Perfect timing.

After a week in Prince Albert for our monthly Day of Prayer and Executive Meeting (October 21 & 22), we had the weekend to prepare before our Healing Hearts Staff Conference (October 26-29).  Sometimes I look at our calendar and on paper it looks like it should work out.  At other times, I see the line up of events and appointments and wonder:  when did life get so crazy!

It was good timing for one of our staff couples to stay at our place Saturday before conference.  Carl & Brenda Ens are friends from our Nipawin Bible Institute days.  They serve with us in HHM and were coming down early in order to share a dramatic presentation with our Regina church.  We had a nice chance to visit and connect with them before the demands of the next week were upon us.

Through dramatic monologue, some music, video clips and pictures, Carl and Brenda presented the story of Jim Elliot and the men who were martyred in trying to reach the Auca people with the Gospel in the 1950's.  I remember the story when I was a Bible school student and the cost of their lives impacted many to sign up for full time missionary service.  As Carl played the parts of all five men, it made their lives and the price they paid seem so real and personal.  Walter and I were both impacted deeply.

The conference began Monday late afternoon and I was feeling pretty good about the preparations and details falling into place.  I even had two NCEM interns doing the childcare for us!  But as the woman arrived to do the registration of our guests, she got a call from Sask Health that a confirmed case of COVID was reported at her son's preschool.  She had to return home and isolate with her family for 14 days!  So her boys would not be at the conference, thus no need for our childcare workers.  Sigh!

But as everyone that could come arrived, we settled down into sweet fellowship and rich teaching in the Word.  I was thankful for the others who helped lead worship, the interns who did dishes and others who served in various ways throughout the week.  The speaker, Paul Ens, preached on "The Story of Grace" and it proved to be a timely theme.  I was impressed by the teaching on legalism vs. grace, how Pharisees were notorious for adding laws onto laws, more layers of rules to the basic, simple regulations God gave the Hebrew people.  We may not have the complicated system the Pharisees developed, but I know I have added expectations, personal do's and don't's to my own life.  I have expectations of others that become legalistic and I forget about grace, about freedom, about living by principles not by rules.  So I am still processing how that impacts my spiritual journey in a practical way.

On the final evening of our gathering, the group had a special time of prayer for Walter and me, as we look to God's leading in the year ahead.  Walter has been pursuing medical answers for his health issues in the past year, and one issue became apparent in the tests and checkups.  He has been diagnosed with a slow-moving prostate cancer, being "actively monitored" through a urologist's care.  We're not overly concerned, yet the word "cancer" does bring its own drama!  

Through it all, Walter and I are trusting the Lord.  His timing.  His purpose.  His goodness.  His perfect ways.  We do feel His grace surrounding us as we face another challenge.

I'll try to keep my blog followers updated as we know more...