An eventful last week

Last week Heidi and I attended the Annual Meetings for the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies, of which our church is a member. It went from Tuesday evening to Friday afternoon and was pretty packed the whole time. We were a part of the prayer ministry and spend the afternoons praying for pastors and missionaries, which was great. The speakers that came were outstanding. The highlight was Carter Conlon of Times Square Church in NYC. (The church started by David Wilkerson, famous for The Cross and the Switchblade.) Conlon’s talk was fantastic. We made some connections with churches in MN that we will visit and even got an invitation by a church in Seattle. This short summary did not do justice to how encouraging those few days were.

On Saturday Eric and I ventured out to Bethel University to play Disc Golf. We played the 9 hole course five times. The temperature was about 34 degrees, the wind was crazy strong, there was mud everywhere, and snow fell part of the time. Our scores were terrible, but we had a great time.

Later Saturday night I played Diaper Wars with Jer, Brian, Nate, and Grant. It was awesome. The only bummer was at one point I was trying to run, duck, and throw a diaper when I slammed my hand into a barrier. It hurt something fierce, but I played for a couple more hours. On Monday I got an X-ray and discovered that I fractured the bone in the fingertip of my right ring finger. Yesterday I saw a hand specialist who said that there is no tendon damage and it will fully heal in a month or so. That means no disc golf for a few weeks. Bummer.

The showings that I wrote about in a previous entry have not resulted in an offer yet. In fact, we have not heard anything since the showings. That is a little disappointing, but we still trust God to sell our house.

Heidi has been in Seattle since Saturday morning visiting Ed and Amanda and she is finally coming home this afternoon. I miss my Sweet Baboo and am excited for her return.

You'll never believe it

But I enjoyed a musical!!!! I know, I know, a miracle. Last weekend, Tim and I went with some friends to see Linsey in a wonderful rendition of Godspell that she was in. Anyone who knows me, knows I don't really care for theater productions unless they are really good. Otherwise, I find them ridiculously embarassing. But this one was really good and I really enjoyed it. Great job, Lins!

Yay, it's starting!

What a great show! Candace and I were there as well, but behind the camera

A second showing

Today we had a second showing on our house. It is only the second time this has happened since we put it on the market. We are praying that an offer will follow. Our trust in God to sell our house has not waned and we are hopeful that this will result in the sale. Please join us in prayer.

So funny!

So today I'm out running errands. A little stop at Saver's to drop off some donations and then on to the bank. I pull into the drive through and send my checks through the magical zipper dipper into the bank. I turn down my music and wait for my receipt. A moment later the lady inside greets me, well hello, I say. Then she tells me that this bank is now the Franklin Bank, no longer WellsFargo. I bank at WF. It hasn't been WF for over a month. Whoa. Time to switch back to caffeinated coffee!!! I had to laugh. Everyone inside was laughing too. So I drove back to Saver's.....since the new WF is right next door. I had driven right past it 5 minutes before. Whoa.

Coming home

Late Wednesday night I (Tim) was on an airplane returning from meetings for the NMDP in Charlotte, NC. A young woman was sitting next to me wearing military fatigues. We did not converse until the end of the flight. (I slept most of the flight. I hope I did not snore.) Right before we were leaving the plane I asked her if she was going home. She said that she was returning home to Mankato after a year in Afghanistan. I told her thank you for her service and then her turn came to leave the plane. A few minutes later as I walked up to the baggage claim I saw the woman’s family mob her. Her mother approached her at a run and did not let up the hug for a solid five minutes even when other family members tried to get in. I felt a wave of emotion cover me as I watched the reunion. As I processed the interaction, I thought about Heaven. The Bible makes it clear that when I stand before God and hear him say “well done, good and faithful servant”, that will be the best moment of all time. The God of the universe running to me and welcoming me into Heaven is something I cannot imagine being worthy of, but that is what will happen. Fortunately it is not about my worth, but His grace. How cool is that? It is one of the many reasons I am a Christian.

God's faithfulness

Tim and I have some friends who have adopted 3 beautiful little boys and we have known the family about 2 1/2 years. When we met them, they had just moved to MN from West Africa. One of the boys needed more adequate treatment as he was HIV positive (from his birth mom). About this time in our lives, God was taking us deeper into an understanding of how He views illness and how we can pray with confidence for His will to be done concerning that. So we started praying for complete healing for this little guy. He is real cute by the way. Real cute. He even has red hair :)

We prayed and we prayed. My parents joined us in praying over him and declaring health into his tiny little body. One day, as I was walking and praying I received a picture of a quiver of arrows. And the Lord was saying, "This one's ours. This victory belongs belongs to the Kingdom of God. This boy's healing is going to be one of the arrows in this quiver. And when the enemy comes to intimidate and steal, we can hold this arrow up and say, remember him? He's ours. And Christ healed him."

I tell you what, I was sold. So we continued to pray. A couple weeks ago, we saw our friends and got an update on their son. The last time they had been in to see the Dr. (an Indian Hindu Dr.) the HIV was undetectable in his body. I'm sorry, did I hear you right? Did you say undetectable?

So Mom asked the Dr., "does that mean it's gone and he's healed?"

Dr. replies, or rather stammers, "well, no, I mean, you can't get rid of HIV, it just means it's, uh, it's, uh, undetectable for right now.....um, if he went off meds, it would be seen."

To that I say, whatever, God heals. GOD HEALS!

So we celebrated. We rejoiced. The next day we were at my parents house and man oh man did we praise God! We rejoiced in His goodness and mercy. Maybe you're a skeptic and are thinking, it's still there, it's just undetectable. We believe 100% that our faithful Jesus healed this little boy from HIV.

I share this because the more people who hear and can believe and rejoice, the more glory God gets.

This, my friends, is what we want to see more of in Senegal. We want to see God sweep in in His splendor and blow the socks off the Wolof people. They are ready for it and so are we.