70 Not Out!

My sincere thanks to all who sent greetings, cards and messages yesterday on my 70th birthday. I am so grateful for the blessing of your friendship and the privilege of knowing you all. But I am also thinking deeply about the amazing fact that I am still alive to see this date! I very nearly died when I was 45 during my first brush with acute hemorrhaging pancreatitis and then on other occasions too over the 22 years that followed. On more than 100 times I was admitted to hospitals in Cardiff, Guernsey, Southampton, London and Newcastle, during two decades of battling one of the most painful conditions known to humanity. By all rights I should not still be here, but there must be something for me to do!

One of the effects of a long fight with pain and frequent hospitalisations is a sense of gratitude for any relief. I am so grateful for the cutting-edge transplant surgery that transformed my life 5 years ago, and am happily living without a pancreas, spleen, gall-bladder or bile ducts. But I am free from that dreadful, gut-wrenching, tearing, red-hot agony of pancreatic pain, thank God.

In my book Through the Storms: a manual for when life hurts I deal with some of the other issues that arise in long-term pain or distress of any kind. Fear, loneliness, post-trauma disorders, all complicate the already fraught matter of physical recovery. Added to that, for those of us who know that God is our loving heavenly Father, who only has good plans for us, are the questions that the writer of the Psalm might have had in mind when he coined the phrase 'deep calls unto deep'. 'How long, O Lord?' and yes - 'why me?' 

I don't have the answers, but I do know someone who does. Hope is spelt J-e-s-u-s and he has been faithful to me throughout this long ordeal. Today I am privileged to continue sharing life with my lovely wife, Diane, and with Matthew and his wife Chula and our precious grand-daughters. Life is good, but I don't take it for granted. The very air I breathe is a loan, and I know that it will be called in one day. Till then, I am going to share the good news of hope and life in Jesus as widely as I can. For me, that's what 'many happy returns' really means!

Lessons from Weakness

Sorry to have missed out on blogging for a while. Things have been a bit tough for me recently. In the last month or so I have spent 3 weeks in hospital with a vicious attack of acute pancreatitis on top of chronic pancreatitis. This has also involved a tangle with ascending cholangitis (nothing to do with the colon - this is an infection of the bile ducts and/or liver) and left me with pleurisy in both lungs and a partially collapsed lung. I just wanted to say all that to show that I haven't been lazing around all day taking it easy! It has been particularly difficult this time because of the problem of physical weakness just when I need to be strong for the possible major transplant op planned for this summer in the UK. But also because I want to encourage you if you also are passing through a time of weakness for any other reason. This too shall pass.

I think it's a man-thing not to want to own up to any weakness. We blokes like to see ourselves as immune to frailty or fragility of any type and it is so hard to become dependent upon the kindness of nurses and relatives to be able to meet even the basic demands of the day or night. My time in hospital has given me insight into the awful frustration that men and women feel when they become overtaken by weakness. All I can say is that I believe that this experience will not be wasted, and that it can have a really formative effect on our soul, our faith and our experience of God. When we place our weak hand in his powerful grip then despite our weakness we can learn, develop and grow spiritually.  That's why the apostle Paul said "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10).

One of the ancient prophets of Israel, a guy called Habbakuk, once went against the grain of the myth that says if you are a reasonably good person then you should enjoy success, wealth and strength. He wrote: "Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights". (Hab.3:17-19)

When I read these words on New Year's Day, I wept.

Early on New Year’s Day I was looking through my favourite version of the Bible for inspiration after a difficult Christmas period. I had been up to A & E over the special season, including on Christmas Day itself, and in touch with my GP twice in the space of four days or so. I endured the usual diet of overwhelming pain, fever, the rigors, extreme nausea – all the signs of a classic flare-up of my old enemy chronic pancreatitis. I say “old” because it was Christmas 1995 when I was admitted to hospital in Cardiff for the first of what would become over 100 such admissions in the last two decades.  Twenty years of frustration, struggle, and the loss of my ministry due to no fault of my own. It’s starting to get to me as you might well imagine.

And then I came across this promise of hope. God, speaking to His people Israel in the Old Testament, promised them that “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten” (Joel 2:25). Wow, that really hit home to my discouraged heart. Years ago, when we lived and worked in Africa, we were hit by a small locust swarm one evening. With the sound of an approaching express train it descended on a large bush in our garden and stripped the lot in seconds. When it lifted, like a swarm of hornets into the air, what had been a large and fruitful shrub was left a desolate collection of bare branches.

Maybe you have faced the hordes of locusts too. Whatever length of time has gone by, you probably can’t forget the sense of grief and loss you feel at opportunities denied you, relationships gone sour, loved ones taken away in their prime. The ‘not fairness’ of life takes its toll on us all, whatever the cause of the pain.

God knows our distress and hears our cry, even in the dark of the night. The Bible says in typically pictorial language that He keeps all our tears in His bottle. He must need a tanker for mine! I don’t know if the locust swarm will leave me in 2016 though I sincerely hope it does – but if not, this promise of God keeps me going as I start a third decade. “I will restore to you [place your name here] the years that the locusts have eaten”!

I don’t know how, or when, but I do know who will achieve this, and I’m holding on to Him for dear life!

Happy New Year!

In God's Waiting Room

Following on from my last post about the timing of God being so different to ours, I am learning so much this week about how hard it is to wait. In fact, despite all the pain and frustration of the last 20 years, this period of waiting is one of the toughest I've been through. In a nutshell, there is an operation being done in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for people with chronic pancreatitis that could really help me. They remove the whole pancreas and spleen, together with part of the stomach and all of the duodenum, and then transplant the bits of the pancreas that produce insulin into the liver so as to avoid the patient becoming a brittle diabetic. It has helped hundreds of patients in the USA and some here in Britain too.

The problem is that the op is not being funded and is any case outside the 'contract area' that my local health authority has with the NHS in the UK. So we are being held up in endless bureaucracy while due process is being gone through to see if I could be funded to have this done. All the medics who care for me are recommending me to get going with this, but it has now become a political and not really just a medical matter and they are being over-ruled. Meanwhile, I am quite unwell again and will have to go back to the London hospital soon to get the stent replaced and the pancreatic duct cleared - a procedure fraught with dangers for someone with my record.

I was comforted and yet challenged this week when someone sent me the verse Micah 7:7 which reads, "But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Saviour; my God will hear me." Yes, - we may be waiting for politicians and bureaucrats, but behind them all God is in charge. He can step in any moment to provide funding some other way, or even to touch my pancreas and heal me. So, we wait, not for men, but for God.

Great! But meanwhile we mortals need some divine help here to enable us to be patient and keep trusting! Thankfully, that's where you guys come in - lifting us up by your prayers and encouragement - and we appreciate all that you have done so far. We are not alone in God's waiting room and his timing is always perfect.

Decision Day!

After 4 weeks of incessant electioneering in the UK I expect most folk there must be thoroughly fed up with it! We will have our own general election in 2016 here in Guernsey so we are not part of it, but as most of our media comes from the UK we are subjected to the overflow. It seems to me from a distance that there are big choices to be made at this election and I pray that the right outcome will prevail. One thing that is clear is that just about every vote counts and so I hope if you have a vote in the UK you plan to use it in a week's time.

Choices!  Life is full of them. Many of them are trivial - which coffee to buy, what kind of soap etc - but some are life-changing. When I was away at a Christian Healing Centre a couple of weeks ago I was presented with a very difficult choice indeed. Those kind folk who were listening to my story and ministering to me in prayer felt that I needed to choose to do God's will with joy even if that includes pain for me. As I write this now I am in intense pain, and under the influence of morphine. A recent op in London (the latest of several this year) appears to have failed yet again and the pain is extremely hard to bear. Yet, when challenged a fortnight ago to make my choice I did so, albeit with great difficulty, and I elect to stick with it today. I am content to let God set the agenda in my life whatever that may mean for me. So far it appears to have involved the most painful disease known to man - pancreatitis. In the future I hope that it will include healing and recovery but I am not certain of that.  All I am sure of is that there is a God who loves me, and if he never does take away my pain he has already done so much for me in his Son Jesus Christ that I can trust him for time and for eternity to do what's right for me.

For me, the choice as to who rules my life is not expressed in a ballot box but in my heart. I recall the words of a very special prayer, prayed each New Year in the Methodist Covenant service.  It goes:
"(Lord) - I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
So be it... Amen"

Hmmm. Can you say 'Amen' to that? On May 7th in the UK you will express your choice with a cross.  God has also set out his desire for us at a cross, but we must daily cast our vote.

Bowing Down to Rise Up!

It's time for this old horse to bow out gracefully!  Or should I say donkey because Guernsey folk are often caricatured as being stubborn like donkeys! It is vital for every servant of God to bow the knee before Him and say 'have Your way Lord!' and that's what I am doing right now. After 43 years of full-time Christian ministry in the UK, the Channel Islands, Seychelles and Zimbabwe, I will retire this weekend. BUT - I am not finished yet! My work is entering a new phase and I welcome the opportunity to see what God is silently planning for us in love. Romans 8:28 is still in my bible and I know that there is a plan in all this and that the important thing is to remain positive, hopeful and yet submitted to God's will. Diane and I are so grateful for all the prayer support and encouragement we have received over the years and are still receiving now, and boy are we going to need it over the coming months!

I had an MRCP scan at University College Hospital London this week and it revealed an extensive stricture or closing of my pancreatic duct with what appeared to be stones piling up behind it. This accounts for the severe pain I have been in for some time and means that in 3 weeks I will be having a surgical procedure to open this up and clear the duct, similar to one that I had some years ago and put me in ICU for quite a long while! Yet I have peace about this one and trust my loving Lord to watch over me that day. Then I also have to go back to Guys and St Thomas' hospital in London too in order to find out why the spinal neuro-stimulator fitted to relieve the awful pain of pancreatitis has failed - and if it is faulty as suspected I will have to undergo having the operation of last July done again. I am also waiting for all this to be finished so that I can have a routine plumbing operation in my local hospital! Plenty to be getting on with then!

I am still praying for healing and release from this every day, and look forward to the day when I can put all this behind me and press on to new and better things. When a horse is being trained, however, to be useful to its trainer there comes a moment when it is 'broken'. The stubborn will of the creature is won over, and it desires whatever its master wants it to do. Now we are not animals and God treats us very differently, inviting our love and joyful surrender as an expression of our partnership with Him in the redemption and recreation of all living things. But even Jesus went through the experience of 'brokenness' when He submitted to His father's plan for salvation. When we follow His example and allow God to master us and use us in His plan, then much can be achieved in and through us.

Keeping it All Together!

I have been described as 'the man with the interesting abdomen' by the team at the pancreatic/biliary unit in University College London Hospital.  'Interesting' may be their viewpoint, but 'pesky' 'problematic' or downright 'painful' would be mine! When they went poking around in my pancreatic duct just a few days ago they revealed the presence of a large quantity of sludge bunging up the works.  Yuck! Sounds like my garden drains at this time of the year.  The problem is that when that particular duct is blocked with sludge or even leaves, it causes a back-wash of pancreatic enzymes - the things that dissolve meat when sent normally into your gut - which then start devouring your insides causing massive blood loss and infection - acute pancreatitis! In certain circumstances this can be fatal. My own brush with near-death encounters etc is set out in the book Braving the Storm - still available from Amazon and other booksellers. So, for me, the interesting abdomen is a huge challenge.

As I face the prospect of going back into UCLH in just over a week's time for them to have a second go at clearing the duct I find that my biggest enemy is not pain, or nausea, or even fever etc, but fear.  The fear of going back into something I have experienced before and was the worst time of my life (and my family's) takes the biscuit in the line up of enemies - including sludge - who seem to be conspiring against me at this time. So, I had a chat with myself (and Diane) about this and we started encouraging one another with fear unblocking Bible promises. These scriptures are helping us to get through, keeping it all together, and I offer them to you as an encouragement whatever kind of sludge may be affecting your life - or even your abdomen!

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Deuteronomy 20:3b,4 Do not be faint-hearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before [your enemies], for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.

1 Chronicles 28:20  Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you ...

Isaiah 43:1,2 But now, this is what the LORD says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.’

Psalm 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 118:6  The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

Proverbs 29:25  Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.

Hebrews 13:5,6 …because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’

Making a New Start

Whilst we served Shiloh Church in Guernsey for some years we coined the strap-line for it - 'Helping People Make a New Start'.  I always felt it to be the best descriptive phrase about church life that I had ever come across, and now it is coming true for Diane and me too.  After more than 4 years of not being able to work because of the agony of chronic pancreatitis, and the all-too-frequent admissions to hospital near home and in London, my situation has improved dramatically.  Recently my GP started saying that he thought I might even be well enough to consider starting work again, and for Diane and myself that could only mean one thing - active Christian ministry in one capacity or another.  We just love preaching and teaching the Word of God, and mentoring and encouraging Christian leaders, while all the time sharing the good news of the love of God with folk of all faiths and of none.  This was our great desire, though the exact details seemed to elude us for a while.

For some weeks we have been praying about this, in particular the possibility of serving the Eldad Elim Church, in St Peter Port Guernsey, as its minister.  The present incumbent and my close friend John Bristow will retire in December and he and his wife Iris plan to move to New Zealand.  Through different talks and negotiations, both with Elim's National Leadership Team and the Eldad church leaders, we came to the settled conclusion that this is what we should do.  Last Sunday morning it was announced to the congregation that Diane and I will be joining them in the New Year, and we are so thrilled that we can even contemplate this.  It is a daunting challenge, but one in which we know we will be joining some wonderful people and will learn much from them.

We are so grateful  for all your love, support and prayers.  To all our friends in the Pancreatitis Supporters Network we say 'hang in there, guys - we can beat this'.  To Katie Bassett, a dear Christian friend who is our pain control specialist nurse and who arranged for my implant at Guys' hospital last February, 'God has really used you, Katie.  You were really meant to come to Guernsey'.  To so many much-loved prayer partners - Brian and Doreen, Hazel, Daphne (and the late Clarence), Jean and David, Jean P, Eileen, Peter and Dorien, Kev and Mary and so so many more - many thanks and don't stop now!  There is an encouraging verse in Revelation 3:8 where God says 'I have set before you an open door which no man can shut, and I know that your strength is limited.'  If He is leading us to this new start, then all may not be easy, but it will all be well.