Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship

Here we are again. Maryanne & I have been coming here since '95. This is Ground Zero for us. It has defined who we are way more than any influence God has put in our lives. If you aren't familiar with this place, it's the first link on the PF link page.

Alberto & Kimberly Rivera are leading worship (guitarist Mark Baldwin sitting in with them...that is a real bonus for me!). We came up with AJ & Tammy Maze, and some more folks from PF are here, also. Holy Spirit is ministering to each one of us, and the atmosphere is thick with His presence. There is a grace here to lay things down, and as I/we lay them down the Father is giving us great things to pick up and take with us.

Woody Woodson

I'm here on Sunday night at PF, and it's ministry time with Woody. I know individuals are being touched by God in very specific ways. As for me...here's where I'm at: I love this church. I love these people. For me, it doesn't get any better than watching God give sweet things to the people I love. I love you, Lord, for loving my friends : )

Signs of a healthy fellowship

Maryanne & I pulled into the PF parking lot around 8PM tonight. It was really cool to pull into our church parking lot on a Friday night and view a bunch of cars...cars belonging to PRAYERS! I love Jesus, and I get to hang with people who are in love with him, too. I have my share of discouragements during the day just like everyone else, but that's not the end of the story. Father takes really good care of His kids here at PF!

Post-Alaska Post

Can you imagine that I haven't had enough time to sit down and write here since we've been back?!? Two weeks away is a long time away, and it really put me behind the 8ball in lots of areas. I know...some of you think I've been napping!

It has taken Maryanne & I a while to sort out our feelings about our trip to Alaska. In the end there were two seperate questions: What did God do?...and how was your vacation? (though God is in the vacation, too). As people have asked us "how was Alaska?", the answer hasn't been easy to articulate. I'll put the vacation aspect aside and concentrate on the God stuff.

The first week we were among 540 people who took part in a Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship Conference on board a cruise ship traveling up the coast of Alaska. There were great times of worship and ministry on board, as well as outreach ministry in the ports we stopped at. Each mealtime we sat at tables with folks from all over the globe and shared what God was up to in our given corner of the world. Maryanne and I served breakfast in a soup kitchen in Juneau (the tourists don't see this stuff!). We joined 500 believers in surrounding the government building in Ketchikan to pray for the leaders there. While there we also were taken on a "christian" tour of Ketchikan and the surrounding area. The Native people who met us in these ports are spirit-filled believers who gave us a God-perspective on history and current life in these areas. We met a 70-something Master Carver who makes totem poles ($3,500-5,000 per FOOT!!!). We stood in awe as we listened to this brother in the Lord talk about his work.

As we left the ship and entered into our 2nd week, we rented a car in Anchorage and proceeded on our journey around "the loop"...900 miles of 2 lane road in the middle of the state. We spent the next 4 days visiting 3 PF families and travelling 1,000 miles.

We begin in Anchorage with the Bailey family. Barry, (Klondike)Carol, and their 2 adorable girls had spent 2 troubled years in Warren and at PF several years back. Maryanne and I hooked up with them and watched God put their lives back together! Now we got to spend time with them in THEIR home in Alaska. We had glorious meals together and went hiking with them in those breathtaking mountains!

Next day...on to visit Al & Lori Reynolds. We had just seen them back here in Pa. the week before, so it was funny visiting them almost immediately in their new home 5,000 miles away. We got a thorough overview of their life in Glenallin(sp), touring the areas where the Native people live and traveling to the Reynolds' "fishing spot". Lori works at the medical clinic right next to their log cabin where they pray for people who arrive in need of care...even praying for the dead to be raised! It was hard to drive away from Al&Lori and their warm hospitality.

Next day, however...down the road to our next stop at Doug and Nancy Jewell's in Delta Junction.

The Jewells are pastoring a church up there in "Delta", and man have they been WORKING! It's been some time since there's been a regular pastor and both the church and the parsonage have needed renovation/ rehab. Doug and Nancy are also been busy "building bridges" within their congregation and to the community. We got to spend a very precious evening with some of the brothers and sisters from the church. We held their mid-week gathering in Doug's living room and spent lots of time praying and ministering to each other. We deeply cherish the time spent with everybody there. It was painful to have to leave Doug the next morning (Nancy was actually in Warren during our visit, so we didn't get to see her). We really wanted to stay longer, and I think it did Doug a lot of good to see familiar faces from "back home"; after all, they've lived in Warren all their lives up to this time. That was the hard thing for Maryanne and I...having to keep moving down the road and leave loved ones behind.

Arriving back in Anchorage to fly home, we got to spend more time with the Baileys. More delicious meals together! The promise of another visit in the not-too-distant future. We have spent the last 2 weeks being a small part of God re-establishing ties between Praise Fellowship and all our loved ones in Alaska. It is a wild, breathtaking, unforgiving, unimaginably HUGE place. It's a place that no one in the lower 48 understands. It is like another country altogether. And it is where The Lord makes His home just as comfortably as He does everywhere else. He made it, and He is in love with it.

Maryanne & I are sitting in Starbucks in Vancouver. We will be boarding the Princess Sapphire in a few hours and head for Alaska. In the week we're on the ship it will cover around 2,000 miles. Then we'll visit Barry and Carol Bailey and their girls in Anchorage, the Reynolds, and finally the Jewells. That will be our second week here.

Numerous PF friends ordered me sternly to go away and enjoy our time together and not be thinking about PF. When I assured them I would do just that, they didn't believe me and told me AGAIN! They know me : ) .

I must admit I'm having a hard time letting some things go, but I know God has something huge for us in this trip. He's been saving it up for 22 years (today is our 22nd anniversary!) and I know He wants us to soak it all in.

So I love you all, and I'll bring back pics and videos of anything I see God doing up here. I'll update this if I have any internet access along the way. See you in 2 weeks!

John <>{

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Down below each of my posts is a comment counter. Just click on the word "comments" and it'll give you a comment screen. Some of you may laugh at me for giving such explicit instructions, but I happen to know there are others, like me, out there who don't know that. : )

A day in the life

Let me first apologize for not keeping up with this. I'm not quite clear on how to use a blog. At first I thought I would write when I felt like God had revealed something earth-shaking to me. Between my last post and this one I remembered an important thing; my life is made up of every day stuff for the most part. That's the way our lives are. We don't get a chance to sit and wait for great moments of brilliance to overwhelm us. We have to do the dishes, the laundry, make a living, etc. I just had a day like that. It's been one of the most God-filled days in a while. For those of you who have wondered what it is I do for PF...this was my day:

4:45-Get up and make an excellent cup of coffee for Maryanne, help her get off to work, take a shower.

6:30-Maryanne is zooming away. Do the dishes, 2 loads of laundry, eat the omelette Maryanne made for me at 5:45.

Around 7:30 the phone starts ringing(do phones RING any more?) I put on my headset so I can talk while I do the housework. I used to try and keep account of who calls me/who I call; I gave up a long time ago.

10:00-Out the door. Haircut. Go to Herbs-R-4-U to get Leslie's phone that she left there yesterday. Nice to touch base with Barbie and Rachel Cheney (best massage therapist on the planet!).

Now I head to PF where some faithful folks are working to transform the downstairs into a space odyssey. Spend some time with everyone, have lunch with them in the Cafe.

I leave PF for Jamestown. Head to the Honda dealer for some parts for a single mom's car. Takes 1/2hr because I explain to Mark, the parts guy, what the Car Clinic is all about. He loves the idea...gives me a discount!

Now over to visit Karen at Auto Zone. She and her sister Mel attend PF, but Karen works a lot of weekends. They bring their mom to church when she's up to it, but aging issues make it difficult. I LOVE Karen. The weight of life is heavy on her shoulders, and I can see in her eyes she's struggling. In our 15 min. together across the counter I hope she got a glimpse of a Jesus who cares deeply about her fragile life. I know I do.

Auto Zone is conveniently located across from Wegmans and next to Starbucks. This is my Happy Place. I go into Starbucks where Crystal is my barrista. Crystal used to be in Higher Calling in the old days, as well as in the Wegman's bible study. Now she's 20-something and I can't know why she seems to like it so much when I come in. We talk back and forth while I get a tall-in-a-grande caff for me and a grande-in-a-venti caff for Charlotte.

BTW, Rick has called me from 3 Starbucks locations so far on his Alaska trip.

Next stop is Seneca Eye Surgeons..where Charlotte is thoroughly exhausted. She eyes my gift of Starbucks coffee like a person dying in a desert eyes a glass of icewater. She's able to talk for a while about her daughter, her niece, and some serious health problems she's had for months.

Next to see Brian Adelgren DBA Southern Auto Exchange. I'm sort of a blue-collar kind of guy and I feel completely at home here. I ask Brian a few questions about a car clinic case we're working on, then we talk about motorcycles, then I'm off.

Stop at the Adelgrens' home to see Stephen and his recently-collapsed lung. 45min. or so with Donna, Stephen and Lucy, then out the door.

On my way to Mo and Judy Cheney's, I turn right instead of going straight and pull into Brian and Mickey's driveway. Just for 5 minutes. I promise myself. We talk about everything, with the added blessing of a visit from Lois Bentley, and playing with Chester. About an hour later...around 6PM, I left with The Civil War DVD's in my hand.

Since it's on the way home, I finally stop by the Cheneys' farm to check on Judy's broken leg. She and Mo and I spent quite a while together, and she's doing well though it'll take her 3 weeks or so to get back on her feet.

I never did make it to get Jodie Lindell a White Mocha from Fresh Cup. I'm sorry Jodie. I'll try tomorrow. I did, however, manage to leave Jodie a comforting message and we did talk on the phone later somewhere.

I was eventually reunited with my long-suffering wife. She made a great sandwich for me and I sat down and watched the first disc of The Civil War (including special features).

To all of those I saw or talked with on the phone...or prayed for...or prayed for me...thank you for being the part of the Body of Christ that I hang out with. I wouldn't change a thing.

John <>{

Long-term Pain

Long-term pain or disability...let's have a little chat about this. : )  You can avoid the subject if you pretty much only pay attention to yourself and your immediate family (as long as everyone's OK). I happen to have my eye on 450 people on a regular basis, and like it or not we have folks here with us...sitting next to YOU on Sunday morning...who's physical trouble won't go away.

This is an issue that will make applesauce out of your theology if you don't keep your distance from these people. You say if you pray long enough, if you have enough faith, if you confess every little sin lurking under every corner...but sometimes none of it works. 

Back during the onset of the Lakeland Revival, a group of us in leadership at PF made the trek down there to get a hold of what God was doing. On our way back, Rick and I had a heart-to-heart talk about what each of us thought. Here were my thoughts at the time:

 I watched people leave their wheelchairs and leg braces on the floor and walk up the stairs. I saw them run, dance, rejoice in the Lord. I also saw some people exit at the end of the night still in their wheelchairs, still needing their friends to help them leave in their leg braces. I see God heal people and I have an expectation that He will! But I know that not everyone is healed. I praise Jesus for the healings. But my heart is most strongly tied to the ones who are not healed yet. What I do best...the thing that it seems to me I was made for... is to walk with the ones who can't charge boldly across the field with a sword in their hand. My heart compels me to engage with them; to look them in the eye and ask for the long version of how they're doing; to show them the love of the Father the best way I know how. 

I learned some lessons about all of this three years ago. I developed terrible back pain that would not go away. It went on for 6 or 7 months. It got to the point where I would rather have died than go on living with the pain. During this time all the heavy hitters from PF came to pray for me (thank you my dear friends). I went up the food chain of medical experts, waiting in pain for weeks just for each next appointment. I was on pain killers and nerve blockers 'till I could no longer think straight. I avoided people (which is the worst thing of all) because I didn't want them to see the pain in my eyes. Charlotte rounded up a gang to move our bedroom downstairs because I could no longer climb stairs. I couldn't sit in a chair. I noticed something while all this was happening: Many people lost interest in my plight after a while. In the beginning there was lots of rallying, but as time went on and I didn't get better it became too hard for a lot of folks to deal with. I could see in their eyes that they were detaching from this because something should have changed by now. Surely God had heard all the "George Bailey prayers" going up on my behalf; why wasn't this thing fixed. When there are no apparent answers, a lot of people shrink away. It's just too hard to deal with for very long.

Well, in the end God brought the perfect Neurosurgeon who knew just what to tinker with in my spine. Pain gone. But a very important lesson remains imbedded in my DNA... God's lesson for me personally: to never shrink back; to always engage; to go the extra 100 miles with a struggling person if that's how far THEY must go; to cry with them; to go to THEIR house and just sit with them even if I don't have answers; to not be a jerk and make up answers just because I feel I should have answers.

In the course of my day today I spent time with some dear ones like this. They go to your church. They feel alone a lot of the time. They look for Jesus to show up in the middle of their day. Maybe if you knocked on their door, they would see Him standing there.

John <>{

OK...They've been telling me for months that there's absolutely NOTHING to this blog thing. So today I asked Brian to set me up. Then Rick comes into Brian's office to join us in the effort. "Just 2 minutes" they assured me. About 45 minutes later...ready to go! They didn't instill a lot of confidence. Now I'm home alone to fend for myself as I'm writing this.

I know there are many of you at PF who know what I do. Some of you have a general sense of it; many others know me because we've walked through some of the best/worst times of our lives together. But it always haunts me that there are too many PFrs who don't even have a clue WHO I am. 

I am by nature not very interested in ME; I'm interested in EVERYBODY ELSE. (I think this personality type is referred to as the Golden Retriever). So, not being very interested in me, I don't exactly look for opportunities to talk about myself and what I do. I just DO it. I like to think this is at the very heart of Praise Fellowship's DNA.

I do think it's important for you to know what it is that I do.  If you've ever asked me, I had a hard time explaining it within the framework of a "job description". The original intent was to scope out folks who needed a little help feeling "plugged in." Later someone used the words "keeping your finger on the pulse of PF." I think this blog may be the ideal way for me to communicate to you the scope of "what I do"; better yet, this may be the best vehicle to keep you in the loop about many of the "people" things that go largely unnoticed  within the context of a Sunday morning gathering. If Sunday morning gives you the headlines, consider John's Blog the human interest column. 

John <>{