LA GRANDE The Northwest Christian Cowboys Ministry, known locally and informally as Cowboy Church, has a special treat in store. The church is hosting poet Dennis Abeene on June 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the Mavericks Clubhouse.

Although many of us might have heard cowboy poetry before and found it entertaining, Abeene (pronounced "a-bean") emphatically says he doesn’t write cowboy poetry, he writes Christian cowboy poetry. Although he also hopes folks will find his poetry entertaining, Abeene says he doesn’t write it for that purpose.

"God has given me this gift as a tool to share the message of Christ. My prayer and hope is that it will get folks thinkin’ about Jesus, and the sacrifices he made for them," Abeene says.

Abeene’s ministry mission is to make a difference in the lives of those who have not yet decided to have a personal relationship with Christ.

"My poetry is not important. What is important is the life-changing decisions that might result from people hearing it and thinking about the message it delivers," Abeene says.

Abeene grew up on the west side of Oregon in the Willamette Valley. During his junior year of high school, he was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease. In the following year, he attended a healing service at a small non-denominational church in Albany. Abeene went forward for prayer. Standing up front waiting to be prayed for, he says he was confident God had the power to heal him. He also knew he had done nothing to deserve such a gift.

As he was being prayed for by a college-aged believer, Abeene says he opened his eyes to catch a glimpse of the person praying for him.

"To (my) amazement," he says, "she had an aura surrounding her, as if a bright light was shining brilliantly behind her."

At his next medical checkup scheduled regularly because of his kidney disease doctors were unable to find any abnormality in his kidney function. He was also told he was only the second person in Medical Journal history to recover from the disease.

Abeene knew then God had healed him for a reason, but what it was remained unclear.

Sadly, circumstances in Abeene’s life took a shattering turn for the worse. Within a year of his miraculous healing his parents divorced. His father, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had proven be an unfaithful husband. He then chose to no longer be a part of his son’s life.

Reeling from the loss of security and stability at home, Abeene strayed from the God who had healed him and plunged headlong into the drug culture of the 1970s.

During one year, five of his friends died from drug-related deaths. Abeene’s life was in chaos.

"I saw the deterioration of my own marriage and hope for the future go up in smoke illegal smoke," he says.

Abeene believes the reason he was spared from the same fate as his friends was because neither his mother, who faithfully prayed for him every day, nor God, who still had a purpose for his life, gave up on him.

In 1981, Abeene’s life finally turned around when he fully embraced the promise of Jeremiah 29:11-13:

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good and

not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

In those days when you pray,

I will listen.

You find me when you seek me, if you look for me in earnest.

Now, 25 years later, Abeene understands the plan God had for him. Abeene believes that through God’s gift of Christian cowboy poetry, he is equipped to impact the churched and unchurched, the cowboy and the non-cowboy as he shares cowboy poetry with a message.

A message he says is sometimes humorous, sometimes thought provoking, but always with the hope that God may be glorified and lives will be touched for Jesus Christ.

This is an excerpt from "Fence Post in Your Mind" by Dennis Abeene on his new CD titled, "The Gift and the Giver".

"If that cross on the hill is troublin’ you most,

Just paint it in your mind to be a fence post.

Now picture your livin’ to be like new wire,

Able an’ strong an’ refusin’ to tire.

Laid out by itself, got no reason to boast;

Cause what good’s the wire without a fence post?"

This excerpt from "Cowboy Legs" pokes fun at those who are too serious:

"When they swim they shed their boots

An’ usually shed their socks.

But they wouldn’t shed their Wranglers

If their pockets were full of rocks."

Copyright 2005 Dennis Abeene

All copyrighted materials courtesy of Dennis Abeene and his Web site:

www.themastersranch.com