Anna is home!

We collected Anna from the hospital this afternoon, following her MRI and review by the two specialists who have been looking after her today. Compared to the tense atmosphere this morning as they examined Anna, it was good to see them both relax as I handed them the results of the MRI. The MRI showed that Anna did not have either a cavernous sinus thrombosis or a retro-bulbar abscess - the complications which her husband and three other medics had all feared.

She did have a rip-roaring infection in all the sinuses in her head - “They’re all lit up like a Christmas tree” said the ENT surgeon, cheerily as he reviewed the pictures. Neither specialist can explain the swollen eye-lid adequately at the moment so they will follow Anna’s progress closely . Tests showed that Anna has grown a nasty bacteria and a mould in her sinus. She’ll need to be on some fairly heavy-duty treatment for a little while yet. Overall though the news is good. Thank you for your prayers.

With our love

Steve, Anna, Joshua and Aimée

Anna is unwell - again.

Today we had to take Anna down to the hospital. She began to vomit yesterday afternoon and had eye pain on looking to one side but it settled in the evening. On waking up this morning the area around her left eye was swollen. This suggests a potentially serious complication of her sinus surgery some weeks ago. She has just been wheeled in to have an emergency MRI. Please can you pray for strength and comfort for her (and the rest of the family). We will let you know the outcome as soon as we can.

I also had my six-monthly check-up with the cardiologist today so it was quite a stressful day. However, he decided to stop my heart medication and review me in six months. This is a great encouragement so we praise God for that.

All this comes in the middle of last-minute planning and preparation for the Joint Mobilisers and Candidate Co-ordinators conference with more than 70 people descending on us for a week of training and discussion as we continue to work out the implications of the call to prayer for 900 new workers. We feel caught up into a battle. We humbly ask your prayers for that consultation - for a deeper sense of unity and a greater desire to seek God glorified in East Asia through the declaration of what Jesus has achieved on the cross. Pray too that we would be able to play our part in it.

With our love

Steve, Anna, Joshua and Aimée

Klearance, Klebsiella, Klarinet, Ko-ordinators, Kala & Katherine

News from our home church in Zimbabwe has been distressing recently. We were concerned to hear that a funeral for an opposition activist killed recently during the violent disruption of a prayer meeting was to be held at the church with the threat of further violence.

Our pastor there wrote to us about the situation "We had a visit from the Police yesterday and I had given instructions for them to be brought to me. They were upset that we had not informed them of the funeral service. I said we never tell them about funerals and weddings as these are church functions and do not come under legislation – they agreed. They then asked if I knew who the person was to which I replied that that did not matter as ALL people are made equal in the eyes of God and the church exists for times like funerals, weddings and life issues. They asked us to give them a list of all the meetings we have each week and I said okay – I have nothing to hide. When we have meetings not covered by church issues we always ask for police clearance and they know that. When they said they wanted to go I asked them to stay a little longer so I could pray with them. So we had a great time of prayer together (well I did)… They did not know what to do – it was so cool! My staff were stunned to hear me pray with the men. One of the staff said to me “I thought I was mad… but you are madder”.

So we are all well and I feel God has used this incident for His good. I am challenged by the statement that for evil to prevail all that is needed is for good men to do nothing. I don’t intend to be accused of doing nothing." Please do pray with us for a resolution to the terrible leadership crisis gripping Zimbabwe.

We are so grateful for the calls, cards, letters emails and prayers for Anna recently. She has made good progress since her sinus surgery, with just a few hiccups along the way. (For the medics, culture of the organism showed she was harbouring a multi-drug resistant Klebsiella.) Healing of the sinuses has been good & Anna has a lot more energy & zest for life than a few weeks ago. However, she is still experiencing pain around her left eye & associated headaches. She has been seen by both an ophthalmologist & a neurologist & is presently on a course of treatment. If that does not give results she will need further tests. We would appreciate your prayers for this issue and for complete healing.

Joshua has been offered a place at the Anglo-Chinese School. (He must have done a good, quick job on those exam papers!) He starts at his new school in June – after just two weeks summer holiday. He is both excited & apprehensive at the change – please pray for him. Jamil, his close friend at the Canadian School is very disappointed that Josh is moving. Steve & Josh are working hard at their clarinet practice. We will be taking Grade Two exams next month…the strain is worse than final year medical exams!

From April 23rd-27th, we’ll be hosting the largest consultation that OMF has ever had here in Singapore, together with Jon Fuller, the International Director for Mobilisation. A (Biblically significant?) seventy-two people will be descending on IHQ from across the globe. This is the Joint Mobilisers & Candidate Co-ordinators Consultation (JMCC). Anna & I will be leading two full days of training for the candidate co-ordinators, the team that handle enquirers, that process their papers, keep in touch with them, sort out interviews, chase up on referees & help handle all the thousands of little details that need attention for folk heading for cross-cultural work. We’ll also be working with the wider group. Our time has been pressured lately what with Anna’s illness & a very busy Orientation Course that just finished last Friday. So please pray that we will find the time to pour into the preparation of our teaching sessions. We very badly need to get on with this!

Kala (from Sri Lanka/Ireland) & Katherine (from Canada) are two of Aimée’s school-friends whom she has invited to a sleep-over next Easter Saturday night followed by church on Sunday morning to attend an evangelistic Easter Sunday service for children. Katherine came along last year & really enjoyed it. Pray that the two girls will be able to come & enjoy the fun but also that they would be challenged by the Easter message.

John Updike wrote in celebration of the Easter news:

"Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance."

In Easter hope,

Steve Anna Josh and Aimée