Are You Living?

As I was heading up to the seminary, slowly weaving through the traffic, I caught the words to the song...

Today I found myself,
After searching all these years,
And the man that I saw,
He wasn't at all who I'd thought He'd be,
I was lost when You found me here,
And I was broken beyond repair,
Then You came along and sang Your song over me


It feels like I'm born again
It feels like I'm living
For the very first time
For the very first time,
In my life
(Third Day, Born Again)

It was so appropriate for the moment.  The service I was heading to was about re-birth.  It was about getting a new body.

My colleague and friend, Dr. Rio, had a radical transformation in 2005.  He had slipped into a coma because his kidneys were failing.  While in the coma, God clearly called him.  Dr. Rio heard God say to him "everything you have heard and read about me is TRUE."  Dr. Rio miraculously came out of the coma, and had an intense hunger and thirst to seek God.  He took his family to the church on the seminary campus and that began his transformation.  Dr. Rio fell head over heel for God and served him with all his might, doing medical missions, offering free clinics to his people, and going to seminary to become a preacher, all the while, going three times every week for dialysis. 

This past Monday, Dr. Rio had yet another radical transformation.  Dr. Rio was completely healed, and he received his new body.  Jesus called him home.

As I was going to his service, listening to this song, I couldn't help but think about each one of us.  We have the opportunity to really live, or to walk around like the dead. 

We had another tragedy this week in our Nazarene schools here in the Philippines.  The president of our Visayan Nazarene Bible College also got called home to her perfectly healed, new body.  She was just diagnosed in January with cancer, and is now free and clear. 

This has been a difficult week with all the trauma in Japan, the fighting in the middle east, and right here in our community, the passing of two very prominent people of our body.

But......God comes along and sings his song over us, we can be born again, we get to live despite our circumstances.  He is God, and He is offering us life!  WOW! 

Dr. Rio knew that he was going to lose the battle with his kidneys eventually, yet it didn't stop him from living.  All of us are going to lose this battle with our earthly bodies eventually, yet, that doesn't have to keep us from really living now....with peace.....with joy.....with God singing over us.

I hope you can sing that song with all your heart.  If you cant, seek God....he promises to show himself to those who seek him.  He loves us so very, very much!!

Please Pray With Us

We are at an exciting place with Mari!  She is really wanting to learn, and wanting to be in school :)  She will be six years old on the 18th of this month.  She is acting just like all six year-olds in that she is like a sponge, taking in and soaking up the things she is taught.  We are so excited about where she is.  It is by far greater than what we expected when the doctor first told us she had Down Syndrome.

We have spent several hours in meetings and in discussions with the administration of the kids school about the possibilities of Mari continuing to be educated there.  She has been in the 3 year old class this past year and has loved it.  The school has never educated a child with Down Syndrome before, so we are, yet again, in new territory.

What we have come up with is a plan that will require a great miracle.  That is where we really need you all to join with us in prayer.  We are going to pursue enrolling Mari in the kindergarden class this coming August, but she will need to have a shadow teacher.   Eric and I need to find the shadow teacher, and pay for her.  She will also have to go through the schools approval process.

So, here is how we are asking for you to join us in prayer.....

1. That we will completely rest in the fact that God knows exactly what Mari needs and that we just need to allow him to be God and take care of his precious daughter.
2. That God will raise up someone with experience with Down Syndrome, whose native language is English, or who has mastery over the Engish language.
3.  That this person would be a perfect fit with Mari, with the Kindergarten teacher, and with the class as a whole.
4.  That God would provide the necessary funds to compensate this portion of her education.

We know that God is going to continue to take care of what she needs.  We also know that he could totally surprise us and do something totally different than what we are praying for.

Thank you for praying with us.  Your prayers are essential in the battle that rages.

I would also like to give you a little follow up on...

1.  Luke is doing just fine and has healed wonderfully from his concussion :)  He spent a couple of very "boring" weeks taking it very easy and not doing much of anything, but he is back at life, full speed.  Thank you for praying for him during his healing.

2.  The monitor lizard wouldn't eat, so we let him go :)  He was pretty scary anyway.  Luke said a couple days later that he only had one more creature he needed to catch....a python.  Lucky for him we have seen them around.  Oh dear!

May God bless you today on your journey.  He is beautiful beyond what we ever deserve!  Rest in his grace today!  I will leave you with some words from a song that I pray ministers to you today as much as they have ministered to me....

Sparks will fly as grace colides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come over us
His blood can cover us!