An Update On My Health...

Funny...the reason blogs (web logs) were created was to give others a detailed daily log of your personal life (sorry I think that is TMI for the WWW). But I did want to get those who are interested and concerned with my health issues a bit of an update.

As some of you know I have been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease for a little over six years. It is an auto-immune disorder that is, according to the medical professionals, incurable. I have been taking the advise (various medications) of the medical professionals, as well as trying to eat right and take various holistic approaches. Both of which have had limited success.

Many of you have noticed the ulcers in my mouth and lips within the last 4 months to a year. This has been the latest symptom along with constant Colitis.

My Doctor has placed me on Steroids again. Steroids temporarily fix all of the symptoms but are not a good long-term solution. As a matter of fact, you can not stay on them too long because they are dangerous to your body and when you get off of them your symptoms often get worse. So it is used as a bridge drug to take you to a longer solution.

So I am now trying a new Drug (about 10 years on the market) call Remicade next week. They must run various tests (all of which I past this week) before you start. Remicade is a biologic infusion that takes about 3-4 hours through IV. I start this Tuesday and ramp up in two weeks. After two weeks I will get them every 4-5 weeks for as long as it helps (the plan is the rest of my life).

So thank you for praying for me (for those of you who knew about it). And if you know the Lord Jesus Christ would you agree with me in prayer for strength and healing? Thank you.....

Here is what God has spoken to my heart during the six years of this of this journey and it still is true to my heart today;

Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (12) Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. (13) And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

A Summary Of Wales From Misha Townsend

Forwarding this along from Misha Townsend who was on the team to Swansea Wales..... Hi Everyone! So since we only got 2 minutes to share at church this morning (impossible!), I wanted to share some of what God did through our trip to Wales. Our main purpose was to support Calvary Chapel Swansea, through various events and outreaches for the community. We did three days of VBS for the kids, a movie night, women's luncheon, youth club, family festival, international food festival, talent nightl, and helped with Sunday service and Sunday school. It was a very busy several days! But it was so awesome how God gave us strength and pulled everything together even when things got hectic. One of the biggest blessings was teaching and loving on the kids. So many of them were needy for attention, acting out, or trying to be tough, but God truly did a work in their hearts through His love. All of us on the team could tell so many stories about each one of the kids...the ones who felt safe to open up to us, whose behavior changed because of loving discipline, who received the gospel with an open heart, the ones who simply were able to come to church and hear about God's love for the first time. It was eye-opening and sobering for me to see how little these kids knew about God. Many of them have such a skeptical attitude, they've been raised not to believe in God. But at the same time they are hungry for Him, even if they don't know what it is they hunger for. All we could do was seek them out, bring them to the Father, and show them His love. For me one of the biggest challenges, and greatest blessings, was the worship. I was really nervous to be leading worship and leading the music for VBS. But God kept my fingers from hurting (yay!) and totally blessed it. Especially the music with the kids--I felt like I was just standing there singing and doing some weird silly movements, and God just filled the room with His presence. I hadn't expected the music to make such an impact on the kids, but it did. And to see those kids singing about Jesus, about God's love for them, even if they didn't fully understand it yet, was so awesome. It provided so many opportunities to reach out to the kids personally, too; one little boy was fascinated by the guitar and kept asking me to teach him. It was an opportunity to show him love, attention, security. We got to sing worship songs with some of the teen girls, who were otherwise pretty closed-off to hearing about God. It provided an opportunity to build relationships. We also held a luncheon for the women--Pastor Dave and Pastor Clint prepared all the food, it was awesome! ;) It was such a blessing to fellowship with and minister to the ladies there. We also had a "toddler time" on Saturday, an opportunity for moms to come and hang out while we played with their kids. Joy, Sharon, and I did a puppet show (and then our stage fell over lol). We really wanted to just reach out to the community and make them feel welcome and comfortable in the church. One boy who had recently been placed in a foster home came to help us out, and ended up coming every single day during our stay. He had never really been to church before, but he totally dived in to serve in any way needed. He would come in the morning for our team devotions, and stayed most days all day to help out with all our events. His heart is definitely open to the Lord--keep him in prayer that he will receive salvation and grow in his faith. There's so much more I could say...so many small miracles, small blessings. But nothing is small in God's eyes. It was awesome to see how each person on our team contributed their part and filled a special need. Sharon helped to keep us organized and really reached out to the women and parents, You-K provided discipline and love to the kids, Pastor Dave taught the word faithfully and was willing to dress up like a crazy professor (lol!), Aydde was faithful to organize and prepare snacks every day for VBS, and served us with her awesome cooking, Lisa taught the kids with love and was always available to talk to them individually, Sylvia reached out to the parents in an awesome way, Joy was always ready with fun games and to teach the youth. And then there was Pastor Clint and Sol, who were amazing hosts and helped us out in so many ways. And then the wonderful people who opened their homes for us to stay with them (Becca, Dan & Sam, Sol, thank you so much!!), and those from the church there who came to help out as well. God worked through so many different peoples' lives. Ok well I've written a lot, but I just wanted to give you guys an idea of what happened on our trip--especially those of you who were praying for us! We definitely needed the prayers, and God definitely answered. Please keep praying for CC Swansea; pray for Pastor Clint and Sol as they now follow up with discipling and teaching the kids and their families, pray that God would grow and strengthen the church there, pray that the kids would keep coming to church and that the seeds planted would grow into genuine faith. And pray about going yourself, next year! :) Thank you for reading. :) God bless!

Ministry In Wales....WOW!

Well sorry for the lack of posts here yesterday....we have been busy! Finished Holiday Bible Club, Finished the Saturday Festival, Sunday Service and International Food Fellowship, and Sunday Night Talent Show! WOW...what a week. More pics to follow but here are some new ones....

The Ignite Holiday Club is Growing!

Thank you so much for praying! We had 32 kids today at Ignite Holiday Bible Club and 20 returned for Evening Film Night (we showed "Inkheart"). As promised here are "some" pics....

First Day Of Ministry In Wales

Well thank you for praying (if you did). Today's events were totally amazing! Started with a morning devotion from You-K on trusting God in difficulty or challenges (Daniel 3:19-25). So we went out on the streets to get the Word out for the Holiday Bible Club later in the afternoon. Door to Door and one on one here in this village (neighborhood here in Wales). Met some kids and played Football with them in the park. Later that day all three boys came to the HBC at the church! Also others that we met around in the village came as well. We had about 20 kids show up (great turn out here in Wales). They made me wear a wig and a white coat (pictures are coming I promise). The Holiday Bible Club was well received and when really well. Our team from CCMV team works so well together. The younger kids had such a blast! We are going to re-think the program for the older ones tomorrow. The 12-14 year olds just wanted to go outside and smoke fags (cigs). So tommorow we are going to break out the water balloon sling-shots and start a fun little war with the older ones....bring it! Promise Pics tommorow! Well the day concluded with a great devotion from Joy on being Joyful at all times from Philippians 4:4...Solomon and I didn't even pick up on the Joy ReJoice thing until this evening!!!! From those here to you there.....Thanks for sending us with your prayer and support! promise pics tommorow..