What happens when...a few answers, part 1

A few weeks ago I shared a few thoughts regarding where things are at with the ministry here in Phoenix. I used the phrase "what happens when" as sort of a skeleton to hang certain facts on regarding the fulfillment of the vision for this little multi-ethnic church in the midst of this fairly large city. Here are a few conclusions that I've come to:

1. We really are swimming upstream by attempting to build a truly multi-ethnic church, when the majority of the ethnically diverse congregation are refugees and are struggling with learning English, finding entry level jobs, and just trying to survive the radical changes they've encountered as they have begun their new lives here in our country.

2. Other than the Lord, the greatest need of any refugee is to acquire English as quickly possible.

3. Our little local church does not have the resources from within its own members to sustain ministry to most of our members, let alone try to continually meet the needs of the larger of community.

So, what do we do?

A. We take the step of inviting other churches around the country to participate with us in the unique ministry that God has provided for us. We become, for lack of a better definition, a "mission outpost" or a "mission church".

B. We seize the uniqueness that Phoenix offers as a major hub for refugee resettlement, recognizing and then promoting the fact that many of the people groups from what is called the 10/40 Window, are now living within a few miles of where our church building sits.

C. We ask churches to consider a "short term missions trip" to the unique destination of....Phoenix, Arizona!!!

There's much more to this next step in fulfilling the vision that God has given us. I'll continue next time.

Latest and hopefully last health update....

I'll make this brief. Last Saturday, the 13th, I had similar pain to what I had experienced the week before. The VA in Phoenix put me in the hospital and I spent another 6 days in the hospital, having just been released a few days ago on Friday, March 19.

Suffice it to say that the dead tissue from the kidney is causing major problems with my system and is incredibly painful as it is processed through my body. While in the hospital this time, I had a bunch of more tests, including a renal angiogram, which showed the blood clot, but also showed that I actually have an extra artery to my kidney that most people don't have. What's good about this discovery is that it means I only lost 25 percent of my kidney, not the 50 percenet that it looked like before.

With all of the testing complete, they still don't know what caused the clot, where the clot came from, and whether or not I'm likely to have another one. The doppler on my legs, the echo cardio-gram, and the esophagus ultra sound of my heart didn't show any clots any where.

So, I'm now going to be on Cumaden for a while in order to insure that another clot doesn't form.

This is enough writing on my physical issues. I'll get back to the things I really want to write about it in the next few days.

Thanks to everyone who kept me in prayer.

If it's unusual, it'll find me

Here's the update that I sent out to my church members about what happened to me the past few days. Which is the PRIMARY reason I haven't shared my conclusions that I referenced in my last e-mail.

First, let me say thanks for the love and care you showed for Luke Rider. He was blown away by your interest and genuine love for the work God has given him to do.

We arrived back in Phoenix last night at 9:00 p.m. We drove back from California with our son Travis, his wife Liz, and their two kids, JT and Isabelle. They had planned on spending a week vacationing here beginning last Friday night the 5th, but as usual, that pesky dad (me!) had to go and mess everything up. Here's what happened in summary form:

I arrived in San Diego Wed night at 9 p.m. so that I could be there when my dad went to the hospital at 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning for his surgery. The plan was for my mom to take my dad at 5:30 for his surgery prep and then my brother Rick and his wife Marie, and I would head to the hospital at 6:30.

But, at about 11 p.m. I had this sharp pain in my lower left abdomen area. Within a minute, I could feel it go around my side and then to the center of my back, with most of the pain hitting in the area that I figured was near my kidney. I had a kidney stone years ago, so I knew that pain, and this wasn't like that, but it was definitely painful. The pain then went all the way around my other side, like I had just tightened a belt of pain around my mid-section!!!

I thought it might just be some sort of reaction to that incredible diversity of scrumptous food we ate at our food fellowship for Luke, so I was thinking that if I could use the restroom, it would go away. I did, four times, and the pain was still there and seeming to increase. I didn't sleep all night and laying down made it even more painful so I tried sleeping sitting up, thinking one more use of the toilet would do it. Finally, at 6:00 a.m. I thought I'd better pull my trump-card. I called my good friend, Dr. Nick Yphantides, who lives in San Diego, but who I knew was speaking at a conference in Washington D.C. I told him what was happening and he said to get to the emergency room ASAP because this could be serious and he rattled off a couple of potential scenarios. I then called the VA nurse line in San Diego, described my symptoms and they said the same thing, GO NOW to the ER at the VA hospital in San Diego.

So, I rattled Katie, (my youngest daughter who is 23 and doesn't do mornings,) out of her sleep and told her I needed her to drive me to the hospital and the great trooper that she is, (like her mother and older sister Jody,) she jumped out of bed and she was chauffering me to the hospital within 5 minutes.

The pain was getting worse as I waited for 2 hours to actually see a doctor and jumped through the administrative hoops the VA requires. Finally, the doc came in, checked me out, sent me for X rays, then gave me some morphine for the pain. The morphine did nothing...nada! At this point the doctor really took an interest in me, gave me Dilotten, (not sure on that spelling,) and finally, I had some pain relief. He then sent me for an abdominal CT scan. Within an hour, the parade of 20 or so inquistive doctors began.

The CT showed that a blood clot had somehow clogged one of the main arteries to my left kidney and cut off the blood supply so that 50 percent of the kidney had died! The pain was from the kidney tissue dying, having had it's blood supply cut off abruptly. And, since it had been about 10 hours already, there was no fixing it--I just lost the use of 50 percent of my left kidney.

And apparently, this happening is almost completely unheard of. Blood clots usually go to the lungs, brain, or some other place. Almost never to the kidneys. So, doctors from different specialities started showing up and asking me questions, and all of them said things like, "this is very unusual", "unique", "out of the ordinary", and so forth. A couple of them told me that they don't have a response for this in their guidelines for treatment. One of a group of 3 urologists that came to see me said that this would take someone smarter than them to figure out. When I asked them if they could go call that guy, they said they didn't know who it would be. And of course, during all of this, Katie and Jody would say "dad, you've always gotta be different", and "we knew you were unique but it doesn't have to extend to these kinds of things" with those quirky little smiles they both have.

So, I had a ton of tests done over the next few days, took a ton of pain killer, and wished I was back in Phoenix doing what I love to do in God's purposes there. But, I was able to encourage a fellow Army vet in the next bed over from me as he is facing some radical changes as a result of a heart attack and discovering he had diabetes, (things I've had.) I developed a real love for him, his name is James Washington, he was shot by a Vietnamese sniper in 1973. I also had the privilege of having a World War II vet put into my room the final night I was there. It was hard to talk with him because of his deafness, but he was in pretty good shape for 87.

Of course, my family lavished God's love on me and although the VA isn't a Banner hospital by any stretch of the imagination, God took care of me, as He always does.

They were ultimately unable to find the source of the clot--they checked my heart and did other tests, but it remains a mystery. So, to ensure that my blood doesn't clot again I'm on Cumaden blood thinner, and for the next ten days I also have to give myself injections twice a day of a different kind of blood thinner. I go to the VA tomorrow for my first appointment here and then again on Friday.

But honestly, the biggest pain now is that I've had hiccups non-stop since Friday morning!!!! It's driving me crazy. My throat is raw, my voice is ragged, my chest and shoulder muscles are sore. The only time they go away is when I'm actually eating something of substance, and, if I can be patient long enough, they will go away when I sleep. I've tried every person's recommendation for sure-fire hiccup relief and none has worked. From drinking water upside down, to drinking with my nose pinched off, to drinking as much as I can without taking a breath, to drinking water through a filter like a paper towel, to pressing behind my ear lobes, to rubbing the roof of my mouth with my forefinger, to taking a teaspoonful of sugar and just swallowing it with no water....nothing has worked so far. Prayer-wise, as goofy as this sounds, this is a major priority. I honestly can't keep a normal conversation, and there is no way that I can teach until these stupid things go away. (Having said that, my son Travis will be teaching tomorrow night...it'd be great to see all of you come out!)

So, that's the scoop for now. I'm basically being forced to slow down for a few days since I can't really talk normally, which is what I spend most of my time doing every day.

I'm blessed beyond belief by God's love for me through each of you special people. I'll keep you posted.

What happens when.......

--What happens when a small, local church is primarily serving a segment of its community that has a 70 percent unemployment rate and those that do work are making minimum wage?

--And what happens when your average American Christian visits a church like the one I just mentioned and the majority of the congregation comes from countries that most Americans have never heard of?

--And what happens when that visiting American Christian is greeted by people from the congregation, the majority of whom speak English with a heavy accent, if they can speak English at all?

--And what happens when that visiting American Christian hears the bible-based message from the American pastor of that multi-ethnic congregation intentionally speaking slowly and as articulately as possible?

--What happens when all of these things are happening, and more?

Most of those visitors encourage the pastor after the service that it's a great work that God is obviously doing here.

And then they are never seen or heard from again.

Because of these things and a few others, the Lord has shown myself and the leaders of our church that we need to begin viewing what we're doing as a "mission" church, station or outpost rather than a stand alone, completely independent local church.

What does that mean? What would that look like?

I'll try to explain next time.