Sunday, September 20, 2009

Under The Juniper Tree

July 7th, 2009

Dear Friends, This is Daphne writing – I was going to be writing this letter anyway to give you the story of my recent trip to Lebanon with Jim – but now I am writing to tell you of the rapid turn of events in our lives and to ask you all to be praying for us. Jim has been under pressure for a long, long time, carrying too much responsibility and wearing too many hats in our region. This has taken its toll on his health in terms of his sleeping, and the resulting insomnia (added to by RLS) in turn has only decreased his ability to handle the stress.

Well, Thursday last week Jim hit a wall emotionally and physically. He is experiencing severe exhaustion and needs to go for urgent medical treatment to resolve his insomnia and restless leg syndrome. He will be flying out Wednesday morning with a colleague and dear friend of ours, Scott Petersen, to Denver, Colorado. They will stay with Jim’s sister Cathi initially and I will fly over and join him on Saturday. After receiving the medical care that he needs, he will move to a center, still in the Denver area, which cares for missionary families in crisis. We don’t know how long we will stay in Colorado; we can only place ourselves in the Lord’s hands and into the care of those who can most help us through this time. For now, the girls will all be staying here in Paris, and I and Scott's wife, Mary, will be working on plans to farm them out or have folk come stay here. Anyhow, this is very much a one-day-at-a-time affair and I am trying not to think too far ahead for the sake of my own sanity.

God has gone ahead of us and laid the groundwork in an amazing way, and we know this storm is from Him. These past several months have been ones in which Jim and I have been growing closer to one another spiritually, hearing from the Lord in ways as never before, and enjoying the fellowship of the Holy Spirit in incredible richness. So we are entering this valley, not from a place of barrenness, but rather having our spiritual cups full, and knowing that we are merely following our Good Shepherd through the valley, and His rod and staff will comfort us.

Jim had a fairly good night's rest last night and we are trusting he will have another one tonight, to prepare him for the flight tomorrow. He is still feeling very fragile right now, but also very confident that this will have a good ending. Any thoughts or prayers would be gratefully received through emails to my email address (see below), but for now we are asking that the phone remain as silent as possible in order to let Jim sleep as much as possible. We love you and thank you for standing with us in our time of need.

Daphne for us all

daphnem1409@aol.com

"No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him."
I Corinthians 2:9

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