Photos to bring us up to date!

FEBRUARY

This hotel, in the heart of Germany, was the setting of a couples retreat that took the risk (!!!!) to invite my honey and I to lead the worship in February from 22nd-24th! Why was it a risk? Because we hadn´t lead worship in German since we left 17 years ago and it was a major challenge for us to get back into the German songs etc. God as always came shinning through our weakness and it was a time of real blessing.We reconnected with a part of us that had been "dormant" all these years and also rekindled some very dear and precious relationships.




We were so happy that time allowed us the privilege to drive past the apartment we lived in 20 years ago during our 3 year stay in Germany! Our one bedroom apartment was right underneath the roof the two windows on the left in this house, which accommodated 4 other apartments and both a pharmacy and a bakery! Very practical right!!!

MARCH

March 1st National Day of Prayer in Madrid Centre and we were there... It was a powerful time.
Me and my dear friend with our dark sunglasses and prayerful hearts!!!

Paella Picnic in our back garden on Sat15th with Karen´s family (you have been praying for her mum who recently passed away) and my sister´s family... It was such a lovely day!



This is the Paella Dish that my wonderful hubby prepared on Thursday 20th for our Bernabé Team Meeting (a retreat we help organize for Pastors and S. American Missionaries working in Spain) together will all our kids.... 20 in total!

This is us after enjoying the Paella and fellowship in our back garden....(the kids had vanished!!!!)

Well just a little taste of some things we have been up to!

Karen´s Mum

I just wanted to let all of you who have been praying for Karen´s mum, that she sadly passed away today at 3:00pm (15:00) in a hospital in Madrid.

The last few weeks have been very tiring for Karen with her mum being in and out of hospital and all that that entails both physically and emotionally. Karen and her sisters/family will continue to need your prayers as they walk through the mourning process.

Sadly, Karen lost her Father barely two years ago, so these have been very intensive months/years culminating in her mother´s passing. I´m sure she would greatly appreciate your prayers and comments of comfort and support.

Thanks so much to all of you.

Another update on Karen´s mum

Just a quick note to those who haven’t heard yet that Mum is back in hospital. The GP thought it would be good to rule out the possibility of a blood clot on the lungs and sent us to A&E yesterday. They decided to keep her in as she has a lot of liquid in her lungs, low oxygen levels in the blood, and is very tired and short of breath. The emergency doctor said the worst thing at the moment is her heart.

She has been put on the Medical Oncology ward and will have another CAT scan on Monday and a test to see whether she has a blood clot on the lung, although they don’t think this is likely.

My sister Suzanne arrives here tomorrow evening with some documents from Mum’s chest specialist in the UK. Marilynn is due to arrive next Friday, but is wondering whether to change her flight and come earlier. It is difficult to know really.

Love Karen


THanks for your continued prayers and support.

Update on Karen´s Mum

Here´s an update from Karen´s Mum:


My Mum came home form hospital on Friday evening. She has had a bad cough over the last week and the Dr said she would be better off at home as she could catch a bad infection at the hospital. This afternoon she was breathing much better.

It has been very tiring looking after her so far, and initially I really felt I couldn’t cope. It isn’t just the practical side but also the emotional as she keeps saying how bad she feels, which then makes me wonder whether it is the cancer. On the last day in hospital I saw the oncologist, who was not very encouraging. She has looked at Mum’s CAT scan and informed me that there is fluid accumulation and swelling of the lymph glands in the right lung and fluid in the pericardial sac (around the heart). The oncologist’s initial diagnosis is that it looks malignant and Mum’s current state of health would rule out chemotherapy. However, in order to correctly assess the situation, the oncologist needs a complete case history with copies of the scans and x-rays. Specifically she needs to know what type of lung cancer was initially diagnosed and why chemotherapy was ruled out. I have to try and get all this information from the UK.

The oncologist did say she thought it would be better for Mum’s own specialist to see her, but given the other circumstances I don’t know that this will be possible – i.e. that she needs to do physiotherapy to regain mobility after the hip replacement op and that in the UK she was living on her own, which at the moment would be impossible. Also, she is still on oxygen so I would imagine that would make travelling difficult even if her general health would enable her to travel.

She has been through a lot these last five weeks and the Lord has been gracious and has spared her life. My prayer is that His purposes would be fulfilled in her life and that she would be truly aware of His presence.

Thanks again for your continued prayers, Karen.


Thanks guys for keeping Karen in prayer... she has greatly appreciate your support and comments....

Update on Karen´s Mum

I wanted to thank you on behalf of dear Karen, for your prayers and comforting words during this difficult process she is going through with her mum. (see my previous post) She wrote an email yesterday and I thought it would be good to share it with you and solicit your prayers again...thanks!

........" Today the doctor attempted to extract liquid from Mum’s lung to be able to analyse it and diagnose what the swelling in the lungs is. Unfortunately, she was unable to extract any liquid at all and is reluctant to try with a thicker needle. She has requested another chest x-ray to check on the amount of liquid in the lung. There is a danger of an infection returning if the liquid remains there for too long.

They are now hoping to discharge her this week, but she will need to be on oxygen at home and will continue to use the inhalers. Today we encouraged her to walk a bit further (she can’t go too far as she is attached to the oxygen on the wall) and she ventured out into the corridor, turned around and walked back to the chair. She did this twice.

She has now had the catheter removed so we are attempting to retrain her bladder and bowels – she was not incontinent during the day before hospitalisation and only of urine during the night. The staff don’t seem too confident that this is possible as she has been in diapers for five weeks now. This makes it difficult as we are constantly struggling with them to at least try. It would obviously be much better if we could get her retrained in this area before coming home.

Once discharged, Mum will come to my house and a physiotherapist will visit her for rehab. I will have to try and get a GP assigned to her at the local health centre to follow up her progress.

There is also the question of the possibility of the lung cancer having returned. At the moment, Mum is not in any condition to return to the UK and see her specialist there and the waiting list in Madrid for a specialist is very long. I am going to try and get the hospital to assign her a specialist before we leave, although I don’t know whether this is possible. It also means putting Mum in the picture about the cancer possibility whereas at the moment we haven’t told her but are concentrating on getting her mobile enough to come home.

So it is still very much up and down. I don’t know how I am going to cope once she is home, even with the help of a dear friend who has offered to come every morning to help get her up, washed and dressed. It will obviously mean a tremendous change in our lifestyle and for an indetermined period. We can only trust the Lord in all of this and look for His provision. We are all very tired but appreciate all the practical help we are getting from friends and family.

With love,

Karen "

Please Pray

I can not believe that I havent considered doing this before now...but as the proverbial saying goes... "better late than never!"

Karen, a dear and beloved friend to me, has been really going through a tough time lately, (click here for more details.) and I wanted to solicit your prayers for her.

Her mother, who normally lives in England, was visiting her here , but has been in hospital for almost one month! As you can imagine this has placed a tremendous stress on her and her family. There was one day when the doctors gave her mother just hours to live.

Now she is doing much better and those of us close to her have been helping out by making food, visiting and spending the nights with her mother to give Karen a break. Nonetheless I would like to ask you to pray for her and to encourage her by dropping her a comment on her blog. I am sure she would so greatly appreciate it. After all that is what the Body of Christ is for... right??

My battle

This Friday my sister and I did our Red Cross visits in a town close by here. It was really nice to see them after the summer break, and they are always sooooooooooo happy to chat and catch up!

There is a couple that we used to visit that now have moved into a Nursing Home and no longer use the pendant/telephone services that the Red Cross provides, but we decided to look them up in their new home anyway.

What I didn't count on when visiting them was that I would be flooded with the negative memories of my time working in the nursing home. Click here for my post when I worked in the nursing home. It took all I had to ignore those feelings while we visited them . Because they were so happy to see us, I was able to survive our visit pretty well.

Needless to say, when we left, I felt overcome by feelings of sadness and failure. I was glad my sister was with me. I didn't feel like crying... when it hurts so bad sometimes it goes beyond the crying feeling if you know what I mean. It was a hit below the belt!

Since then I have been fighting against these feelings and gone over what I could have done, what I should have done...you know those mind games you play somehow hoping by doing so you can change history.

I am sick at how quick I am to believe the worst about myself. It is easy to just somehow get lost in the overwhelming feeling of it all. What makes it worse is we are in financial straights at present and the need for me to get employment adds pressure to this whole panorama.

I would appreciate your prayers and that God would do a work in me and provide the job I need to be able to keep our heads above water!!!! Thanks!

No running water.....

Praise the Lord, O my soul; and FORGET NOT ALL HIS BENEFITS.
Ps 103:2

This week was a reminder to me of this very verse!

Growing up in the western world, it´s easy to take for granted so many things because we have had them all our lives. Take running water for example. Even though the majority of the world does not having the luxury of running water and even less in the comfort of it in their own homes, having water at the ready 24-7 is something that we definitely take for granted.... that I take for granted.

This week we were without water for over 2 days and I had to become creative at showering and washing dishes by heating up water from our pool! I have the luxury of bottled water to cover my thirst so of course, considering the odds, my "suffering" is really not worth the mention. But for my standard of living, it was quite the headache and it required more time to accomplish tasks that normally are done without even thinking!

Isn´t it true that as soon as these comforts are removed, we quickly begin to appreciate what we have?? Just as the old saying goes... "You don´t know what you got until it´s gone!" rings loud and clear doesn´t it?

Naturally, I prayed and asked the Lord would give me water again. Do you know what happened next?

IT RAINED!

We desperately need rain, so naturally the sight of this desired product not only came as a surprize from those colder northern lands, but it WAS NOT the answer that I had expected to my prayer..... I´m like, "God, I don´t want water outside the house but INSIDE!" Maybe praying specifically would have been helpful here!!!!!

Actually I felt that God really spoke to me through this and I had the opportunity of sharing it with some dear friends of mine going through a period of transition.

God often surprizes us when he doesn´t answer our prayers to open specific doors in the way we imagine. You know, those "obvious" prayer needs we have: Lord heal my Mum, provide a job...etc....But often God opens a window instead!

These are the moments when our faith and trust really kick into action.

We stand there somewhat stunned at God´s response to our need and say, "Okay God, that isn´t quite what I had in mind.... cough & choke in disbelief , a few minutes go by to regain control, and then comes the classic question: "What did YOU do THAT for?

Admittedly when it started raining, and we continued without running water, I had to smirk at the irony of it all. I had all the water I wanted outside...but that WASN´T what I needed! Now try and tell me that God doesn´t have a sense of humour!!!!

I was reminded at that point, that so often we ask for things that we think we need, but God in his Love and Wisdom opens a window instead of a door. We usually don´t understand it at the moment BUT it´s always for our best...AND generally is accompanied with the later realization that God´s reply was the best thing for us although at the time it didnt make sense.

In the bible God often challenges the "logic" and "commonsense" of our fragile human nature. The first instance that comes to mind is when God has the Joshua and the people of Israel march around the walls of Jericho in silence and then the walls of this ever so fortified city would come crumbling down to the ground.

Can you begin to imagine Joshua, the military and spiritual leader of the community, explaining this tremendously logical and powerful strategy to attack their enemies and see the walls come tumbling down by silently marching around this city? I can just hear a, "yeah right!" coming from the crowd... I mean really, how illogical can one be? Oh and one mustn´t forget the logic of putting the musicians first... now there´s a arrowhead to lead the nation... a bunch of singers to prepare the way...no military training, no armour... just a few guitars and harps to help those 1 mile think walls come to their knees! (Being a musician... I can say that!!!)

How about the disciples during the storm.... What´s Jesus doing? Is He their calming their concerns, explaining the science of the power of the waves and their distance from the shore so they don´t worry, NO, no, no, Jesus was SLEEPING!

Apparently Jesus is totally oblivious to the goings on, which just totally goes against the grain, like nails going down the chalk board. Our logic cries out in disgust and God encounters it with a completely different dimension, where everything and every law obeys God and the impossible becomes THE POSSIBLE.

God´s sense of humour is seen again and again in the Bible of illogical moments such as when God lets the sun stop still, the Red Sea opens, a donkey talks, an elderly woman gets pregnant...oh man the list is endless.

This reality surrenders us to our knees and we have to acknowledge once again, that God truley is God and His Ways are not our ways and His Thoughts are not our thoughts.....and whatever He does is always WELL DONE!!