Summer in West Virginia. Visually refreshing with densely packed trees in full-leaf greenery covering the mountains wherever you look, everything growing like weeds…no wait, those are weeds…pretending this profusion of plant life is actually what I want growing around the borders of my yard…. Ah, the joys of living in a northern rain forest. It is amazing and wonderful.

Teams of volunteers from all over the country, and even Canada, have been our guests a week at a time for the past 6 weeks, doing helpful tasks with and for local families in our neck of the woods (my fingers actually started typing “weeds” instead of “woods”; either way it would be correct!). We have had a good time with teams so far, no injuries and no problems, for which we are very thankful. There are 4 more weeks to go before our summer volunteer ministry ends and our staff takes a breather. We have 3 interns this year (college students who arrive in May and leave in early to mid-August), 2 of which are returnees, and a new guy who wants to come back again! All these things and people are answers to prayer and we, again, are very thankful.

Randy has been teaching the evening sessions with the teams, the topic this year being the fear of God. It has been powerful. We are hearing good feedback from the families whose homes we work on as well as from the teams which work with them. Please pray those who need to come in faith and repentance to Jesus, will; and those who are believers will be strengthened and built up, encouraged to greater commitment to Jesus, because of interactions with others. This is for both those who live here and those who come to serve here. And for those of us on Mustard Seeds staff.

Randy has numerous responsibilities heading up a mission organization. One recently added is weekly 5 minute radio spots to promote the prayer campaign he is trying to start in the county. We pray for a true awaking and stirring up of God’s people here and an outpouring of God’s Spirit to revive his people and redeem the lost. We his people must be ready for the harvest.

I am slowly progressing as my leg strengthens, to walk properly. Building up and retraining muscles takes effort and time but in the last two weeks I have been leaving my cane behind, even for walking outdoors! I still have 4 more days of driving in to Princeton, WV, for physical therapy, concluding the additional 6 weeks of therapy after leaving CA. The pain is slowly lessening for which I truly thank the Lord.

I spent a week in the Atlanta, GA, area to visit my mom where she lives in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. She is unable to do anything for herself anymore. She is still recognizing us but gets frustrated, in her gentle way, in her inability to communicate and do things. I spent several hours each day sitting with her, pushing her wheel chair out to the verandah so she could enjoy the fresh air and outdoor scenery, talking with her and reading a bit of scripture to her. At one point, as she mumbled something I couldn’t understand, I choked up, looked away and told myself, “one day we will have a real conversation again”. I know that won’t be until we are both in heaven, but it will come, one day.

I was also able to spend some time with several friends from the Atlanta area which was really nice. God has given us many wonderful friends from all over in the 40 years we have been serving the Lord and what a blessing they are to us.

One of our staff members is going through a very difficult time now and needs your prayers. Angie is taking care of her mom at home every day; she is in hospice care dying of cancer. Pray for Dee Dee’s comfort and true salvation to be ready to meet the Lord. And for Angie and her young girls as they walk this path with her.

Throughout what I have written you see italicized phrases. These are prayer and praise points and I hope you will join us in prayer and praise for these things. Without the intervention of God in all we do, our efforts are in vain. Thanks for “listening” as I’ve shared my thoughts with you. Thanks more for praying with us for God to work out his perfect, eternal purposes through each of us, to his glory.

Jacque

Much has happened in the last few weeks. I am now back in West Virginia, having flown home Saturday June 11. I have enjoyed being back in my home, savoring the gorgeous visual splendors of summer in Appalachia. I drink in the sights of trees everywhere, of all varieties, fully leafed out, shimmering and waving in the breezes; trees in my yard casting shadows into the lush lawn, bushes forming enclosing walls on the edges of the yard, arching and reaching and sheltering. The day lilies are continually in bloom this month and though I have missed several earlier blooming trees and shrubs, the wild roses I rooted from cuttings and planted several years ago along a section of back fence are thriving and blooming profusely, casting their long reaching arms along the fence. Along with the sights, the weather has been perfect, in the 70-80 degree range.

Before I left CA, however, after a week of sickness and cancellations of appointments, I had a busy final week making up for lost PT sessions, meeting with friends, and final doctor appointments. The appointment with my oncologist indicated everything is fine on that score, for which we thank God. But in other meetings with doctors I learned there is abnormal bone growth into the soft tissues around the bone at the upper end of the femur (called Myositis Ossificance), that the NSAID drug prescribed for me to treat it, which I had begun to take, was nixed by my cardiologist because it adversely affects heart function, and that my only other option is low dose radiation to reduce this process. And the pain it apparently produces. The pain, from this source or wherever, along with some weakness of muscles is probably the reason I haven’t progressed further in my physical therapy and recovery to normal walking. I need your prayers for God’s intervention for healing of this problem and the ability to get back to normal walking with no leg pain.

On June 10 I was reading Psalm 124 and wrote:

I cry out to the Lord again…another medical/physical issue has arisen and only God can bring a solution, a living, working solution to my problem. Reading through the Psalm I reinterpret it for my situation. I do not have a flesh and blood enemy pursuing me, but I do have an Enemy which works to destroy me. I read the psalmist’s accounts and make my own personal application. If God were not on my side (and I on his) then I would be destroyed by the billows and waves of troubles flowing over me. I read this testament to God’s intervention as my own.

“If it had not been the LORD who (is) on my side when these troubles in my body rise up against me, then they would have swallowed me up alive, the waters would have engulfed me, the stream would have swept over my soul, the raging waters would have swept over my soul.

Bless the LORD, who has not given me over to be torn apart by these troubles and the enemy of my soul.

My soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper. The snare is broken and I have escaped.

My help is in the Name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 124 (my changes)

It is always the word of God which holds me up, holds me together, gives me peace. I humbly thank God for his mercies to me. All his mercies to me. Though I haven’t yet physically “escaped” this trap of the enemy, my hope is definitely in the LORD “who made heaven and earth”. He did that, he can do all things.

My busyness at home is moderated so I do not over do. And oh do I have much to do! One week before flying home to WV my laptop computer crashed and the experts told me the hard drive was “kaput”, nothing was retrievable. So now I am reconstructing everything not backed up (and unfortunately my last backup was weeks prior) from other records and files. Alas, I have learned a hard lesson. The computer I use in the Mustard Seeds’ office here was also on its way out but all data was able to be saved and reinstalled with a new hard drive. We have an enemy but our God is greater. With his help I will get through this without too many lumps.

This past week we hosted our first Mission as Life team and it was a good week. The next nine weeks we will host several hundred more Mission as Life volunteers as they make their way to the beautiful green mountains of southern West Virginia. Pray for these teams, our staff and the families here who will be working with them. May God be glorified in all our hard work.

Jacque

Perhaps I was being a bit optimistic in my goal setting. When I set up my 4 weeks of outpatient physical therapy sessions, I was asked what goals I wanted to set for myself. My biggest one was to walk normally without the cane by the end of those 4 weeks. Well, this marks the end of 4 weeks, although because I was sick this week and missed my scheduled sessions of PT, 3 sessions are rescheduled for next week, and I am far from walking normally without my cane. I have done some walking without it but it is not straight and normal in any sense of the word. I still must build up strength in muscles which, when I think of it, and Randy also mentioned it, have been used improperly for many months. Back the end of last summer (before we knew the damage to my femurs) I began to have pain in my legs and started walking abnormally; I’ve been walking incorrectly since at least August.

I know I have been making incremental progress. I just had hoped I’d be further along by now. And I’m still having pain in my left leg. So all in all, your prayers for me are very much appreciated.

Though I am going to miss my families out here in California, I am looking forward to being back with Randy in West Virginia. I fly back Saturday, June 11, just in time for the first incoming Mission as Life team, kicking off our summer Volunteer Ministry of Home Repair for the needy, elderly and disabled, as well as VBS programs put on by various of the teams coming throughout the summer. Everyone is in high gear.

Also kicking off our summer, starting this Sunday, is 16 hours of prayer daily by Mustard Seeds and Mountains’ staff (in 4 hour shifts per person). Of course, Mustard Seeds is also instituting a Rend the Heavens Prayer campaign in McDowell County. We are encouraging God’s people in the County to seek His face daily in line with II Chronicles 7:14. We want to see His people strengthened and emboldened to stand against the darkness around us, living in the power of God, and then see God’s spirit poured out to change lives. It will only happen by concerted and fervent prayer. If you’d like to join us in this campaign (and include with McDowell County your own community in your prayers) you can get more information by writing us at Rend the Heavens, P.O. Box 686, Northfork, WV 24868. I have a strong feeling your area could use this too.

Pray for all of us as we seek to work alongside God, whose co-laborers it is our privilege to be. Another prayer request is for my oldest son, Jeremy, who will be leaving this Tuesday, June 7, for a 3 week missionary trek to India with his uncle, Daniel Rickett. Please pray, of course, for their safety and good health, but also that God would accomplish in and through them His plans. Pray also for Monica, his wife, back home with 3 young children during the 3 weeks of daddy’s absence.

One more urgent request is for Bryon Thomas and his family (a young couple raising support to join us on staff at Mustard Seeds). We just learned Bryon’s mother was killed in a head on car collision. Hold this family up before the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers for us as we continue to follow where He leads.

Jacque

How good is the Word of God! So often in my readings of Scripture my heart almost bursts for the truth of it, the knowing in my heart it is so. Even the hard parts, such as, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word”, and “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:67, 71). I have to bow my spirit before the living God in acknowledgment of that truth. Yes, I know the desperate sickness of my own heart, and only the treatment prescribed by the One we call the Great Physician can bring healing. And sometimes it is not pleasant medicine. So to be honest, I am always brought back to this I know to be true in the depths of my being, “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes” (Psalm 119:68). Then I can lift my eyes, looking about me, and acknowledge wholeheartedly, “The earth is full of your lovingkindness, O LORD; teach me your statutes (Psalm 119:64).

We so often focus on the healing of our bodies that we forget God is also interested in our ever-living souls. He sees what we fail to recognize and works in us to perfect his purposes for us, as we are a part of a greater, overarching scheme: the redemption of a people for his name.

So when he works painful measures in us, literally physically and emotionally painful, and we cry out, “what in the world is going on here? Why are you doing this to me?”, we have to stop ourselves and get perspective, God’s perspective. He sees what we cannot. He knows what we do not. He understands how all of the circumstances of our lives can work together for our eternal benefit (and that is a long time…beyond time). But we cry out against it, for the moment forgetting his goodness and lovingkindness at all times, to all peoples.

Stop! How often have I had to stop myself! And remind myself that I do know and believe with all my heart “God is good”, his word is true. It has been proven time and time again in my own life, not to mention all through history and is evident around me in the world I live in. It is in the midst of pain and struggle that we must affirm, sometimes to our own selves primarily, and then to others in the saying of it, that God, the Infinite, all-knowing God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, knows best and he is good. His word is true; he is faithful and is faithfully working all things out for his great and grand purposes, even through my pain and suffering.

It is ok if I don’t understand it. God, who does know, understands. All his ways are right.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. The proof of our faith and trust in the word of God is in the doing of it…putting it into practice in our lives, even when it is hard. The proof of our faith in the true and living God, the sovereign God, is humbly acknowledging his goodness and righteousness, his sovereignty, at all times, the good times of our lives and “bad” times, and living faithful to his word, his truth.

Then we can come to the point of saying, “You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word” (Psalm 119:65).

This is how I have been step by step getting through another difficult time in my life. “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your word has revived (or preserved) me” (Psalm 119:50). Going back, and back again, and back yet again, and again to the word of God, to the God of his word! Casting myself on the mercies of God, which never fail.

Light is dawning! Re-focusing on what I need to focus on, first his kingdom and his righteousness, trusting to him my physical and emotional needs, which he has promised to meet when I put them in the proper order, that is, second to his concerns, has given me again a corrected perspective. The waves of chaos of soul have settled. Smoother sailing.

Randy and I are embarked on new adventures once again as we serve God, fulfilling our calling from him. We are excited for what God is doing and will do. We want to see him proven great and mighty! For that is what he is.

I have purchased my airline ticket and will be winging my way back east after 4 ½ months in California, on Saturday, June 11, just before our first summer team arrives in West Virginia on June 12. It is a busy time for us all on Mustard Seeds’ staff, expanded by 3 summer interns, for whom we thank God.

Pray for our vital summer Mission as Life season as hundreds of volunteers, many of them families, will come from all over the country week by week into McDowell County, West Virginia, to work alongside local families and our staff. Pray for the volunteers, pray for the local families, pray for our staff as we strive to serve them all in the spirit of Jesus.

Pray for Randy as he has many responsibilities as the head of Mustard Seeds and Mountains, and new ones added to the old ones as we forge ahead, walking where the Spirit of God leads us into ever-widening areas of service. Hold him up in prayer, for you lighten his load as you do!

It is all for the Kingdom of God and the glory of his name!

Jacque

Distressing news from my own neighborhood. Prayer requests indeed. Neighbors whose lives are marked with pocks of sin-disease, festering, grotesque from long stewing in sinful wretchedness. When the Truth is rejected… oh if only we could impress the deathfulness of sin on those who dabble in it! There is only one outcome for the life and lifestyle of rebellion against God: Death! It reeks while living. It chokes. It gags all those around it.

And those of my neighbors who consider themselves better than the worst elements around them, yet themselves living in rebellion and rejection of the only Truth which can give them life too, live in self-made and self-perpetuating isolation from their neighbors. Living their death-lives as Isles of Pathos: Islands of Suffering and Tragedy.

This came to me as I considered the awful news about one of my neighbors. My community, the cluster of homes I have lived in for the past 16 years, has always been a mission field, a prayer concern. We have brought in evangelists in the form of Bible club teachers, year after year. We have seen God use godly neighbors, my co-laborers in ministry, in one case week after week teaching the Word of God to children, for several years; in another mentoring boys; in yet another continuing that discipling work in the lives of girls in the neighborhood, mentoring, modeling and teaching the truths of God to them for several years. We have agonized as we have seen the demise of those very works, the destructive lifestyles embraced by one or more of the children, in spite of the good things poured into their lives over spans of years.

Among my neighbors there are a few Followers of Jesus but many more who don’t know him, even after true and faithful witness and lifestyle evidence as they have interacted with and watched the godly lives of those of us who do follow Jesus.

Sin always spirals downward, generation after generation. You can see the deepening of sin’s awful effects, right before your eyes, as children learn from their parents how to live, or in these cases, how not to live in the world. We feel helpless. Is it any wonder that we pray for an outpouring of God’s Spirit?

But first, the people of God must be the ones to come into “judgment” before God. Judgment must always begin at the house of God, the family of God, the blood-bought children of God, who call ourselves by his name. We are the ones who must humble ourselves before him, turning away from and repenting of sin in our own lives, and instead living according to the clear teachings of the Word of God. Then, and only then, will God hear and answer prayer! Then he can and will, based on historic and biblical evidence, pour out his Spirit in conviction and power to save the lost, the spiritually dead, the death-living neighbors in our neighborhoods.

Then and only then can our neighborhood Isles of Pathos be bridged and become Archipelagos of Peace.

Pray for my neighborhood! Pray for your neighborhood! We are the Light in our neighbors’ darkness. We are the Salt which holds back the decay of sin-death. We must beseech the Lord of the Harvest for ways we can be the Laborers he needs in his fields!

Not only is there an eternity awaiting, there is the living today. Will my friend’s children, or any of my neighbors’ children, be harmed in any way by the death-living of their and my other neighbors whose lives reek of sin-death? God lead us in praying. God enter into our Pathos. God make us Bridge builders of Peace, through the Gospel of Peace, by the power of the Prince of Peace. May those of us in our neighborhoods who call ourselves by the Name of God, join together for the highest purpose, the purposes of God.

May all that needs to be broken down in our lives, be so. May all that needs to be built up in our lives, as the blood-bought people of God, be built up. May the world around us, at our doorsteps, see Jesus in us. May the Spirit of the living and only God pour out through our daily lives.

May, by God’s power and grace, those Isles of Pathos around us in our neighborhoods be bridged with the Gospel of Jesus, and become Archipelagos of Peace.

Jacque