We are really glad to have this opportunity to keep people up to date on ways to pray.

But there is one mystery involved with this blog: it’s hard to know whether anyone is actually seeing what we write.

So, if you read this message will you please leave a comment or send an email to let us know that you are really out there?

Thanks,

Joe and Linda

What would we do without electronics? Without computers? They sure make life more interesting and more challenging.

Today we want to use a modern tool - the Internet - to offer you an opportunity to walk and pray in Townsend without leaving your chair.

All during this month and the next, we invite people to come here and prayerwalk. We believe prayerwalking is a very important mission effort.

Townsend is ideally suited to prayerwalking. Most of the restaurants, stores, campgrounds and tourist attractions are situated along a five-mile section of four-lane highway here. Running alongside the highway on both sides is a paved path.

Prayerwalkers can pick a time, pick a section of the path and walk and pray.

So, we invite you to come. But you’re thinking, “They said I wouldn’t have to leave my chair.”

As Linda likes to say, “We want you to come, but until you can get here you can take a virtual prayerwalk.”

That’s right. Go to our website at www.chilhoweeba.org/CHARM and click on the Virtual Prayerwalk button.

You will see a series of photographs of Townsend. With each photo is a caption with a prayer request.

As you move from picture to picture, please pray as the Holy Spirit leads you.

Thanks,

Joe and Linda

Over the past several days, Linda and I have witnessed something beautiful.

Our dear sister-in-law Marie Phillips slipped from death into life everlasting on Good Friday.

Marie fought courageously against the cancer that had invaded her body. For eleven months, she never complained about the pain, the nausea from treatments, about the loss of her beautiful hair, about the sense of how it seemed so unfair that the diagnosis came less than three months after her wedding day.

Her attitude about her illness was typical of Marie’s attitude throughout life. She was a servant, always on the lookout for someone who need help. When she sensed a need, she moved, quietly and gently, to meet it.

Marie’s husband Bob, Linda’s brother, held his bride’s hand as she moved from this life into another.

Bob put Marie’s needs and her care above everything. He left her side fewer than a dozen times over a span of five days in ICU - and then only for minutes at a time.

When he could, when it would not compromise Marie’s care, Bob worked diligently to see that Marie’s daughters, sister and brother were cared for. In turn, they were looking after Bob.

It has been a difficult time but a good time. There has been great grief but greater joy, knowing that Marie now walks in the land of the living, cancer-free, whole and healthy.

More than once in the ICU, Marie looked into Bob’s eyes and said, “I’ll see you in heaven.”

On Easter Sunday, Marie’s friends and family gathered in a funeral home to say their farewells to Marie. It was the perfect day for it - the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over death, He has all power and authority to guarantee eternal life to Marie and to all who receive Him.

We are grateful to all who have prayed for Marie. Please continue to pray for Bob as he faces difficult days and lonely nights ahead.

Your friends,

Joe and Linda