A Death Notice and a Birthday Party in one Sunday Morning

(Note the man at 0.01 sec, on the left, in the orange shirt and white coat with the gray and black stripes. This is Juan, and this story is about a tragedy and a celebration involving him and me.)

Last Sunday, I was proud to let one of our deacons preach. He studied hard for a class on sermon preparation and wanted to give one of his sermons for our church. So I got comfortable and was enjoying the sermon when one of our ladies called me to the back. I saw the same deacon's wife sobbing and a few people clustered around her praying.

"Juan died" I was told.

Juan was her brother. Tina and I had just visited Juan in the hospital, where he received Christ as his Saviour. He attended 2 services after returning home and asked us to hold a special afternoon service in his home, which we did.

Juan was in his mid-fifties I believe. He had a great sense of humor and was usually the life of the party. He had started chemo therapy and we were expecting him to be around for a few more years at least.

Well, after this sad turn of events, Tina said someone wanted me in the back of the church. I expected to hear more of the same kind of news, but I walked into a birthday celebration, complete with a cake with my name on it and 1 candle.

That is quite a range of emotion for one Sunday morning church service.

What was especially poignant about this was this: I had prostate cancer surgery in June and celebrated my birthday last Sunday. My doctor wrote "Cancer free" on my last exam. Juan found out about his cancer a few months after I discovered mine. The same Sunday I celebrated another year of life was the day he died.

Because of my own struggle with cancer, I was able to witness to Juan with some good results. Please continue your prayers for our family. Our struggles have been rewarded, but they are still struggles and we need your prayers and support to stay healthy and remain fruitful in the work of missions.