Monday, October 3, 2005

It has been one week now that I have brought Mom home from the hospital. The surgery took 
longer than expected but went well. She now has a new and modified Pacemaker, deliberator. 
The aggressive diuretics went well although this type of medication/treatment causes great 
pain in her abdomen. The trip to nuclear medicine for the thyroid scan has been postponed 
until tomorrow morning and will be a two day three trip process. She will be given her 
isotopes tomorrow morning at 8:45a and then return at 4:00 for her 1st scan, and then 
the next morning at 8:45a for the next scan. The running around tires her out pretty much. 
The sense and the need for control grows as she looses more and more control. Remembrance 
of having difficulty while Fran was experiencing this is teaching me a lot right now. I 
have learned not to take it personally, but it does drain my energy to work at not 
responding in the old ways that increases her need for control, rather than trusting 
in God, hence trusting in those around.

I ventured into a new church today. This was my third one since arriving in Santa Rosa. 
The first church was good, but felt a little uncomfortable and only one person was will 
to speak with me. The second was a Calvary church. My thoughts were that the Vineyard 
stem in some way from Calvary and would be somewhat similar. Yet, to my dismay as I set 
in that service I thought of the story by Max Lucado about the candles in the closet and 
no one was ready to step out and be of service. This would be either in a small way or a 
larger way. The end of the story reveals that the candles had been bought at a sell given 
from a church that had “died.” Today I visited the Hessel Church. This was a wondrous 
adventure for me in many ways. In living at the “Ranch” I used to drive 30-45 minutes from 
the country to town to go to church, in this instance I had to drive 30 minutes from town 
to the country to attend church. Also, can you imagine a spirit filled Vineyard with a few 
alterations? Pews! No coffee! No hands in submission during worship. Yet, I was greeted at 
the door, there was an information counter, and the teaching was great! On my home page I 
have put a link to their homepage incase anyone is interested. I will visit there a couple 
of more times to see if the Lord is going before me and leading me here. I have already 
discussed ministry opportunities with someone today. Yet, except behind the info counter 
all the servants during service seemed to be ‘men.’ 

Mike went in to see the doctor this Thursday, and the swelling in his lungs has gone down 
a couple of points since two weeks ago. He seems to think this is very good news since 
they have postponed his treatments with the experimental drug. He is having difficulty 
with getting rid of the Pneumonia. He did mention that they would like him to consider 
surgery where they would remove a portion of his right lung. He is very scared and nervous,
but is glad for the delay in anything, as he is still uncertain about any treatments.

I have decided to also ready a prayer request list. Please visit this page as prayer 
is extremely important in our closeness and relationship with the Lord as well as with 
each other. I continue to miss all of you very much. I have almost completed the reading 
of 1 Samuel. It is has been very good for me in reading this portion of the Word. So much 
can be reinforced and learned as revelation. The Spirit works in wondrous ways. The current
book I am reading is “Jesus, the Miracle Worker.” I am fascinated with the history, 
theology, and philosophy behind this book and the miracles, or the idea of miracles to 
begin with.

Just a word in short…A reminder that that this is clergy/pastor appreciation month!!!!