¨Thankfulness¨ has been popping frequently as we plan our anniversary celebration at the end of this month… Our focus is ¨15 Years:  Celebrating God´s Faithfulness” and the invitation is open to “anyone who God has touched through the ministry of El Jordán” so together we can “thank HIM”…

 

Last night Heidi invited us to celebrate ¨Canadian Thanksgiving”… a dozen DELICIOUS dishes, 5 nationalities around the table, one spirit of thankfulness for all God has done for us… How beautiful that we can be brought all together in gratefulness to HIS truth and faithfulness…

 

Today was the icing on the cake…

 

I went to visit Elias at lunch time… I went up to Intensive Care… Looked on the board… “Elias Ortiz”… Bed 5… My glance went to the scrubs visitors have to wear… Bed 5… the scrubs were hanging there… No visitors… I could go in…

 

One… Two… Three… Four…

 

I looked beyond the curtain that separated 4 and 5…

Elias´ eyes brightened when he saw someone had come to visit him…  My heart was overwhelmed with thankfulness seeing him ALIVE… awake … aware…  WOW…  He can´t talk because of his tracheotomy but he can signal with his hands to make himself understood…

 

As I talked to him about so many people praying for him… pleading with God to give him another opportunity to live, Elias pointed to his chest and gestured above… tears came out of his eyes… HE had asked, pleaded to God for another opportunity at life… and God answered.

 

In all of our “conversation”, Elias kept giving God the thanks…   I talked to him about Romans 6:12-14 “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”  How he in a special way can understand how it is to have been SO close to death, really, without hope, and yet given life again… the gratitude that must flow from his heart to have been given life again…

 

…and yet that is how each one of us should feel, lost in our sins (the wages of sin is death) and yet, by grace, through Christ´s provision, given forgiveness of sin… and NEW LIFE…  The same amazing, overwhelming gratefulness of seeing Elias alive should be our OWN…

 

Anyhow… my visit with Elias was “the icing on the cake”… It´ll be interesting when he can actually talk for him to explain what he is thinking… but from what I saw, he seems to recognize God´s grace in his life… on a physical and spiritual level…

 

When I told Elias about our “thankfulness to God” celebration on the 30th of this month… he wants to be there… and in the front row…  He might be moved out of Intensive Care today or tomorrow… and then under regular care for another 2 weeks… so…

 

He just might be in the front row…

 

THANK YOU… for your prayers… please continue to pray for complete healing… and also the financial side of things…

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!
Corina for Marco (Keiden and Marlee)