.
When the tourists all disembarked from the 3 buses, they gathered around an Israeli tourist guide, who soon would blast off his knowledge as to what precisely happened at this historic traditional spot where Jesus may have stood.
Realizing that this would be a good opportunity to hear the old Jewish history from a Jewish perspective, he walked over and asked the tourist guide if they could join and listen to what he had to say!
The Israeli guide agreed for them to join all the 300 people standing around waiting to hear the narration over of his megaphone.
This then is what he said, beginning his explanation about Jesus: "Here then is the place" pointing to the exact location where this Jesus was supposed to have stood, here is the place where Jesus was speaking to all these illiterate and poor people, because no one believed him in Jerusalem.
Now at this very moment Lody heard a voice speaking to him, saying "protect my name". He stepped forward and very indignantly told the guide to stop speaking about his friend in this way, even though Lody himself did not really know this Jesus, that is to say he heard of Him yet has not known Him on a one to one bases, as He spoke to him this very moment.
Not willing to prolong what really occurred, Lody, his brother, Peter, Teresa, his Taiwan Manager, and Mr. Laor, a Business Partner of Lody, had to run for their lives with 300 angry people in hot pursuit.
They gotten away alright but now everyone was asking him,"What Happened? Did you flip or what? Man, you sure lost your cool!"
Lody was very much impressed for at least 4 to 5 days until he also just shook it off and wrote it all off as his "Emotions" running wild.

At the end of the week they all visited the Yama Malah or Dead Sea where they all experimented with the salty buoyant water. For at least 2 hours, they floated all over the salty sea as normal swimming just is impossible.
Later at around 11:30 AM as they all were very tired due to the chemical content of the water that drained them from all normal body fluids because they totally had neglected to read the instruction on a big sign posted right at the beach holding a clock that limited swimming to not longer than 15 or 20 minutes. Well, so much for that warning.

WHO IS TO DRIVE THE RENTED MAZDA TO EILAT?

Teresa Wu who is an excellent driver wanted to show Lody's brother, Peter, that indeed she could drive as Peter previously challenged her on her driving ability because of her only 5 feet height. They all agreed that Teresa would drive the first hour out of a 3 hour drive. From the location, they were at the City of Arrat next to the Dead Sea.
On this famous road to Eilat through the Sinai Desert (Biblically, The Desert of Sin) Peter sat in the rear of the car, Lody in the passenger seat and Teresa drove.
The agreement was that Peter and Lody would each take a forty five minutes break. Thereafter, each took turns to drive for an hour driving to the final destination, the port of Eilat.
While Teresa was driving, both Lody and Peter dozed off in a deep slumber, suddenly waking up with a great bang on the bottom of a granite canyon 20 meters below. Because Teresa overcome by fatigue, had dozed off at the wheel.
Teresa died instantly, Lody broke his right leg in 9 pieces, his left leg in 2, besides 5 broken ribs and a deep laceration on his forehead. Peter was lightly hurt with a cut on his chest.
Peter helped Lody out of the window of the vehicle, the windshield of the mazda landed far away after cutting Lody's forehead, now bleeding severely so that he was blinded by his own blood!
After the initial shock, many "local" people came down from the road to help and held up a tent like a canopy over him. He counted approx. 31 people that came down to his aid.
Now one of the people held Lody's hand and prayed in an Armaic dialect language to say "I pray to your Father in heaven for you have a long way to go". She or he then touched Lody's forehead, the bleeding stopped and his eyes were at that moment clear of blood so he could see again.
When he opened his eyes he saw this person wearing an old style but clean clothes. He wanted to say something but his voice was drowned out by a military helicopter that landed nearby.
As the Israeli military came down with 2 stretchers, he requested Peter to follow the people going back up the hill in order to get their names and address to thank them on a later date! But Peter's reply was "you're seeing things again, there's no one here!"
Now the question for Lody is this, who then were these people? Were they only in his imagination? Even though none of his faculties left him! Others told him that they were sure that these people were angels sent by God! What do you think?

ROAD TO RECOVERY

It took Pastor Lody one year to recover, traveling accompanied by his son, Marvin, in a wheelchair.
It took him approx. one year to wind down his business. The core of his engineering firm in Taiwan and Torrance, CA, he gave to the son of Teresa.
Pastor Lody later joined the Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission in Pasadena earning a Master Degree in Intercultural Missiology. His study lasted 8 years including 5 years of missionary's work in Indonesia, Australia, Bangladesh, and Singapore.
Pastor Lody returned back to Los Angeles in 1996 and now resides with his family in Lakewood, CA, and works fulltime on a voluntary non payment basis as the senior pastor of the "City Of Praise" church at 4111 Katella Ave, Los Alamitos, California.
Pastor Lody became good friends with his professor from "The School of World Mission", part of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Dr. Dean S. Gilliland, a missionary for 21 years to Nigeria, Africa, who helped the City of Praise from its onset and now still is the Head Director and Pastor of this organization.
The City of Praise Church even though "still very small" does try to do big things for mission, for the Lord, around the world.
The City of Praise has an extensive website information center. Come and visit us at www.cityofpraise.com. You may be surprised and may want to join and be a part in sharing your own experiences and talents for the Kingdom of God.