Please pass this on to all the community members; the prayer vigil for the upcoming girl’s Chrysalis flight can be found here - http://www.3dayol.org/Vigil/GetComm.phtml.
His Servant
Mike Koreckis
CGWTE #57
Chrysalis Board Member
The next gathering will be held at First Baptist Church Kingsland on July 11th at 7pm. The phone number for the church is 912-729-5521 and the address is 295 E. Chester ST Kingsland GA. 31548. The church email address is mail@kingslandfbc.org. You can also contact John and Vicki McDonald at 912-729-2020 or email bakerman@tds.net.
If you are interested in giving a 4th Day Talk, please contact John or Vicki McDonald.
Other gathering dates are:
Please give us a call if you can help or have questions.
DeColores,
John and Vicki McDonald
Gathering Coordinators
Please pray for healing of Wesley Ness, 35, of Jarrell, TX near Austin. He is the nephew of CPUMC members Dan & Reba Fischer. He was born with a heart defect and has custody of his two children. At this point his heart is failing. He is awaiting a decision on whether he will be place on a heart transplant list and possible a liver transplant as well.
Billy Zeh
GIWTE #5, Table of Peter
The Chrysalis Board of Directors is in need of new members. I spoke briefly at the pio party regarding the need. We need a few people from the golden isles/camden county/blackshear area to serve a three year term. You do not have to have experience, we will train you. We meet once a month, our next meeting is June 14 at Tattnall Campground and we will help the girls team prepare for their flight and have the meeting during lunch. The Chrysalis movement in this area is supported by the three communities, Golden Isles, Coastal and Dayspring. Our meetings are usually held in Richmond Hill or Savannah. If there is interest, we can car pool together with the rising fuel costs. I would really like to see this area grow for Chrysalis, not only adult participation but also youth attending as well. Speaking of youth, if you know of a youth that has been on a Chrysalis flight, and still in high school, we are also in need of youth members on the board. They have a voice just like the adults and we cherish their comments and suggestions.
If you are interested, please call or e-mail me and we can talk further.
Fly With Christ,
Mike Koreckis
CGWTE #57, table of Paul
912-577-6629 cell
Watching God Perform a Miracle
To our wonderful family, friends and church family, praise God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit who can do all things!!
As you all know we have struggled for many years watching and helping sweet Julia struggle against this curse of “autism” (she’s 10 now). My favorite Bible verse is Romans 8:28 “For God uses all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose”. This has brought us a continuing measure of comfort through this trial as we knew that God was maturing the three of us (Peggy, Hannah & I) in Christ and doing much in others lives through Julia’s life.
We and many of you have prayed persistently for Julia for many years much like the persistent widow in Luke 18. We are now in the process of watching God do a miracle in our lives and we thank God and you all each one for each prayer that you have petitioned on behalf of Julia and our family. God bless you!!
On Thursday 05-29-08 Julia and Peggy met with Dr. Kendal Stewart and his team in Austin, TX. Julia took a battery of high-tech tests. Dr. Stewart met with us (I participated via conference call) and he explained Julia’s condition. His assessment and explanation were very logical and made total sense although we may not articulate them as well as Dr. Stewart. We will briefly explain this as best we recall and understand.
Julia has a group of symptoms categorized by many as “autism” but is more accurately described as a sensory integration disorder. However, these symptoms are caused by an underlying problem. The doctor believes that her condition may be caused by viruses attaching to and inflaming the nerves in the vestibular region of her inner ears/brain (potentially from childhood vaccines like chicken pox, rubella, etc.). It could also be fungal/bacterial, heavy metals or related to hormone imbalances.
The analogy that he used was that Julia’s brain was like a good working computer with faulty software. He said that he thinks the ears don’t communicate with each other and the brain properly causing people with her symptoms not to process information properly. He said that he thinks the broad spectrum of autistic symptom presentations in people including profoundly autistic, high functioning autistic, Aspergers, ADD, ADHD, and dyslexia and others may be an interruption of the vestibular system at various stages of development. He said he thinks Julia’s IQ is approx. 120 but due to this condition the input from the world around her is faulty. As examples he said that many people with these symptoms (including Julia) can’t smoothly track moving objects visually, have increased peripheral vision input causing distraction in school and increased levels of audio perception (this and the fact that I’m a horrible singer may be why Julia tells me to stop singing….she also points and says, “You’re bad and you’ll always be bad!”.…a line from the Lilo & Stitch movie…LOL). Dr. Stewart told Peggy, to Julia it’s like the worst case of PMS that you could ever imagine where you can’t focus well and are irritable, but it happens every day! What’s worse is that these sensory perceptions vary dramatically day to day. Thus, your “normal” baseline of sensory inputs (your “reality”) yesterday is not your “normal” today. Just imagine how extremely difficult and frustrating it must be for Julia to try to learn. Additionally, her balance is not over her centerline of her body (it’s skewed right). There were many other aspects of Julia’s behavior/life and the tests that confirm this diagnosis, but to keep this semi-brief we won’t go there now.
He said that this condition is very treatable with anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-inflammatory oral medications. He said that the next challenge is to determine why Julia is susceptible to these viruses etc. and correct that problem for long term recovery and development. Julia will soon have a battery of blood tests checking for numerous possible issues (allergies, genetics, hormone levels, etc. and a test for heavy metals. When these tests are complete, then we’ll address any other issues as they arise with other meds, hormones, diet, supplements, etc.
The bottom line is that Dr. Stewart told us with a great deal of confidence that “Julia has a 90% probability of growing up to be completely normal”. As he said, “I see her growing up to get married, having children and all of the things that everyone else does!” (I truly can’t tell you how wonderful and blessed those words are to us all).
Dr. Stewart advises that once we get her vestibular system squared away (this should take several months), then Julia’s development can catch up with other kids. He says that she could catch up a years’ worth of development delay in approx. four months. He said we should see improvements in her coordination first, then speech and other skills will improve later.
We are grateful beyond measure to God for giving the doctor the wisdom and capability to understand and treat this condition and leading us to him.
However, we still need your help!! Please continue to pray specifically for the following:
Thank you all for your prayers and love for us. May God bless you all!
Brad, Peggy, Hannah & Julia
P.S. I also want to take this opportunity to extol the wonderful example of “Christ like” love and service that my wonderful wife Peggy displays every single day to Julia and all of us. It’s been amazing to watch how she handles Julia and her “autism”. She has great treasure stored up in heaven. We all love her very much for who she is!
Brad Headley
GIWTE #5 Table of Mark
Hello to my wonderful Emmaus Family,
First of all, I would like to say that GOD IS SO VERY GOOD!!!! Thank you for all the prayers that were sent up on behalf of us for selling our house. I sent out my prayer request on May 15 and on May 21, a gentleman looked at our house, then looked at it again on May 23rd and put an offer in on May 27th. So we now have a contract and are closing on June 13th. That is also the day that I wanted to close on so we would not have to stay in a hotel until we closed. Richard, myself, and our kids can now move to Washington without the worries of a house in South Carolina. Now we ask for your prayers for safe travel as we make our way across this big country that we live in. I also ask for your wonderful prayers to help us find a place to live in Washington so that we don’t have to stay in our 29′ camper with our kids for very long.
Once again, thank you for all the prayers.
DeColores and God Bless!
Sandee Sanford
GIWTE #2
Eleven years ago I was asked to lead a workshop at the 20th year celebration of Walk To Emmaus held in Peoria, Illinois. When I left my home in North Carolina driving I had no idea what a treat I was in for; because at this meeting I was privileged to sit with a small group in the presence of Edwardo Bounin, the originator of the Catholic Cursillo. Some of you have heard this story before, but it is worth repeating due to quite a bit of turmoil and consternation within several communities over the insistence of following the Upper Room model rather than allowing communities to put on events as they wish.
Mr. Bounin told of his early vision and how he spent many hours penning the forerunner of what we now call Walk To Emmaus. He would write what he perceived as correct, sleep on it for a while but got no peace about what he had done. He would then re-write and wait again; still no peace. This process went on for over six years! Finally after all these years and many trials, peace came and he knew he had what God had intended when He gave him the vision originally.
He went on to advise us sitting before him that if we ever felt the strong need to change or add to the developed model, we should enter into a very long and intensive period of prayer. Then he said if we still felt the model needed changes or additions, we simply didn’t pray long enough.
I tell you this to emphasize a couple of things for the long-term health of your community. First, we cannot allow the program to go with the whims of gifted leaders who may take office with personal agendas but without the training and commitment of previous leaders. I refer you to Hebrews 13:8 which paraphrased says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So it is with Walk To Emmaus!
Second, the structure and theology of the 72 hours builds itself into one concise but specific message—God’s unconditional love and how we are to return to our churches and appropriate that love to others.
Those of you who know me know that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I am old and wise enough to be obedient to this Holy Spirit inspired movement without feeling compelled to “do it my way”. There will always be “my way” with something else, but for Walk To Emmaus, there is THE WAY! Read the resources available to you; ask a Board member what the Handbook says about Candlelight or Dying Moments; and study your Bible as to what It has to say about Anonymous Servanthood. To God be the Glory!
Scoofer Jordan
S/E Regional Rep.