Mar/26/08
New Beginnings 2008
HAPPY RESURRECTION! Apologies to those of you who have looked in vain for some recent update on the blogs since December last year. Your gentle urging to keep you abreast of what we were up to these past few months was appreciated. This entry will cover January through to March.WELL, we just finished Easter week here in Down/Under New Zealand. Well. A glad and happy Easter it was too. Palm Sunday is the only one in our lifetime that fell on March 16th – a 3:16! With eight the number of resurrection and new beginnings in Scripture it was appropriate this month to tell afresh of God’s great love for His world.I was honored to share Good Friday on one of New Zealand’s largest commercial radio networks (ZB) broadcasting nation-wide, as part of a team put together for the whole of the day by friends from Christian Broadcasting. I joined with a long-term friend John Cooney, editor in chief of our nations largest free magazine the Grapevine. John and I had a late afternoon hour slot together on an open talk-back covering a number of topics beginning with my own miraculous return from the edge of death, and finishing with some evidences of the Lord’s greatness in creation around us. Later on the show was John’s interview with Barry McGuire, our good mate with a resurrection testimony having been revived from a fatal heart arrest a few years ago, now going on strong again with Jesus. Barry and his Kiwi wife Marie (once my short-term secretary) were with us at lunch hosted by our friends Lindsay and Lynn Armishaw two weeks ago.The talk-back turnover to CBA by commercial radio over Easter and Christmas for our own programs is something quite unique and wonderful for our nation. Over a period of a decade they have had such good feedback from the creative programming many culturally aware Christians have contributed that this has been an annual event now. It gives the station personnel a welcome break to enjoy the holidays themselves with their family and friends, and gives us a chance to share with others that what makes the time special is not really about bunnies and eggs. After all, history is His-story.It is also for me a wondrous reminder of just how much the Resurrected Lord has done for us over the past year. As I mentioned previously, a year full of both trial and triumph, white-knuckled trust and overwhelming wonder at His greatness and goodness. I thought again of knowing the day I stood at the edge of death, with one last breath left in my body. Knowing that when that was exhausted, my battered body that had been strapped to a hospital bed with almost everything but my heart closed down inside me, would simply resign my spirit to my Maker and Master. No sense of fear, just a quiet and simple surrender with perhaps a hint of wishing I had had more time or could have done more..And then that last breath was gone I had no more to give, and I was dying.And He was there. Not at all where I expected He might be in such a situation. Not in front of me, to welcome me home or to turn me over to some carrying angel. Not beside me or even behind me, His hand on my shoulder to strengthen me for the last journey. He was inside me, looking out through my eyes at His world, closer than a brother, closer than breathing. I saw through His eyes not heaven, but His world, as He sees it in all its beauty and fallenness, wonder and ugliness, violence and tranquility, terror and peace. He was there, where He had been all the time since the day I first put my uncertain hand in the hand of the One Who holds the worlds, the One Who has promised to never leave us or forsake us, the One Who keeps all of His promises to the end and beyond it. And on the Monday following Easter week, where we remember again with gratefulness and love His death and resurrection, I had my own. Fae reminded me of what it was like for her on what she called Miracle Monday, when arriving to keep the morning vigil beside me as I lay in a coma from which even the Christian doctors had little hope or expectation of my recovery. They not only gave me only a tiny tithe of possible survival; they also had no expectation that if I did recover I would have all of my facilities function again. We had received a prayer cloth from a ministry that had intensely prayed for us, and Fae had the night before laid this all over my body adding again her faith to those who had already earnestly interceded for us,And without fanfare I opened my eyes and sat up alert, aware and alive. My own resurrection. Not anywhere near as spectacular as my Master, but to me and my family and friends in a small way just as miraculous and wonderful. On this anniversary, a year later, I remember not only what did for our world, but what He did in mine.Some of you who have written me or sent some kind of encouragement over the past twelve months to us whether as a card, check or a creative blessing and prayer have taken the time to share with me the tough road that you have also walked recently. More than ever now I am able to identify with the unbelievable maelstrom of pressure and stress that strikes like a whirlwind to the core of your life when such things happen to you, your close family or your friends. But while Good Fridays are only good in retrospect of the Resurrection, the gift of grace that may come in the storm is evidence that faith is not something you hold, but Someone Who holds you.I am now “back in the saddle” again having ministered for at least a month and being fourteen weeks now from the final closure of my surgery. The titanium tummy mesh is holding up well, and apart from a little tightness in deep forward bends is doing its job well in helping keep the deeper stitches holding the healing wound that was stitched with dissolving sutures. We are also playing some tennis again which I hope to increase a couple of days weekly to help rebuild both my strength and stamina.My first ministry in New Zealand was a few days at the Great Barrier Island January with a Sojourner YWAM school under the leadership of Jay Lucas. Besides the students many of the staff also came to these very laid back sessions many of them with me sitting by the computer and dialing up power points, notes and music to a projector. We also got to touch base again with visiting friends who came to the Island for holidays. Apart from the small airplane flying us to the wrong drop-off point on arrival and a broken front tooth the week was uneventful but blessed and touched by Him.We also had two small visits out of the country; flown to Fiji at the invitation of friends for a weeks vacation in a new development of the island area called Demerau. We were given a weeks free stay in a lovely condominium with three other couples and I learned to ride a bike again after 20 years of not following in my fathers footpedals. The other trip was to Tasmania Australia on an unused old ticket from last year where Dr. Andrew Corbett set up three night meetings for me over the weekend and a morning church service. He also did a great Matrixed version of my Digital Generation power-point presentation and restrung our racquets for us as well as kicking my rear end in tennis.Other areas of ministry followed; on my return addressing the LIFE churches annual staff meeting thirty minutes after the return plane from Tasmania touched down. I thought staff meeting was going to be an informal chat with some 10-20 people and found there were some 500-600 in attendance! The next two weeks involved two nights at a Massey University Lecture room to a new School of Revival on that subject, and helping open a new church meeting place for His Way on the North Shore called The Upper Room. Two young men from the work volunteered their time and talents to repaint the ceilings and walls in our home when we were in Australia. The following week their generous gift was blessed of the Lord by them being offered to fill the role of a firms’ master painter who had left for overseas, a contract for five-figure major projects. God is good.
HAPPY RESURRECTION! Apologies to those of you who have looked in vain for some recent update on the blogs since December last year. Your gentle urging to keep you abreast of what we were up to these past few months was appreciated. This entry will cover January through to March.WELL, we just finished Easter week here in Down/Under New Zealand. Well. A glad and happy Easter it was too. Palm Sunday is the only one in our lifetime that fell on March 16th – a 3:16! With eight the number of resurrection and new beginnings in Scripture it was appropriate this month to tell afresh of God’s great love for His world.I was honored to share Good Friday on one of New Zealand’s largest commercial radio networks (ZB) broadcasting nation-wide, as part of a team put together for the whole of the day by friends from Christian Broadcasting. I joined with a long-term friend John Cooney, editor in chief of our nations largest free magazine the Grapevine. John and I had a late afternoon hour slot together on an open talk-back covering a number of topics beginning with my own miraculous return from the edge of death, and finishing with some evidences of the Lord’s greatness in creation around us. Later on the show was John’s interview with Barry McGuire, our good mate with a resurrection testimony having been revived from a fatal heart arrest a few years ago, now going on strong again with Jesus. Barry and his Kiwi wife Marie (once my short-term secretary) were with us at lunch hosted by our friends Lindsay and Lynn Armishaw two weeks ago.The talk-back turnover to CBA by commercial radio over Easter and Christmas for our own programs is something quite unique and wonderful for our nation. Over a period of a decade they have had such good feedback from the creative programming many culturally aware Christians have contributed that this has been an annual event now. It gives the station personnel a welcome break to enjoy the holidays themselves with their family and friends, and gives us a chance to share with others that what makes the time special is not really about bunnies and eggs. After all, history is His-story.It is also for me a wondrous reminder of just how much the Resurrected Lord has done for us over the past year. As I mentioned previously, a year full of both trial and triumph, white-knuckled trust and overwhelming wonder at His greatness and goodness. I thought again of knowing the day I stood at the edge of death, with one last breath left in my body. Knowing that when that was exhausted, my battered body that had been strapped to a hospital bed with almost everything but my heart closed down inside me, would simply resign my spirit to my Maker and Master. No sense of fear, just a quiet and simple surrender with perhaps a hint of wishing I had had more time or could have done more..And then that last breath was gone I had no more to give, and I was dying.And He was there. Not at all where I expected He might be in such a situation. Not in front of me, to welcome me home or to turn me over to some carrying angel. Not beside me or even behind me, His hand on my shoulder to strengthen me for the last journey. He was inside me, looking out through my eyes at His world, closer than a brother, closer than breathing. I saw through His eyes not heaven, but His world, as He sees it in all its beauty and fallenness, wonder and ugliness, violence and tranquility, terror and peace. He was there, where He had been all the time since the day I first put my uncertain hand in the hand of the One Who holds the worlds, the One Who has promised to never leave us or forsake us, the One Who keeps all of His promises to the end and beyond it. And on the Monday following Easter week, where we remember again with gratefulness and love His death and resurrection, I had my own. Fae reminded me of what it was like for her on what she called Miracle Monday, when arriving to keep the morning vigil beside me as I lay in a coma from which even the Christian doctors had little hope or expectation of my recovery. They not only gave me only a tiny tithe of possible survival; they also had no expectation that if I did recover I would have all of my facilities function again. We had received a prayer cloth from a ministry that had intensely prayed for us, and Fae had the night before laid this all over my body adding again her faith to those who had already earnestly interceded for us,And without fanfare I opened my eyes and sat up alert, aware and alive. My own resurrection. Not anywhere near as spectacular as my Master, but to me and my family and friends in a small way just as miraculous and wonderful. On this anniversary, a year later, I remember not only what did for our world, but what He did in mine.Some of you who have written me or sent some kind of encouragement over the past twelve months to us whether as a card, check or a creative blessing and prayer have taken the time to share with me the tough road that you have also walked recently. More than ever now I am able to identify with the unbelievable maelstrom of pressure and stress that strikes like a whirlwind to the core of your life when such things happen to you, your close family or your friends. But while Good Fridays are only good in retrospect of the Resurrection, the gift of grace that may come in the storm is evidence that faith is not something you hold, but Someone Who holds you.I am now “back in the saddle” again having ministered for at least a month and being fourteen weeks now from the final closure of my surgery. The titanium tummy mesh is holding up well, and apart from a little tightness in deep forward bends is doing its job well in helping keep the deeper stitches holding the healing wound that was stitched with dissolving sutures. We are also playing some tennis again which I hope to increase a couple of days weekly to help rebuild both my strength and stamina.My first ministry in New Zealand was a few days at the Great Barrier Island January with a Sojourner YWAM school under the leadership of Jay Lucas. Besides the students many of the staff also came to these very laid back sessions many of them with me sitting by the computer and dialing up power points, notes and music to a projector. We also got to touch base again with visiting friends who came to the Island for holidays. Apart from the small airplane flying us to the wrong drop-off point on arrival and a broken front tooth the week was uneventful but blessed and touched by Him.We also had two small visits out of the country; flown to Fiji at the invitation of friends for a weeks vacation in a new development of the island area called Demerau. We were given a weeks free stay in a lovely condominium with three other couples and I learned to ride a bike again after 20 years of not following in my fathers footpedals. The other trip was to Tasmania Australia on an unused old ticket from last year where Dr. Andrew Corbett set up three night meetings for me over the weekend and a morning church service. He also did a great Matrixed version of my Digital Generation power-point presentation and restrung our racquets for us as well as kicking my rear end in tennis.Other areas of ministry followed; on my return addressing the LIFE churches annual staff meeting thirty minutes after the return plane from Tasmania touched down. I thought staff meeting was going to be an informal chat with some 10-20 people and found there were some 500-600 in attendance! The next two weeks involved two nights at a Massey University Lecture room to a new School of Revival on that subject, and helping open a new church meeting place for His Way on the North Shore called The Upper Room. Two young men from the work volunteered their time and talents to repaint the ceilings and walls in our home when we were in Australia. The following week their generous gift was blessed of the Lord by them being offered to fill the role of a firms’ master painter who had left for overseas, a contract for five-figure major projects. God is good.
Also Easter week I did a new five-day series on the Nature and Character of God in the Arts for two combined DTS YWAM schools locally, digitally recorded for later podcast. I filled in for a defaulting guest speaker for our friends Craig and Sonia Monroe at Kings Way, a local ministry with outreaches to gangs and prostitutes in our area. Still to come are two more church services on 20th century revivals, a business-mans’ breakfast outreach on the North Shore for our friends at Harbourside that helped us put in our concrete driveway last year and as much time as we can here serving the churches and pastors before we leave for overseas next month.
Our departure date for the U.S. is now set for April 22nd, and we plan to be in California (hopefully joined by William) for the first two weekends to meet with and thank some of our friends there who prayed and cared for us over this over this past year before returning to Texas again by the second week in May. Fae has been ministering to her elderly parents her Dad, who will be 93 in a few months and though legally blind is still the chief caregiver at their home to her mother now with major memory lapses. Again we want to thank you for your faithfulness in prayer; the Lord has been our constant provision and protection and we have been so conscious that much of the blessing of these past months has been due to His grace and the constant way we have been held before His throne. You are all loved and appreciated so much.
Blessings in the Beloved –
Winkie, Fae and William.
