Friends For The Journey

...School work has been pressing as usual with sleep deficits and fatigue and Debbie has had an especially difficult time with discomfort, fatigue and several weeks of vomiting and non-stop coughing through the night. We really do covet and appreciate your prayers for us.

Nevertheless, apart from the discomfort caused by chemo-therapy, the cancer markers in her blood-test have begun dropping again and we are simply grateful that she is still with us. She is a courageous woman of deep faith and trust in God. In addition to frequent medical appointments, she spends most of her free time babysitting our two youngest grandchildren (Alex and Marcus) or helping our oldest daughter Sarah home-school our two older grandchildren (Aaron and Sierra). She has been making quite an spiritual impact on our grandchildren.

She has also had a spiritual impact on our tues. gathering of young adults. Whenever a particularly sensitive spiritual point comes up where there is strong disagreement, the young people call Debbie out on the patio to give the final and conclusive word! Our outreach has been good, but has hit a recent plateau. A number of the newer participants have peeled off and stopped coming – some of them are graduate students who have hit the busy part of the semester (believe me I know how they feel). Others I think came up to a point of choosing to become more vulnerable and decide to back off.

Nevertheless, God is still working with the 6 to 8 regulars who come every week. 2 or 3 of them are self-described ‘agnostics’ and the rest are unchurched Christians. I am discovering that the birthing process is a bit messy and comes with labor pains.

I have been meditating a lot on the work of the Spirit lately. It is increasingly obvious to me that nothing of enduring value can be accomplished without the working of the power of the Spirit. For someone like me, it is so tempting to try to generate activity when the Spirit seems to not be initiating.

Thank you again for your prayers and friendship!