Free will offering on Easter Sunday 

We will be taking a free will offering on Easter Sunday at the breakfast in between services for Amina Bushey (please see the following story). Amina Bushey, is a second grader at our school and needs our prayers, help, and support. Please join us on Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and help support Amina - this precious lamb of God through a generous free will offering at the breakfast served between services. Thanks and praise be to God for he is the God of healing and of resurrection!

The Amina Bushey story:

Shared by Mom (Nicole Bushey) and Family

Amina was a healthy little girl until the age of about four and a half when my family and I noticed that she had a lazy eye. I took her to a regular optometrist to have the issue looked at. The doctor said that it was just a lazy eye and to put an eye patch over the good eye to strengthen the muscles in the bad eye. The optometrist also told us to bring her back in six months to check up on her condition!

So we followed the doc’s prescription and went about our business and just kept an eye on her to make sure things were going well for Amina. About two months into the six month wait, Amina started to exhibit symptoms of another sort. She was having headaches. Not just any headaches, they were migraines. I found this to be really unusual for a young girl of Amina’s age.

She was having so much pain from these migraines that my family and I took her to see the specialists at the University of Minnesota. When we arrived, we met the head pediatric optometrist. His name was Dr. Christianson.

He sat Amina down at his station and used all kinds of gadgets to look into her eyes. It didn’t take long for Dr. Christianson to diagnose her. He said that he was pretty positive that Amina had a form of cancer called Optic Glioma.

When we heard the news of her cancer, our hearts dropped. It was a really bleak feeling at the time! So with the doctor’s advice, Amina had an MRI to make sure that this was the right diagnosis. When the results came back, it only confirmed what the doctor had said; it was for sure Optic Glioma!

Everything went so fast. It was really overwhelming to the whole family. We were uneducated about Amina’s condition, and it was really scary. Amina was going to have to go through chemotherapy intravenously, and in order to do that treatment, Amina had to have a port placed into her chest. A port is like a plug that stays in her chest throughout the duration of her chemotherapy.

The port is then taken out when she is finished with chemo. So now Amina was having surgery on top of everything else.

It was all so crazy. Amina had a hard time. She lost her hair and her fingers and toes would burn and hurt so much when she would get up from a chemo session she would just collapse wherever she was. It was really hard to watch!

She began to get depressed and really bummed out! She would ask questions like “Why is God putting me through this Mom? Does he hate me?” which was the worst. It was really hard to answer those kinds of questions, but we managed to keep her mind off those bad thoughts most of the time.

Amina ended up going through chemotherapy for approximately fourteen months! She worked hard and all the while managing to be a top student even though she missed over two thirds of kindergarten! She would just amaze me! Amina was doing things that a grownup couldn’t do, let alone a child!

She continued to have MRI tests to check on her progress, and soon she was deemed in remission! She was in remission for about a year or so.

Amina went through the first grade pretty much like any normal child. Besides the occasional check up and common cold, Amina was fine!    However, in the second quarter of the second grade, Amina went in to see the specialists at the U of M and received some bad news. She was no longer in remission.

Amina also developed a form of neuropathy. She had to wear leg braces and go through physical therapy once a week in the beginning. As it got worse, she had to go three times a week! So she was at the doctor’s office four days a week getting her blood drawn and all the poison that went into her veins was just overwhelming for her!

Amina’s tumor has grown, and it is right now in danger of blinding her! The tumor sits on the optic nerve in between the brain and the eye killing the optic nerve on the right side. She no longer can see with the right eye and now that the tumor is growing there is a possibility that she will go blind and not be able to see at all!

Amina is now on a pill form of chemotherapy, and there are some side effects like before, but we are doing everything to stop the tumor from growing any larger. All we can do is pray for her eyesight to stay the same and for the tumor to just disappear!

I – we - thank you all for your prayers and especially for your help and support! God is in charge. God is at work. Jesus is our strength. We thank you all for everything!

PLEASE HELP RESTOCK FOOD SHELF

The food shelf is in need of cereal, fruit, meat, and soup.  Any other food items that are useful to families are greatly appreciated!  Thank you for your kindness and generosity!  A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.  Proverbs 22:9

  Cleaning Day
  April 10, 2010

BIBLE STUDY OPPORTUNITIES 
 

Sunday: Experiential Sunday School
Just for Kids
9:00 am in the school building

Sunday: 30 Minutes in the Bible
Various Topics of Interest
9:45 - 10:15 in the Fireside Room

Monday: New Life in Christ, Basic Teachings of the Bible 
8:15 am
Contact Pastor Pete at pastor@pilgrimonline.net for more information

Tuesday: Early Riser Men's Bible Study
6:30 am in the Church Library
Contact Eric at michaelson52@hotmail.com for more information

Wednesday: New Life in Christ, Basic Teachings of the Bible
6:00 pm in the Fireside Room
Contact Pastor Pete at pastor@pilgrimonline.net for more information

Thursday: Breakfast Bible Study
at Curran's Restaurant
42nd and Nicollet
8:00 am
Contact Bob at bbhelmen@mninter.net for more information

Saturday: Women of Faith Bible Study
9:00 am in the Fireside Room
on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month
Contact Doris at dorisbelsaas@msn.com for more information

Promise From God in Isaiah 26:3:

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you,

all whose thoughts are fixed on you!

8:00 am - 12:00 pm

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Archeologist Eilat Mazar, center in red, who is leading the excavation of newly discovered fortifications outside the Old City walls, talks to journalists in Jerusalem, Monday, Feb. 22, 2010. Mazar says ancient fortifications newly excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of the Bible's King Solomon and offer evidence for the accuracy of the biblical narrative. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

By MATTI FRIEDMAN

Associated Press Writer

updated 3:07 p.m. CT, Mon., Feb. 22, 2010

JERUSALEM - An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history — including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.

Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings.

The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple on the site.

That temple was destroyed by Babylonians, rebuilt, renovated by King Herod 2,000 years ago and then destroyed again by Roman legions in 70 A.D. The compound now houses two important Islamic buildings, the golden-capped Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, first in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s. But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.

Aren Maeir, an archaeology professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. There are remains from the 10th century in Jerusalem, he said, but proof of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."

While some see the biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon as accurate and others reject it entirely, Maeir said the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.

"There's a kernel of historicity in the story of the kingdom of David," he said.

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