Share from your week; where have you seen God at work?:
Martha – God gave me a wonderful gift 46 years ago when I met Ken. Last weekend we celebrated our 45th Wedding Anniversary and his 71st Birthday! He has always been my special gift and I guess I’ve been his. For a person who could never find a date in high school and college, I was pretty lucky to find him. So, it was a nice weekend and I thank God for him every day.
Pastor Brett – Amen. We rejoice with you for Ken. Martha, thank you for sharing that.
Michele M. – Once again, I will talk about my sister and brother-in-law; it’s been a very big week. My sister decided to bring him home for home hospice, he just got there. I think the real blessing especially, and God working in this whole situation is that she went into this with the help of one friend. And she’s had just any number of friends call now and offer their help and their time. Which is just amazing. I’m going there next week to help and I’ll be there for 10 days. But the main thing is that she’s getting him home and he’s going to be really happy to be there. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, but the main thing is that she’s had a lot of people step forward to help her and that’s definitely a gift from God.
Pastor Brett – Amen, thank you, Michele. We will continue to lift up your brother-in-law, Peter, and your sister.
I had one, actually more than a week ago, so maybe out of bounds, but I’ll still share it anyway. On last Friday, 9 days ago, I was at the church and on my to-do list was to figure out where this commercial-sized tent that we had ordered was. So, I contacted Sandy who was part of the purchasing process and it just so happened that this shipping company had called Sandy about 5 minutes earlier. So, Sandy & I were able to get in sync with the shipping company and they brought this enormous 600 pound pallet with the poles on it. They were able to deliver it in the window that I needed to be there at church before I had to go home and take care of my sons that day. So, that was interesting timing and I was able to call Sandy and work that out. The second piece of that is I didn’t know what to do with a 600 pound pallet and I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by showing off how muscular I am and how much I can lift. So, I figured I probably shouldn’t do this by myself. So, I called Pastor Rafael who shares our Lighthouse space with us on Sunday afternoons for his congregation, which is a Spanish speaking congregation. I called him, and he’s helped around the church a lot over the years and I said – Okay, I’ll meet you around 4:15 after I’m done watching the kids. So, I get there at 4:15 in the afternoon and the pallet which had been dropped in the parking lot was in the church, in the entryway. I looked at him and said – You moved this without me! He’s like – Yes. He was all sweating and of course it’s like 105 on that day. And I had told him repeatedly when I called him – I don’t want you to get hurt and I don’t want to get hurt. If this is too much, we will ask other people to come in and help us. But, he had figured out how to use a car jack to jack up one side of this huge pallet and slide a rolling cart underneath it; then jack up the other side and get the other piece under. And he had been able to roll it into the entryway without getting hurt with just a little bit of sweat in the heat. So, very grateful for Pastor Rafael who was able to get that huge apparatus into our church. So, Praise God for him!
Kari – Good morning! I’m at Stephanie’s. The Prayer Team knows about this but, I just wanted to share it with everyone that yesterday my good friend called in the morning saying that her mom had had a brain bleed and stroke and was rushed to the hospital. And God was already at work in preparing a surgeon to be there and getting a bed because I'm sure you've all heard how crowded the hospitals are. So God was already working in that situation. So, my friend's mom is 71. Anyway, so after I had sent out to the Prayer Team to pray for her and I texted some other friends and family; my friend Kristen, like within an hour or so, texted me saying that her mom had been able to squeeze their hands and stuff on command and wiggle all her toes and the prayers are working! So I was so excited so I just wanted to share about that power of prayer. I checked in with her again last night and she said that there have not been really any other big changes except for that the doctors were happy with the progress that she had made in 24 hours and so that was really encouraging. And I just ask for continued prayers for her mom, Linda, and her family, please.
Pastor Brett – Amen. We will do that, Kari. So glad to hear that, power of prayer – yeah Jesus!
Merry – We had a wonderful event last night at the Western Farm Workers Anniversary Dinner. We were joined by the Fedderly family. We thank God for Wendy’s recovery.
Pastor Brett - Another God Sighting this week is Wendy continues to recover. We will continue to pray for her as well. She had another procedure for her heart this week and she's doing well and recovering so we continue to lift her up to the Lord.
Bonnie – My God Sighting was in Wisconsin. When Portland was having 100 degree days, I experienced a beautiful rainstorm. Haven’t seen rain in so long, it was a beautiful sight. Thankful for the experience.