Illness and Mission

Wednesday 22 August

Hello everyone

Where shall I begin?

Well I think I let you all know that two weeks ago Lyn went into hospital with Pneumonia. She was in ICU for a week. Dave flew home early from his England tour to be with her. She came home on the 11th. Then on Wednesday the 15th Aaron started to feel unwell & I ended up being wake all that night with him. He was very sick with a violent fever, vomiting & headache. His sugars stayed steadying the whole night which I believe was the Lord protecting him. So the next morning I took him to the doctors & he was also admitted to ICU with pneumonia. Later that same afternoon (16th) Dave started with chest pains & thought he was having an anxiety attack with all the stress. Di took him to the doctors as I was on my way back from the hospital. I went asleep for a few hours & when I wake up the family was in chaos....Dave had been admitted to ICU! It seemed he had a blood clot near his lungs or heart. Then he was diagnosed with pneumonia & treated for that. Then on Sunday His blood pressure kept rocketing with visitors......so the docs now believe his illness & blood clot is stress-related. It was thought he had become a type 1 diabetic (he used to be type 2) & would have to go on insulin.

On Sunday I missed church to go &be with Aaron as the day b4 he had been very distressed & tearful. He had been moved to a ward & since then his sugars had gone up because the nurses didn’t know what to do with his insulin so he was worried he would never get the ok to come home. Praise God on the Sunday morning his sugars had stayed between 5&7 so while I was there he got the ok to come home.

Then on Monday morning Dave got discharged too. and since then his sugars have stabilized with taking insulin & both men are feeling a lot better & are watching their sugars carefully.

It is lovely to have evry1 back

Apparently pneumonia & bronchitis have been rife this winter so it wasn’t a surprise to the docs that so many of the family got it.

I do believe that God has protected me & Di as we do not have South African medical aid so we would not be able to get private care or afford the medical bills. God is so merciful & full of love. I saw the way he carried Lyn, Dave & Aaron while they were in hospital. I am now praying that any message the Lord may have been trying to tell them through all this, that they hear His voice & respond.

The weather here has got very very hot already. We are in the high 20's & it not even summer yet! Myself & Di are wondering how we are going to cope come October December!

Salvador lands tonight back from the UK, and so does Jacob Prasch with him.

Jacob will be with us for a week & will be doing a conference at Sue &Alans over the weekend. I have been out with Sue this morning to get refreshments & I have been put in charge of sandwiches! I really am looking forward to it.

It is like being back at Brookfield’s! Aaron is going to help me to. We are expecting around 100 people each day....so it’s going to be a busy weekend.

The next month or so is going to be busy as well. We have another preacher called Calvin smith arriving in the next few weeks. And then Pam & Marg who run Moriel in Australia will be coming to visit. Pam helped me look after the children last year when the family went over for Ant & Liz's wedding. I get on really well with her & am looking forward to seeing her again & meeting Marg.

Lyn & Dave go to England next month for 3 weeks, Dave was meant to be touring but has cancelled it because of his health. They have arranged to stay with ant & Liz and just have some time away to relax & seek the lord.

Liz is due for her baby anytime now. We are all very excited & Aaron is looking forward to being an uncle!

I had better go now.

I hope you are all well back home

Take care & God Bless

Erin

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Will Your Name Be in There?

As a youngster in you early teens or 20’s you won’t give it a thought. In your 30’s and 40’s maybe you could give it a fleeting glance. Once you hit 50 it begins to become more of an issue, in your 60’s, 70’s and onwards most people think about it quite often. What is it that I am talking about – why, it’s death of course and what comes next? What then you wonder. If you are lucky enough to have reached old age you will have experienced death more than once – someone else that is. As you get older your own demise becomes acutely plain. One day, and one day soon you will be the one they bare talking about. You know how it goes “Have you heard about………..”

There are 2 basic options.

Option 1 –

The Big Bang. It all just happened, sort of by accident, my mistake. You know, the flowers (all the different types) just – well grew! The sky sort of just – well it got there. So did everything else, including you and me. And it all happened around 60 billion years ago, give or take a few billion.

Option 2 –

Someone put it there. Someone made it all, created everything. Don’t quite know when or how, although what are supposed to be God’s revelation to man are contained within the Bible. It tells us quite a bit in there.

Now both these options take a bit of believing and the straightforward person might be expecting to look at the evidence. I intend to examine some biblical evidence soon at church. I will tell you more about this later.

Anyway, back to the plot. You believe one or the other. Either way it might turn out to be kind of important for you. There is either life after death, or there isn’t; simple really- straightforward and matter of fact.

My belief is that there most definitely is life after death and there most definitely is a God. If I am correct I promise I won’t say, “I told you so” if I am wrong I know you won’t say it to me either.

One thing I would like to do though, before it’s too late is to share my belief with you. On Sunday 19^th August I am going to be speaking at Church about the book of life. If you want to know more why not come along, all I ask is that you spare 1 hour and listen. You have nothing to lose and maybe an awful lot to gain.

Why not come along – I might convince you (with God’s help) that not only is there life after death and a book of life – but I might be able to convince you that your name is in there. Now that would be a turn up for the book wouldn’t it.

God Bless

Bill