Reflections on God’s Blessings in 2022

Lisa and I are so grateful for and encouraged by the many ways we have seen God’s blessings in the past year.

Launching HELPcare and helping to make HELPcare Clinic a reality in Austin has been a great adventure. Mostly exciting and stimulating for me, but Lisa is considerably less adventurous than I am, so for her it’s been more stressful.

Even as HELPcare has pushed her out of her comfort zone, however, she is 100% committed because we have felt God’s call to do this, and we have seen so many providential circumstances that have confirmed that call and encouraged us.

These aren’t happy coincidences. They’re God’s provision.

HELPcare is the management company for which Lisa and I are the majority owners. It provides management services for HELPcare Clinic (which is owned by the health care professionals) so Dr. Dave Strobel, Nurse Practitioner Stephanie Kimmes and six part-time nurses can focus on meeting the medical needs of HELPcare Clinic members instead of on administration.

A year ago right now our combined team for the two companies had just four members: Dr. Dave, Coleen Olmsted (our office manager), Lisa and me.

We’ve never advertised job openings for either company. God has brought us this team, often providing the person before we realized we had the need.

Of course none of that would have been possible (or needed) without our HELPcare Clinic members. When Dr. Dave and I met for coffee in October 2019 and were inspired to create what has become HELPcare and HELPcare Clinic, we hoped there would be interest in the community of Austin for this kind of health care alternative. We’re grateful that member support has materialized, as we now have more than 500 active members.

Another great blessing is that I now have a content marketing and social media team for HELPcare, and most of the members are my children or their spouses: Rachel (Borg), Joe Aase, John and Bella Aase and Jacob’s wife Alexi, along with Dr. Dave’s daughter, Madeline Holden.

Joe also is working in the clinic on Saturdays, our daughter Rebekah (pictured above…see if you can guess which one is her!) set up the lab and is Director of Nursing, and our daughter Ruthie, a missionary in Bulgaria, is even helping with some work that can be done at a distance.

What a great blessing to be called to this work, and to have all of our children joining with us in some way!

July was particularly eventful, as I had some numbness in my fingers and weakness in my legs that made spine surgery necessary. I wrote about that experience here as well as on the HELPcare site.

Just nine days after my operation, we welcomed Joe’s wife Amy into the family! It was great to have all six kids together with their spouses and 15 grandchildren (although one was still on the inside).

Some other key highlights of 2022:

  • Rebekah having our 15th grandchild (and her fourth son) in August. In September she and Andrew bought an old farmhouse with 3.5 acres just outside of town, where the Gatzemeyer guys will have plenty of room to explore.
  • My parents moving from the townhome they owned for 10 years into an independent living facility, just a few weeks before Dad was in the hospital with the flu, which led to discovery of gallbladder problems. He was in the hospital again later in the year to have his gallbladder removed, and has recovered well. The timing of their townhome sale and move was almost perfect. What a blessing to be 59 years old and to still have both of my parents!
  • Having Ruthie, Trevin, Noa and Frank on home mission assignment from the end of July through early December. They stayed with us for about six weeks altogether, and it meant we had the whole family together both for Joe’s wedding and for a day-after-Thanksgiving early celebration of Christmas.
Our 15 grandchildren at our Nov. 25 Christmas celebration
  • Starting HELPcare Foundation, recruiting Linda LaVallie as its volunteer executive director and getting IRS tax-exempt status. HELPcare Foundation’s mission is health education and providing partial scholarships for those who can’t afford the full cost of HELPcare Clinic membership.
  • Waking up at 3 a.m. October 17 with an insight into how we could open HELPcare Clinic in Rochester, several months earlier than I had previously imagined. We’re grateful for Dr. Bob Gustafson and his wife Laura, and their interest in the HELPcare Clinic model and their support for expanding this alternative into Rochester.

We’ve experienced so many other blessings and answers to prayer this year, too numerous to detail here, but the answer to one petition in the Lord’s Prayer has become more vivid to us: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Having worked for a salary for my whole career until now, I knew I should be thankful for the jobs God had provided. But with a good job and a consistent biweekly paycheck, it’s easy to take these blessings for granted.

Perhaps the greatest blessing for Lisa and me in 2022 has been a renewed sense of His care and daily provision, giving us what we need when we need it.

Sometimes the waters have been choppy, but He has always kept us afloat. We have a wonderful crew and He also seems to be enlarging the fleet. Most importantly, He has strengthened our sense of calling, that what we’re doing is His project, not ours.

We look forward to what He will bring in 2023.

A Year of Change and Blessings


2021 has been a year of massive change for Lisa and me, and as we look back we can see God’s hand of blessing even in the heartbreak.

By far the most difficult change was losing Lisa’s dad, Leonard Wacholz, in June. We all miss him and Lisa gets teary every day. But we’re thankful that he lived to be 90 and was able to stay at home on the farm until his last three months. Unlike so many who died alone during COVID, he had all of his children and their spouses as well as most of our children and grandchildren able to visit him in his last two weeks. And for those who couldn’t physically get there, we had FaceTime.

All of his descendants gathered in August for our nephew’s wedding, and we captured this photo that shows Leonard’s (and Lisa’s mom Arlene’s) legacy:

Here’s the Aase branch of the clan…

Behind us you see (L to R):

  • Rachel, husband Kyle Borg and their five kids, who live in Winchester, KS. Evelyn is our first teenage grandchild. Judah is badly outnumbered. Aletta, Mabel and Sylvia are enjoying dance lessons. Rachel homeschools all of them, and Kyle pastors the Presbyterian church.
  • Joe and his fiancée, Amy Wagner, who will be married July 30. We’re looking forward to that!
  • Ruthie and husband Trevin Hoot with daughter Noa and son Frank, who was born March 22. They’re Presbyterian missionaries in Sofia, Bulgaria.
  • Rebekah and husband Andrew Gatzemeyer with Griffin, Gus and Murphy. They live seven blocks from us in Austin.
  • John and Bella, married last year and now living in Roseville, MN.
  • Jacob and Alexi with Graham, Isaac, Clara and Julia. They live in Rochester and Jacob is a physical therapist at Mayo Clinic.

For Lisa and me, the changes in the last year have been breathtaking. So I’ll just take a breath now and reflect:

Leonard was diagnosed with heart failure in February and needed to leave the farm in late March. The following three months were pretty hard.

I completed my MBA in Healthcare Management on April 3. I decided to retire from Mayo Clinic May 3 and was originally intending to have it be effective December 31. A series of providential events made it possible for me to move it up to August 3.

That’s when I started an “Of Counsel” role with Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, a communications firm based in Nashville. It’s very much part-time and lets me continue to use my skills and experience from 21 years at Mayo Clinic on behalf of Jarrard clients.

Given my newly flexible schedule, I also was able to arrange a significant increase in golf time, taking full advantage of my Meadow Greens membership.

Ruthie and family (including our newest grandson Frank) were back from Bulgaria in mid-August, which was another incentive for my August 3 retirement date. We enjoyed the company of Trevin’s parents and his sister Tiffany, too.

I’m also serving as the assistant coach (and JV coach) for the Lyle-Pacelli girls basketball team. Rebekah had accepted the head coach position and asked me to serve as her assistant. We’re enjoying spending time together, and the girls are great. It’s something I couldn’t have done without my newfound schedule freedom.

But my main focus since August has been development of our new health venture and what will be my third career. Here’s that story.

We’re blessed to be in position to start this new venture offering support to people interested in reclaiming their health, and also to provide management services to help my dear friend and high school classmate, Dr. David Strobel, open a new primary care clinic in our hometown. We’re on track for that to open in February.

Just after we signed the lease on the space for HELPcare Clinic, Lisa and I joined Dave and his wife, Lorene, along with our employee #1, Coleen Olmsted, to celebrate and commemorate the occasion.

Coleen, Lorene and Dr. Dave with Lisa and me where the new HELPcare Clinic sign will go.

As I look back, I’m astounded at how quickly this has all developed. We’re also gratified by the enthusiastic reception so far as Austin-area residents have signed up to become Founding Members.

We have been abundantly blessed!

Lisa and I wish you and yours a blessed Christmas, and hope your 2022 is characterized by personal growth and happiness.

A Year (and a Decade) of Blessings

As Lisa and I look back on 2019 and the decade that was, and as we look ahead to what we hope will be our Roaring ’20s, we are grateful to God for so many blessings in our lives.

The reason we think the 2020s will be Roaring is mainly because last week the noise level at our house could fairly be described with that adjective. We had five of our six children and their spouses or significant others – and 11 of our dozen grandchildren – home for Christmas.

That meant with extended family on Lisa’s side we had 50 people in our house on Christmas Eve eve, and 26 on Christmas Day. We were glad that my parents, Lewis and LaVonne, and Lisa’s dad, Leonard, were among the throng. Leonard turned 89 in October, and Dad’s 89th birthday is in a couple of weeks, so it is a blessing that they’re all in reasonably good health.

Here’s the report on our descendants:

Rachel was the only one of our married children who didn’t have a new baby this year. That’s fine, though, because she and her husband Kyle already have five. Evelyn, Judah, Aletta, Mabel and Sylvia spent 10 days with us in January, as has become a tradition, while their parents took a cruise.

Jacob and Alexi had their fourth child, who became grandchild #12 because her cousin in Bulgaria came a little early. Their oldest, Graham, started school this year, while Isaac and Clara are still home with baby Julia. Jacob is a physical therapist at Mayo Clinic and lives with his family in Rochester. We’re glad to get to see them every week at church.

Rebekah and Andrew, who both work for Mayo Clinic Health System, had the first child of the year when Augustin (a.k.a. Gus) arrived in April. They live seven blocks from us in Austin, so we see Griff and Gus more than the others, but we feel blessed that half of our grandkids are members of our church.

Ruthie and Trevin left in March for their long-term assignment as Presbyterian missionaries (also in our denomination and with support from our church) in Sofia, Bulgaria. They had their first baby, Noa, in mid-July, and so she was already home from the hospital with her parents when we came to visit later that month. We also got to be present (along with Trevin’s parents) for Noa’s baptism.

Joe is living and working in Mankato. His job with Ameripride involves a lot of regional driving, and one of the benefits is a four-day workweek. He’s doing well and enjoying being beyond college life, and no longer sharing an apartment with several other guys.

John is in his final year at University of Northwestern in suburban St. Paul, Minn. He is engaged to marry a young lady from Rochester, Bella Higgins, a fellow English major he met at school. That wedding is coming in June.

In addition to our visit to Bulgaria, Lisa and I had an April-May vacation to Germany, Switzerland and Austria. And in late October, with a week of vacation to use or lose, we spent some time in San Diego.

I had another good year of work as well, with several opportunities to travel and meet with like-minded colleagues from around the world. Two of the highlights were visits to Dubai in early September for planning and then in December for our Middle East Healthcare Social Media Summit.

I ordinarily would have completed this Christmas letter before now, but I was extra busy in the last few weeks, both with the visiting clan and also in completing my first course at Western Governors University, where I’m working on a MBA in Healthcare Management. As of this morning, I’m 8% done.

When I did this newsletter at the beginning of the decade, Lisa and I had only one grandchild and had just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We are grateful for so many blessings since that time, including reaching our 35th.

Here’s wishing you and yours many blessings in the year ahead!

Happy New Year!

As the Aase clan looks forward to an exciting 2019, we’re thankful for the many blessings we experienced in the year that concludes tonight.

The 6,000-mile driving vacation Lisa and I took was a major highlight. We left from Austin July 27 in our Chevy Cruze with no agenda but to drive west. We had a few ideas of places we wanted to visit, but mainly we wanted the windshield tour of the country. We never made hotel reservations for more than a day in advance, and that led to some interesting discoveries.

Our route took us to DeSmet, South Dakota (a Laura Ingalls Wilder site) and Mount Rushmore on the second day. After a night in Butte, Montana we were on to Seattle for two nights. We visited Dan and Sandy Hinmon (and toured the museum with Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose) in McMinnville, Oregon on the way down to the Pacific coast.

After a couple of days in Eureka, California (a delightful coastal town the size of Austin, Minn. that was one of our serendipitous discoveries due to our “No Plan” travel plan), we took the Avenue of the Giants to see the Redwoods.

Our only other two-night stay was in San Diego, where we had a delightful visit to the beach, and then it was on to the Grand Canyon (my first visit) and to Winchester, Kansas, where a couple of our granddaughters were celebrating birthdays.

Two breathtaking wonders of Creation.

Here are some other photos from the trip:

For the first 32 years of our marriage we only took a few longer vacations with our six kids (a trip to Washington, DC and a couple of Florida trips were the big ones.) Now that our nest is empty we enjoy taking advantage of increased opportunities to travel together.

Speaking of an empty nest, here’s what’s up with our kids:

Rachel and her husband Kyle Borg still live with their five kids in Winchester, where he’s a Presbyterian pastor. On their 10th anniversary they took a cruise and left the kids with us, and that has started a tradition. We look forward to having them stay with us again in a couple of weeks, and we plan to start with a day at Mall of America’s Nickelodeon Universe with as many of our descendants (and significant others) as can make it. It’s become a great family tradition.

Midweek visits to Nickelodeon Universe = More rides for the money
While Grandpa takes kids on rides, Grandma guards the strollers.

Jacob and his wife Alexi and their three kids live in Rochester. Jake is a physical therapist at Mayo Clinic. It’s great to see those kids every week at church (and sometimes more frequently).

Rebekah and Andrew Gatzemeyer live just seven blocks away from us in Austin with their son Griffin. Andrew works at Mayo in the appointment office, and for about a year was riding to work with me every day. Now he’s teleworking so we don’t have that ride, but sometimes I take Griffin to Alexi for day care while Rebekah is at work. She’s a nurse at Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin.

Ruthie and her husband Trevin Hoot are going to be long-term missionaries to Bulgaria through our church (Presbyterian Church in America) mission agency, Mission to the World. In May we were in St. Louis for his graduation from Seminary. They’ve raised more than 90 percent of the support they need, and so we expect they’ll move to Sofia in March.

With Ruthie and Trevin for his graduation.

Joe graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato this month and is working full-time for Ameripride. He’s thankful to have a good job that he was able to do during his last year of college and that he can continue to do and enjoy as he considers his next steps.

Our youngest, John, is in his second year at the University of Northwestern in suburban St. Paul, Minn. He took post-secondary classes in his last two years of high school, so he’s planning to graduate in a little over a year. He also had a big announcement on Christmas Day:

John and Bella

So, if you’re keeping score, we have

  • Six kids, four of whom are married
  • Five granddaughters
  • Four grandsons, and
  • More on the way.

How many more? You’ll have to see in next year’s review.

But here’s a gallery of some of our blessings so far:

In a future post I’ll review some professional highlights of 2018.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

An Unforgettable Year

Three long journeys and two very short ones are among the blessings for which I give thanks as I reflect on 2016 and look ahead to the new year.

Let’s start with the short trips first: a pair of 40-yard strolls with my daughters Ruthie (Aug. 12) and Rebekah (Oct. 15) after which their names changed.

Each of their weddings doubled as a fantastic family reunion, and Lisa and I are so thankful that we now have four of our six children married, and that they’ve married well. We’re delighted to welcome Trevin Hoot and Andrew Gatzemeyer to our extended family.

Ruthie and Trevin’s wedding Aug. 12 in St. Paul, Minn.

Rebekah and Andrew’s wedding Oct. 15 in Rochester, Minn.

This was the year for our married kids to spend Christmas proper with the in-laws; we hope to get the whole gang together next year.

So here’s the family update for 2016:

Our oldest daughter Rachel and her husband Kyle Borg will celebrate their 10th anniversary on Friday. Kyle is the pastor at Winchester Presbyterian Church in northeast Kansas, and it was great to have him officiate at Ruthie and Trevin’s wedding.

While the Borgs couldn’t join our early Christmas celebration on Dec. 17, we will get some extended time with the kids in mid-January. Rachel and Kyle are going on an anniversary cruise, and on the way to Minneapolis for the flight to Houston they’ll drop off Evelyn, Judah, Aletta, Mabel and Sylvia to stay for a week with us.

An excited Graham with his trampoline

Our oldest son, Jacob, still lives with his wife Alexi and sons Graham and Isaac in New Berlin, just west of Milwaukee. Jacob is a physical therapist at Froedert Hospital, and he and Alexi are expecting our eighth grandchild in May. While we missed having the Borg grandchildren for Christmas, it meant that Graham and Isaac got more attention.

The matrimonial news involving my younger daughters had some broader ramifications as well. Rebekah and Ruthie had (with only brief exceptions) lived and worked together for nearly a quarter century, and both were employed as nurses at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul.

With Bekah G before her interview

After Ruthie’s wedding in August, she and Trevin moved to St. Louis, where she’s working at DePaul Hospital and he’s in his final year at Covenant Theological Seminary. And last Tuesday (see selfie at right) I got to have lunch with Rebekah in Rochester when she came to interview for a nursing job at Mayo Clinic.

On Thursday afternoon, we got the excited call from Bekah that she had been offered and had accepted the position, and that she’ll be starting in February. She and Andrew are hoping to move to Austin, so he’s applying for positions in Austin and Rochester, too. The good news is that with her work schedule (five 12-hour shifts every two weeks) they don’t need to be in a hurry to move; she can commute from St. Paul.

Our son Joe is in his last year at Minnesota State University in Mankato and is working at Buffalo Wild Wings as he heads into his final semester. Because he opted not to play basketball in his senior year, Joe was able to join Dr. Farris Timimi, our medical director for the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, and me on our November trip to Australia and New Zealand. One of Joe’s roommates, Jake Weierke, scraped together the plane fare so he could join us. I had Delta SKYMILES to pay for most of Joe’s ticket.

In the hobbit hole with Joe and Jake

None of us will forget the experience. We saw the fairy penguins come ashore at dusk at Phillip Island, and during our 2nd International Mayo Clinic Healthcare & Social Media Summit the “lads” had a few days to explore Melbourne. Then it was on to New Zealand, where Dr. David Grayson was our most gracious host, arranging for us to visit Hobbiton, where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. We got to walk throughout The Shire and step inside a hobbit hole, and wrapped it all up with a pint of cider at the Green Dragon Inn.

With Farris, Joe and his roommate Jake at The Green Dragon Inn.

Dressed up for the theater

In October, I brought Lisa and our youngest son, John, on a trip to New York City. This was John’s time in New York, and while I was attending my meetings he and Lisa explored the city via tour bus. We got tickets to Wicked one night, and on our last day also got on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

John is a high school senior attending Riverland Community College full-time, so he will graduate high school with his Associate of Arts degree. He also was one of ten young people from southern Minnesota chosen to be teen columnists for the Rochester Post-Bulletin. He’s written about his adult anxiety (confessing that in his heart he’s “a very tall hobbit”) and his love of history.

Lisa continues to enjoy her retirement from homeschooling and the flexibility it gives her. In addition to the New York trip, she and I were able to fly to Nashville in July for a family friend’s wedding, and to Houston in November for a wedding reception for Ruthie and Trevin on his home turf. Lord willing, we’ll be visiting London April 28-May 8, and this will be Lisa’s first international flight. If you have activity or sightseeing recommendations, we welcome your help in planning our trip.

On The Great Wall with Wen Feng

I wrote several posts in June about my trip to China, and reading through them again brings back heartwarming memories of our gracious hosts and the many dedicated physicians and other health care workers we met. I also was blessed to make my first trip to Africa, when I did a workshop in August for The Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Our workshop participants at The Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya

I’m continuing to enjoy my work as Communications Director for the Social and Digital Innovation (SDI or “Star Wars”) team at Mayo Clinic, as well as our work with the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network to help our Mayo staff as well as colleagues elsewhere learn to use social media tools strategically in their work.

The Star Wars Team

It was great this year to fill several vacancies to bring our full-time team back to full strength, and that we could get those members together in conjunction with our Communications Division retreat in August. I’m also grateful for the part-time supplemental staff members we’ve added, and the volunteer members of our MCSMN External Advisory Board who believe in and contribute to our mission.

At the end of the year, while I was in New Zealand, I was elected to the voting staff of Mayo Clinic. This is a group that is mostly physicians and scientists, but a limited number of administrative staff also are included. It doesn’t affect salary but it does include some extra perks, one of which is having my name in bold in the employee directory. And because of my alphabetical endowment, mine also happens to be the first bold name listed:

Our March 1 #ScopeScope, broadcasting a colonoscopy – my colonoscopy – on Periscope to raise awareness of the need for colorectal cancer screening, was an important educational project. Here’s that story:

It also led to my picture being on the NASDAQ Jumbotron in Times Square the next day, when our collaborators in the project, Fight Colorectal Cancer, rang the NASDAQ closing bell.

As I said in the TV interview, part of the #ScopeScope inspiration came from one of my high school classmates, who was diagnosed two years ago with stage IV colon cancer.

Lisa and I attended the visitation Monday night, and Jim’s funeral was yesterday.

If you haven’t been screened, please do it. Colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable cancers; detecting and removing precancerous polyps stops them from turning into cancer.

 

Arlene with Mabel

We also lost Lisa’s mom, Arlene Wacholz, in June. Arlene was first diagnosed with malignant melanoma, one of the most deadly and least-treatable cancers, in 1980. That skin cancer recurred twice, and she lived on to have Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and macular degeneration before finally succumbing to complications of Parkinson’s Disease. We’re thankful Arlene was able to live more than 35 years beyond her original cancer diagnosis, and that she got to know her 13 grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren.

As the sands of 2016 run out, may we all be grateful for the year we’ve had and treasure and make the most of each day we have in the future.

Wishing you and yours many blessings in 2017!

See the Christmas tag for previous yearly updates in this series.