The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.” Psalm 28:7 (NIV)

The first couple of weeks into March have seen an improvement in our weather. We now feel like Spring is arriving! We hope the last snows have passed and the ground cover is melting. The days are longer and the temperatures warmer. Still pretty chilly with below average temperatures, but much better.

Noel’s blood work has also shown an improvement. With 3 out of 4 liver readings now being back into the normal range. This is such a relief. We praise the Lord and thank you for all your prayers… Last week we returned to Boston again a room at the Hope Lodge opened up at the last minute so we were thankful for more answered prayers and not to have to pay for a hotel room.

Noel had appointments for blood work and to see the oral doctor from the Brigham and Women’s, Dr. Treister, and to see Amy, Dr Soiffer’s PA… Noel’s mouth, although improved from the beginning of the year, is still extremely sore. Eating, drinking and even, at times, talking is difficult. Dr Treister said to continue using the mouth rinse 4
times a day and he would also prescribe a couple of Steroid injections directly into Noel’s mouth. Which may or may not help. Noel had the shots on Wednesday afternoon but now, a week later, he has not seen much improvement or relief, which is very disappointing.

Amy was pleased with the good liver function results and lowered Noel’s Prednisone dose again.. It will take a few more months to get off it all together… But it’s moving in the right direction. The slight concern with the sugar levels in Noel’s blood tests in the last few weeks, Amy said was due to the Steroid and they often see this but also expect it to right itself as the dose is reduced.

Please continue to pray for the sores in Noel’s mouth. Which are no fun he longs to eat more than soup, protein shakes and soft food, as even these, and even water, cause pain to his mouth.

Pray also the cold/chest infection/cough he has at the moment also clears up quickly..

We are back to Boston for his next appointment on April 1st. Please pray again for our accommodation needs on the 31st March and 1st April and for our travel there on the 31st March and back on the 1st April, in time for Meryl’s next appointment with her cardiologist on 2nd.

Noel will now write about the second part of our trip… the ministry part.

A lovely blessing has developed as a result of the last Welcome Home Initiative at the Spiritual Life Center that Noel led last October. One of the Iraq war veterans who came and received substantial emotional and soul healing, told us about a Christian Healing Center that had been established in 2013 at Ashburnham, north west Massachusetts. Noel was asked to visit it and advise the folks that run it about how to get ministry to traumatized combat Veterans going.

The original plan was to go in January but this was scuppered by Noel’s illness. We were thankful to God that we could make it on this Boston trip.

Ashburnham is about 1.5 hours drive from the City.

A meeting was arranged for Wednesday afternoon. Frustratingly it did not happen. Spiritual warfare of a kind took over instead. We were delayed at Dana-Farber Cancer Clinic by a silly mixup, described in our Facebook posts that day. We were further delayed by extremely heavy traffic around Boston and Concord. Concord is where the first battle of the American Revolution against us Brits took place in 1775. We almost felt events were conspiring against us again, at least spiritually, and didn’t get to the Healing Center until after 5 p.m.

We discovered our meeting had been postponed until the next morning, so the Holy Spirit redeemed the situation in a good way, as He promises to do! Our hosts readily understood the predicaments we had just gone through!

After a very pleasant overnight stay at the lakeside home of a Center leader and her husband, five of us met on Thursday morning, praying and talking about WHI and ministry to Veterans. The Veteran who came to WHI is already visiting a Veterans Home, beginning to build relationships with some of those living there. We encouraged him to keep going in this ministry. It will surely be blessed. Please pray for Dave’s ministry to be abundantly blessed.

We encouraged our hosts to send several suitable members of their prayer team to the WHI Training Weekend we plan to run at the SLC on August 28/29. The weekend equips suitably “called” Christians how to pray in depth for traumatized Combat Veterans.

We talked about possibly running a training weekend for the center later this year or in 2016.

Finally our hosts were excited, yet challenged, by feeling a strong desire to run a full WHI at a nearby facility possibly in 2016. Would we at the SLC be willing to send team members to help? “Yes, of course we can and will, at least until you are confident enough to run retreats without us,” we said.

After such a hope-filled and positive meeting, we drove home through the lovely snow and tree covered hills and valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire on a cold but extremely beautiful sunny day. We felt richly blessed to be a small part of what we feel is the growth of a new Spring, which is, in fact, already flowing and simply needed recognition (see Isaiah 43:19 – a word from God that we were first alerted to when we started ministering in Eastern Europe in 1993/94). God did some amazing things back then. What, we wondered, will He do here, now, in the Ashburnham area? Please pray for the outcome of this new exciting, potential-filled ministry venture.

We love to hear from you, we are very blessed by your love for us. We love to read your comments left here and on our other web pages and through other means of communication. We pray for you so please let us know your prayer needs. And please do give thanks to The Lord for every blessing of which there are many in our lives.