I guess it is time to start blogging again!

I'm sorry I ahve been gone for a while, but I lost the flame for a bit and now I'm back burning brightly again.

I was browsing through the Alumni Page of my high school class. I came across a couple of old friends. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade my Barber was George Bardic. His daughter Debbie and I went to school together at Fremont Elementary in Glendale, California, and Rosemont Junior High School and Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, California. The other day I was thinking about George cutting my hair and it led me to think about Debbie. I wondered what happened to her. I don't remember her being in the Alumni Page, but I went back and checked again and there she was. She has a website that is a hoot. It is located here. Just click on the Roadster and you can enter Debbie's world. She hasn't changed much. She is still the wild thing I remember.

Since I put my write up into the Alumni Page I have linked up with Mark Illuminate, Steve Atkinson, and Mike Murray. They were all three good friends that I have had lots of good times with over the course of growing up.

Rick

Marilyn has been doing better the last week or so. She went back to work on Tuesday and today is her second day back. She keeps getting stronger each day. She comes home and crashes after work, but that is OK with me as long as she is still doing fine.

Today marks the second anniversary of 9/11. I don't want to be like everyone else and do a tribute to those who died or suvrvived the attack. All I want to say is that it has forever changed my country and my world. I will keep all those affected in my prayers.

Sunday Morning Bible Study this week was OK. I think the new curriculum is a little too basic. It would make for a great discipleship course, designed to lead someone through the basics of the Christian life, but for students who have grown up in the church it is very basic and not real challenging. I believe that tells us where the church is right now. It is in a maintenance phase instead of a building phase. We need to regain the fire for reaching the lost. We need to explore meeting the lost where they live and play. We haven't been effective in reaching the lost becaues we expect them to come to us. We need to go to them.

Well, yesterday was an interesting day. I had lunch with Larry Richmond, Executive Pastor at our church. I told him about my calling to plant a church in the local area targeted to collegiate/postmodern/net generations. He was very surprized, but very supportive. He told me that the future looks promising. One of the local churches is dissolving and they are giving the building to our church. It is next to McKendree College, the local liberal arts college (a Methodist one) with a large Christian student population. Larry asked me if I would be interested in taking that church over and targeting the audience I wanted. I told him I was very interested. Anyhow, he will do some researching and get back with me next week. The Lord continues to bless me when I don't expect it.

We serve a great God!

Rick Marshall

Well, another day goes by. Marilyn is doing much better this week. Se came home from the hospital last Friday, and is still weak and tiring easily, but doing better every day. She went to the doctor for a follow up exam yesterday and he tweaked her medicine a little bit. What she was taking for the last week was keeping her from sleeping well at night. She slept pretty well last night and woke up this morning rested and rearing to go. It is good to see her feeling good again!

It was a long, difficult week last week. My wife Marilyn was not feeling good on Tuesday evening, so around 1:30 in the morning on Wednesday I took her to the hospital emergency room. They said that she had had a heart attack and was suffereing from congestive heart failure. The doctors were a little stumped when it came down to why she was having a heart attack. Neither Marilyn or I smoke or drink and we both eat pretty healthy, and we are only 29+ years old. So, they didn't have a clue why she had had the heart attack.

Wednesday was a day full of tests for Marilyn. She had a CAT Scan, X-Rays, an Ultrasound of her veins/arteries, all with no help as to the reason she was sick. When Marilyn was being transferred from her hospital bed to a gurney for her X-Rays she passed out. When she woke up there were 13 people towering over her, the crash cart was there, and they were getting the difibrulation paddles ready to zap her heart back to life. When she woke up just before the paddles were ready it scared her enough to wake her up very quickly. The doctors said she was pretty much dead for a minute and a half to two minutes.

Marilyn had one of those near-death (or in her case death) experiences. As a Christian it was very nice and peaceful for her. It was so nice that she didn't want to return. What a difference it makes when you know where you will spend eternity. I think if she had not been a Christian it would have scared Jesus right into her! She has a great testimony of what it feels like to be in God's presence!

Thursday Marilyn had a heart catherization (a dinky wire with a mini television camera on the end of it) inserted into her heart to show the doctors pictures of what her heart looks like. No blockage, no problems with arteries or veins, only some detection of some heart damage caused by the heart attack. But unfortunately, no information to help us determinwe why.

It all comes down to the doctors giving us their best guess. Marilyn had some surgery in June that they think may have triggered a blood clot that blocked one of her veins bringing blood to her heart. When they thinned her blood down to try to reduce her blood pressure in the emergency room it might have dissolved the blood clot. There is no trace of a clot now.

So, we had a very exciting week and weekend. Marilyn feels better each day that goes on, and is getting stronger as time goes by. Hopefully, we can get her back to her good young self sometime very soon.

1 Corinthians 15:40:
There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.

Looking forward to teaching James Chapter 3 this week in Sunday School. We are reorgainzing Sunday School and moving our classroom around to the other side of the church, but there seems to be a lot of inertia right now and things are going OK.

Rick

I received a phone call from my wife today that my 9 year old daughter Bethany wants to be baptized on Sunday. Awesome! We talked it over with the Pastor of our church and he agreed. So, Sunday it is! Bethany has wanted to be baptized for a year or so now, but we wanted it to be something she will remember. I think she is old enough to understand the implications of being baptized into Christ's life, death, and resurrection. She is a very mature 9 years old and it very much in tune with the Lord at such a young age. The timing is great too. Bethany's Grandmother Shirley is flying in from California on Saturday for 3 weeks. She will be thrilled to see Bethany baptized on Sunday.

My 11 year old son Matthew is also in tune with the Lord, but thinks that being baptized is "too embarrassing" of a thing to go through. He will come around some day soon. He knows the Lord intimately in his life and will understand the significance of baptism in a short time. Hopefully, Bethany's baptism on Sunday will serve to inspire him to want to make that public display of commitment to follow the Lord through baptism.

Women as ordained Pastors

Jordon Cooper has a very good doctrinal statement on the Bible's position of women in the ministry in the Lakeland Church webpage. I know in my heart that women are created equal in God's eyes, and am looking for doctrinal help from people like Jordon. I grew up in an environment that taught women are not to be ordained as pastors, they can only serve in positions where they don't teach and have authority over men (read Children's Ministry). I have been looking for scriptural documentation to counter this teaching. I believe Jordon's doctrinal statement goes a long way to help me see beyond my culturally influenced eyes.