text:
My heart is full of many things that I just experienced in having been cross at least one ocean, and so as we have been thinking about the music this morning, my mind has been kind of spinning around about what's on my heart to share with you.
We sang, as a congregation, "O Zion, haste, thy mission high fulfilling, to tell the world that God is Light," and so forth, and bringing them the message of salvation. I don't know whether Jack...I'm sure he did it on purpose...but knew what I was gonna share. Well, I know he didn't know what I was gonna talk about this morning. But picking all of these hymns that emphasize missions and evangelism and sharing Christ and being available. The choir even sung, "The Savior is waiting to enter your heart. Why don't you let him come in," emphasizing the need for people to open up and invite the Lord Jesus Christ into their life.
And I think this is of the Lord. I had spent about five hours during the middle of the night Friday preparing a message. I was flying between Rio de Janeiro and Lima, Peru, in the dark of the airplane. There was only one light on, and it was mine, which I'm sure didn't thrill, at least, the guy next to me. But by then, we'd become good friends. And so I studied and prepared to speak to you on Ephesians chapter 3 because that was where we were in our study. And I finished that just before we landed in Lima for fuel and then continued the journey and endeavored to sleep.
But ever since I returned home, there were so many other things in my mind that I never could really focus on what I was supposed to say out of Ephesians. I am preoccupied with all kinds of things, some of them related to the experience in Brazil, some of them related to some experiences in my own life before that and even some thoughts since I've been back. And last night, as I was sitting down for just a moment to try to catch my breath, preparing my mind as I often do, I turned on the television set, and there was a particular preacher on, and he made a statement that just triggered in my mind the final decision about what I'd say to you. This was his statement: "Whatever makes you sad is from the Devil. Whatever makes you happy is always from Jesus because all Jesus ever wants is for you to be happy."
Well, that was all I could take, and I turned it off. And my heart was deeply grieved. I was by myself at the time, and I just began to think over in my mind, "What a stupid statement." All Jesus ever wants to do is make you happy. And I thought about my own attitude, and I thought about what God had been doing in my own life in the last month or so and what the Lord did in Brazil, and I thought, "That may be not only stupid; it may be opposite the truth." Very often, I am convinced - and maybe more so in recent days then I have before - but very often, I am convinced that our sadnesses are really of God, that God doesn't necessarily always want us happy.
The first thing I heard when I got off the airplane from you mean little daughter was that Tim Jack, one of our elders on our staff...his little sister had been killed with a gun. That didn't make me happy. And then I heard Marcytell me that Tim had preached the funeral and presented Jesus Christ, and I thought, "Well, that maybe was one way in which God, somehow in His wisdom beyond our understanding, wanted to bring someone into the hearing of the message of salvation." Who's to say that sadness is from the Devil and happiness is from Jesus? You couldn't defend that biblically. It just isn't so.
After I left Lima, Peru, I couldn't sleep too well, so I opened a book, the Bible. It's a handy book. And I read the beatitudes. And I meditated on the beatitudes. Look with me at Matthew chapter 5 for a minute. I'm going somewhere. It may sound like I'm not, but I am. I'm not sure where. The Lord knows. And I was reading and meditating on the beginning of the beatitudes, "And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain. And when He was seated, His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." You know, I never got past those two verses. I meditated on those two verses for about two hours. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," the humble, the people who recognize they're destitute, the people who are devoid of resources, the people who hurt, the people who ache, the people who know they have no good thing to offer God, the unproud, the people who see in themselves the sin that marks them, the people who recognize that were it not for grace, they would have nothing. And then I read about the people that mourn, those that have deep sorrow over their sin, those that have deep agony over their inability to fulfill the will of God, those that hurt because of what they see around them. These are the really blessed people.
And I guess it was because my mind was so bathed in this concept of poverty of spirit, seeking nothing, recognizing inability, recognizing that you're nothing and this idea of mourning over your sinfulness and mourning over your failures and your frailties. And then I, as I began to mull over that, and my mind just raced through all kinds of thoughts, I made the commitment in my own heart, "Lord, you gotta make me more of a mourner." I think that while I was in Brazil for those two weeks, I had more tears in my eyes than I have had in a long time since or before. I'm not the kind of person who cries very often, once in awhile. But I had my heart grieved many, many times, and I guess I was ripe for Matthew 5. And I asked the Lord to make me poor in spirit. I asked the Lord to make me a mourner, to hate my own sinfulness, to hate my own failure, to hate my own humanness, to hate my own disabilities, infirmities, to hate my own self-will and pride and all of those tings that stand between me and fruitfulness. And then when I got home and turned on the television and heard that guy say, "Jesus wants to make you happy," it just didn't cut it because it says here, "Blessed are they that mourn."
Frankly, in recent days, the Lord has laid much sadness in my heart. I don't wanna just unload all of my problems on you. This isn't one big group therapy session with you the psychiatrist and me on the proverbial couch. But I feel, because God has called me to be a pastor, teacher here and to be on of the shepherds of the flock that I have to speak what I feel is in my heart to speak. I don't normally do this. You know that. I'm usually pretty rigid to stay with the text that I'm dealing with. But the Lord really laid it on my heart, and I began to think over in my own mind that I've been very sad recently. Far and away, the dominating thought that is in my mind having visited Brazil is sadness, not happiness. I'm not happy about what I saw there. And there are other things in my own life recently that have been very saddening things, that have been things that have caused me to mourn and to grieve. And I began to think those things over.
This morning I didn't even really jot down what I was gonna say while I was trying to eat and think at the same time. And this is what I wrote down. Number one...I gotta have an outline, you know that. Number one, I've been very sad over my own failures. I've been very sad about that. In the first place, I don't even understand why God put me in the ministry. And I was reading this morning...and I'd like you to look at it with me...1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 12. While you're turning to 1 Timothy 1, I'll tell you a little sideline.
When I got off the airplane down there...it's about an 18 hour flight. I got off the airplane, and I met Bill Kays, and they waited about two and a half, three hours while Monny Brewerand I went through customs. And he said to me, "You know you're preaching tonight." I said, "No, I don't know I'm preaching tonight. You didn't tell me that." "Well, that's just how it is on the mission field," he said. And then they laughed, and they said, "No, we're just kidding. You're to go to the Egracia Baltista de Ibaranga, which is the Baptist Church of Ibaranga, which is a suburb of San Paolo, and he said, "You are to just give a two or three minute greeting to the people there, and then we're gonna break bread and have the Lord's Supper. And so I said, "Well, I'll be willing to do that if I can stay awake." And so I got there, and it was really funny. I walked into this church that...I suppose it seated 100 people, and every single seat was filled. It was just packed. And the pews were a strange assortment of unrelated pieces of furniture. It was in a rubble area. In fact, you couldn't even see it from the street. You had to walk down a little tiny alley, just about as wide as two people, shoulder to shoulder, and it sorta was there in the back among the bricks and the rubble, down one of the cobblestone streets.
So I went in there, and he said, "It's customary now that you would go sit on the platform next to the pastor," whom I had never met in my life. So I went up there and sat there, and Monny sat with me. And then they were talking. Of course, I didn't understand anything. I know a little bit of Spanish, but I don't know any Portuguese. And then he said, "It's time," he motioned to me...the missionary motioned to me and said, "It's time for you to get up. He's introducing you." And I recognized my name, and I got up. And he said, "The pastor will interpret for you. He speaks very wonderful English." So I stood up prepared to share two or three...well, I hadn't even taken my Bible out of my suitcase or anything. And the pastor put his arm around me, and he whispered in my ear and said, "My dear brother, I am praying that this will be the longest two minutes of your life. I was told you would be preaching the sermon, and I am unprepared." So I had never been interpreted in Portuguese. I didn't even know what was going on, but the Lord provided, and we went on for 40 minutes. I want to hasten to add, 20 minutes of me and 20 minutes of interpretation. And he thanked me and profusely thanked me, and then we had the Lord's Table together, and I stood at the door and said the one thing I was told to say, "Bon noche", which means goodnight, and I said it about 150 times that night to everybody who walked up and looked at me.
But I thought about the fact that here I am, walking into a situation like that, people I don't know, a church I've never been to, and yet the Spirit of God had prepared a way for me to minister. And I had this thought afterwards. I said, "Who am I to do this? Who am...they don't know me. How do they know what my life is like? How do those dear people know that I can minister to them in the Word of God? Why did God ever give me such an opportunity as this?" And I was reminded, looking at 1 Timothy 1:12, of what Paul thought, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me and that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." And then this verse, "This is a faithful thing and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." What's the next line? "Of whom I am chief."
And I thought about that. Who am I? Do I have a right to minister at Grace Community Church? Is my life so righteous and so holy that I can be the spokesman of God - let alone a right to walk into this little church down here, where they would be expecting so much, where their hearts would be anticipating what I would have to say and be the minister? Is my life what it ought to be?
Frankly, people, recently I have been saddened over my own failures. Sometimes I have mused in the last few weeks over Isaiah chapter 6, where Isaiah said to the Lord, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips." And you remember how the angel took a coal off the altar and touched his tongue, and he was still able to say, "Here am I, Lord. Send me." I recognize my inability. I recognize my sinfulness. I recognize my failure. And yet it doesn't change the desire that I have to be used. It's just a saddening thing. You know, you...in terms of this congregation, I have such a great love for you. And my whole soul and heart is yours, and I want so to minister to you. I wanna build you up, and I wanna pass on to you all that there is that God could possibly give you though me. And yet sometimes I see the failure in my life to be all the man of God that I should be. And then I grieve because I feel like I would then restrict you from being what you should be.
And I want to learn a little more about what it is to mourn. I want to learn a little more about what it is to be poor in spirit. I want to be faithful, more faithful than I've been in past times, to pray for you. I recently shared with the elders the fact that I felt a deep, deep burden about prayer. As I've been studying Ephesians 3, remember Paul begins by saying, "I'm gonna pray for you," and then he goes into that parentheses we've been studying. But then he comes back to his prayer. And as I looked through Paul's letters, I was reminded how he begins time and time again by saying, "never ceasing to make mention of you in our prayers...praying for you that God would do such and such," how that in Acts 6:4, the apostles gave themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. And this is what's in my heart to do, but frankly, I haven't been too happy about it because I've been saddened by my own failure to be all that I should be because I realize, perhaps better than you do, the significance of Hosea's word, "like people, like priest." As I see my own life mirrored in the life of my children, I see my own life mirrored in the life of my church. You tend to be strong where I'm strong and perhaps, in some cases, weak where I'm weak.
And so I've asked God in these recent days to somehow lift me past the point of my infirmities so that you don't get stuck there with me because I wanna be the man of God that He wants me to be. The second thing that I thought about that makes sad is the power of sin. You know, it just...I was thinking this morning of John 11. Look at it for just a minute, and we'll use it kind of as a basis, and then I'll say what I wanna say about this. Jesus was called to Bethany because Lazarus had died. He had a great, great affection for Lazarus. He went to the graveside, and He saw a tomb. He knew that His friend was dead. And in verse 34, Jesus said, "Where have you laid Him? Where did you bury Him?" They said, "Lord, come and see." And then the shortest verse in the Bible, verse 35, "Jesus sobbed," literally, very intense. He wept. And then said the Jews, "Behold how He loved him." Now, what was it that made Him weep? It was the consequence of sin. Jesus wept because He saw the power of sin. He saw what it did. He saw its death power. And at this point, He's already anticipating, just a week away, His own death. And that's why it says in this text that His spirit was troubled within Him, because He anticipated the power of sin.
And this is the thing that should cause us the same kind of pain, when you see what sin does, how it binds and captures a whole world of people. Monny and I were in Rio, and we had gone down the famous Rio beach, the beach Copa Cabana, Ipanima, both of those famous beaches. And we then took a ride to the top of a promontory, a hill that stands towering above this magnificent city of Rio called Corpal Valdu. And at the top of Corpal Valdu was this monstrous statue of Christ. Some of you may have seen it. There's also one on the west coast of Latin America called the Christ of the Andes. But this is Corpal Valdu. In fact, many of the little villages in Brazil put a Christ figure on the highest hill as a symbol of protection, this massive Christ figure. And we stood up there, and we saw Christ towering into the sky. We came on down the road, just below where Jesus Christ was supposed to be protecting the city, and we came to a big pile of stuff in the middle of the road. So we stopped the car, and we got out. And I said John Kuam, who was a missionary there working with Bill Kays. I said, "John, what is that?" He said, "That is a spiritist sacrifice." And right in the middle of the road...in fact, because of some superstition, spiritism in Brazil, which incidentally dominates the vast majority of the population, the spiritist offerings must be made at the intersection of the streets, something to do with the sign of the cross, something, some perversion of the cross.
And there spread out was this monstrous thing that would have filled a platform like this. And there were funny little bowls with dead chickens that had been bled somehow, and the blood was rolling out of the bowls. And it was all in perfect order. In other words, like it had been set out in symmetry. And between that dead chickens in the bowls were dead fish all laid in certain configurations symbolizing certain things. And there were bowls of rice, and there were melted black and red candles with the black and the red all mingled together. And then there were great big cigars for the spirits to smoke. This huge thing. You know, I don't know how many dozens and dozens of fish and how many of these chickens there were with this blood running all over everywhere and candles and all this wax melted in funny ways. My heart just grieved. And all I could think about was, "Look at the power of sin. It has captured these people." To imagine that that kind of thing could gain for them some spiritual end - the power of sin.
And then they say that Rio comes alive between 10 o'clock and 3 in the morning. And so about 11 o'clock, we went out of the hotel, right there on Ipanima, where we were...our hotel was right on the beach...and we walked up and down for about two miles. The place was milling with an estimated one million people, about a two mile area and nothing but a string of sidewalk cafes serving drinks, and they were literally jammed. You could hardly walk 'til 3 in the morning, and this goes on every night. The power of sin to capture people. They have no idea what they're living for. It made Jesus weep. And we couldn't help but go back to the hotel with our hearts filled with grief.
You know, I felt just like the apostle Paul. I stood up on Corpal Valdu, and there was Christ supposedly embracing the city of Rio. That's a joke. I went up on the Sugarloaf at night and saw that city sparkling - and it's an absolute incredible city to see; it's gorgeous - and all the beauty of God's creation, the wonders of that natural beauty. And then you come down, and you realize that it's just a total commitment to sin. It's just destroying an entire civilization of people. And I felt like the 17th chapter of Acts. Remember that? Where Paul went into Athens, and he was gonna rest. He was gonna take a vacation. In fact, they told us, "We want you to go to Rio for a couple days just to rest because I had preached, I don't know, 12 times in about four days, five days. And we were really tired. So they said, "Here's a couple tickets. Go to Rio and rest." But we saw...like Acts 17, we saw a city given over wholly to idolatry, and we couldn't rest. And so we prayed for Rio.
We prayed for Osmar. Osmar is a Brazilian who started the church in an apartment because there are no places to build a building there. In one area called Ipanima Beach, which is, I don't know, maybe a mile long at the most, there's 400,000 people living in high-rise apartments. There's no property for a church. There is no message there. There is no witness at all. And Osmar, whose great heart aches for Ipanima and Rio, started a church in his house. And so that night they invited us to come. And Monny and I sat down in the little house church. The people who meet in the apartment, they asked us Bible question after Bible question after Bible question. And we prayed for Osmar, that somehow God would help him to touch 400,000 people with that little house church.
We saw a city given over to idolatry, sin. It's a saddening thing, you know. And I thought to myself, "We are so smug in our American culture. You know, we have gotten our theology so pigeonholed, and we are so involved with each other in the fellowship that I wonder whether we ever really see what's going on." And the sophistication of American sin causes it almost to be invisible to us. We don't get around like that. We don't get where the world is. It's not nice to go there, expose yourself to things. We lose the perspective of Jesus who went out where the publicans and sinners were and touched their lives.
So I've been sad lately. I've been sad over my own failures, and I admit them to you. But God, by His grace, is going to change my heart, and I think great things are ahead. I believe so, one day at a time for me, and I wanna pass it on to you.
And I'll tell you another thing that makes me sad is the power of sin, and I saw it all over again. Because, you see, you culturally propped, you know what I mean. In your own culture, you stop seeing it anymore. And I'm here, and I'm protected by these great walls of Grace Church. I come wandering in here everyday, and it's a whole bunch of Christians. And I go home, and they're all Christians at my house. And I go over here to a meeting with some more Christians. And I don't...and then all of the sudden I'm slammed in the midst of a culture, and I see spiritism, demon worship, godless materialism all over the place, and I can't hide from 'em. And I have a whole new sense of the power of sin to capture men.
The city of San Paolo has 12 million people. And you know something, there is one skyscraper of 20 floors or more completed every day of the year, 365 days a year. It's gonna be the biggest city in the world. And the little Egracia de Baltista Ibaranga had 100 people in it - 100 people, one of the significant churches in the city. The whole city given to idolatry. Their gods are spirits, the dollar...or in their case the cruzero, sex. That's their gods. And I guess I saw that in a way I had forgotten I should have seen it here.
The third thing I thought about as I was thinking about what makes me sad was added to the power of sin, and that is the lost. You know, I not only saw what sin was able to do in capturing people, but I began to think of the individual people, lost people. And you know, I felt a sense of terrible frustration 'cause I couldn't talk to anybody. But then you know what came into my mind? This is really amazing. I began to think, "Boy, this is great. This'll give you an excuse for not witnessing. You can't talk their language. You don't have to say a thing. And nobody can blame you." And I thought, "Man, where did I ever get a thought like that?" I should be running out saying, in desperation, with tears, "Find me somebody who can translate." But, you know, we get so smug. We get so protective. We don't want to world to mess with us. We don't wanna run shoulders with them. We don't wanna open up our mouth and speak of Jesus Christ. I'll tell you, the Lord gave me a new commitment to that. Boy, I tell you, I got on my own hide. When I started hearing my mind say, "Well, this is great, McArthur, you don't have witness at all. Here nobody'd ever care because you can't talk the language."
Yesterday, it was so much on my heart that I spent the time while I was watching my son play a baseball game talking to the guy sitting next to me about Christ 'cause I was saying to myself, "Well, what are you gonna do now? He knows English." When I got on the airplane...that airplane...listen, everywhere you go, the airplanes are all full of Japanese people, all over the world. They are moving. They are everywhere. The whole airplane we were on was packed. There wasn't one empty seat on a 18-hour flight from San Paolo home. And you know, there were probably about eight people on that airplane that spoke English. And I knew what would happen. I knew I would be on that airplane sitting next to two Japanese people for 18 hours, who would be talking and talking, and I would be going, (mumbling). And you know what happened? The Lord be praised. He dropped one guy right next to me, and every single person around me, four seats in any direction, was Japanese. Guy right next to me, his heart was wide open. And we had eighteen hours to talk about Jesus Christ. He's from Lockinyata.
Well, I guess God gave me a new vision for the lost, and I thought of this, Matthew 23. I just...I've said to the Lord so many times in the last few days, "Lord, I wanna see things like you see 'em. I wanna be like You." And I thought of Jesus in Matthew 23:37, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he said, "thou that killest the prophets, stoneth them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. You would not." And He wept. He cried over that city.
We were sitting at the table with Bill and LoriKays, our missionaries from Grace, and Bill and I and Lori all went to highschool together. We played football and baseball, Bill and I, and we went to seminary together too. We were sitting at the table, and we were talking about how many people were in San Paolo and how were they gonna be reached, and Lori began to cry. And she just started to cry. She couldn't talk. And I didn't say anything, and I just kinda looked at Bill as to if say with my eyes, "Is everything okay?" He said, "Oh, she's just crying in the frustration of the lost people in the city." You know, the Lord really spoke to my heart, you know, "She's one up on you, guy. You know, you haven't gotten to that place where the Lord's broken your heart over that yet." And she just went on crying, and she couldn't talk. Silently in my heart, I said, "Lord, help me to cry over the city that I'm in that's lost, like Jesus did over Jerusalem."
I met missionaries. The second week that I was there, I spent with 300 missionaries, teaching them the Scripture. From all over the place. From the big cities like San Paolo and Rio, which has seven million people, to the Amazon, where one guy is working way up the Amazon with a tribe of naked natives. And all of these missionaries...some of them drove 60 hours to be there for the feeding of the Word of God for four days. And I spoke, and I watched them hang on every word, and I watched them talk and share about how they could ever reach their people, how they could ever reach their people. And I listened to them tell me the troubles and the difficulties and the problems. And now the tribal work is going to be so difficult because the government's gonna kick all the Wycliffe people out, so they don't want them translating Scriptures into any more of those tribal languages. And they've restricted now any travel. People can't leave and come back anymore. And every time a missionary wants to go out of the country, he has to post a huge amount of money 'cause they don't want people leaving. They don't wanna give any more missionaries permanent visas, so they have to come in for three months and then leave every three months, go out of the country and then come back again. And they were aching about how they were gonna accomplish their work.
I met a man named Frank Cook. In fact, I celebrated his birthday with a great big birthday cake. Frank is 100 years old. He's been in Brazil since 1911. He's preached the Gospel in 782 towns and villages. He buried his wife in 1934, and he's still there preaching Jesus Christ. He's 100 years old. And I saw the ache in his heart for the people, and how are you gonna reach the people. 67 years that one man has been preaching Jesus Christ in Brazil - 67 years. I'll tell you, when he talked, I listened. And I saw how the frustration was filling the hearts of those people as they wondered how they could ever accomplish a goal of reaching those people for Christ.
And I was reminded of the fact that Jeremiah wept a lot. You know that? He was like Jesus in a sense. In Jeremiah chapter 13 and verse 15, Jeremiah cries out to the people, and he says, "Hear and give ear and be not proud, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God." Jeremiah's crying to his people to give God glory, to respond to God's Word or else there's gonna be judgment, he says, "darkness, and your feet will stumble on the dark mountains. And while you look for light, He'll turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness." And he says, "People, people, will you turn? Will you repent? Will you be not proud? Will you give glory to God?" Or else there's this judgment. And then you see his attitude in verse 17, "And if you don't hear, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eye shall weep bitterly and run down with tears."
The lost. Millions of people without Christ. Millions of people to spend a Christ-less eternity in an eternal hell. And just a few little missionaries to reach millions of people so that they can become infinitely frustrated.
And I guess in my own frustration, I went up to the ItaliaBuilding, the highest building in San Paolo. And Bill said, "I wanna give you a vision of the city." So we took the elevator to the highest building in San Paolo. I mean, you have never in your life seen anything like it. You think we've got tall buildings in Los Angeles? Listen, ten thousand those many buildings is how many skyscrapers are in the city filled with people. And he said, "I want you to get a vision for these people, this city." And I looked over that city, and I couldn't believe it. And I said, "Where do you start?" And the answer came in my own mind, "You start on your knees. That's where you start." And Bill said, "When you go back...", the last thing he said to me as he threw his arms around me, and he embraced me at the airport...he said to me, "John, will you tell the people...will you tell the people what the need is in Brazil? Will you tell the people of the millions of Brazil who've never heard of Jesus Christ?" I said, "I'll tell 'em."
There's a fourth thing I thought about that makes me sad, and that is false teachers. False teachers make me sad. I was up in the mountains with the pastors, 100 pastors from all over Brazil, key pastors and also seminary students. There are three major seminaries - the Presbyterian seminary run by the Presbyterian denomination in America, but it's been nationalized; Baptist seminary run by the Southern Baptists, and it's also been nationalized; and a Methodist seminary. And I said to some of these seminary students...I said, "How are the seminaries?" "Well," they said, "that's why we're here because we wanna really know how to minister because they don't teach us that there." Well, in some cases they do. In some cases, there's some good men.
One pastor said to me, "You know, I work on the side." I said, "What do you do?" He says, "I do," what do you call it, "fetal therapy." I said, "Huh?" He said, "Yes." He said, "It's a wonderful new psychological technique." I said, "Well what do you mean?" He says, "Well, we have a man down here who was the first man in the history of the church who's ever properly integrated theology and psychology. And he just came down here, and he's training all of our pastors in this denomination to do this because this is how you heal people's problems. I said, "Well, what is it?" "Well, you get...it takes about six hours, and you get the person involved to get on the floor and ball up like they were when they were a fetus." And I said, "Huh?" "Yeah, and then you take pillows and pack 'em all around them so that they have the feeling they're in the womb again." Boy, I was saying, "This is where I bail out, folks." And then he said, "You see, because most of psychological problems are problems that began when you were a fetus. Well, when you were a fetus, you couldn't deal with them. But now that you're an adult, we regress you to being a fetus, and you can deal with your problems there and correct your whole lifestyle."
Boy, I've heard it all. This guy's a Christian. They flew this guy from England to tell the pastors that. I said, "Lord, it's not tough enough to win people to Christ, to start churches and to get pastors. But then the Devil comes in and teaches them all that garbage." And now they've got people laying around the floor for six hours with a bunch of pillows around them trying to get back to when they were a fetus, straighten out all their problems.
You know, I tell you, people, it gets a little old to fight the false teaching, and I thought about that when I was watching that dumb television thing the other night. "Jesus wants you happy now." You know, it's bad enough we...we say, "Well, we've got a church, and there's a guy preaching." Yeah, but listen to what the guy's saying. Boy, no wonder the apostle Paul said to the Ephesians elders in Acts 20 that "I have not ceased for the space of three years, night and day with tears, to warn you that grievous wolves will move in among the flock, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves, false teachers arise, leading you astray." Listen, we have to fight it all the time, and it's heartbreaking. I get so tired of the false teaching. I get so tired of the baloney. And here you go to another country, and you just...they're all over the place.
You know, running rampant in Brazil are the Moonies, Sun Yun Moon, capturing people, Mormon missionaries everywhere on their bicycles, false teachers. They make it so hard, and they always seem to...you know, they always seem to get the exposure. You know why? 'Cause Satan runs the system, doesn't he? So the system caters to the false. And they just...they splash all over the place. These dear young men from the seminary...they came up...you know, they'd come up in the morning, and there was one guy...he was a neat guy. His name was Ruben. He interpreted for Monny while Monny was teaching him stuff in the days, and then I was teaching through another interpreter, wonderful guy. But these kids would hang around me all day long. I mean, we're walking around like a bee hive, just all the time. And poor Ruben. He was...he interpreted from dawn 'til sunset. "Well, he would like to know, blah, blah, blah." "Oh, well..." "Now, he would like to know, blah, blah, blah." And they just kept asking question, question. "What about the authority of the Bible? What about how do you build the church? How do you teach the Word of God? How do you make a sermon that really has power? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You know, we've been taught such, such and such. Is that true?" "No, that's not true. This is Truth." All day long trying to unscramble the egg.
And Adi Valosa, wonderful guy, a Brazilian who was a graduate of Dallas Seminary, now works will Bill Kays, who was my interpreter. Super guy. A few months ago, he's landing in San Paolo and had a heart attack, 42 years old. The Lord spared his life, and the doctor finally gave him the approval to interpret when I got there. It's the firs time he'd done it since his heart attack. He was a little nervous, took an extra dose of his heart pill. Man, we had a great time. But Adi told me that the seminaries had almost all gone liberal, and that was his great heartache for the people that were being trained there. And so you can't help but be saddened by false teachers.
I don't wanna see totally depressed because I still have joy in my heart because of the Lord, right? But I have joy in my heart because I love you, and I love my wife and my kids. And I thank God for every good thing that He's given. But I'll tell you, you can't just go through life with all of that. The party is over. And I think from time to time in my life, the Lord jolts me into realizing that this is not a fun and games deal. And we get so smug here, ya know because we're all locked in the little box.
Well, there was another thing...I gotta say this...another thing that makes me sad, and that's the messed up church, the carnal church, the church where the pastor's teaching people to crawl on the floor and pretend they're a fetus. You know, in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 in verse 4, Paul says, "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote unto you with many tears." And he said to the Corinthians - that's who he's talking to - "You break my heart. You make me cry. When I write, I write with tears dropping all over the page.
I was in Copa Cabana, the famous beach in Rio, and I went to a church, the church there. So _______ to church, and I got up, and I just opened my Bible. I didn't even have a note or anything. I just flipped my Bible open and did an exposition out of Ephesians 'cause that was on my heart. I just went verse by verse and shared with them the Word of God. And when I got all done, I went back to the door, and I was wearing robes, you...you wouldn't believe me. I had this big high funny thing on. It's a very liturgical church that some American missionaries started, and they were from a liturgical background. I had red stuff hanging all over and gold stuff. And it was something. But anyway, I was at the door, greeting the people, and one dear lady came out, and she grabbed my hand. She started to kiss my hand. She just kept kissing my hand. And I was...I mean, that doesn't happen around here. And she kept kissing my hand, and then she looked at me, and in broken English, she said, "Oh," she said, "You...you taught us the Bible verses by verses. You told us what the Bible means. Oh," she says, "this is what I believe Jesus wants all the ministers to do. But you are the only one I ever heard do that." Oh, man, that just broke my heart.
They've got denominationalism down there just like in America. And one of the heartaches is that everybody's in his own little box. They don't even wanna mingle. And the pastors aren't learning how to teach the Word of God. And those young seminary guys...when I was...they were with us all week, and I would do one Scripture exposition after another, and by the time the week was over, all they would ask me about, "How do you do that? How do you...how do you...tell us the books to get. Tell us the way to do that." Like Bill Kays said, it was probably one of the most strategic things that ever happened to the church in Brazil, to take those hundred pastors plus all those seminary students and just let 'em feed on exposition of the Word for one whole week.
And one guy is a pastor of a Four Square church down there, one of the largest churches around, several thousand people, at the end of the time threw his arms around me and hugged me real tight, tears in his eyes. He said, "My life has changed this week. I wanna give myself to teach the Word of God."
I'll tell you, my heart breaks over the church because I see...I go there, and I see they got the church, but the church isn't doing it. And that's why Osmar has a house church because the ones that are there, they don't do it. They don't teach the Word. They don't minister in the way that the Lord would minister if He were there. I have this burden for America, you know, so many churches in America. Some of you people are right here because you know the churches don't feed you.
I recently wrote an article for Moody Monthly on how to build biblical structure, how to build elders in your church. You wanna hear something interesting? 1,400 plus pastors have written me asking if we'd help them to do that. 1,400 in the last month have written me right here at Grace Church. When I got home from Brazil, I had a stack of mail - that is not an exaggeration - that high from pastors who wanna know how to put the church together the way God wants it. You know what that says to me? Somebody's looking at us.
You know those little Brazilian guys in seminary? They said, "John," through the interpreter, they said, "John, could we come to Grace Church to see what happens in a biblical church?" I say, "How are you gonna get there?" "Could somebody bring us there? We wanna do it different. We wanna revolutionize the church." One guy said to me, "If I have to work for the money, I'm coming there to see." And I said, "Lord, I don't want this responsibility. If we've got everybody looking at us, we're really on the hot plate, aren't me?" And so as I was thinking about this, I was saying, "Lord, I pray with all my heart that You'll keep Grace true and pure." Amen?
Listen, people, the eyes of the world are looking at us. I got a letter yesterday from Alaska: "Will you come and teach us how the church is to be?" I got a letter yesterday from Haiti: "Will you come and speak to the missionaries and the pastors of Haiti to show us the principles of the church?" I got a letter yesterday from South Africa: "Will you come to Cape Town. The Anglican Church needs revolution." I can't go all those places. But somebody's saying, "We gotta do it another way," and they are looking here because we are committed to these things.
But people...I shared it with the elders a few weeks ago. You know, we're in great danger at Grace Church 'cause we got everything going so good. I believe this is the most dangerous time in the history of Grace Church. We know how to do it. We can crank it out. We got the message, the materials, the books, the committees. We got it all knocked. And the whole of Christianity in America has that same problem. We're so used to having experts on everything, we are siphoned off of God. You know, when a Christian has a problem, He does one of two things: goes and buys a book about his problem or go see a counselor who's an expert on his problem, and he does not do the one thing he should've done, and that is get on his knees before God. One of the worst things that ever happened to the church is the proliferation of counselors that have siphoned people off of a one-to-one relationship with God.
And we can do it right here at Grace Church. What do we need to pray for? We got our building. What do we need to pray for? We got our gymnasium. What do we need to pray for? We got our preacher and our staff and our everybody does everything for us. And all the sudden we get up off of our knees, and we get into a bunch of activity, and one of these days we're gonna wake up and say, "We're just like Laodicea. We're rich, and we've got it all. And we really don't know that we're lukewarm, and the Lord's gonna spew us out of His mouth." And so my message to you this morning is you're gonna have to get sad before you get glad.
And the reason I wanna pass some sadness onto you is I think some of us have gotta deal with some things in our lives. I look around the world, and I see churches, and I think like Jesus in Matthew chapter 9, and I'm sure He wept over the multitude because He saw them as sheep, what, without a shepherd. And here God has given us so many shepherds. But we're in the danger of getting so oriented to systems and so much methods; we've got such great teachers and great this and great this, and we can lose sight of the vision that we must depend on God everyday. If I could say one thing to you, I'd call you this day to account before God in your own heart that you give yourself every day of your life to great desire and earnest prayer before God that He would keep this church pure and holy and that you as an individual not let the church or the books or the counselors or the experts substitute for your deep relationship with the Living God.
You know, I can get up and preach before you. I know how to preach. I can preach before you in the flesh, and you wouldn't even know it. You wouldn't even know it. Because I know how to do it. I've done it. But I don't wanna do that. And you don't want me to do that, do you? I don't ever wanna open my mouth in this pulpit unless I'm energized by the Spirit of God. And I don't want this church to become a church that's so wrapped up in methods that it loses God. And I wanna call us back to the place where we started seeing a broken heart over the things that broke God's heart and Jesus' heart and Paul's heart.
Oh, there's so much more I wanna say, but I...stupid clock. The bane of my existence. It's just not a time for laughing. It's just not a time for parties in the world. And you know, those people said to me - bless their hearts - they said, "How many people you have in your church?" I said, "Oh, a thousand." "Could some of them come to Brazil. We need some of them who have your vision. Could you send us two or three of your staff members just for three months to teach our pastors?" And we in America, we just keep...we're stepping on each other to minister. You know that. Yeah, really. We've got more useless ministries in America then you can imagine. We're spending a fortune on, in America, in Christian hocus pocus that's unnecessary, when the rest of the world doesn't have anybody.
Romans 10...I kept thinking of it last night. "How shall they hear...how are they gonna hear except somebody be sent?" I said to Monny as I was saying goodbye to him, and we put our arms around each other, and we prayed, and he took off for Venezuela, and I getting ready to come home. And I said, "Let's pray that God'll raise up people out of Grace." Wouldn't it be great if we just unloaded about 3,000 of 'em on the world? He said, "Well, I'm very involved here. I don't know if I could do that. Yeah, that's just the problem. What really matters? What really matters?
So I'm asking the Lord to do a couple things here. One, I'm asking the Lord to do a work in my heart. I'm asking the Lord to drive me back to prayer in a way I've never done before. I'm asking the Lord to purify this church. I'm asking the Lord to make us sad in our hearts over what we oughta be sad about and drive us to our knees. And then I'm asking the Lord to take a bunch of us and chase us all over the world 'cause we've got something to offer.
I almost didn't speak this morning because I felt so sick last night and today. And then this morning I was reminded of Aphoditus, who was nigh unto death for the work of the Lord, and I figured, "Well, I'm not exactly nigh unto death. I guess I can do a little more work for the Lord. And because it was so burning in my heart to say what I said, I just had to be here."
But I wanna close our time this morning with just a brief word of prayer with you, and I'd like you to just make it a commitment time, would you? We'll just close a little different today. And I'd ask you to just open your heart to the Lord right now. I've stumbled around and tried to express the inexpressible, tried to say what maybe doesn't have words. Trying to articulate a feeling is hard. I'm not that good with words. But I wish you'd just open your heart to God and say, "Lord, whatever You wanna say to me from what John has shared, say it to me." Will you be honest enough with the Lord to say that right now, silently, in your heart? And then would you follow it up be saying, "And Lord, make me obedient to what You say?"
If You want me to pray more than I've prayed...maybe that's it. I talked to a man down there who said, "John, 20 years ago I promised the Lord I'd pray one hour every day, and I've kept that promise." What is the Lord saying to you? What's He saying about your life? Some of you people are preparing in seminary. Some of you are thinking about it. Some of you could go right now to assist in a work around the world. People are in need. What do you count valuable. I don't know what the Lord's saying to you, but listen and obey it.
Thank you, Father, for speaking this morning, and I just ask that...I trust in Your Spirit that what I shared this morning was what you wanted me to share. Do a work in my heart, Lord. Make me the man You want me to be. Do Your perfect work in my life, in the lives of all the pastors and elders here. Break us before You. Make us poor in spirit. Make us mourners. Make us hunger and thirst after righteousness. And we'll give You all the praise. In Jesus' name, Amen.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


text:
Many people like to know how to lose belly fat.
If you are one of them, I like to introduce you to Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist,
Certified Personal Trainer and owner and author of Truth About Abs.com, the #1 rated
Abs program on the Internet, and several other popular fitness and health Websites.
The Truth About Six Pack Abs is the #1 ranked Abdominals ebook in the world
(as ranked by clickbank.com) with over 539,000 readers in 163 countries to date.
He is also the co-author of the newest best-selling nutrition program called:
The Fat Burning Kitchen:Your 24-Hour Diet Transformation
to Make Your Body a Fat Burning Machine.
And his newest creation is a delicious new manual he co-authored that you also
won't want to miss if you care about protecting your body from aging:
The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging – 101 little-known foods, herbs, spices, teas,
nutrients, and dozens of other anti-aging tricks to protect your skin, organs, muscles,
and joints from aging, so you can look and feel 10 years YOUNGER than your age.
His passion is to show you how to eat delicious food and still get super lean.
He dedicate himself to constantly staying up-to-date on new and innovative
training strategies, as well as the latest nutrition tips in order to pass this
valuable information on to you, his reader, and help improve the quality of your life.
You can also find plenty of his various fitness tips related to exercise, nutrition,
building muscle, lose belly fat, reducing stress, and living a healthier and happier life at his Six-Pack Abs Fat Loss Blog.
Mike is a well-known expert who deals exclusively with the most effective strategies for how to lose belly fat so that you can finally uncover those elusive six pack abs
that everyone desires.
Some of Mike's strategies deal with nutrition aspects and others deal with
training techniques, but I was impressed to see that Mike has put together one of the most comprehensive resources for dealing with all of the aspects necessary to finally get rid of that nasty belly fat for good.
The key is that Mike focuses on the REAL techniques that are going to get you
lasting results, and teaches you how to avoid all of these "quick-fix" scams and gimmicks that are all over the infomercials and the internet these days.
Several of the mistakes that Mike sees every day where people are going wrong in their fat loss attempts are:
1. Most people are wasting too much of their time doing hundreds of reps of ineffective crunches, sit ups, and other "abs pumping" exercises in their attempt at losing stomach fat.
Mike has discovered that there are certain highly effective exercises that stimulate your metabolism much better, and increase your fat burning hormone levels much more.
These exercises that Mike outlines are the best of the best for getting a lean, chiseled body.
Surprisingly to most, the majority of these most effective exercises for stomach fat loss are NOT "abs-specific" exercises .
Not only that, but Mike shows you how to combine and sequence them to get the best metabolic and fat loss results possible, changing the shape of your entire body.
2. Most people are wasting way too much time doing hours upon hours of boring monotonous cardio routines.
Mike has researched this topic extensively, including an entire course he's taken comparing different modalities of cardiovascular exercise.
After all of this research, he came to the conclusion that the majority of people out there are not doing the right types of cardio exercise.
In fact, most people may actually be inadvertently decreasing their metabolic rate by doing too much of the wrong types of cardio!
The strategies that Mike reveals in his program go beyond "interval cardio" too.
3. Most people are failing miserably with fad diets.
Mike reveals exactly why most low-carb or low-fat diets are actually working against what your body needs to become lean and ripped and maintain it for life!
Mike shows you exactly how to stop falling for the gimmick diets and finally develop a truly healthy eating style that you can actually enjoy for life without being overly restrictive. It's actually easier and more enjoyable than you may think!
Mike's system will show you how to lose belly fat that has plagued you for years, so you can finally get that sexy six pack that you've always wanted.
Here's the site: http://nutrobalance2.net/6-pack-abs
Don't forget to visit Mike's site today, as he's giving away some great free bonus reports and other tools that might not be available much longer.
P.S. Try the best selling "Truth about Six Pack Abs" program for FREE. for 21 Days!
Visit: http://nutrobalance2.net/6-pack-abs

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Swift Transportation Co, the largest truckload carrier in North America, set the for a $942.6 million initial public offering.
The Phoenix, Arizona-based company, formerly known as Swift Holdings Corp, filed with U.S. regulators to sell 67.3 million shares for $13 to $15 each.
The company first filed in July to raise up to $700 million and then raised that amount to just over $1 billion in early November.
Underwriters, lead by Morgan Stanley, Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch and Wells Fargo will have the option to purchase up to 10.1 million additional shares to cover excess demand, the transportation services company said in a regulatory filing.
Swift said it would use net proceeds of $887.9 million to repay debt.
As of Sept. 30, Swift operated a fleet of 16,200 tractors, 48,600 trailers and 4,500 intermodal containers in the United States and Mexico. The company posted a net loss of $77.1 million on total operating revenue of $2.15 billion in the nine months ended Sept. 30.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc and its subsidiaries are Swift's largest customer and accounted for 10.2 percent of revenue in 2009. Other top customers include Home Depot Inc , Procter & Gamble Co and Target Corp.
Swift founder Jerry Moyes stepped down as chief executive in 2005 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an insider-trading complaint against him in federal court in Arizona. Moyes settled for $1.5 million without admitting or denying any claims and returned as CEO in 2007, when he took the company private. (Reuters)


text:
« Snowflakes | Main | It's a small world (2) »
December 17, 2008
The roofs were all full, I suppose
$115 for a parking ticket? The fine for running a red light is less than that, here in St. Louis.
Santa Delivers Gifts, Gets Parking Ticket
Man Says He'll Fight $115 Ticket
NEW YORK -- Santa Claus has added a New York City traffic agent to his naughty list after she gave him a ticket while delivering gifts to children. [...]
The 60-year-old retired schoolteacher was riding a horse-drawn carriage and handing out toys and candy canes. An SUV carrying the toys and protecting the horse from traffic was double parked next to him.
Posted by joke du jour at December 17, 2008 07:43 PM
« Snowflakes | Main | It's a small world (2) »
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:


text:
The steampunk community is a delight. How many people can be witty in 140 characters? Well, Stephen Fry, obviously 🙂
This Friday at 9pm New York time, I'll be hosting the #steampunkchat on Twitter. That means, I get to pick the topic!
I've been intrigued for ages by the interaction between nostalgia and steampunk. I've read (and drat it, I've forgotten the reference) that nostalgia increases in tough times. So this week we'll be discussing the appeal of nostalgia and its impact on shaping steampunk, particularly the steampunk style that is slipping into mainstream culture — think corsets in fashion, accordians in rock music — what do you mean, you haven't heard accordians in rock music? There must be some. Heck, even AC/DC used bagpipes 🙂
You can join the #steampunkchat just by following the hashtag and including it in your tweets. This is really easy to do if you join the chat in the SteampunkChat TweetChat room.
Then the following week, I'm on the Steampunk panel for Coyote Con. This is an hour long session at 8pm on Friday 26 October (again, New York time). Coyote Con is a FREE writing conference that lasts the whole weekend. My fellow panelists will be Cindy S Pape, JL Hilton and Seleste de Laney. I can't wait to chat about writing Steampunk with fellow enthusiasts — you are all VERY welcome!


text:
If I may break from hoops for a day to point out two worthy causes …
Canisius will be raising money for the Brian Dux Assist Fund when the school's men's and women's basketball teams face Niagara in a doubleheader Friday.
Dux, a former Golden Griffins player, was injured in a one-car accident in England on Nov. 10, 2007. He was in a medically induced coma for a time after the accident and now is in Buffalo recovering from his injuries. He's reportedly undergoing therapy to regain basic functions such as speech and movement.
To help the Dux family pay medical expenses, Canisius will pledge $75 for every assist registered by its men's and women's basketball teams. Fan also can make a pledge by going to GoGriffs.com and clicking on the "Online Store" or by calling 716-888-2972.
Dux played at Canisius from 1999-2003. He ranks No. 14 on the Griffs' all-time scoring list with 1,239 career points.
The Bus Stop Club, a local organization that provides support for the siblings of children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses, brought a group to the Siena men's basketball game against Fairfield last Tuesday.
The program, which is free and available for children ages 7 to 15, holds monthly sessions that provide information and psychological support to siblings of ill children. The sessions include activities like swimming and basketball and also allow siblings to ask questions about the diseases their brothers or sisters are experiencing.
The sessions, which take place at the Guilderland YMCA, are staffed by members of the AMC Department of Pediatrics and Division of Counseling and Behavioral Health.
Parents interested in enrolling a child or anyone looking to make a donation to The Bus Stop Club, which operates through donations, can contact Brian Sheridan, M.D., at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Paris Jackson the oldest child of Michael Jackson is all GROWN up and ready to set the record straight as she graced the cover of Harper's Bazaar! Check out her full interview here. Highlights below:
HIghlights of interview:
On being Michael Jackson's favorite child:
"When I was a kid, I was with my dad and my two brothers. Growing up, I was treated as the favorite because I was the only girl. I was the princess; I was perfect in my dad's eyes."
On being famous and how to handle haters:
"Who gives a f*ck?" she asks. "You're on their mind—how is that a bad thing? Doesn't matter if they're saying good or bad things about you. They're thinking about you enough to write about you. You just can't care."
"But what if you do care?" I ask.
"I used to feel that way," she says. "Then it gets to a point where, you know what, it's going to happen. Not everybody is going to be happy with what you do. If you're not happy with what you're doing, that's a problem," she says. "If you're happy, who gives a f*ck?"
On using her platform to speak on politics:
"Plenty of times I've thought about not doing anything in the public eye and having my own private life. Then I started seeing how everything in the world is going. And I feel like each year it's getting worse."


text:
Lately I've been skipping over my delicate blouses and reaching more and more for cozy knits, t-shirts in particular, I don't know what is it but over the last couple of months I've been on a kick for stocking up on this simple separate that has proven to go with absolutely everything, from pencil skirts to leather it's a match. Wear it alone, throw on a statement necklace or layer it up for winter and you're bound to make a statement.
Here's 5 Of My Favorite Ways To Wear A Simple Tee.
1. Paired With Prints
2. With A Bold Necklace
3. With A Blazer
4. Knotted
5. Pop Of Color
How Do You Wear Your White Tee?


text:
Tonight we had a summer party. As I was playing with my Cricut the kids all keep asking can we make cards tooooooo PLEASE.... so I broke down and let them. They each worked as hard as they could, talking about how the sick kids would love these. At first I really didn't want all these kids playing with my Cricut. But now that were all done, they have opened my eyes. Each one of these sweet angels showed me how at no matter what age you are you can help others. God bless each and everyone. <3
Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2


text:
It was the first day of school at Monroe High. Naturally the weather was picture-perfect and so we went to play in the woods. That's allowable when you are 40-something rather than 14.
Willy started off a bit tense and bouncy, but gradually relaxed back into his normal shape. With its groomed trails, the Redmond Watershed is more his speed than the loose rock and narrow trails of Mann Road – in fact, it's where he got many of his early miles. We felt safer out there. Lions and tigers and bears have nothing on the attitude of an instructor working with a beginner towards the rider of a green thoroughbred, and rightly so.
Willy showed some nice even marks under the saddle though he showed no other sweat, but I have a feeling he was quite ready for a rest from the wild woods. He's turned into an arena poof.
So now I am behind on my homework, but it was worth it!


text:
When most people think of great swimming, their minds go to California, Florida, Colorado, and Texas but Connecticut has some truly great swimmers especially in open water swimming. A Connecticut native, Dave Parcells was a triathlete and open water swimmer, competing in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii and is the oldest person to have done a double crossing of the English Channel. He was a champion fundraiser and organizer too, being a swim director of the St. Vincent's Medical Center's Swim Across the Sound and running the CT Open Water Championships. He was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame after his death in 2007. Connecticut youth and masters swimmers honor him annually at the CT Open Water Championships this year to be held June 29th at Lake Quassey. Please see the Meet Results page for the registration website.
Dave Parcells- A Connecticut Legend
June 6, 2013 by


text:
Genetic karyotyping—also known as chromosome analysis—is testing that can reveal certain genetic abnormalities. It can be used to confirm or diagnose a genetic disorder or disease. Or, the testing may reveal that a couple is at risk for having a child with a genetic or chromosomal disorder.

For example, karyotyping may reveal that the male partner has Klinefelter syndrome, a genetic disorder often not diagnosed until a man experiences infertility. Men with Klinefelter syndrome have an extra X chromosome in their DNA (instead of being only XY they are XXY), and they are typically infertile.

Your doctor may recommend genetic karyotyping if:

You've been unable to conceive for more than a year.

You've experienced two or more consecutive miscarriages.

You've experienced a stillborn birth.

The male partner has no sperm in his semen or an extremely low sperm count. (Also known as azoospermia or severe oligozoospermia.)

The female partner has been diagnosed with primary ovarian dysfunction. (Also known as POI, primary ovarian insufficiency, or POF, premature ovarian failure.)

Genetic karyotyping may be required before receiving assisted reproductive technology, including IUI or IVF. This is especially true for those considering IVF with ICSI, which increases the risk of passing on male infertility and some genetic disorders.

How Is the Test Done

For infertile couples, the test is usually done via a blood draw, from both the male and female partner. The blood samples are then processed in a lab.

Cells from the blood sample are placed in a special container to encourage them to grow. Once the cells reach a particular stage of growth, the cells are stained and studied under a microscope.

The lab technician evaluates the cells' size and shape. They also take a photograph of the cells and count the number of chromosomes in the cells.

The specialized photograph enables the chromosome arrangements to be evaluated.

Why Genetic Counseling May Be Recommended Before Fertility Treatment

Genetic testing may find the cause for your infertility or repeated losses. Knowing why you can't get pregnant, or why you keep miscarrying, may help your doctor recommend the best treatment options.

Another reason to do genetic testing before fertility treatment is to avoid passing on a genetic birth defect to a future child.

Some genetic mutations can cause infertility when it's present in one parent, but, when both parents carry the mutation, they can pass onto their child a more significant genetic condition.

For example, CFTR gene mutation is associated with some kinds of male infertility. It is also associated with a serious condition, cystic fibrosis.

If just the father has a CFTR gene mutation, there is a risk of passing on male infertility to his child. If both the father and mother are carriers of a CFTR gene mutation, there is a 1 in 4 chance they will have a child with cystic fibrosis.

If a couple was considering IVF with ICSI, the risk of passing on a genetic condition is much higher than it is with regular IVF or with natural conception.

This is because with regular IVF, sperm are placed in a petri dish with an egg, and the "strongest" sperm wins.

With IVF-ICSI, a single sperm is chosen and injected directly into the egg. The odds of a genetically "weaker" sperm fertilizing an egg is much higher in this situation. This raises the risk of passing on some genetic problems.

Options if You Have a High Genetic Risk

Your options will depend on what genetic risk you're facing.

In some cases, the diagnosis of a genetic problem or risk may...

confirm or help make a specific infertility diagnosis

increase your risk of miscarriage or stillbirth

increase your risk of having a child with a specific genetic disorder

increase your risk of passing on male or female infertility to your child

A genetic counselor should review your results with you.

Generally speaking, your options may include any of the following:

Add preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to your IVF treatment. With PGD, a developing embryo has one cell removed to test for genetic mutations. (Removing this cell doesn't harm the embryo.) The healthiest looking embryos can then be transferred.

Those with genetic defects – many of which may have never survived anyway – are discarded.

PGD may reduce the risk of early miscarriage and may reduce the risk of certain genetic defects. But even with PGD, a pregnancy and child isn't guaranteed to be 100% genetically healthy. You may still miscarry even with PGD.

Some are ethically or religiously opposed to PGD testing.

Choose to forgo IVF-ICSI. Usually, when egg and sperm are put together, only the healthiest sperm manage to penetrate and fertilize an egg. Natural selection eliminates the weaker sperm, which may also be genetically flawed sperm.

With IVF with ICSI, sperm are directly injected into an egg. Natural selection can't take place. This may increase the risk of passing on genetic mutations.

You may decide not to take the risk and avoid IVF-ICSI. Instead, you may...

try regular IVF (even though it may have a lower success rate for you)

discontinue treatment

choose a sperm or embryo donor instead

Go on with treatment, disregarding the increased risk of passing a genetic condition or male infertility to your child.

Being at risk for passing down a condition is not a guarantee you will.

Speak to a genetic counselor so you can make an informed decision.

Choose to use a sperm donor, egg donor, or embryo donor. Of course, even donor gametes can carry genetic defects. Donors are usually screened, but no choice is risk free.

If you're choosing an egg or sperm donor, it's important the donor is tested for the genetic disease you're at risk for passing down.

Pursue adoption or a childfree life. After receiving genetic testing results, some couples decide to adopt. Others decide to stop trying to have a child and live a childfree life.

Emotional Considerations with Genetic Counseling

Receiving the results of a genetic karyotyping can be emotional and difficult.

Sometimes, the results can help you make choices about your treatment. Other times, there's not much that can be done with the information. This can cause emotional distress, without any real cause.

Your religious beliefs may also limit how helpful genetic counseling will be for you.

It's important you understand what information genetic counseling will give you and whether you can even act on it before you go through testing.

Before you agree to testing, ask to speak with a genetic counselor. They can explain the pros and cons of testing and help you decide if testing makes sense for you and your partner.

Also, be sure there will be a genetic counselor available to discuss any results.

Sources:

CFTR: Genes. Genetics Home Reference. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/CFTR

Cystic Fibrosis: Prenatal Screening and Diagnosis. FAQ171, February 2016. ACOG.org. Accessed on February 18, 2016. http://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Cystic-Fibrosis-Prenatal-Screening-and-Diagnosis

Dohle GR1, Halley DJ, Van Hemel JO, van den Ouwel AM, Pieters MH, Weber RF, Govaerts LC. "Genetic risk factors in infertile men with severe oligozoospermia and azoospermia." Hum Reprod. 2002 Jan;17(1):13-6.

Foresta, Carlo; Ferlin, Alberto; Gianaroli, Luca; Dallapiccola, Bruno. "Guidelines for the appropriate use of genetic tests in infertile couples." European Journal of Human Genetics. May 2002, Volume 10, Number 5, Pages 303-312.

Karyotyping. MedLine Plus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003935.htm

Klinefelter syndrome. MedLine Plus. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000382.htm

Otani T1, Roche M, Mizuike M, Colls P, Escudero T, Munné S. "Preimplantation genetic diagnosis significantly improves the pregnancy outcome of translocation carriers with a history of recurrent miscarriage and unsuccessful pregnancies." Reprod Biomed Online. 2006 Dec;13(6):869-74. http://www.rbmojournal.com/article/S1472-6483%2810%2961037-1/abstract

Rubio C1, Simón C, Vidal F, Rodrigo L, Pehlivan T, Remohí J, Pellicer A. "Chromosomal abnormalities and embryo development in recurrent miscarriage couples." Hum Reprod. 2003 Jan;18(1):182-8.


text:
Federal exorcist John Starkweather's life is in tatters. His best friend, Sean, betrayed him. SPECTR, the agency he viewed more as a surrogate family than an employer, wants him dead. His only allies are members of the mysterious organization called the Vigilant, whose motives remain in question.
The only thing keeping John together is the presence of his lovers: Caleb Jansen, a powerful telekinetic, and Gray, the vampire spirit possessing Caleb.
Together they must not only evade capture but somehow stop SPECTR from building an army of demon-possessed soldiers. If they are to succeed, John must question everything he's ever believed about SPECTR and spirits. And Caleb and Gray must decide how far they're willing to go--not just for John's love but for his very life.
©2014 Jordan L. Hawk (P)2015 Jordan L. Hawk
There are no listener reviews for this title yet.
"fantastic end to the first SPECTR series"
i love Spectr, and in the other audiobooks, Brad did a fantastic job. in this one, however, he kept messing with Gray's voice. I know that tends to happen, but i hope once SPECTR Season 2 starts, that Gray is back.
"What a rush! Fantastic end to a great 1st series!"
I can't believe it took me so long to listen to this series. It's a fantastic twist to the supernatural/m-m romance genre. The narrator was excellent portraying the various emotions and cadences, My only slight problem was I couldn't clearly hear enough of a difference between the sound of Caleb's and John's voices I absolutely loved the voice he gave to Grey, though, and how he slowed his speech pattern for this character...perfect!
Can't wait for the next series!
Report Inappropriate Content
If you find this review inappropriate and think it should be removed from our site, let us know. This report will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.


text:
Hi dear friends, do you ever have a moment – doesn't have to be related to food – when you have this genius idea, but then realize it's not quite so genius because even though it's a great idea, it's been done before?? Well, that happened to me. Hehe. It's rather silly, too, because how the heck did I think it hadn't been done before? Roasting strawberries and putting it in ice cream? Still a genius idea, but definitely not the first time it's been done. David Lebovitz has a seriously amazing version incorporating MISO. MISO!!!!! And he goes into why roasting strawberries is good for ice cream, so you should go read it.
My version has a slight twist. I made the base ginger ice cream. Given my love for infusing things like for this ice cream, and this panna cotta, I infused the heavy cream and milk mixture with huge chunks of fresh ginger and steeped it for 30 minutes. You should be able to taste the ginger flavor after it is done seeping.
I used to hate ginger. Whenever I'd get even a sign of the sniffles (this included the start of allergy season), my mom immediately brewed up a cup of scalding hot ginger tea with some rock sugar dissolved in. It was so strong I could taste the ginger even before taking the first sip. At the first gulp, I felt like there was a line of fire left in its wake, stretching from the base of my tongue all the way to the deep inners of my abdomen. It was effective in the most agonizing way possible. My sinuses immediately cleared, I started sweating, and I was left with the unwelcome aftertaste of ginger. For the young me, it was the worst. I would hide my sniffles around my mom so she didn't know, which never worked, of course. Now that I'm all grown-up, I love ginger tea and all its variations. A sick day means inconvenience, breaking appointments with lovely people, and walking around doing work with a headache and a box of tissues. A strongly brewed ginger tea works. It's not the cure but it definitely keeps me warm and my sinuses clear. I now also appreciate the taste of ginger, especially in the right amounts. I used to wonder why my parents always put ginger in dishes with fish or pork, but now I know. I'm telling you, it's a grown-up thing!
I served this ice cream to my dear friends who came over. One of them told me (I'm blushing here) that it's better than the Haagen-daz strawberry ice cream sh e grew up with. Ok, now, I'm not sure that's true, but I certainly do love this ice cream!! Plus, since the strawberries are roasted, the chunks that remain if you roughly puree the strawberries do not freeze. YAY.
I use the base that I always use – see it here. For this, though, I infused it with fresh ginger. I also have used this technique of incorporating a puree – with this cranberry orange zest ice cream. It works like a dream for both coloring and flavor. I also ran out of granulated sugar so I used half brown sugar – and wow, I LOVE it. I think it perfectly complements the deep flavor from roasting strawberries with balsamic vinegar.
RECIPE: Roasted Balsamic Strawberry Ginger Ice Cream
Ginger Ice Cream
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3 large slices fresh ginger
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
5 egg yolks
Roasted strawberries:
2 cups fresh strawberries, halved
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
1| Prepare the night before: Stick freezer bowl in the back of the freezer the night before you plan to make ice cream.
2| Toss strawberries with sugar, balsamic vinegar and roast at 350F for 25 minutes. Cool slightly. Puree roughly when cool enough to touch. Set aside.
3| Heat milk and heavy cream until it begins to simmer – do not let it boil. Remove from heat and add in ginger. Cover. Let it steep for 30 minutes. You should be able to taste the ginger in the milk/cream mixture. If it's too ginger-y, don't worry. When you churn it and freeze it, the ginger's flavor will be more subtle.
4| In the meantime, whisk yolks and sugar until thick. When milk mixture is done steeping, remove ginger and stir in freshly grated ginger, gently stream into yolk/sugar mixture, whisking constantly after each addition. This is called tempering – the point is to prevent cooking of egg yolks. Have patience, and do this slowly.
5| Pour mixture back into a saucepan and heat until custard is thick. I like to use the spoon test – dip a wooden spoon into the mixture, and remove it. Run a finger in a line down the back of the wooden spoon. If the line remains visible, then the custard is thick enough.
6| Stir in puree. Stir in extract.
7| Cover with plastic wrap and immediately chill in fridge for at least 2 hours.
8| Pour into ice cream maker and churn according to instructions.
9| Pour churned ice cream into an airtight container and freezer for another few hours.


text:
Tue 28 Apr 2009
Just to Show You That I'm Not Always Mean Ol' Mr. Snarky-Mouth, Here Are a Beautiful Pinot Noir, Two Wonderful Rieslings, an Irresistible Chardonnay, a Robust Rosso and Four "Spring Fling!" WinesPosted by Fredric Koeppel under Best Wines , Cooking at Home
1 Comment
A business group asked me to recommend four wines for a "Spring Fling!" open house, and here (briefly) is what I came up with to match the theme:
>Nino Franco Rustico Prosecco. This is one of my favorite proseccos. It's a lightly yet persistently sparkling wine that's delicate and elegant, but a little earthy, bursting with almond blossom and citrus notes, and lemon-pear flavors resting on a vigorous bed of limestone. Very charming. Very Good+. About $20. Imported by VinDivino, Chicago.
>Verget du Sud Rosé de Syrah 2007. As delightful as this rosé was, I would rather drink the 2008 version, which should be released soon, for the sake of freshness and immediacy. Still, this offered tasty strawberry, melon and cherry/berry scents and flavors with hints of dried Provencal herbs and a powerful mineral element. Drink through the end of summer 2009. Very Good. About $16. North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, Cal.
>Fritz Sauvignon Blanc 2007, Russian River Valley. What a lovely sauvignon blanc! Thirty percent is given a little oak, so the wine offers a bit more texture and substance than many sauvignon blancs while retaining amazing freshness, crispness and juicy, grassy citrus flavors. Drink through the end of 2009. Excellent. About $17, Good Value.
>Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages 2007. If what you expect from a well-made Beaujolais-Villages is fresh, ripe, grapey black currant and black plum flavors with a backing of spice, leather and dried flowers, well, here's your model. Try with lighter grilled foods — pork chops, veal — or as a picnic wine with ham or fried chicken. Very Good+ and a Bargain at $13 to $15. Imported by Kobrand Corp, Purchase, N.Y.
The rest of the wines mentioned in this post were tasted, consumed, drunk with food prepared by LL or me, and frankly, this is my favorite way to try wine. It's not always possible of course to sip wine for an hour or so under the best "dinner conditions." There are enough bottles resting in my wine rack or sitting on the sideboard, gazing coolly at me even now, or standing on the floor, that sometimes I just have to line them up on the counter and spend a morning or afternoon going through the drill. And there are the zoo-like trade tasting or luncheons, the tastings organized by stores and so on; these are all necessary to the life of the wine writer or blogger. The best for me, however, is a quiet dinner with great food and a bottle — or sometimes two for comparison — right here in our own house or, now that the weather permits, out on the screened porch. Just call me Mr. Domesticity.
Last week I prepared dinner from a recipe in the March issue of Gourmet magazine, the "Provencal Chicken and Tomato Roast." It's a terrific dish, complete in itself, since it contains chicken, tomatoes, potatoes, celery and black olives. I don't do recipes on BTYH*, but here's a link to epicurious.com, which also carried the recipe.
For wine, I chose a bottle of the Black Kite Cellars Kite's Rest Vineyard Pinot Noir 2007, Anderson Valley, an absolutely beautiful, pure and intense pinot noir that called forth terms like "Wow!" from my pen. The bouquet is a classic wreathing of smoky black cherry, cola, cloves and plums, with, in a few moments, whiffs of violets and dried rose petals. The wine delivers great presence, tone and texture, sliding across the tongue like warm satin but without being heavy or obvious; it draws you in like banked embers on a chilly night. Flavors of black cherry and plum with a hint of cranberry become a little tea-like, and after some time, say an hour, the wine takes on a note of austerity, and the oak and tannin come up, foresty and mossy. A complete success, elegant and exciting. 726 cases. Excellent. About $42.
*Recipe Alert! A few weeks ago, Eric Asimov, on his blog The Pour, suggested that I provide the recipe for the pizzas I write about frequently. So: this Saturday (May 2), LL is going to document photographically the pizza-making process, and on Sunday (May 3) I will post to BTYH an illustrated, step-by-step explanation of how I make pizza.
LL works late on Tuesday for part of the year, like this part, and I try to have dinner going for when she gets home, which may not be until 8:45 or 9, and sometimes, truly, we don't sit down until 9:30 or a quarter of 10. So, last Tuesday I made a roasted radicchio and endive salad, with red leaf lettuce and Gorgonzola cheese (see image above), and another dish from the same issue of Gourmet mentioned previously. Here's a link to the recipe: click.
The dish is "Linguine with Brussels Sprouts Barigoule," a sort of brothy pasta with Brussels sprouts (natch), Savoy cabbage and leeks; lemon, white wine, thyme and garlic make the broth pungent and flavorful. It's quite good and virtuous and obviously pretty healthy; we'll make it again.
I had been wanting to try the Fritsch Reserve Riesling 2003, from Austria's Wagram region, and this dish seemed as if it would provide the perfect foil, and, lordy, it did. Lovely aromas of pear and lychee, lime and damp limestone and rubber eraser led to flavors of roasted apricot and honeyed peach wrapped around a core of baking spice and crystallized ginger. The wine is bone-dry, but enticingly juicy, so crisp with acidity that it's almost startling and profoundly rooted in mineral elements; still, it manages easily to be delicious and charming. The finish brings up a hint of grapefruit bitterness, a touch of dried herbs and intriguing coffee-like earthiness. Yes, this is great, for drinking through 2012 or '14, well-stored. Excellent. About $25, a Bargain.
The next riesling we tried with a spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, red onions and seared scallops, a quick dish LL did for a Sunday supper out on the back porch. The wine was the Reichsrat von Buhl Forster Jesuitengarten Riesling Spätlese 2006, from Germany's Pfalz region. I thought that the sweetness of the Spätlese would go well with the innate sweetness or impression of sweetness that scallops evince, as well as act as a foil to the earthy, sprightly vinegar and bacon dressing. This is an ethereal wine, pure and intense, the embodiment of the Platonic ripeness of peaches, pears and apricots deeply permeated by electrifying acidity and scintillating minerals, fleshed out by the slightly astringent note of lychee and the requisite petrol or rubber eraser character unique to the riesling grape. The wine is indeed sweet at the entry but quickly turns dry by mid-palate; the finish is all stones and spice. This should develop beautifully through 2012 to '15 or '16. Excellent. About $45.
A Rudi Wiest selection for Cellars International, San Marino, Cal.
LL doused two thick swordfish fillets with a lime and ginger marinade and let them sit for an hour and contemplate the higher calling of feeding us, and then she seared them in a cast-iron skillet. I opened a bottle of the Clos du Val Chardonnay 2007, Carneros, just released this month. If you read the entry about California chardonnay that I posted last week and if you know anything about Clos du Val, you will anticipate that I really liked this wine. It is a chardonnay of notable balance and integration, elegant, pure and intense. The color is medium straw-gold; aromas of roasted lemon, pineapple and mango are knit with hints of spicy wood and minerals. In the mouth, this wine is supple and silky, vibrant with clean acidity and an amalgam of delicious citrus-pineapple flavors infused with liquid limestone. The wine is barrel-fermented and ages 10 months in French oak, of which 20 percent of the barrels are new. A beautiful chardonnay that was perfect with the simply-prepared swordfish. Excellent. About $24.
For lunch, I prepared some little open-face sandwiches — black olive tapenade, fresh basil, slivers of leftover roasted chicken and olive oil-marinated dried tomatoes, with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan on top, zip!, run them under the broiler for about three minutes. Ta-dah! Then I opened a bottle of La Braccesca Sabazio 2006, Rosso di Montepulciano, a blend of 85 percent prugnolo gentile (a local name for sangiovese), 10 percent merlot and 5 percent canaiolo. The grapes derive from vineyards owned by the Antinori firm in southeast Tuscany, just north of Umbria. Sabazio 2006 is robust and hearty, bursting with notes of dusty plums and currants, leather and potpourri; the wine is deep, intense and concentrated, characterized by a persistence of black fruit flavors shot through with touches of plums and prunes, a hint of fruit cake and grasping undertones of grainy tannins. Try this with grilled red meat, from burgers to steaks, and full-flavored pasta dishes. Very Good, and Good Value at about $12 to $15.
Imported by Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Ltd., Woodinville, Wash.
My linkedin profile.
One Response to "Just to Show You That I'm Not Always Mean Ol' Mr. Snarky-Mouth, Here Are a Beautiful Pinot Noir, Two Wonderful Rieslings, an Irresistible Chardonnay, a Robust Rosso and Four "Spring Fling!" Wines"
Inexpensive dinner ideas Says:
July 8th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Excellent way of describing, and pleasant post to obtain facts on the topic of my presentation subject, which
i am going to deliver in school.


text:
This script will produce a Celtic cross. Can be used with or without wording and ribbon. A Highly detailed element which ends in layers for maximum design possibilities. The elements are approx 1400 x 2200 @ 300dpi, easy to resize. No outside plug-ins or filters are needed, just sit back and watch them go, couldn't be simpler. Has been thoroughly tested in PSP9 through to PSPX5, instructions for installation are included.
This is a PSP Script, PSP and PSD templates are now included so you get all in one.
Product 26/142


text:
SCOTTISH trio Stephen Gallacher, Paul Lawrie and Richie Ramsay joined the world's top two in making early exits from the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona.
Lothians star Gallacher lost 2 and 1 to 2010 winner Ian Poulter, Edinburgh-based Ramsay went down by the same margin to world No.5 Louis Oosthuizen after being two up with five to play, while Lawrie lost 4 and 3 to American Scott Piercy.
World No.1 Rory McIlroy crashed out on the last in his all-Irish duel with Shane Lowry before second-ranked Tiger Woods also fell at the first hurdle as he went down by 2 and 1 to fellow American Charles Howell III.
As the first round was completed following Wednesday's snow, Gallacher, who was making his debut in the £5.6 million event at Dove Mountain, had the consolation of making Ryder Cup star Poulter fight for his win after the Scot resumed at three down with seven to play.
"Yesterday killed me," admitted Gallacher afterwards. "I played a lot better today, but had given myself too much to do. I've not putted or played on such fast and slopey greens for ages, but it's great experience and I want to be back in this event next year."
Lawrie, who reached the third round 12 months ago, had a new putter in his bag, but it failed to bring a change of luck for the Aberdonian, who was always up against it after losing the opening two holes to Canadian Open champion Piercy.
"I hit it good, but again putted awful," said Lawrie on his Twitter account. "Only had one single putt all day and that was from 3 ft at the fourth."
Ramsay, another debutant, was on course to pull off a shock until 2010 Open champion Oosthuizen turned their match around by winning four holes in a row from the 12th.
"I'm a bit disappointed – didn't take my opportunities after a good 11 holes," tweeted Ramsay, who, like his compatriots, had the consolation of picking up a cheque for $45,000.
McIlroy paid the price for failing to take some early chances against Lowry, who chipped in at both the 11th and 12th.


text:
(PRN) The University of New Mexico Cancer Center, New Mexico's Official Cancer Center, Opens a New Facility in Las Cruces
Published 6:10 pm, Tuesday, January 9, 2007
UNM Cancer Center-South to Offer Most Advanced Cancer Care, Research,
Clinical Trials for Southern New Mexico and Southwestern Texas
LAS CRUCES, N.M., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of New Mexico Cancer Center, the State of New Mexico's official cancer center based on the UNM campus in Albuquerque, announces the opening of the UNM Cancer Center-South in Las Cruces. As one of the Nation's 60 pre-eminent National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Centers and as the only cancer center in New Mexico ranked as one of "America's Best Cancer Hospitals" by U.S. News & World Report, the UNM Cancer Center is committed to providing access to the best cancer diagnosis and treatment for all New Mexicans.
Latest Houston & Texas News
- Father fights to stop execution of eldest son Fox 26 Houston
- HISD helps students register to vote Fox 26 Houston
- Protesters rally against gun violence in Pflugerville Fox7
- Mailer questions Fox 26 Houston
- First flu-related death of a child in Harris County Fox 26 Houston
- What's in your mailbox? Fox 26 Houston
- 5 p.m. Feb. 19 FOXRAD Forecast Fox 26 Houston
- Conroe man offers $5,000 to find the killer of his beloved hunting dog Fox 26 Houston
- HPD chief announces changes in the department to address crime Fox 26 Houston
- Mayor wants to see 7,500 youth hired Fox 26 Houston
- Doctors describe separating conjoined twins Fox 26 Houston
- Houston Farmers Market MLB Capital Partners
- Houston Ballet's "Swan Lake" Ball Amber Elliott, Houston Chronicle
- Local youth compete in The Big Squeeze accordion contest Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle
- Helping teens grieve after Parkland shooting Fox 26 Houston
- Drive-by rifle rounds pierce garage, teen wounded Fox 26 Houston
Working in partnership with Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces and community physicians in the Las Cruces area, the new UNM Cancer Center-South will provide state-of-the-art cancer diagnosis and treatment for residents of southern New Mexico and southwestern Texas. Prior to the opening of the new cancer center, nearly 600 patients traveled each year from southern New Mexico to the UNM Cancer Center's primary hub in Albuquerque to receive cancer treatment. "Now New Mexicans living in the southern part of the state can receive the best cancer care much closer to home where they have the loving support of their families and friends," said Dr. Cheryl Willman, director and chief executive officer of the UNM Cancer Center. "We are honored to be of service to the people of New Mexico and we want to thank Memorial Medical Center, the entire Las Cruces community, The Cowboys for Cancer Research, and the state legislators from southern New Mexico, all of whom have supported and encouraged our southward expansion."
The UNM Cancer Center in Albuquerque (cancer.unm.edu/) is the state's largest team of cancer specialists, with more than 60 cancer physicians, 110 research scientists, and 400 nurses and staff recruited from outstanding cancer hospitals and medical schools nationwide. In 2005, the UNM Cancer Center provided treatment for more than 35 percent of the adults and virtually all of the children in New Mexico affected by cancer. The new UNM Cancer Center-South is a partnership between the UNM Cancer Center, Memorial Medical Center's Ikard Cancer Treatment Center, and Radiation Oncology Associates (http://www.roanm.com) directed by Dr. Kutub Khan.
Working closely with community-based surgeons and other physicians in the Las Cruces area, the new cancer center will provide fully-integrated multidisciplinary cancer care, combining cancer diagnosis, medical oncology, radiation oncology, and patient supportive care services such as nutrition, counseling, and pastoral care. Katie Rasila, MD, a new medical oncologist trained by the UNM Cancer Center, has already moved to Las Cruces with her family and has begun seeing patients in the new facility. As the practice grows, more medical and radiation oncologists, who will also make their homes in the Las Cruces area, will be recruited to the cancer center. Dr. Rasila will also be supported by additional cancer specialists from the UNM Cancer Center in Albuquerque who will travel periodically to Las Cruces to run specialty clinics in breast, GYN, lung and other cancers. An active telemedicine link between the Albuquerque and Las Cruces centers will allow real time consultation between physicians in both locations, allowing patients access to tremendous expertise. Patient referrals are being accepted by calling (505) 521-1554.
In addition to the cancer treatment, the new UNM Cancer Center-South will be a southern New Mexico base for many ongoing cancer education, screening, and research programs. Supported by more than $50 million annually in federal and private grants and contracts, the UNM Cancer Center has very active cancer research programs focused on the development of new cancer treatments and clinical trials, many of which will be brought to the new facility in Las Cruces. Seeded by funds from The Cowboys for Cancer Research in the Las Cruces area, UNM Cancer Center scientists also have active, jointly funded collaborations with scientists at New Mexico State University focused on the discovery of new compounds to diagnose and treat breast cancer.
"Memorial Medical Center will be working side-by-side with UNM Cancer Center-South to provide the highest level of cancer care to southern New Mexico," said Paul Herzog, chief executive officer for Memorial Medical Center. "We are very excited about this partnership and both organizations will work together to bring us closer to a cure."
University of New Mexico Cancer Center Facts & Figures:
- Founded in 1971
- The State of New Mexico's Official Cancer Center
- Designated as one of the nation's 60 pre-eminent National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Centers.
- Named one of America's Best Cancer Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report in July 2006.
- Treats more than 5,000 patients annually, representing more than 35 percent of the adults and virtually all of the children diagnosed with cancer in New Mexico.
- Receives more than $50 million a year to fund a wide variety of cancer research programs.
- Largest staff of cancer specialists in New Mexico, with more than 60 cancer physicians and 110 cancer researchers recruited from some of the world's most prestigious institutions.
- Largest and most comprehensive array of multidisciplinary cancer treatment programs in New Mexico.
- Facilities in Las Cruces, Albuquerque and Santa Fe with collaborative clinical and educational programs statewide.
- Close research partnerships with New Mexico State University, the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, and Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories.
About Memorial Medical CenterSince 1950, Memorial Medical Center has served the residents of Las Cruces, Dona Ana County, and our surrounding region by providing the latest in diagnostic and therapeutic care through our inpatient and outpatient services.
Our mission, and our promise to our diverse community, is to serve each patient with compassion and respect. We treat our patients by supporting the whole person -- physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Memorial Medical Center is an acute-care facility accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and licensed by the State of New Mexico.
About Radiation Oncology AssociatesRadiation Oncology Associates (ROA) is the oldest and largest radiation oncology physician group in New Mexico. The group was founded in 1980 by Kutub Khan, MD, FACR and has grown to be one of the most sophisticated Radiation Oncology Groups in the Southwest. ROA offers state of the art radiation treatment for cancer, rivaling any national group. From Gamma-Knife to Image Guided Treatment Planning or Pediatric Oncology Group (POG) patients to Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), our expertise also includes one of the most extensive implant (brachytherapy) programs in America. This is accomplished with five senior partners and five staff physicians that have extensive and prestigious training. They include our Board Certified Partners and other staff physicians, etc.:
Kutub Khan, MD., F.A.C.R. trained at Ohio State University Cancer Center Paul Anthony, MD., trained at University of Rochester Cancer Center William Thompson, MD., F.A.C.R.O. trained at UNMCRTC Gene Wong, MD., F.R.C.P.C. trained at Princess Margaret Cancer Center Ben Liem, MD., trained at Oregon Health Sciences University Cancer Center
Charles Stutzman, MD -- Vanderbilt University Medical School, Nashville, Tenn.
Amanda Story, MD. -- Indiana University Medical School Ronda Fleck, MD. -- MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
Lisa Berle, DO -- New England Medical Center, Tufts University, Boston, Mass.
Jon Anders, MD. -- St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
Tom Kirby, Ph.D. -- Chief Physicist -- MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
ROA employs professionally certified Ph.D.'s Physicists, M.S. Physicists, Radiation Therapy Dosimeterists, Radiation Therapy Technologists and Oncology Certified Nurses serving the State of New Mexico at five locations including Albuquerque, UNMCRTC, Santa Fe and we are proud to be a part of Las Cruces.


text:
Just thinking about the historical and financial value of some of these items and although it was a long time ago and no one thought about anything having any value, some stuff with genuine background must exist.
What would Max`s sawn off, Goose`s helmet, one of the RVS radios, one of the bubble lights of the pursuit special be worth? Max`s entire costume
Know that there are some people here with actual experience of those times and others who know the facts and thought it might be cool to hear if any of the items remain.