Time for another look at life vision.

Recently we’ve been doing some serious soul searching and praying about the Why behind the What that is IHOP.

Why am I here? Why do I do Nightwatch? Why did I start this journey in the first place?

All of these questions need to be answered in order to keep an alive heart in the midst of the mundane daily routine.

For me I am here at the International House of Prayer because from a young age I felt the drawing of the Holy Spirit to be a man of prayer.

The past couple of months Holy Spirit has been reminding me of the little boy who didn’t want to got to kid’s church because I wanted to actually worship with the adults instead of be entertained. He’s been reminding me of the 6 year old who would weep during hymns, and would often go down to the altar for prayer. It must have baffled some of the elders. I remember one asking what was wrong, I answered something to the effect of, “nothing I just want to know Him better.”

Later in my teen years my youth pastor didn’t know what to do with me. I was on the leadership team as a 13-14 year old and would often pipe up with something I thought was on the Lords heart concerning our youth group only to get confused looks in return. It probably didn’t help that I was just as immature as any other 13 year old and in the same breath might say something really dumb. I’m sure I was a walking contradiction. But the point is in the midst of my hormones Jesus had his hand on my heart.

The night that started me on the path towards the Nightwatch was October 31st, 2001. (at least that’s the best date I can come up with. I know for sure it was Halloween)  It’s what I like to call my upper room experience. There was a little prayer room in the back corner of the First Assembly of God church in Ft. Wayne IN. My mom and her intercessor friends and I would gather there every so often and I was the only one with any musical ability so it was up to me to be background music/worship for the four or five of us. But it was on this particular night when the thought of the many evil things that happen on a Halloween night made me also consider every other night. But who was doing anything Holy in the night?

The next year at the Onething conference in Kansas City I found out about the Fire in the Night internship and fell in love with the idea of spending time with God when no one else was. The worthiness of God to be worshipped at all hours was implanted in my heart at that conference and it would set me on a course to ignore the status quo go to college, work, go to church, reproduce, die, etc. (Note: I recognise the value of those things, minus dying, they’re just not for me in the normal American Dream format.)

So here I am in the Night worshiping and praying. Beholding and blessing the Lord by night (Psalm 134). Because Jesus is worthy of my praise in the night. When normally his name is profaned I hope that He can find a place to rest.

But what about your giftings? Shouldn’t you be pursuing your music career, and investing in the gift that was clearly given to you by God?

To this question my answer is that I want my life in the natural to be a complete waste. Like Mary with her costly perfume.

Before you think I’m just squandering my talents here’s my twist on the whole thing. Remember the servants who’s master gave them talents to invest? Two invested and one buried the gift. Rest assured I am by no means burying my talents. But I want you to consider that the other two brought what they earned with the talents back to the master. Which is exactly what I’m doing. I am investing in my talents, working on my musical ability with private lessons. Practicing daily, and then bring my investment back to the Lord every night using that which He gave me to bless him back.

This is my highest calling and is the desire of my heart. I want anyone looking from the outside calling me a fool because I could have been the next so-and-so. Or I could have played with what’s-his-name and made millions. Instead, “He’s wasting his life with the Nightwatch at the International House of Prayer?! What a waste!”

Bogus Layoffs in FWCS

Just found out my former High School principal was layed off recently. (12/16/2009) How’s that for a Merry Christmas?

Great timing FWCS school board…

You can read about the layoffs here and here.

It is this alum’s opinion that Thomas Smith was one of the best things to happen to South Side.  Obviously I haven’t Been there for the past six years so I don’t know all that has gone on.  But for the four years that I was there having him as the Principal was like a breath of fresh air.  Not only is he a Christian man, but he’s a Spirit filled Christian man.  Which means that I know he covered that school in prayer.

Besides if you really wanted to make that school better how about getting rid of teachers like Mrs. Verdon. (Spanish)  Or Mrs. Klofke. (Econ/German)  Neither teacher actually taught anything, were constantly out whited by students and couldn’t get control of their own class rooms.  I’m sure the issue wasn’t that they couldn’t teach, but they certainly lacked the authority to do so.

Then there’s my favorite.  (Literally my favorite; at least at the time.) Physics class.  We watched a ton of Home Star Runner.  You got it.  Hours of class-time wasted on an internet cartoon.  Broadcast from his computer to the TV above his desk.  Now that’s what I call productive!  I can’t even remember the guy’s name, that’s how much of a “mark” he left on me.

There were amazing teachers at South also.  I don’t know if he’s still there, but Hr. Holmes is possibly the best teacher I’ve ever had.  He taught history, but really he taught life.  He was one of those teachers who pulled you up to a higher level because he required it and had no problem getting rid of you.  If you were in his class it was because you wanted to be there, not cause you had to be there.

Mr. Streeter is another great teacher.  Fun to be around and a great musician.  Taught me a lot of what I know on saxophone.  Thank you sir!

Mrs. Waldschmidt.  I will never agree with her politics, religious believes, life goals or anything else that has to do with personal life.  But she taught me art.  And that passion was something that is necessary for really living.  She taught from a place of experience.  I never once questioned if she really knew what she was talking about.  So it was easy to go through the hard times of learning technique and acquiring the skills necessary to produce a piece of art worth looking at.  Because I knew that her goal was for me to be a great artist.  She believed in my skills and helped me realize them.

As you can see by the News Sentinel’s story FWCS won’t even talk about the layoffs.  Which is a tip-off, at least to me, that they know the layoffs are bogus.  And further proof that they are merely trying to please the Obamanation administration so they can get more money.

The point of all of this is clear for me.  Daniel Academy for my kids.  That’s all I’m saying.

Wow, it’s been awhile

So… I haven’t written in awhile. Everything is somewhat the same, somewhat different. I’m still trudging along on the long path called life.

Natina and the Eliana (baby’s name) are doing really well.  Natina’s belly is growing by the day it seems.  Now that the health crisis of the gallbladder and flu are over we are having a delightful pregnancy. New Sono pics go here.

Eliana is extreemly playful!  (She’s my kid, could she be anything less?)  If you push on Natina’s tummy Eliana will push back.  Sometimes Natina and I will be cuddling watching a movie and Eli will start kicking me as if to say, “Move over dad!”

I am looking forward to meeting this new person who is scheduled to be here around July 9th 2009.  She is already a joy in our lives and I am so excited to meet her!

I got a new sax within the past couple of months. It’s a beauty! Selmer Paris Super Action 80 Series II. A local musician here in KC traded me straight up for it. I gave him my Keilwerth and he have me the Selmer. I think I got the better end of the deal.

I would liken the trade to trading in a Camaro (nice car good performer) to a Corvette (much better) and not paying the difference.

I took it to the shop recently to have it fully serviced and cleaned.  (I like the dirty dingy look, but would rather have it be my dirt and dinge.) When the shop owner saw the sax he was fairly astounded that I merely traded for it and didn’t have to pay any extra $.  I felt pretty cool, not going to lie.

Well I think I’m out of stuff to say.  I’ll be back more often.

-T

I got a G1 for my birthday!

Not only did Natina give me something that I’ve wanted for awhile, but she kept it a perfect secret.  I don’t know how she managed to keep the secret from me without blurting it out, but she did.

My present came via UPS and she hid it in the “special place” that I wasn’t allowed to look at.  I should have known by her excitement that the gift was major, but she kept saying, “Now if you don’t like it we can always take it back and exchange it.”  Which made me think that it was something from Target.

We went to Jack Stack for dinner on my Birthday.  And she made me wait untill after the appetizer.  (But that was mainly because we were both starving and she didn’t want me to get food on the new phone.)  So I wasn’t expecting something this cool but I was eager, none the less, to open my present.  (Those of you who have seen me at Christmas know.)  And when I opened it I pretty much geeked out and flailed my arms and looked ridiculous in the middle of the restaurant.  Here I am at a nice restaurant acting like a little kid who got “the present.”  Because I did get the present… The G1!

This thing is sweet!  It’s got pretty much everything (and has a touch screen!).  Pictures, Web Browsing, IM, MMS, SMS, mP3 etc… (Basically an iPhone for half as much money.)  It is run by a Linux based OS called Android (or something, I’m probably butchering it).  The sweet part about that is that it’s an “open” platform which basically means that anybody and write programs for it (equals plethora of free apps) and it also means great compatibility with Windows/Apple/Linux.  This phone is compatible and will work well on all three platforms.  Really cool!  Also it will support a 16gb SDHC micro SD card (which I bought online with b-day money for $55) so as far as capacity goes it’s the same as iPhone.  So I’m stoked!  All the functionality of an iPhone for cheaper and no obligations to Apple (which is nice because, as much as I like apple, they can be the “man” from time to time).

If you can’t tell I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it… (um, wow.)

Later,

-Tom

We’re Home!

We got home Thursday night. I haven’t had a chance since then to post something new.

Natina is doing great. Yesterday she decided she didn’t want her pain meds anymore. She says it makes her really drowsy and that if she can tolerate the pain without the meds and be awake she’d rather have that. Also her mobility is going up every day (almost every couple of hours).

The best part of being home thus far is seeing her appetite come back. A week or two before she started vomiting she was not really eating as much as I thought she should have been, and when she did she was really picky and not eating everything. I thought it was kinda weird (obviously it was the gallbladder). But now she’s eating two eggs and two pancakes for breakfast. We had chicken teriyaki for dinner tonight. I added some merlot to the chicken while it was sauteing the chicken and it turned out sooo good!

The great news about the food is that she’s eating a ton and is hungry a lot. great news for the pregnant lady!

Anyway, love you all. Thanks for stopping by and checking up on us!

-Tom

Going home today!

We are getting ready to go home. Dr. Huse (the obstetrician who has been taking care of her this week) has filled out all of Natina’s paper work for her PTO and disability leave for work. It’s amazing that T-Mobile is going to give (or at least consider) giving a part-time employee disability! Great job T-Mobile!

Now we’re waiting for the discharge papers to be written up and we’ll listen to some more fetal-heart-tones. Then we’ll be able to go home! I think they’re going to hook Natina up with some kind of liquid pain reliever, which is great since she has trouble with swallowing pills. Thanks again St. Joe! You guys have been great!

Again thank you all for your prayers and support while we’ve been in the hospital.  We love you all so much and are looking forward to seeing you.  I am so thankful for having friends that lift us up and encourage us so well in times of need.  Bless you!

Love and grace,

-Tom

On the road to recovery

They brought in the ultra sound this morning.  I got to see it this time!  The baby is doing really good.  It’s had a steady heartbeat of around 160 every time we check. Great news to know that the baby is doing fine and did great with the surgery!  (They checked it immediately after surgery as well, for those of you who were wondering.)

Natina’s eating on her own and getting better gradually.  Food is mostly liquid right now (chicken broth, pudding, water, apple sauce, apple juice) but it’s food and it’s staying down!  She’s moved from “pain” as her response when we ask to “sore.” So she’s definitely getting better pretty quickly.  They’ve also moved her from morphine to another pain killer (I can’t remember the name right now), it lasts longer and I think they’re going to prescribe it for her when we go home.

The doctors and nurses here have been really great.  I’ve been impressed with their nursing staff as well.  Everyone is really nice and caring.  Thanks St. Joe!

Good times (sarcasm implied), but we’re almost done.  It’s so nice to see her getting better finally!  Especially after days of nothing working.

Thanks for taking time to stop by and see how she’s doing!

-Tom

She’s done and she did great!

She’s back in our room here at the hospital recovering now from the surgery.  The doctor said the surgery went really smoothly, there were no complications and she did not loose any blood.

I’m pretty impressed by the whole no loss of blood bit.  Any surgery you would expect to loose some blood.  But for there to be no loss of blood is pretty impressive to me.

Keep praying for her though.  She’s recovering from the surgery now and is in quite a bit of pain.  They’re giving her morphine for it.

My favorite part of the whole day has been giving her water, watching the level in the cup go down while she drinks, knowing that it’s going to stay down.  I am so relieved!  We are both very tired as you can imagine.

Thanks again for all of your support throughout this week!

-Tom 🙂

Time to get rid of the faulty organ

Well here’s the big news.  She is having the gallbladder removed today.  She is tentatively scheduled for 2:15pm today but it could be later because her surgery has been added onto the original schedule.  So it could be later in the day depending on how the others go.

For those of you who are dying to know, we did get a second opinion from her OBGYN, and her opinion is the same as the doctors here at St. Joe.  Plus she reassured us of the skill and surgical talent here as well so Natina and I feel really good about the decision.

Please keep praying for us.  We need the continued support and prayer from all of you!  The Facebook comments, texts and emails are really helpful.  Thank you all for being there for us when we’ve needed it!

Please pray blessing over the surgeons as well, keep their hands steady and their mind’s sharp!

The procedure is called Laparoscopy.  This is a minimally invasive surgery that has a very quick recovery time and is the lowest risk surgery from mom and baby.  It will leave three to four very small scars that should heal up really well and may not even be noticeable at all.

Please leave a comment with a prayer or blessing for Natina and I’ll make sure she reads them or at least hears them.

Bless you!

-Tom

Natina’s Condition…

Hello all.  Thank you everyone who has called me, texted and emailed concerning Natina’s health.

For those of you who don’t know what’s going on here’s the run down and the most current information.

On Wednesday Natina started vomiting about every hour.  At first we thought it might be the flu since it’s flu season and we were just at Onething with a whole bunch of people.  But by Thursday she had lost about five pounds and was still vomiting consistently every hour.

So we went to the ER to get her some fluids and see what the Dr’s would tell us.  They got her stable with two liters of fluids, checked the baby’s heartbeat to make sure it was okay, and some nausea medicine called Zoflan.  They prescribed some Zoflan for her to take orally and we went home hoping she’d get over the flu or whatever it was.

Friday rolls around and she starts vomiting again.  So we called the OB Dr and asked what they thought.  Their thought was that since the Zoflan was taken orally and she was still vomiting the medicine wasn’t staying in her system long enough to take effect.  So they prescribed a different suppository type nausea med (I can’t remember the name.)

That didn’t work so we went back to the ER and waited… waited some more… then again… and finally we were admitted to the hospital (St. Joseph) for further treatment and observation (and another check on the baby).  At this point everyone thought it was a condition called hyperemesis which is basically fancy speak for vomits every hour… (grrr I knew that already)

So this continues on till today (please note that while she has been in the hospital the vomiting has been once ever four to six hours and she is on an IV with fluids and nutrients so she is feeling much better).  Today (01/04/2009) her lab work has come back and they did an ultrasound to check and make sure the baby was fine.  Natina got to see the baby which was awesome for her, I was getting some much needed sleep at home while this was going on, and they checked out her gall bladder.

Now we’re getting to the culprit.  What they found was that her gall bladder was filled up with “sludge” or really thick bile.  Basically what happens during a pregnancy is the level of cholesterol goes up (this is normal).  However in some women when the level of cholesterol goes up the gall bladder isn’t able to cope with it properly, this is called gall bladder disease.  Here’s more info at WebMD. (Please note Natina doesn’t have a gall stone but does have biliary sludge.)

Now we are trying to treat her based on what we know.  There are three different scenarios that could happen.

1) We are able to get her past this episode and regulate her diet to control how the gall bladder functions until the pregnancy is over.

2) Her symptoms continue over the next couple of days and we remove the gall bladder. (This is most likely.  The second trimester is a good time to do this type of surgery because the uterus is still fairly small and would not be bothered by the laparoscopic surgery.)

3) This is the one we don’t want.  We get her past this episode, and she is fine for awhile.  But then later in the third trimester her gall bladder starts bothering her again and will need to come out.  We don’t want this one because the uterus will be too large for laparoscopic surgery.  This means that they would have to do “open” surgery on her to remove the gall bladder.  At this time there is also elevated risk of miscarriage.

We are hoping and praying for the first scenario.  But the second scenario is the most likely.  I guess there is also a fourth and that would be for her to be completely healed by the Lord.  Ultimately everyone would prefer this one so keep praying!

Bless you all.  Thank you for your prayers and kind words.

-Tom