California update
Boy it sure is hard to keep up with the crazy sequence of events this past week! Sometimes when we are hanging on to God it feels like we're flapping in the wind! But we sure can testify that God is more than faithful in all his ways.
I shared before how this situation came about in the craziest way. After the accident last Monday evening, the doctors at the hospital in Pichilemu tried to put my jigsaw puzzle ear back together but could not. They sent me in an ambulance to a city about an hour and a half away. There is a hospital and a surgeon there. She made a better attempt to fix it but also was not really successful. So by Wednesday was thinking about having the bad part removed. Julie said she didn't mind being married to Mr Spock so I was accepting the apparent outcome as well.
Then on Thursday a good friend from California contacted me saying his friend wanted to operate on my ear. He is a plastic surgeon who lives in Modesto and a wonderful Christian man.
I told our friends on the team that was visiting us about the opportunity and they said they would help with the airfare. So that same Thursday night I purchased round trip tickets to San Francisco for Saturday night. I traveled to Dallas with the team. We parted paths and they went on to San Diego.
After an all night flight, I arrived and went straight to church. After sharing some with the church, I drove and hour and a half straight to Modesto. By 3 PM Sunday I started a 3 hour procedure. It was very complicated as there was much to rebuild. I knew it was going to be 'fun' when he pulled out an electric saw! He had to remove dead tissue and did a marvelous job restoring the rest!
So here I am in California recovering once again but now with an ear that is on the right track. God sure is faithful! My dad said this procedure would cost more than $20,000 US! God is and will continue to supply all the resources to meet the challenges ahead. Thanks so much to all who have been praying for me and supporting us in this difficult time. The worst seems to be about over.
So happy to be serving Jesus, no matter the circumstances. The Bible says that all things work for the good to those who are in Christ. Even our difficult moments are so meaningful when our hearts are set to please Him. He sure deserves all that we are and all that we have.
May God richly bless you as you seek to serve him.
In Him, Mitch, Juliette, Nathan, Cole', Jessica, Janelle, Michaela, Katrina Anderson
Support address:
Missionary Christian Fellowship
3 Linden Rd.
Watsonville, CA. 95076
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Greetings to all from Pichilemu, Chile!
We hope and pray this note finds you in good health and enjoying Gods love. We have been through an eventful few weeks. We wrapped up our summer with an awesome swim meet and had some 250 swimmers show up. Many others were afraid of possible tsunamis so they did not come down our way. Those who came said it was the best meet of the year. We shared God's love through preaching, music, dance, drama, and evangelism. God sure showed up!
HAWAII TRIP
Juliette and I were invited to go to Kona Hawaii for some international leaders meetings right after the meet. What a privilege it is to get together with YWAM's top leadership to pray, give reports, and strategies for the future. We stayed down at a friends place on the water front. So when the horrible Japanese quake sent the tsunami, we found ourselves sleeping in our rental car up the hill. Two tsunamis in one year! I think God is trying to say something!
We spent another week teaching in one of the schools on the campus. It was such a blessing to be together and share our lives with the students and staff. He met with all of us in such amazing ways! He sure is faithful!
We then were invited to Kauai for four days. We stayed up on the north shore with some amazing friends and of course surfed every day. It was perfect. They live next door to Laird Hamilton and so I had some good conversation with him out in the water. We also spent quality time with Julie's brother and his family while there. God is good!
We hit the ground running when we arrived here with new faces, schools, ministries, and teams arriving. We now have an awesome group of servant hearted people from a great church down near San Diego. So between construction projects, outreaches, schools and teachings, we have been pretty busy.
Prayer needs/Mitchs Accident
I ( Mitch) am in the midst of a real challenging situation. We went surfing on Sunday evening with my kids and some team members. A friend offered to take us home in the back of his truck. We jumped on board and he headed out on the beach. It was pretty dark and he was going about 40 MPH on the sand. Some one had stretched a cable or thick rope from up in the dunes down to the ocean. My head was above the level of the cab and so was Janelle's. The cable hit me so quickly I had no time to react. I was so happy to be in front as I deflected it for Janelle. She was just smacked on the head. It bruised my jaw, tore my ear off, and bruised my head! I lost a piece of ear on the beach and we hurried to emergency as I held my ear in place. They tried to sew it up but it was too badly mangled. They sent me in ambulance to a bigger hospital and a surgeon worked on it for hours trying to put the pieces back together again.
As I was in the ambulance, I had the most amazing sense of God's peace! Even with the excruciating pain I found myself crying for pure joy! I had such a sense of God's close presence and love that the circumstances I was in were really inconsequential! I knew that if the cable caught me an inch or two lower, I would have been decapitated and thrown back on my daughter! I realized if that had happened I would be in Gods presence but my family would really be hurting. It truly a heaven and earth moment. Like Paul I really felt a desire to be in Gods presence, but knew my time was not yet. My time will come and I look forward to it! It just was not that Sunday.
Death can come upon us at the most 'random' and unexpected time! At that moment, I felt such peace because it was 'well with my soul'! I was really ready to go! It was amazing! I so desire to be ready to go 24/7 for the rest of my days here on earth. What an awesome promise we have as believers in Jesus! We will spend eternity in His presence worshipping and adoring Him! Let's live out the rest of our days with eternity stamped on our hearts!
Please pray as part of the ear puzzle is not getting reconnected well. I will go in on Thursday to the surgeon to see if they can save it. I told the doctor no worries I always liked Mr Spoke on Star Trek! I will just have to get my eyebrows lifted for the full effect. Seriously please pray for my full recovery and for the finances to cover these visits to the hospital. If I lose half my ear it's my wife who will suffer most. She will have to look at me maybe for many tears to come. But that's in Gods hands isn't it?
Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Our lives serving the King of Kings are truly full of his grace and love. Your friendship, prayers and support really help to make that possible.
Blessings, Mitch Juliette, Jessica, Janelle, Michaela, and Katrina Anderson
Support Address;
Missoionary Christian Fellowship
3 Linden Rd.
Watsonville, CA. 95076
We hope and pray this note finds you in good health and enjoying Gods love. We have been through an eventful few weeks. We wrapped up our summer with an awesome swim meet and had some 250 swimmers show up. Many others were afraid of possible tsunamis so they did not come down our way. Those who came said it was the best meet of the year. We shared God's love through preaching, music, dance, drama, and evangelism. God sure showed up!
HAWAII TRIP
Juliette and I were invited to go to Kona Hawaii for some international leaders meetings right after the meet. What a privilege it is to get together with YWAM's top leadership to pray, give reports, and strategies for the future. We stayed down at a friends place on the water front. So when the horrible Japanese quake sent the tsunami, we found ourselves sleeping in our rental car up the hill. Two tsunamis in one year! I think God is trying to say something!
We spent another week teaching in one of the schools on the campus. It was such a blessing to be together and share our lives with the students and staff. He met with all of us in such amazing ways! He sure is faithful!
We then were invited to Kauai for four days. We stayed up on the north shore with some amazing friends and of course surfed every day. It was perfect. They live next door to Laird Hamilton and so I had some good conversation with him out in the water. We also spent quality time with Julie's brother and his family while there. God is good!
We hit the ground running when we arrived here with new faces, schools, ministries, and teams arriving. We now have an awesome group of servant hearted people from a great church down near San Diego. So between construction projects, outreaches, schools and teachings, we have been pretty busy.
Prayer needs/Mitchs Accident
I ( Mitch) am in the midst of a real challenging situation. We went surfing on Sunday evening with my kids and some team members. A friend offered to take us home in the back of his truck. We jumped on board and he headed out on the beach. It was pretty dark and he was going about 40 MPH on the sand. Some one had stretched a cable or thick rope from up in the dunes down to the ocean. My head was above the level of the cab and so was Janelle's. The cable hit me so quickly I had no time to react. I was so happy to be in front as I deflected it for Janelle. She was just smacked on the head. It bruised my jaw, tore my ear off, and bruised my head! I lost a piece of ear on the beach and we hurried to emergency as I held my ear in place. They tried to sew it up but it was too badly mangled. They sent me in ambulance to a bigger hospital and a surgeon worked on it for hours trying to put the pieces back together again.
As I was in the ambulance, I had the most amazing sense of God's peace! Even with the excruciating pain I found myself crying for pure joy! I had such a sense of God's close presence and love that the circumstances I was in were really inconsequential! I knew that if the cable caught me an inch or two lower, I would have been decapitated and thrown back on my daughter! I realized if that had happened I would be in Gods presence but my family would really be hurting. It truly a heaven and earth moment. Like Paul I really felt a desire to be in Gods presence, but knew my time was not yet. My time will come and I look forward to it! It just was not that Sunday.
Death can come upon us at the most 'random' and unexpected time! At that moment, I felt such peace because it was 'well with my soul'! I was really ready to go! It was amazing! I so desire to be ready to go 24/7 for the rest of my days here on earth. What an awesome promise we have as believers in Jesus! We will spend eternity in His presence worshipping and adoring Him! Let's live out the rest of our days with eternity stamped on our hearts!
Please pray as part of the ear puzzle is not getting reconnected well. I will go in on Thursday to the surgeon to see if they can save it. I told the doctor no worries I always liked Mr Spoke on Star Trek! I will just have to get my eyebrows lifted for the full effect. Seriously please pray for my full recovery and for the finances to cover these visits to the hospital. If I lose half my ear it's my wife who will suffer most. She will have to look at me maybe for many tears to come. But that's in Gods hands isn't it?
Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Our lives serving the King of Kings are truly full of his grace and love. Your friendship, prayers and support really help to make that possible.
Blessings, Mitch Juliette, Jessica, Janelle, Michaela, and Katrina Anderson
Support Address;
Missoionary Christian Fellowship
3 Linden Rd.
Watsonville, CA. 95076
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