Fighting Colds!

This week we are ALL fighting a virus running rampant through the house…it has hit every one of us!  Yuk!  Started with Timothy (definitely hit him the hardest), and then Jonathan and Lael, then Kelly and me and Tori (although Tori seems better already).  We’re all drugged up and going through the tissues like crazy!  We’re ready for this to pass!


This has been my intensive week of study through the gospel of John with the church at Gbotayidohoue (the church we affectionately call the “bowtie” church because of its pronunciation).  I’ve done this in several of our churches and gotten good reception.  We just highlight various stories that all demonstrate the divinity of Christ; that Jesus is indeed the Son of God (John 20.31 is our theme verse).  We do quite a bit of memorization…most of these folks are non-literate and only two people out of the entire group of 40+ even could read a Bible, much less have ownership of one.  So we do a lot of oral storytelling and repetition.  It’s exciting to me to see how quickly they pick up the memorizations.  Always amazing!  Tonight I finished the 3rd lesson and tomorrow we’ll wrap it up.  Because there are a number of junior high and high school age kids in this class, they wanted to do it before classes start again in a month (here in Benin, the months of August and September are their vacation).  It’s been very encouraging and I have been praying all week that the 4 hours a day we spend together will be fruitful and they will multiply!



Due to scheduling conflicts, the signing of Ega’s consent has been moved to next Thursday, September 14th.   Keep praying with us through all the steps of Lael’s adoption!  




Last night when I came back in after dark from my John study at Gbotayidohoue, Kelly told me that she had a big scare earlier in the evening.  While Kelly was sitting on the couch, Timothy crawled up and stood behind her trying to play a game with her.  Somehow he tumbled over backward and hit the tile floor with a thump!  I can only imagine how scared Kelly was (it’s been 5 years, but we remember well the two major concussions we had with Tori).  He got a pretty good bump on his head, but he never blacked out or showed any signs of head trauma.  Kelly watched him closely for several hours, even though within minutes he was seemingly himself (although scared himself).  He had a good night’s sleep (checked on him a couple of times in the night, too) and today has been completely fine (except for this nagging cold).  As a parent of 4 kids, I truly wish we could protect our kids from any and all physical injuries and falls!  But we certainly give praise to God for protecting our little Timo.  




Happy Birthday this week to Kelly’s sister, Becky, and my Mom!  Coming up later is Andy’s birthday (Kelly’s brother).  Also, this past Monday would have been my Nana and Pop’s 66th wedding anniversary (Mom’s folks were married in 1940; both passed away in 1998)….still miss them both so much (especially every Cowboy season, I can’t help think of the Dallas Cowboys’ all-time favorite arm-chair QB…guess he would have been pretty happy thus far.)  Now with the Cowboy season starting back up (and seemingly with a better prospect based on the pre-season), I look forward to my Sunday evening streaming audio games on my new favorite Catholic radio station, KHOY 88.1FM out of Laredo, Texas! (although because of the time difference, I only catch it when they play a 12noon or 3p game…those 7:30p games would have me sitting up all through the night!)

I love telling new Christians the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John chapter 11.  It’s always so much fun to see the thrill on their faces when Jesus says, “Come out!”  It’s a great prelude to His own victorious conquering of death and it also a great reminder that, while Jesus could have healed Lazarus (as he did several times earlier in the gospel), he chose to wait and let Lazarus die….for the purpose of bringing God the greater glory while also increasing our faith!  We serve an amazing God and a powerful Christ!

Blessings through the power of the One Who is the Resurrection and the Life!
-Randy