One Small World

Revelation 4:9-11
"Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

It's been a while since we posted. We said we weren't going to post every night as long as things stayed on the same path, but we didn't intend to wait this long. Time just got away from us.

Nothing really has changed since we last posted on Wednesday. Tammy had labs drawn Friday and the numbers continue to go up slowly. That's very encouraging, as it means she continues to respond to the treatment. We wish the numbers were normal, but that's not realistic. God is teaching us (read: me) patience once again through this.

Tuesday is our next big day, as we will go back to the Cancer Clinic Tuesday morning. She'll have more labs drawn, then we'll meet with the doctor. If her counts are high enough, they'll do another bone-marrow biopsy that same day. If not, she'll wait until the next visit. The results of the biopsy will determine the timing of the next step. We're pretty sure she'll have another transplant, but when is still to be determined.

I went to a bone-marrow drive Saturday, organized by our good friend, Dr. Stephanie Crabtree. While this one was not in Tammy's honor, specifically, Steph--whose parents are among our closest friends--did write an article in Kansas City Health & Wellness magazine on Tammy's recovery and the donor who saved her life.

Tammy's next donor probably won't come from Steph's drive, just like her last one came from a drive halfway across the country. But every time there's a bone-marrow drive, more people are added to the registry. Thank you to everyone who has registered; you could be the next one to save a life. If you're not part of the registry and want to be, call 1-800-MARROW2. You can go in to your local branch and get registered, or find out when the next drive will be in your area.

This is a good example of how God weaves everything together in His will. Our friend Jim "just happened" to be driving down the street of his hometown in upstate New York when he saw the sign for the local drive that probably was in honor of someone from that town. God knew Tammy needed Jim to donate and nudged Jim into that fire station.

Here's another example. Today in church, we did Phillips Craig & Dean's "Revelation Song," a beautiful song based on Revelation 4. Here's a link to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsiDukXIeVY&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DZmOV6i-7AvjyiB1l6HZzB

After that song, our worship director Dave read Revelation 4 and talked about how all tongues will praise Jesus together in Heaven. If you weren't getting goosebumps, you weren't paying attention. Then Dave started the chorus of "Our God" with only an acoustical accompaniment. But he did it in Swahili. (Now I don't speak Swahili, but I detected a strong American accent.) After singing the chorus twice, Estera, our intern from Poland, joined in on the keyboards and singing, in Polish. Following a couple more trips through the chorus, the whole band joined in and Lisa led the rest of the congregation, in English.

It sounded really cool as we pictured being in Heaven with voices of all kinds lifting up praises to Jesus in all kinds of languages.

This afternoon we got to speak to Julie and Erich on Skype. I shared the experience from church with them, and they just smiled. When I got through, Julie said, "Daddy, we sang 'Revelation Song' in church this morning." How cool is that?

Literally all over the world, praises were being lifted up, many times with the same song, just in a different language. One of my favorite descriptions of God is "omnipresent," which means He is everywhere at all times. As we face the uncertainty of another bone-marrow transplant, what a comforting feeling it is to know that wherever this path takes us, God will be there and He will be in control.