Here is a power point that shows you what we do not see here in the United States:

shock.pps

God Bless,

Mike

catchit.pps

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send along to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:
This “joke” today is not intended to be a joke, it’s not intended to be funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

A prominent American’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could God let something like this happen?”

(Regarding the attacks on September 11)

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.

She said, “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is,I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”

In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc, I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body
found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school…
the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might
damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.

And we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty
member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued (there’s a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.)

And we said OK.

Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won’t even have to tell their parents.

And we said OK.

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they’re going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they
want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school.

And we said OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t
matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.

Then someone said let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body.

And we said OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet.

And we said OK, they’re entitled to free speech.

Then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let’s record music that
encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill
strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.

I think it has a great deal to do with

“WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but
question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people
think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is
suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… No one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

Are you thinking?

To the coaches

If you can send out 1 more reminder to your parents to have them attend the PACT training this upcoming Sunday

The link is below to register

http://www.mnyouthsoccer.org/pac/workshops.cfm

I really want the sidelines on both the parent and coach side to be a better place

Two Choices

What would you do? You make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: ‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do.

He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’  Shay’s father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a bro a d smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father’s joy at his son being accepted In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.  Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.  The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first! Run to first!’ Nev er i n his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’ Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball … the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third! Shay, run to third!’

As Sh ay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’ Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.  If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the ‘appropriate’ ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘natural order of things.’ So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.

You now have two choices:

1. Delete

2. Forward

May your day, be a Shay Day.

John Becker

You have to have an open mind. Don’t look for a Baby, and you will see the Baby!   Once you see it you won’t see anything else!!!

A Grizzly Day

Do you ever wonder if all your life’s training was to prepare you for one moment?  In retrospect, Saturday seems like that day.

The setting is our 30-bed mission hospital with a two and a half bed E.R., running on generator power since the electricity was out to our section of the country, with one doctor, one resident, one intern and two nurses on duty on a Saturday morning.  At 10:15 AM a bus crashes and overturns on the road winding down from the Andes towards the Amazon, about a 25-minute drive from the hospital.

Six are dead on the scene.  Bystanders begin loading other victims into pickup trucks, cars and eventually ambulances to be transported down the road to our hospital or up the road to others.

As soon as we realized the number of wounded arriving (eventually 23), we enacted the finely tuned hospital disaster plan:  call everyone related to the hospital and then some and ask them to come help.  The hospital ambulance trolled through town to find employees and bring them in.

Broken and bloody body after body came through the door and were placed on stretchers or benches in the hallway.  It resembled a scene from a war movie.  The amount of blood and gravity of the injuries were overwhelming.  We made quick triage decisions as we decided one victim was too far gone to save – we stopped resuscitation and pushed the body to the end of the hallway to free up space for others that could be saved.  The number of critical patients quickly outnumbered our medical personnel.

Four with severe head injuries were intubated and placed on our three ventilators.  Short one ventilator, a patient’s mother-in-law was quickly briefed on how to keep her son-in-law alive by squeezing the ambu bag and ventilating him while we moved on to other patients.  She kept it up for two hours before he was transferred.

Victims were labeled with tags with numbers and brief exam findings.  Only later were people identified.  Some of the injured had to identify their severely wounded or dead relatives for us.

One scene still plays in my head.  A 21-year old American girl wandering through the E.R. door with the entire right side of her face from her nose to her ear hanging off, exposing her skull, the skin held up by her right hand, obviously in shock mumbling, “Does anyone speak English, does anyone speak English?”  A missionary took her off for treatment.

Everyone came to help.  All of the missionary doctors, various spouses — even the kitchen, janitorial, maintenance and administrative staff of the hospital were all enlisted in some way.  Our administrator’s wife found herself shaving and prepping victims’ heads for suturing.  Missionaries and staff dontated blood that was immediately transfused into patients — the closest blood bank was unable to process blood due to the power outage.

A call for help to the nearest hospital brought another five Ecuadorian doctors, among them a much needed orthopedist and general surgeon plus two radiology techs to help with the numerous x-rays.

In all, two patients died, six critical head injury patients were transferred for CT evaluation, several underwent major surgery for internal bleeding or extensive suturing and the remainder had lacerations sutured and fractures splinted or casted.

There were numerous heart-wrenching stories.  An injured mother with a one-month old baby identifying her dead husband, her four nephews and nieces severely injured as well, their own mother later found dead at another hospital 45 minutes away.  Another mother with her severely injured five-year old son at our hospital, her daughter in another hospital and her husband in even another one two hours away undergoing neurosurgery to remove blood clots from his brain.  The American girl, severely disfigured, far from home and alone, in such shock she could only worry about her missing backpack that contained all her research data for her graduate thesis.

And there were bright spots.  The incredible spirit of teamwork in a gruesome situation, the accidental transfer of anonymous patients (who ended up being related) to the same hospital, gravely injured patients whose lives were saved.  I’m proud of a dedicated staff that freely gave their all to help in a horrendous situation.

The following day we airlifted seven more patients (paid for by the local ministry of health, a miracle in itself) to other hospitals for further treatment and discharged the least of the wounded, an 80-year old woman with a small cut on her forehead.

Missionaries contacted the relatives of the American girl, notified the U.S. Embassy, made lodging and transportation arrangements for the family, arranged for her transfer to a Quito hospital and welcomed her there with hospital visits by English-speakers.  Another very determined missionary traveled to two separate towns, three different police stations and the regional transportation office in search of the backpack.  She even searched the wreckage of the entire bus and found nothing.  Eventually, in a locked storeroom in a ministry of transportation office in a town two hours away she found the backpack, still sealed with all the girl’s research data, cash, credit cards and passport.  It arrived in Quito today.

I’m not sure how to end except to ask for your prayers for the numerous victims and their grieving families and for a shocked hospital staff that experienced a lot more than they ever bargained for.

January 22, 2008

If you would like to read it in word format please click here or you can read below:

We hope that your Christmas and New Years were filled with joy, love and praise! We also hope you found time to slow down, enjoy the season, spend time with family and loved ones, and worship our creator!

We had a great Christmas and were blessed to spend some time with both of our families! It was great, and we know it may not always be that way because Mike’s parents are not usually in the States for Christmas time, so we cherished our time with them, as well as with Mike’s older sister, her husband, and two little girls. We enjoyed great food and fun times with my family as well, and continue to be incredibly blessed to live close to them!

Mike and I are very happy to report that Mike found a job! He started working for Spectrum Staffing almost a month ago. He uses his Spanish almost all daylong because he is a Bilingual Staffing Coordinator, and basically he helps Latins (as well as some other people) find jobs. He loves his job, and has had the opportunity to meet some people from Ecuador! We both know his job is from God because the job found him more than he found the job. Also, the people he works for are believers, and they have given Mike permission to pray with any of his clients as the Lord leads. They also allow him to hand out Bilingual Bibles! Mike often jokes that he is getting paid to be a missionary! It was and continues to be a huge blessing.

I, Lindy, have been doing well also. I am working on classes online, and preparing for the baby. My belly is growing lots because the baby now weighs somewhere around 4 ¾ pounds and is around 18 inches long! His or her main priority is to gain weight, and his or her lungs and nervous system are maturing more and more each day. It is amazing to learn about what our little one is going through, and I am always amazed at how much my belly can stretch. Being pregnant has opened my eyes more and more to how amazing our Creator is. His design is so perfect and wonderful.

Mike and I are cherishing our last days without a little one around as much as possible. We are also looking to become involved with some local ministries. We have a possible opportunity to work with a Latin Church-plant, and we are also looking to get more involved with our home church. We are very excited to see where the Lord takes us in regards with the new opportunities before us.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read our little update! We hope it found you well. May the Lord bless you richly!

Love,
Mike and Lindy

Prayer Requests
•    Pray for the health of our baby and for my, Lindy’s, health as the big day draws nearer.
•    Pray for Mike that he would be a witness at his job.
•    Pray that we would follow the Lord’s leading as we look to become involved with different ministries.

http://ktisblog.skylightradio.org/main/2007/12/21/logan-the-nebraska-cowboy/

Police were searching a home in suburban Denver early today (Monday, Dec 10), as they looked for clues in deadly attacks at two Colorado religious institutions on the weekend. The two shootings, the first at the Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Missionary Center in Arvada and the second at New Life Church, a Colorado Springs megachurch, that left a gunman and four victims dead along with six wounded.

Authorities believe it was the same gunman, identified as 24-year-old Matthew Murray of Englewood, Colo., who went on the shooting rampage at both locations. Court papers say the shooter was a frustrated would-be missionary kicked out of the YWAM youth program three years who sought revenge by killing four people in Arvada and Colorado Springs.

“Through both investigations it has been determined that most likely the suspect in both shootings are one in the same,” police wrote.

“The common denominator in both locations is a church-based group called Youth with a Mission,” Detective Bradley Pratt wrote in court papers. “It appears that the suspect had been kicked out of the program three years prior and during the past few weeks had sent different forms of hate mail to the program and/or its director.”

In the first incident, the lone gunman entered the YWAM facility in the Denver suburb of Arvada at about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 9. Police said a man with a beard, wearing a dark jacket, glasses, and skullcap, got into a dispute with a staff member about whether he could stay there for the night. When the staff member refused, the gunman opened fire, hitting four members of the staff. All were taken to local hospitals and two later died of their injuries.

The deceased have been identified as Tiffany Johnson, 26, from Minnesota and Philip Crouse, 24, from Alaska. Both served as staff members at the YWAM Arvada campus. The third victim, Dan Griebenow, 24, has a bullet in his neck and is listed in critical but stable condition. The fourth victim Charlie Blanch, 22, suffered gunshot wounds to his legs.

Investigators tried to track the gunman through fresh snow with the help of dogs, but lost his trail in a heavily walked area, said Deputy Chief Gary Creager of Arvada police.

The second shooting began shortly after 1 p.m. at the church — about 70 miles south of Arvada — when a black-clad gunman opened fire on worshipers at New Life Church, killing two (one who died immediately and the other who later died in the hospital) and wounding four. A female security guard confronted and killed the shooter. Lt. Skip Arms of the Colorado Springs Police Department said she likely “saved this tragedy from becoming a lot worse than it is.”

Killed at New Life were 18-year-old Stephanie Works and her sister, 16-year-old Rachael Works. Their father, David Works, who was shot twice and remains hospitalized in fair condition. His wife, Marie Works, and two other daughters were uninjured.

Peter Warren, director of YWAM Denver, said the young man “must have been going through a lot personally in his own life to do something like this. Our belief is that only God is the judge and our place is to forgive. That’s a difficult thing to do, but really, I think it’s the right thing to do.”

The approximately 80 people living on the Arvada campus have been transported to the group’s mountain campus near Golden, Colo., where they will stay while the murder investigation is processed at their residence. Warren says they are trying to deal with this situation as best as they can.

“There’s no blueprint for this,” said Warren. “You know, we’re just going to be honest, we’re going to pray with one another and cry with one another. These kids were like our kids, you know. It’s just such a tragedy, but who knows what’s going on in this young man’s life.”

In a press conference, New Life Senior Pastor Brady Boyd added, “My heart is broken today for the people who lost their lives.” He added that the church had a security plan in place, but he credits the security officer for saving “many, many” lives through her actions.

Boyd added that church officials considered the attack on New Life a random act. “We don’t know the shooter. He has no connection to our church,” he said. “Please pray for our church; pray for the people who were injured.”

New Life Church was founded by Ted Haggard who was forced out after admitting in November 2006 to sexual immorality and purchasing methamphetamines from a gay escort. Boyd took over as pastor in August 2007.

The New Life Church shooting tore apart a close-knit and deeply religious family, killing two of four teenage children and wounding the father, relatives said today.