Relief!

Thanks to your prayers and God's grace, Mom's magnesium citrate did finally start moving through about 10 PM last night, approximately 14 hours after she drank it. The remaining vestiges of it are still working their way through now. (The bottle says it should have worked in 1/2 hour to 6 hours.) While we still don't know what is causing her intestines to work so erratically, we're grateful that this point of crisis has passed.

Mom in Great Pain, Please Pray

Hi friends,

Today has been a really tough one for Mom. Yesterday, since things have been pretty much staying the same for several weeks now, she did more research on what would be necessary for her to have a colonoscopy, which is the only procedure any doctor has suggested. There are basically three dangers for her in having a colonoscopy:

1. That she would not be able to expel the gallon of "Go Litely" that is required before a colonoscopy. This liquid is supposed to "clean you out" so that there can be a successful insertion of the colonoscope. But if your problem is that you can't get cleaned out... and that liquid gets trapped partway through... well, you can imagine the result.
2. That she would have a reaction to odors in the procedure room (perfumes, deodorants, laundry detergent, etc.). Amazingly, a female gastroenterologist in Flagstaff that Mom happened to check with is also sensitive to perfume and has standing orders for her techs not to wear perfume. So that's a good lead.
3. That she would have a reaction to the anesthetic (sedative) used during the procedure. For a normal person, this is not a significant risk, but for chemically sensitive people like Mom, this is a serious risk. She has been investigating alternative anesthetics that are better tolerated by chemically sensitive people.

One of the people she spoke with yesterday told her that if she was concerned that she would not be able to pass the "Go Litely", she could use a couple bottles of Magnesium Citrate to sort of do a preliminary flush during the days just before taking the Go Litely. The idea being to sort of make Go Litely's job a bit easier and increase the likelihood that it will come through.

She's tried Mag Citrate several times during the last few months. It's only worked minimally. She decided she would try taking it again to verify how much of a "pre-flush" it would actually cause. She took a bottle yesterday and several hours later it came through, minimally. She took another bottle this morning and it has NOT come through. The liquid is just sitting in her intestines.

Normally when we drink liquid, it is absorbed from the intestine and expelled as urine. Mag Citrate works by drawing water back into your intestines--basically a chemical way of inducing diarrhea. Until the magnesium citrate is expelled from her intestines, the water will continue to sit there and will not reabsorb into the body. She is in excruciating pain, barely able to get up out of a chair. Your prayers for her would be greatly appreciated right now. Thank you friends!

A question for my Muslim friends

If my understanding of Islam is correct, Muslims believe that the Bible [or at least the Tawrat (books of Moses), Zabur (Psalms of David) and Injil (Gospels of Jesus)] was originally given by God. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) They believe that the Bible was afterwards corrupted (words changed in order to significantly alter the meaning) so that it is now unreliable as a source of divine truth. The Quran, they believe, is the final revelation from God, and the only one that has not been altered or corrupted in any way.

My question is, do Muslims believe the Bible was corrupted before the Quran was written down, or after the Quran was written down? If any of my Muslim friends who read this would be so kind as to leave a comment explaining the traditional Islamic answer to this question, that would be great.

When Things Seem Incredible...

I find that "incredible" coincidences especially seem to happen when I'm telling someone about Jesus or about the persecuted church.

I know I've been talking about my work with VOM so much lately that you're probably sick of it. Don't worry, I will get back to another topic sooner or later!

However something so neat happened yesterday that you've just got to hear about it!

I was checking references for a man who has applied to become a VOM Area Representative. One of his references was Paul Dye with New Tribes Mission. I remembered reading a book about a NTM pilot named Paul Dye who was captured by the FARC guerillas in Colombia and miraculously escaped. The book, When Things Seem Impossible, was a great encouragement to me. A technically good storyteller could have really spun the tale in a breathtaking way, but what was interesting is that the book is written in a very simple, low-key way, so that the reader is not so much impressed by the writing as by what God did. I won't spoil the story, but the way Paul escaped is clearly supernatural. In fact, afterwards, a Colombian army general publicly gave God the credit for Paul's escape.

So after I did the reference check, of course I asked whether the Paul Dye I was speaking to was the Paul Dye of the story. He was. I told him what a blessing his book had been in my life. Mr. Dye was different than I expected. When I think "pilot" I tend to think of "Air Force pilot" -- someone who is the definition of "Type A". Mr. Dye was very down to earth and humble, the kind of guy who is more comfortable holding a wrench than a telephone. He asked if I had seen the DVD version of the story, and when I said I hadn't, he offered to send me a copy for free! Can't resist an offer like that!

Just another "incredible", undeserved and unexpected blessing from Jesus.

18 Ways to Help the Persecuted Church

1) Become a member of the Be-A-Voice network so you can:
a) Promote prayer for the persecuted church by printing the Be-A-Voice prayer bulletins for distribution in your Bible study group, prayer group, Sunday school class, etc.
b) Send your friends free copies of "Tortured for Christ".
2) Write to imprisoned Christians. You can do this on your own or with a group (www.prisoneralert.com).
3) Distribute VOM newsletters to members of your church.
4) Distribute brochures offering a free VOM newsletter and resource.
5) Maintain an ongoing VOM display in your church.
6) Show a VOM DVD to a congregation, Sunday school class, or Bible study.
7) Invite a VOM speaker to your church (www.VOMMeetings.com).
8) Supply your church's youth department with VOM children’s literature (Kids of Courage).
9) Use VOM material for a vacation Bible school.
10) Encourage your church's high school youth group to watch Underground Reality Vietnam DVD (www.UR-Video.com).
11) Suggest your church host a VOM Saturday conference (888- 330-8015 ext. 429).
12) Sponsor a VOM related project: A Blanket and a Bible, Action Packs, Bibles Unbound.
13) Host a periodic prayer meeting on behalf of the persecuted church.
14) Sponsor a church worker, either individually or through a group (www.pastorsupport.com).
15) Send Bibles to those who do not know Christ in a hostile or restricted country: you can order a Bibles Unbound DVD from www.biblesunbound.com.
16) Take a packet of VOM information to other churches in your area.
17) Bring a group to VOM in Oklahoma as short-term volunteers (http://volunteer.persecution.com).
18) Consider being a volunteer spokesperson for VOM in your area (888-330-8015 ext. 434).

-- from the Be a Voice FAQ page

AFHE 09: New Chances to Trust

Last week God taught me again not to cling to the way He has done things in the past. The 2008 VOM booth at the Arizona Families for Home Education (AFHE) convention was such a fantastic experience that I wanted God to do things exactly the same way again. But He didn’t.

Lu couldn’t come this year because of recovering from her surgery and from the regional conference. (And after standing on my feet for 2 days, I am glad she didn’t attempt it.) And Marva told me at the regional that she had accidentally scheduled another event for this weekend and wouldn’t be able to come either. Yikes! How could I do AFHE without them?

Praise God, I would have the help of Mark for both days this year. He was only able to help one day last year. And John would be available on Saturday. However, that still left us staffed at 2 people on Friday and 3 on Saturday. Last year we had 3 on Friday and 4 on Saturday – and even then were shorthanded.

But I realized out that God had ordained that these women would be unavailable to help this year. I might as well just sit back and anticipate what He would do. After all, God cares about homeschooling families more than I do. God also cares about the persecuted church more than I do. So, God would work it out somehow.

Then I got an idea. The “Z” family, whose daughters provided the music at the regional conference, live in Phoenix. They homeschool. Maybe some of them would be willing to help? I happened to have their email address. Sent them an email and they wrote back quickly, very eager to help for the first day of the conference. (I would later learn that they delayed a family trip so the daughters could help on Friday, leaving for California at 6 PM that night.) Because the 3 daughters are under 20, I was able to get them in as exhibitors for $10 each instead of the $60 each that AFHE charges for adult exhibitors.

There was another problem. The normally impeccable Mr. H made a mistake this year. He shipped out only enough materials for a crowd of 1500 people. Last year there were 4100 at the convention. Mark and I didn’t catch the mistake until about 2 weeks before the convention. After talking with Mr. H, we decided to try to wing it just using what he’d sent and the “stash” of stuff we already had on hand. I picked up some leftovers from the regional conference too. Once again, another chance to trust God.

Last year in two days at the conference we got 130 sign ups (and worked very hard for these). We had a tough location towards the back of the exhibit hall. This year we had a much better location and the exhibit hall was better arranged (food on the opposite side from the entrance so people had to walk across the exhibit hall to get their food).

This year, in just the first day, we had about 180 sign ups!

Last year Lu, Marva, and I had spent the night in hotels in downtown Phoenix. That had worked out well and I even got to distribute tracts at a Diamondbacks game. This year things were different. No D-backs game (or any other major events) going on in downtown Phoenix and no one else from VOM staying at a hotel. So, God worked things out this year so that Mark generously took me out to eat with his wife, step daughter and grandkids, and then I spent the night at his house. Mark and his wife Deb are great hosts, although I will say that they have two of the ugliest cats I have seen in a long time. Here’s one of them, named Dutch:



Day two was harder going than day one. Perhaps because it was just John, Mark, and I at the booth. Since most of the “shoppers” are mothers (you quickly learn at home schooling conventions that Dads are just the bag carriers), maybe the sight of 3 males talking about “martyrs” was a bit scary to the women. We still managed to pick up about another 80 sign ups, with a grand total of 262 for both days. That’s double last year!



Our stash of materials held up pretty well, despite the short ship from HQ. We ran out of Kids of Courage newsletters, Foxe, and Illegal T-Shirts. Our total “donations for resources” were down slightly this year to $556 from $600 last year.

A blogging homeschooling Mom made a very kind blog post about her visit to our booth. Here’s another pre-convention post she made about Kids of Courage:

Praise God for demonstrating His trustworthiness to me again at AFHE. Even though He didn’t do it the same way He did last year.

One last shot that I think symbolizes the preciousness of homeschooling:

Michael Jackson's Death (and Ours)

This short video has a good message.