Revival

Yesterday I had the opportunity to teach Sunday School which I haven't done for about four years, what a blast it was! I will be sitting in next week as well as I didn't quite finish my "Biblical Submission" talking points because of all the great discussion that topic always brings out. Anyway, I have been meaning to get over to my "old" Church to say good bye to some folks and visit for awhile when I got this message Saturday:

Hello to all our friends,

 

I would like to invite you to The Church at Sterchi Hills to our revival. It starts in the morning at 10:30 A.M. The Sunday night service starts at 6:00 P.M. Monday through Wednesday it starts at 6:30 P.M. Mike Thompson,pastor of Second Baptist Church of Clinton will be holding the services. He was our youth pastor at Glennwood several years ago. We will have a nursery for each service. We would really like to see you.

You will be really blessed if you make the effort to come and hear this wonderful minister. We are located at 904 Dry Gap Pike, Knoxville

That was good timing right, I could buy that. Anyway I was kind of wavering at going and hearing about "Revival" since I grew up in the Nazarene Church and Revival meant three hours of trying to sleep in an uncomfortable chair, probably in a giant tent, while some dude screamed on stage. Sunday I got the following email:

As I write this I can hardly contain myself. I asked you to pray for our associate pastor and his wife,Siony's baby. She had so much fluid in the uterus it was becoming dangerous so they took her to U.T. hospital and they drained off several liters . This was on Wednesday a week ago. She started having a few contractions, but she went home after they watched her a while. That night her water broke and they went to the hospital. The baby was born about 2 weeks early and weighed 5 pounds and 7 oz. She had him without any medication because she was afraid it would go against the baby. They took him to surgery soon after he was born and fixed the blockage in his colon. That was the first miracle. Friday they went through his back to close the artery that goes to the heart and lungs. They had to deflate one of his little lungs to get to the artery. There was a risk with the medicine to put him to sleep and they thought he would be on the breathing machine for a few days. That surgery was successful and his little lung filled up quickly. They took him off the oxygen and he didn't have to stay on the breathing machine. He weighs the same as when he was born, not losing much weight during all this. He is ahead of schedule with almost all the things the nurses expected him to do.This is the second miracle. Even before he was born, they told Jim and Siony he would have down's syndrome. Two or three doctors told them he had down's. They got the results back from the test and Jim told us this morning at church HE DOES NOT HAVE DOWN'S. He probably did have it, but we know what our great physian can do, don't we? This is the third miracle. People are praying all around the world for Nathan and his Mom and Dad. He has a long way to go yet so please continue to pray for them. They had planned to go back to he Phillipines, but if they had been there the baby night not have made it. There is no hospital close enough that they could have gotten to soon enough because he needed the surgery as soon as he was born.

Thank you so much, my friends, please continue to pray. I feel that God has special plans for this baby.

Wow, I have been really torn up since Nathan was born just thinking about leaving the hospital without any of my own babies as they were born. That was fantastic news, and what the email author left out is that the Doctors who said Nathan had Downs Syndrome are really baffled. So I had all this news from my old friends and needed to go visit when I got an IM on Google Talk from their Minister of Music:

"Dude, I need a bass player tonight if you have the heart and time."

Ok, I guess I had ignored them long enough, I packed up my bass and an extra guitar, threw my whole family in my truck and went to Revival. Mike Thompson is the funniest man I have ever seen from the pulpit, I am so glad I went. My children even sat through it without too much difficulty. I will try and go the rest of the week, tonight definitely, and wanted to ask anyone I know who reads this to try and come too.

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