At Long Last - A New Entry!

Following is today's post from Greg's blog, "Where The Fish Have No Name".
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My wife says I'm a bit TOO transparent with people... I tell too much about myself, my struggles, my faults. It's something that has developed over my years in the ministry. It just seems right to me. Well, to borrow an analogy from the life of the apostle Paul, we've had a shipwreck and need your prayers that we can shake the snake off our arm!

I love my church here in Griffith and its people so dearly. These 5 years here have been a true blessing. Sadly, due to cost of living in this area and financial devastation in the life of most of our prime givers, our church has had to face a hard reality. They will now have to go to a part-time, bi-vocational pastor. Sadly, that means we're going to have to move on. It's not what we wanted, but it's a reality I'm having to accept.

This will be like leaving family. It will be like losing an arm. This church has not just been a pastoral charge, it's been family, friend and home. They've seen us through the worst challenge of our lives - the near death and long recuperation of my wife.

So it stands that we need to find a new life. We are in desperate need of a job opportunity and have been searching diligently. I say these things in realization that if you have any suggestions or leads for me, I'd be quite grateful. I pastor in the Free Methodist Church and would want to find a ministry opportunity in doctrinally similar church. Any pastoral or associate role would be fine. I would also consider any job possibility outside of pastoral ministry if it seems God is leading us there. You can look over my blog entries to get to know me a bit better. Among the things that seem to be my strengths are: teaching, speaking, writing, group development, and visionary and creative leadership. I love photography and digital editing, songwriting, guitar-playing (even if I'm just a hack!), and have many computer skills.

I share these things with you in hopes that while I search, perhaps you've been moved to read these words and might have a lead for me. If so, please leave a comment and I will get back with you. I hold all comments for moderation, so if you want to leave an email address or phone number, or to have mine, I can withhold the information from publication here. In other words, leave what info you want, and let me know if you want me to not allow it to be listed for public reading.

I'm so grateful for the ways some of you, as strangers to me, have affirmed me and encouraged me. I received a call from a gentleman in Illinois just today who truly made my day. Sir, if you're reading this, I thank you again. You didn't know at the time, but you called just when I needed a good word.

God has blessed me in so many ways, and I look forward to the challenges ahead. Oh, and the blog shall continue. God's blessings to you all!

As We Move Forward

Hello again. My contributions here have become more sparse as the days go by and as we have fewer new things to report. Sadly, I still have no news of progress on getting Barbara onto the Medicaide program. Barbara has told me that she intends to write more entries here in days to come, so you might check back for those.

In the meantime, I have began a new blog. I discovered WordPress.com and I really like it a lot more than Blogger. It's a bit more technical and not quite as user friendly as Blogger, but there are so many other things I like about it that it's worth it. If you want to check it out, it's called (get ready for this) "Where The Fish Have No Name".

Barbara still enjoys going to rehab 3 times a week, and her progress continues to be nothing short of miraculous. God has been so wonderful to us.

Pray for us right now as we are carrying a great emotional ministry-related burden that is weighing exraordinarily heavy on us right now. I don't want to go into details except to say that we are shedding a lot of tears over it.

And Now A Word From Barbara!

Hello everyone! Greg has been so faithful at keeping up with the blog. I have no idea what a blog is... so I am writing this the old fashioned way and Greg will blog it. He is so wonderful. We thought it was time for me to let everyone know exactly how well I am doing. I did have therapy today and will go back tomorrow. Nothing that exciting today but when I look back at where I started, I am amazed at what God has done for me. It has been a long and difficult journey and God has shown me so much (Himself, His power and His love for me). I had so many wonderful doctors, nurses and therapists. But it was God that gave me the help when I was weak, the hope when all seemed dark and healing (both physical and spiritual).

Therapy is going well. I enjoy going and being around others. They have me standing and the goal for now is 7 minutes while doing dishes. My record is 6 minutes while holding on to the bars for dear life. I still need someone to hold on to me since I am unable to keep my balance (I tend to fall backwards). Stacey, my therapist, has me up and walking with my walker and she holds on to me. My goal is to walk 30 feet. I consistently am able to do this 3 times each day. Again, I need Stacey to keep me upright so I don't fall backwards.

My long term goal is to walk 80 feet without going over backwards. One day I actually walked 95 feet but Stacey called it a fluke and asked what I had eaten for breakfast (SUPER Sugar Crisps)!

We are still waiting for in-home services since I still require a lot of help with everyday tasks. The wound on my leg is still struggling to heal. It was cultured and found to be growing a couple of nasty bugs. I just finished the antibiotic but Greg still has to wash and dress it every day. We both would appreciate your prayers for these matters as well as the financial mess of things. It is a common thing to get calls from doctors, hospitals and nursing home telling us that Medicare or insurance is refusing to pay. Thank you all for your months of prayers. I could feel each one of them. They gave me strength and God saw me through it all. He continues to have His hand upon every aspect of this ongoing saga.

Love, Barbara

A Beautiful Day

After a week where Barbara continues to make great strides in rehab, it has been quite a blessed weekend.

Jackie and Peter are here visiting for the weekend, which will include a small belated wedding celebration among the folks here at GFM. We went over to Merrillville to do a little shopping and decided to stop by the hospital where our long journey started to say hello to the wonderful nurses in the nuero-intensive care unit at Methodist. Barbara began crying as we made our way down the long hallway, and I began to feel bad about taking her there. There were 4 or 5 nurses there and they all took the time for hugs, big smiles, and a small amount of catching up. It was a weird sort of deja vu for Jackie and Peter and me as we retraced much too familiar and painful steps. It was so wonderful to see that these special ladies who invested so much care and love in us still cared and loved! We hope to stop by again during a different shift to catch some of the others.

In an eerie coincidence, the room where it all began was uninhabited, and we got to go in for a quick peek. Barbara's memories of this part of her experience are very, very foggy. Think about how weird your dreamlife can be at times, and I suppose that might compare to what the experiences was like for her. Not that it was a dream by any stretch of the imaginootion. Rather, her memories are disjointed and bizarre at times. We're all thankful that she can't remember the horrors that her body went though. Barbara does hate that she lost a chunk of her life and missed so many important dates (thanksgiving, Christmas, anniversary, etc.).

I wish that we were rich in this one instance so that I could shower gifts upon the beautiful women who took care of us (they were important to me as well). I hope that our love and prayers will bless them and their families just as they blessed us. We simply don't give enough credit to the women (and men) who do the job of nursing. And this particular group of ladies raise a high standard for the rest.

Barbara continues to walk more and more at therapy. I'm so proud of her progress. This weekend she has been as giddy as a school girl to have our little girl and her, uh, not so little husband with us. We love them both and it's always so nice to have them here.

More updates will follow... I'm still here... and we still need your prayers. We're still wading through the muck and mess of Medicaid and we're blessed to have a man as wonderful as Curt Binnion helping us deal with insurance issues far too complicated for my mind's comprehension. Our live as been a series of blessings dotted with a few fleas of junk. Thanks to the blessings of your prayers and so many people, we're able to swat the fleas away and give God the glory He deserves. Even if you are not a follower of Christ, when you do good work, when you reach out a hand to help someone heal, you are doing the work of Christ.