Psalm 116:7-11,15

"Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
For You have rescued my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
My feet from stumbling.
I shall walk before the Lord
In the land of the living...

Precious in the sight of the Lord
Is the death of His godly ones."

This is John doing what he loved... cleaning up Helene. His ministry was showing God's love to the people of Helene through serving them and cleaning up their island.

As Larry said today, Christians do not die or pass away.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23

John passed on last Wednesday evening (July 12, 2006). The Bible uses the term "falling asleep," which seems even more appropriate. We fall asleep and wake up in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ! We wake up more alive than ever... praise God!

Please do keep Mary and her family in your prayers, as they are missing him greatly. I pray that his young son and 10 month daughter can have some stories and pictures to remember him by. If not, we will have to help make sure they know what an amazing father they had.

encouraging passages

these past weeks have shown me over and over that we can make all the plans we want, but God's timing is perfect and good. while we have good ideas, or so we think, when God changes it up we are not to get discouraged or frustrated... whether it appears good or bad... it is an opportunity to glorify Him rather than ourselves.

It is easy to get discouraged and feel like everything is falling apart, but that is exactly what the enemy wants us to do. I may be sad, and that's okay, but I give it up to God and let Him take care of it.

"I know Lord that a person's life is not his own, no one is able to plan his own course. So correct me, Lord, but please be gentle" Jeremiah 10:23-24

(I don't know what translation this is but I like it... it's from my calendar for this month... how perfect!)

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temoral, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

muddy jungle hike!

still clean as we embarked on our adventure...Ewings had no idea what he was getting himself into :)


Ewings called these cahone (sp?) plants (cousin to coconut). the first part of our hike was through the rainforest-like bush... swinging on vines, machete-ing plants (we left that part to Ewings), and drinking water from freshly cut vines


we all got a chance to swing like tarzan...although ewings was the best at it


an awesome rock i'd love to climb someday... ewings did it in about 30 seconds like it was nothin

 

more mud hike...

Ewings (EwEw) leading us through the mangroves and mud... which was like quicksand. one wrong step and we were up to our knees in mud and unable to get out... which was our motivation for going on the hike... getting muddy :)

in fact, two of the girls got so stuck Ewings had to pull them out, and we were all laughing so hard one of the girls peed her pants... still stuck in the mud... so funny

then... we were under a huge bee hive and they started coming at us so we started running... but i stepped in really deep mud while running and got completely stuck. i was laughing so hard i couldn't get my leg out... then Ewings and I started getting stung by bees so i left my shoe in the mud, he dug it out, and we got away...


a small cave with hundreds of bats... that WERE sleeping until Ewings started yelling and throwing stuff in the cave to make them fly out... AT us!


our muddy legs and feet after the hike... we ended up going into the ocean with our shoes and clothes on just to wash them off a little


tough girls :) from left: danielle, allison, katie, kristi, aubrey, and me (girls from the sunset pres team)

 

a taste of chicago

crystal and lisa at college station waiting for the train (which we risked missing in order to get our coffee... priorities)


weird blob-art-sculpture thing


under the weird blob thing... can you see us?!


expensive little tickets... but so much fun! we actually made up for it by getting to the art museum free by having water and diet coke in the garden cafe inside the museum... which the bartender gave to us for free! :) a security guard gave us the little tip so we could "stick it to the man"

 

purity conference

the Methodist Church decorated for the conference. Jeanie (Ft. Myers team) planned this young girls' conference to be a candle lit service that focused on the Father's love for them and His desire for purity.


the women who helped in the conference in front of the church. Jeanie (middle...next to me), with God's guidance, planned this entire conference. she did an amazing job and loves these young women. Emily (the other side of me), Sheila, and I also shared in the conference, which was a great mix of joking and laughter and honest sharing of our hearts and testimonies.


my Bible study girls!!! from left in back: Kathy, Louellie, Jessica, Sue Ellen, Allison; front row: Sharby, Zanoli, and Saroli... i love these girls!


the girls were lavished with gifts... these red blankets, cds of worship music, red roses, and more. not only did they walk away with gifts, but a better understanding of God's love. and many felt open enough to talk to us and ask questions in the following weeks.

 

Parrot Tree

in the middle is Angela, who has served in Roatan for about 6 years with her husband, Greg Ruark. they are good friends of ours and are now moving home to the States. we will help to keep the monthly church service on Roatan going as they were the couple that planted the church.

 

micromissions

Team Helene and Life Church (who were here for 5 days in May... but in that short time seemed to become part of the team). From left: Paul, Falon, Jim, Larry, Rosemary, Amber, Emily, me, Sheila, Joe, Donna, and Deirdre

 

my worst fear

days before this boa was found under our clinic i was crawling around under the building looking for the cause of the horrible stench upstairs (it turned out to be the fridge leaking water that had molded...think the scent of pig poop... so gross) . anyway... i KNEW there was a snake down there and was laughed out of town when i said so... and what do ya know?! i was right :)

 

bugs from the pit of hell-ene

this centipede was in my towel as i was drying off from a shower... i didn't find it until i was about to wrap it around my head... the discovery was soon followed by me screaming and running downstairs looking for Joe to kill it


the sick thing wouldn't die... Joe stepped on it and as i went to pick it up it started squirming away... and it took 4 more stomps to kill it. these centipedes are actually really poisonous so i am still a little freaked out... i check both sides of my towel before using it

 

goin fishinin'

the Fort Myers team came down in June and put on a big fishing tournament in which all the islanders and some of the staff were able to compete. Emily and I were going to go out with Marjie (left) and Cleo (middle) but the seas were rough and it was storming the first day (and our boat broke down before we ever got in it!).

The next day Em and I went out with Peter and fished for sharks... to no avail. But we did get sea sick so it wasn't a total loss :)


These are the winners of the fishinin' contest. The winners included a 39 inch barracuda and a huge wahu (pronounced wa-hoo)... next year i hope to be up there with a trophy for the shark i'm gonna catch :)

 

so nasty

this is snickers--she thinks she is our dog, but she is wrong. one day she showed up to the clinic looking like this... at first deirdre and i thought she had junk in her eyes....

but then we realized, those are TICKS! EWWWW. so we tried to get her to hold still to burn them off, but she ran away crying (i can't imagine why) and the ticks somehow came off on their own.

i have also had a few ticks, but was able to get them off before they got this big. just thought it would be fun to share a little bit of daily life on helene with you all :)