Home: News Archive: April 2003

Up, Down, Up...SNAP!
That's the noise Karen suddenly heard when she was doing stairstep aerobic exercise using a stool. The next thing she knew, her right leg buckled under her and she fell to the floor. With great difficulty, we got her down the stairs and into the car to drive to Emergency. In keeping with the present SARS crisis, we were greeted by hospital workers donned in face masks, gloves, and special gowns to prevent contamination. To make a long wait and story short, the muscle in Karen's right calf somehow ruptured and she was eventually fitted with crutches and set up for visits to a local physiotherapy clinic. Now, almost 2 weeks later, the pain is a little less and some mobility is coming back. However, Karen cannot walk and will probably be hobbling around for weeks to come.

It's dawning on the kids how much their mother does for them now that she can no longer do those things. After a week of household chaos over who should do which chores, I finally printed a schedule of daily household duties so that we don't have to hear any more sentences like "...but I had to do that yesterday!"

I've been a little tardy getting this update done partly because of taking care of my helpless wife and managing our "A-Team" (Adam, Amy, Alisa, Aaron, Angelie) in this unsettled time.

Pray for us all. Karen needs healing and the rest of us need grace to be flexible and considerate.

Reaching One Milestone, Nearing Another
For the first time in the history of our online Bible Correspondence School (al-kitab.org), a member has successfully completed all the study courses available on the website. That's a total of 56 lessons, and he's asking for more! It's "Sam" from southeast Asia whom we mentioned in our February update.

We are nearing another milestone in the Al-Kitab ministry. Website membership is just shy of 100 with a total of 98 as of today. The war seems to have slowed down activity and enrollments--understandable with the eyes of the whole world on Iraq.

The Man in White
An interesting phenomenon is widely reported in the Muslim world. Increasingly, Muslims from various countries and walks of life believe that they have seen Jesus Christ in a dream. Often they note the fact that he is dressed in white and they somehow recognize him as Jesus (as opposed to Muhammad or Moses). Such a dream can really get one's attention because Muslims in general tend to take dreams very seriously. Many who have such a dream go on to listen to the Gospel message and trust in Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Testimonies of such dreams have been collected and posted on a website created for that very purpose (http://isaalmasih.net). It's now available on the net for the benefit of Muslims who may have such dreams and search the internet for answers, as well as Muslims in general. I mentioned in our last update that we were going to take over another outreach website and that is the site I was talking about. I'm not a person who personally makes a big deal out of dreams and visions, but I am all for anything that gets someone's attention and creates interest in the Gospel.

I realize that no one was ever saved just from having a dream, but if a dream encourages a Muslim to seek out a Christian or crack open a Bible, praise God! If you want, you can call such dreams a kind of "pre-evangelism".

Thank you for praying and giving. We value your partnership in this ministry.

Yours in Christ,

George, Karen and the A-Team