Painful Night, Glorious Day

It was a message from a friend last weekend that nudged me; I had started telling the story of my prostate cancer journey and left it hanging there. The press of ministry in recent weeks focused my writing on more current events in the life of our church. That's good for those who are around me all the time, but many of my friends have been left to wonder where this has led. Questions like, "How are you doing?" are still frequent. One friend was visiting recently from out of state. She showed up in my office, sat down and said, "I had to stop by while I'm in town to see for myself that you're all right." Consequently, I will pick up the story where a left off a few weeks ago.

September 11 is a date indelibly printed on our brains. For me, September 11, 2012 became another significant day. I arrived for my biopsy in Phoenix that afternoon with a very positive attitude. "I think you have only a 10-15% chance of prostate cancer," the Dr. had told me, "and if you do have it, we have caught it very early. We will have options about how to attack it." Prostate biopsies are no fun, but they are a small price to pay for the critical information that will help save your life. The discomfort from mine lasted a day or two, but I had a greater concern on my mind: the pathology results I would receive about a week later.

The day I was told to call in about biopsy results happened to be the middle day of the annual offsite our church staff takes. Those offsites have become mission critical to us at Stone Ridge and I love them. We laugh, sometimes cry, rejoice, analyze and make plans for the following year. The entire trajectory of our church has become very focused because of these events. That meant I had to keep my head in the game, though I planned to call the urologist late in the afternoon.

We took a break about 4 p.m. and I stepped outside our meeting room. I punched in the number, praying for God to help me if the results came back positive. Heart pounding, I touched numbers on the keypad, working my way the urologist's phone tree. Finally able to speak to someone, I identified myself and asked for my doctor's assistant. "She isn't available," came the reply, "but I can give you the results if you would like."

"Please," I said, trying to remain calm.

A moment later she was back, saying with a clinical voice, "Your results came out positive for prostate cancer. Your Gleason score is... You can go on the internet to help you interpret what this means." I thanked her, hung up and called Cathy, who was at home.

"I have prostate cancer," I said as Cathy greeted me. "The tests came back positive." I must have sounded more calm than I felt (or, more likely, God's grace had kicked in) for Cathy initially thought I was teasing her in preparation for a, "Not really! I'm fine!" I assured Cathy that I wasn't joking and told her the Gleason score. We agreed that we didn't know what this all meant, then we prayed together. Cathy said that she would start contacting our kids. She would also get in touch with her family. I would contact my siblings. I didn't want to tell my mom yet because she was alone. I would wait a couple of days until my sister was in town.

I walked back in to the meeting room with our staff; it was time to reconvene. "I need to tell you guys something," I said calmly. "I have prostate cancer. I just got the lab results from last week's biopsy." Our team is very close; most of us have worked together for years. Therefore I wasn't surprised by some of the emotion they felt. We talked a bit, then they gathered around me and prayed. We all decided that planning was done for that day, but that we would have a time of worship together that night. We did. It was powerful. We were doing the best we knew to do; resting in the One who knit us together in the womb (Psalm 139). He was not surprised, nor overwhelmed by our circumstances. He had always been faithful. He still was!

The most acute pain of that first 24 hours was when I tossing and turning sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I don't know that I had slept well or at all up until then. What I remember was waking up and not being able to go back to sleep. My brain was running on overload. Finally I prayed, "Father I need a word from You. I need something to show me that You are there. I can face this if You are with me, but I can't handle it by myself." I waited quietly for only a few minutes, then the whisper of God came from deep within my spirit: "I already told you that I have this all under control; don't be afraid. I told you twice." Now sensing His presence in a very tangible way, I thanked Him and fell into a deep sleep.

Upon our return to Yuma the next morning, we met with the rest of our staff team to go over the plans God gave us for the coming year. We spoke little at that meeting about the cancer. By then I was scheduled to visit my Dr. the following afternoon. The much more immediate thing on my mind that day was a funeral I was to conduct shortly after lunch. It was for a young mom who had lost hope for repair of the brokenness in her life and committed suicide. During that service, God's presence was so real that no one left unmoved, including scores of people who don't believe in Jesus.

That funeral did someting very personal in me. It showed me that God still had a purpose for me and that prostate cancer would not define my life.

 

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Thank you!

Dear Stone Ridge,
Most of my letters to you are communicated via email, but I have intentionally "borrowed" my blog to do this one so that all of you might see some pictures and video you might not get through your email service.

Let me begin by telling you that I will conclude this letter with a report of our church giving and financial status through the first quarter of 2013. If you are like Joe Friday on Dragnet -- "Just the facts, ma'am; just the facts" -- you can always cut to the end of the letter and skip all the good stuff in between. In my opinion, that will be like cutting past the main course and the dessert to get to the toothpick, but that's your right.

We began 2013 with a challenge to take our "Accelerate 1 8" emphasis from 2012 to a new level. Many of you know that "Accelerate 1 8" is based on Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (New Living Translation) Last year we emphasized prayer, training in personal evangelism, text-message reminders and a sharp increase in sharing Christ during our service projects. 2012 was pivotal, because we began to live out our purpose of Declaring and Demonstrating the Gospel throughout the region.

We also discovered an "aha!" that gave us a laser-like focus as a church: adopting neighborhoods. When our Children's Ministry took VBS On The Road to a nearby neighborhood, the entire church seemed to "get it" and seek ways to serve the people living there. That reality led us to "Accelerate 1 8, Second Gear: Adopting Neighborhoods." We will continue our work in the Sierra Pacific neighborhood, but are praying for God to show us a second neighborhood to adopt this year.
As we talked about "Second Gear" in January, God surprised us with a level of "buy-in" that totally caught us off guard. Instead of simply settling for a second neighborhood as a focus for the whole church, Small Groups began to ask how they could adopt their own neighborhoods. Soon we were getting reports like this:

Here is the short version of our serving project, there were so many little miracles along the way, it's hard to make it this short but here goes!

This serving project was an ultimate success. Where to begin? One evening in small group prayer when this idea came to me, from then on, the plans flowed and the doors from God were opened with absolute ease. Contacting the field foreman, getting the permission, the date, organizing the menu. Getting the people together. And always always praying from start to finish. Stress and worry was shot down pretty darn quick no matter what came up. God had His hand in this and the plan was already made by Him. Everyone in small group came through with something, and helped and we made it to the field on Tuesday as planned. My last little stresser was finding a Spanish speaker who would accompany us. The Sunday before our date, I met a woman sitting behind me in church. Came to find out she was not new to Stone Ridge, and had been going about as long as I have, but we had never crossed paths. She even lives on the same street as I do, Yolanda M is her name. We talked, I told her about our neighborhood serving project, and found out she spoke fluent Spanish. She agreed to meet us at the field. I am so thankful to God for that, she translated for us and the workers knew we came to show God's love. I am so so humbled right now. The men and women who work the field to harvest the food we eat, they work so hard in the hot sun all day. They started at 5am (still dark out) and worked all day. Not to mention what time they must get on those buses to arrive by 5 am. They were very kind, hungry and thirsty and so grateful for the lunch we served them. So thankful to Clark and Kimberly W, Lisa T, Lauri D, Rita O, Yolanda M, Cheri W, Rubio from T&A, and all of the people who prayed for us. Mostly thankful to Our Great God, who "fed" us that day as we fed them. If there was something to be learned when serving God it is this, Just Trust Him and Go!!!

Here is the verse we passed out to all in Spanish
Deuteronomy 15:16
-- For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.

Margie O

Other Small Groups were looking for ways to "adopt" their own neighborhoods. Most of these began by prayer-walking...

...some extended their reach by taking cookies to their neighbors. At least a few of our groups threw big neighborhood parties, with many of their neighbors getting acquainted for the first time. "Adopting Neighborhoods" is getting into our DNA! What would happen if every neighborhood in this region was adopted by a local church who prayed for them, demonstrating and declaring God's love to them? What would happen if every neighborhood had homes where the peace of God was so powerful that neighbors would just drop by to enjoy His presence?

Just this week, a girl's Small Group from our Student Ministry is giving away homemade lemonade (with Scripture verses on the cups) at Gateway Park. They, too, are our neighbors!

Meanwhile at Sierra Pacific, the doors keep opening wider. We have a weekly after school club there for kids and bring a number of the kids to our AWANA program on campus. We have also been seeking a way to begin an adult Small Group in the neighborhood and realized that a Financial Peace University might be a great approach to meet a significant need. Neighborhood management opened the door for us to start FPU on April 18 -- please pray! While our pastors were there to talk about FPU, the manager told how much they need an English class in their neighborhood. The successful class that had been there ended when funding was lost. We are working with them to establish a new class.

Sierra Pacific is full of kids, as you can see...

...and those kids ate burgers and hot dogs at our recent BBQ, in between playing basketball and soccer with many of our young adults and teens. Our Student ministry has invited the Middle School and High School students who live in the neighborhood to attend their upcoming Road Rally, transforming it from a fellowship event to a missions event.

You may not know that Stone Ridge learned missions from our partner church, Primera Iglesia Bautista in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. They have taught us much about how to have a presence in the neighborhood. We sent a team there again in March, where they worked on construction and evangelism projects. Many people received Christ and the team was overwhelmed by the presence of God. In addition, we continue our cross-cultural work in Hyder, AZ and Morelos, Mexico.

That's how we began our outreach emphasis for Easter this year, using social media along with our neighbor initiatives to invite people to a service. The campus was ready...

...and our hearts were expectant. God answered prayers and showed up to change lives. The results?

12 people were baptized
15 people gave their hearts to Christ
1479 in attendance

I told you at the beginning of this long letter that I would give you a report on our finances for the first quarter of 2013. I am overwhelmed by God's goodness and your generous gifts. Here are a few highlights:
January - March 2013 income is almost $50,000 above January - March 2012.
January - March income is over $63,000 above expenses.

As I give you those numbers, I can imagine two questions from you. 1. Why has giving increased so much? 2. What will we do with the surplus? On the first question, I can think of a few possibilities including the growing number of our people have completed Financial Peace University. One primary reason, though, is that our staff sensed God's leadership to reallocate some of our budget early this year because it was out of balance. It was a hard decision, but God immediately blessed our obedience.

What about that surplus? The short answer is, "I don't know, but our Elders will be praying over it to discern God's will." I think that God is getting us ready to take further steps of faith with a desire to reach more people. Please pray with us!

What a great joy to bring this report to you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for praying, giving, serving, telling, inviting and believing. By God's grace, we will see things happen this year we could never have imagined!

Sam

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Choose Love!

Cathy and I recently watched a documentary in which a gang chieftain encountered the love of God. This man seemed to acknowledge the power of God, but couldn't get it that God would deeply love him. In a conversation, it came out the the gang leader's daughter was about to be released from prison. His love for his daughter and his desire that she get her life together was evidenced by his tears. That's when someone told him, "Think about your love for your daughter. God loves you like that!" A few minutes later, the gang chief was praying to give his heart to Jesus.

 

How much does God love you? How much does He love your neighbor or your friend or your family member? More than we can imagine. The message of Easter is that God "so LOVED that He GAVE His only Son." Father God wanted a relationship with us that much. Jesus wanted it so badly that He willingly paid the price for it. The Holy Spirit constantly pleads with the hearts of unbelievers to CHOOSE LOVE.

 

My prayer for us this week is that we will CHOOSE LOVE by demonstrating God's kindness to those around us. We can follow that with a simple invitation to an Easter service. How many of them will "get" the reality of God's love? How many of them might CHOOSE LOVE this weekend and accept God's invitation of a relationship with Him?

 

Hang on. God is moving and lives are changing!

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Delivered From Dark Places

I'm sure it was more than a little scary for that group of female college students as they realized that they were several miles down in the Grand Canyon with the sun setting and a cold night creeping in upon them. One of them had a leg injury and the others were trying to maintain her courage. They had no food, no camping gear and no lights to see the darkening trail. They needed someone to assist them and to lead them out.

I remember that night. I was one of the guys on that trip who had decided not to "hike the Canyon" that day. I had been there before so I pretty much hung out near the top of the rim, watching classmates come and go. Now, because a few of us were fresh without a long journey behind us, we were asked to be the "rescue party." We departed in the gathering darkness, armed with flashlights, some provisions and the makings of a stretcher. Thinking back on that night, our little team of guys became like shepherds who helped the sheep get out of a dark place.

Many years have passed since then. If I have learned anything, it's that people are still getting stuck in dark places. Indeed, we are like sheep who have gone astray (Isaiah 53), each going our own way with a desperate need for a Shepherd to set us free. That's really the message of Easter, isn't it?

The Shepherd...

...became the Lamb...

...so that we can experience the Resurrection and the Life!

 

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Thank a teacher!

I will never forget the day Mr. Blackstone, my seventh grade math teacher, did the unthinkable.

For some reason I decided that I wanted to be different in the seventh grade. Before that year, I was a fairly pliable, respectful kid. I followed the rules, did my school work and got along with my teachers. In seventh grade, however, I wanted to be different; I wanted to be cool! And Tony, one of the coolest kids I knew, sat in the back of the room in math class making jokes. Guess where I sat! In addition to my lack of attention, we were conquering some kind of "new math." (Sidebar: it seems as if math gets reinvented to "new math" every couple of years. Maybe it's to see if seventh graders are paying attention.) Very quickly, my math tests shrunk almost to the failing range. So here I was, being cool with Tony and a few others, cracking jokes, and failing. That's when Mr. Blackstone did the unthinkable.

Mr. Blackstone wasn't just a young teacher back then; he had joined the church we attended and got involved there. Consequently, he knew my parents. He also had figured me out, knowing that I was sacrificing seventh-grade math on the altar of being cool. So he drove to the Ford garage one day and found my dad. He told my dad what was going on. Dad confronted me that night and -- suddenly -- I decided it might behoove me to lose my "cool" and start studying. I barely passed my first grading period, but caught up with the class and did well the rest of the year...

...because Mr. Blackstone did the unthinkable.

 

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Promises, Promises

I shared a few days ago about my dad's journey through prostate cancer on the way to heaven. For me, walking through this experience left its mark on my life. On the positive side, I became very diligent about getting checkups. I have always believed that dad might still be alive if he had received a simple physical exam every year or so. His generation, though, didn't waste time and money going to a doctor unnecessarily. Sometimes they avoided physicians, even when they needed one.

Another way my life was marked came before dad grew ill. While in my twenties, I started worrying about my health. Fear and anxiety crowded their way into my life. I would become overwrought, carrying these fears for days at a time. Sometimes I would go to a doctor, only to find out that I was fine. On the spiritual side, it was this irrational anxiety that helped me know Jesus in a whole different way when I was about 28 years old. It is a longish story, but the Twitter version is this: I was breaking with worry. I cried out in my misery. Jesus met me there.

Even after Christ spoke supernaturally into my heart -- no, it wasn't an audible voice -- I had seasons of doubts and fears. I would notice some symptom. I would obsess over it with worry; then I would realize I couldn't carry the load. As a result, I handed it to Jesus. He set me free. A few weeks later the cycle would repeat. Over time, those cycles because less severe and far less frequent. Finally they were so rare and so small as to be but a tiny blip on my life.

It was by the grace of God, then, that I received two messages of hope a few months before my surgery. Each message was a promise, a down payment of God's goodness which would see me through this challenge called cancer. The first message came last April in the Dominican Republic. Our church has a partnership there with a wonderful church in Puerto Plata. I have been there many times over the last ten years and count scores of Dominicans and Haitians among my friends. One particular lady named Negra prays for me and my family every day. Each time I go to the DR, I try to say hello to Negra, usually seeing her at a church service. That April Sunday night I saw her and we greeted. I was without an interpreter so she ran to get a friend from the congregation who speaks English. We quickly caught up on essentials about our families, then Negra spoke with wide eyes. "Pastor, God gave me a message for you! He said to tell you, 'Do not fear; He has everything under control!'" This wasn't my first message from Negra. In fact, she usually has something which God has placed upon her heart during her prayers for me. I locked this promise away, not knowing for sure what it might mean, but knowing it did mean something.

Four months later we were having a conference in our church in Arizona. People had joined us from many churches in the region. During one break, I stepped into the rest room. Hank, one of our church leaders, was there. He said, "I wanted to tell you something. God has impressed me to pray for you constantly the past few days. As I have prayed, I have sensed a message He is giving me for you. I don't know what it means, but He wants you to know, "Don't be afraid; He has everything under control!" I knew immediately that God was speaking. By the time I heard this message through Hank, I had just completed the urology appointment in which we determined that I should have a biopsy.

To be continued...

 

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The News Got Worse

"Life Insurance." What a peculiar term. It's supposed to convey the security of provision for loved ones when you die. But wouldn't that really be called "Death Insurance?" If it were called "Death Insurance", though, who would buy it?

I grew up believing in another kind of life insurance. It was based on the genetic makeup and lifestyle choices of each individual. That kind of life insurance had smiled upon our family; at least I thought it did. My paternal grandparents each lived to be 81 years old. My grandpa stopped smoking just a few years before he died, having accumulated decades of unfiltered Camel smoke in his lungs; still he lived over fourscore years. My maternal grandpa died young, but with an ailment that would have been treated and cured quickly given today's medical advancements. My maternal grandmother lived to age 90. On top of that, my parents' siblings all enjoyed good health and seemed destined to equal or surpass their parents' longevity.

Add to those long-life genes, my parents were both quite healthy. They worked hard, ate food they raised on their farm and were free of the vices that often negatively impact health. Now that's "Life Insurance!" I grew up believing that we were almost invulnerable to the problems that cut many lives short.

Until the day it all came crashing down.

It was 1986. Dad got tired of fighting off the discomfort caused by an obvious gall bladder problem and went to the doctor. Sure enough, that gall bladder needed to come out. The doctor, though, recommended that dad get a full physical examination. His last physical was when he got out of the Army Air Corps right after WWII. "I guess everyone should have a physical every 40 years," my dad joked. He and my mom had no way of knowing what was about to be revealed. This would lead to series of phone calls, each with information that would rock our world.

It's hard to believe, but no one had cell phones in 1986. We hadn't heard of texting. Long distance calls, though frequent in the business world, were sparse for most families: the cost was just too high. Calls in the daytime were even more expensive, and usually were made because something significant needed to be said. "The doctor found lumps on my prostate when he examined me," my dad said that spring day. "What does that mean?" I asked, anxiety creeping into my voice. "It could be cancer," came the reply, "but they need to do a biopsy to find out. Please pray!"

Full of hope for God's intervention, we started praying. At the time, I couldn't quite believe that my healthy dad could possibly have cancer. Not him. We had no cancer in the family that I could recall. Surely this would be some benign "thing" that was growing, but not the "C word." Then the news got worse...

A few days later, mom and dad called again. My heart was pumping and I was again full of hope that this would be the good news to erase the earlier tidings. "Son, I have prostate cancer." My world felt like it was crashing down. Emotionally, I was grabbing for hope like Frodo grabbing for Sam as he dangled over the flowing lava of Mt. Doom. "What does that mean, dad?" "I need to have a bone scan," he replied. "If the cancer hasn't spread, we can talk about removing it or treating it. Please pray." Now we had a new prayer target; again I pressed into hope as I sought the help of God. "Surely," I thought, "this will be the point where we discover that this isn't really so bad. Then they can treat it and the news would be optimistic again." It wasn't.

The last daytime, long-distance call permanently changed our lives. "The cancer has spread to my bones. The treatment will slow it down, but they can't stop it." Fear and doubt hung in the air as I asked, "What does that mean, dad?" I wanted to know what I didn't want to know: how long could we expect my dad to live? The doctor told him that some men lived for ten more years at this stage; some lived far less. What would happen to my dad?

We walked through that season when the news got worse every call. Dad underwent the gall bladder surgery that started the whole thing; he recovered at a rate that amazed even the medical community. As he struggled with the emotional trauma of his cancer, he had a long talk with God one night and settled it. He would trust God with his health, even as he spoke to others about what Christ had done to heal his soul and change his life when he was a young man. That prayerful time changed something deep within my dad From then on, he lived with such joy that a rumor started in their town; some thought he had been healed. He was healed! Four years later he left the pain of this world and entered heaven.

 

 

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