Thankful!

Barry

First and foremost I know and love Jesus with all of my heart! More importantly, He loves ME! Wow! The King of the Universe loves me!

I'm thankful for so many things:

My wonderful husband - Pastor J was over this week to bid a job on our roof and he asked me something I don't know if I have ever been asked before...he asked me if Barry has treated me good through this whole chemo thing. I really thought he was kidding, but quickly realized he wasn't. I told him Barry had treated me great through this entire thing and his response was something like, it is good to have good marriages. I don't ever want to take that for granted again. I didn't mean to, it's just our way of life!

My daughter & son-in-law - that they love God and each other so much. It's awesome to see them together and how much love and respect they have.

My wonderful grand kids - they are truly lights in what we will call "a tough time". They are always smiling and laughing and making us laugh. It's so fun and such an honor to be able to watch them grow. You see, my prayer to God is that I will be able to dance at each of their weddings!

Our many, many friends. It is incredible how many people show that they care and love you when you are going t-h-r-o-u-g-h tough times. Thanks be to God for each of you!

My heritage. My home church, where I learned much about God and His love for me while I was growing up. Speaking of that, Barry and I often say that we don't know of another group of people from church that has kept up with each other throughout the years like this group.

My husband's job. It's not something to take for granted these days. We have wonderful insurance and that is a true blessing, especially given what I have gone through. 5 days in the hospital was $57,000 and we didn't have to pay one red cent. One of God's blessings that can't be appreciated enough.

The Prison Ministry that God has given us. We have gained so many friends from this ministry. I'm talking about the inmates and former inmates! It is awesome!

Yes, God has been good to us and kept us and loves and protects us.

Jeremiah 29:11 (TMSG)

I know the plans I have for you.

Plans to give you the future you hoped for.

That verse certainly applies to all of us!

The Homeless

Last week while we were in Florida, we ran across some homeless people. They were living under a bridge with tents. We did not take these particular pictures, however, you get the idea! We both have a heart for the hurting, whether it is the homeless, the prisoners or the migrant workers. Oh yeah, we saw a field full of them too!

We have ministered to all of these types of people in our lives and miss doing that. It hurt our hearts to see people homeless and people that are migrants...the little kids and all.

Personally, I don't believe that most of us thank God enough for all that we do have. We may have it rough in one way or another, but still, we need to pray for these people.

We did a Migrant Ministry for 4 years while we were with Pastor Teague. It was one of the most life changing things that ever happened in our lives. We ministered to about 400 people every year. It became such an awesome thing to watch the little children grow up and get excited to come to this ministry. Between the Migrant Ministry and the Prison in one year we saw nearly 200 souls saved. We had a Spanish Band (Emmanuel) come in from Canada and they were able to minister both in Music and the Word. It was an awesome time in all of our lives.

Prior to that we ministered at Cass Corridor downtown to the homeless. One of the Thanksgivings we had nearly 500 people come out. I don't remember how many got saved during that year but I know it was a large number of them.

Often times as Christians, we "look down" on the type of people mentioned above, but God has told us to minister to them. If you can't go in person, could you at least pray for them? Sometimes we feel like we don't know what God wants us to do for Him, but we can always pray. Those prayers are bottled up in Heaven. What a great reward we will reap!

I'm Back!!

We went to Florida for a week. It was a very different vaca for us. We generally go to Florida at least once a year and generally we stay about 10 days. This time we stayed 7 days, about 3 too many.

When we first got there, we got off of the plane in Tampa and went over to Lakeland to catch the "Boys of Summer" at their Spring Training. It was, as always, a great experience. We couldn't get any tickets for the seats, so we sat on the grass and we enjoyed it so much. We took lots and lots of pictures and they are awesome! We left there and went to St. Pete to the Pier. It was also an awesome time. We sat on the pier and watched the dolphins frolic...something neither of us had seen before. We got sunburned and even enjoyed the sunburn.

We got up the next morning and went to Sunken Gardens. It was so pretty! Color EVERYWHERE! That's what we were looking for. That took us about 2 hours. When I transfer the pictures from my laptop to this computer, I will post a picture or two. We also went to Cypress Gardens and it was just eye popping! The colors were the best there of anywhere.

Generally we get out and explore some out of the way places...just neighborhoods or anything we happen to see along the way we think might be interesting. It was way too cool this time. We wore sweatsuits much of the time. One night it got down to 39. Not good or funny when you are going there for the warmth of the sun.

The traffic in Florida is INCREDIBLE. At least where we were. We were supposed to go to our friend's condo in Stuart, but decided after being in so much traffic and it taking twice as long to get anywhere than it should have, that it would be too much on me.

We were going to go to Gatlinburg next month, but now I think we will wait until at least May so it will be warm!

Victorious Life Weekend

This weekend we went to our former Pastor's church in Ohio. They had the Mime Boyz from Orlando there, as well as Bishop William Lee from Cleveland, TN. What an awesome time in the Lord we had. We have needed something like this for a long, long time. It will certainly not be our last time to go to Ohio.

While we were there some of the people from Harvest had come down and we renewed our friendships and love for each other.

God has done so much in our lives and I am truly thankful. What an exciting time! Since Pastor Teague (PT) left, we just haven't been able to find where we belong. We have been wandering around in the wilderness looking for someone that has a HUGE vision for souls for the Kingdom of God. We keep telling him that he ruined us! He is SUCH a visionary!

PT told Barry that if he would just accept the buyout from Ford, he would put him to work down there...for free, of course. Not! We would have to leave our family...those little grands are grand and I can hardly go a day without seeing them.

Don't you see that children (and I'm sure grandchildren) are God's best gift? Psalms 127:3 TMSG

Spring - It Can't Come Soon Enough!

Do you see those flowers? That's how I feel, all happy and excited just thinking about Spring coming. I can't wait. I know that I'm a bit early, but, hey...it's my favorite time of the year.

Everything is fresh and new. You can plant flowers and clean up your yard in preparation for summer. It's just an exciting time.

Every year we go to Florida around this time to escape the winter blahs! This year has been harder than any other, so we are nearly ready to go.

Well, is anybody with me or am I all by myself? It's been the l-o-n-g-e-s-t winter, but fear not, Spring is just about to jump in the middle of it all!

To Everything There Is A Purpose - Ecclesiastes 3:1

Vision

It's one thing to be physically blind, but quite another to have sight and not have vision for your life.

Can you imagine being in the middle of your life and not knowing where you are going, what you are doing? What God's purpose is for you?

We are generally very active in church and in the prisons. That hasn't been the case since I have been incapacitated for a while. We feel purposeless. We have to wait to get the ok to go back into the prisons and then we will sit down again and rebuild our vision. We have felt like we are perishing, doing nothing much for the Lord.

We have been praying a lot. God is so good to even allow us to pray for others. We appreciate that.

Where there is no vision, the people perish - Proverbs 29:18

Hello, God, Are You There?

While going through this most horrific time of my life, there have been days that I felt as though Heaven was totally shut up! Hopefully, God doesn't feel that way about me.

I can remember one time I was laying in the hospital bed and I was sick and throwing up and I don't remember much, but I asked God...is there anyone out there praying for me? Just one of "The Saints?" Being that sick I felt that I just needed someone to be praying for me. I knew that they were, but it was a rough time.

God already answered that question in Hebrews 13:5 (TMSG) when he said "I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you," we can boldy quote God is there, ready to help!

No matter what you are going through today, remember that God will never leave you or forsake you!

Have a blessed day of the Lord!

Do You Have Faith for the Crisis or Crisis Faith?

Fortunately for me, I have faith for the crisis at hand. By the time you are in a crisis, if you haven't learned to walk in faith or aren't sure what you believe, it's hard to get where you need to be. It is still possible though! With God ALL things are possible!

I am definitely one that believes God says what He means and means what He says. As time goes on, I will continue to share some of the things that God has shared with me.

I still have much work to do here, my journey is not over. I have lots and lots of prisoners to touch before my time here is done.

I still have our daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren that I want to see doing something great for God. That is my desire. God says He will give us the desires of our heart.

In the Message Bible - Jeremiah 29:11 says: I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for!

Thanks to all of you that encouraged me today. I haven't figured out how to answer you yet, but I will get it!

Have a God-filled day!

Peace That Passes All Understanding!

Since I am beginning my 1st blog, I am not sure how often I will blog, but here goes!

Hopefully it will be an encouragement to someone! Someone who is going through what I have been going through!

I was driving down the expressway minding my own business on Thursday in May 2006 when God interrupted my thoughts. He told me that just one drop of His precious blood would heal anyone. Just ONE! I thought, great, this is what I will speak on tonight at the ladies prison. I just hadn't gotten anything to speak on before that. I knew that I was supposed to go home and mix up some red food coloring with water and put it in a bottle with a eye dropper.

I was on my way to get my nails done. Then I realized, I better stop and get gas, cause I wouldn't want to mess my nails up after I got them done. As I was at the gas station, my cell phone rang. When it did, I couldn't tell who was calling, so I answered it. It was my doctor's office. My cancer levels were up! Not a good phone call. I wasn't worried about it though, well, maybe a little bit, but not too much. I had been trying to get this blood test for about 6 months but the doctor's office said that insurance wouldn't cover it. I finally got pretty aggressive with them and they gave me the test.

I went and got my nails done. My mind was wandering a little here and there. All of a sudden I realized that I couldn't take that "blood" into the prison. That Word was for ME!

We went to the prison that night and ministered on healing. I asked the ladies to pray for me and then I asked each of them that currently had cancer to come up for prayer or those that had previously had cancer to come up for prayer. There were probably about 10 ladies that came forward. One of the ladies had just passed from cancer, so it was hard for them.

I took in scriptures for them to read over and over and over because hearing comes by the Word. It just depends how many times we want to hear it. It depends how many times we decide to let it into our Spirit and our hearts. The more we say it, the more we believe it and faith begins to rise up!

I went to the doctor the next week and he didn't have good news. I needed to go find an Oncologist. At that point, we decided that I needed to change doctors. I needed someone that understood how important these blood tests were.

I went to a doctor that was new. Whether she was new to the practice of totally new to the profession, she did not say. We believe she was just new to the practice. She told me that the cancer had spread from my colon (which I had in 2004) and it had gone into my liver and possibly lungs. Well, that surely wasn't what I expected. She also told me that she had seen only one person live more than 3 years with what I had, but most that she knew of only lived 12 - 20 months. Great diagnosis! Not exactly what you want to hear. She was very calloused and cold. She would give me chemo and I would be without life in a short time. 12 - 20 months is a very long time if you are waiting for something exciting to happen in your life; i.e. wedding, new home being built or whatever else you are looking forward to. 12 - 20 months when it comes to your life is VERY short.

Since we had already been through Colon cancer in 2004, we knew that it wasn't a fun time we were facing. I had taken chemo pills for 6 months and then the doctor never said another word to me. I assumed (without much intelligence) that I was cancer free. He never offered to test me or anything else. I didn't know because they said that no cancer had gotten out of the enclosed colon. The chemo was just a precaution.

I was telling my girlfriend about how this lady doctor treated us when we went to her office. She called back and said that her brother's Oncologist wanted to see me right away, that day. We believe then and now, that it was a God-thing. How many doctors do you know that ask to see you, especially when they don't even know you?

I have now been through 4 months of chemotherapy and most of the cancer is gone. I am now in treatment every other Monday for this antibody to kill the rest of the small cells that are there. The tumors have reduced greatly and the doctor still expects them to completely be gone.

Will post more later!