This time 10 years ago today.....

I was leading the first ever trip to Ethiopia. The Charlotte Eagles (which included Nate Watkins who later served short term with Sports Friends) along with Tripp Johnston, Daryl Tutton and Dave Beinetti were on that first team initiative. This trip was followed by the Houghton College Women's team, David Lewis and the famous Jamie Waldron. Thanks to all the Highlanders and Eagles who contributed to the foundation of an incredible and amazing work of God through the ministry of Sports Friends/SIM!

Closed Country Strategy mtg

It was a joy and privilege to meet recently with a couple who are considering using the platform of sports to penetrate an area of the world closed to the Gospel. I absolutely love coming alongside those considering such a significant life course change for the cause of Christ. Helping them to develop a strategy for this endeavor is in my wheelhouse according to how God has gifted me. It's so much fun and so pleasing to use one's gifts for His purposes. Pray for this unnamed couple as they seek His will and direction for moving ahead with engaging with this impossible task to bring the gospel to those without any living witness. Another Glory of the Impossible story in the making!

this Friday, I have Surgery at 8:30am.

That's right, I'm facing a second surgery to remove lymph nodes from my neck this Friday morning at 8:30am at Presbyterian Hospital. Long story but basically all my symptoms in my neck and throat came back again about 2 months ago. The most concerning are the large swollen lymph nodes in the right size of my neck. These are new ones, since the cluster of frieghtenly large ones were removed last year. I had more blood tests, x-rays, tubes down my throat and even tried new meds to reduce the size of the lymph nodes in my neck over the last 2 weeks. I'm in GREAT health, "Spectatular" was used by my primary doctor three times in describing my general health! It's just these lymph nodes. Yesterday the doctor confirmed that the nodes had not been reduced by the medicines which would have proved they were benign and therefore no surgery would have been necessary. The threat of them being cancerous, lymphomia exists and that's why surgery is necessary to remove them, so they can be tested. Ugh! This time if they are benign I will undergo more, what I call "weird disease" testing, to get to the root of what is negatively impacting my immune system! Anyway, one step at a time. Prayers for Friday's surgery would be appreciated from our whole family. And wouldn't be GREAT if someone came to know Christ through all this testing, hospital visits, and changed life plans.

Preaching time: God is good NO MATTER WHAT THE OUTCOME. Cancer or no cancer! He is not a jennie I come to just when I'm in need. He is my Savior, I have a real relationship with him and I trust him in times of trial regardless of the outcome. I'd be bummed if they hurt my voice box or one of the other less likely complications occurred during the surgery. If I have cancer I'd be disappointed. But who wouldn't be. God made us to have emotions. Yet, it's really not about me, it's about Him. I fight the evil one in the power of the Holy Spirit and in prayer, not by my might or positive thinking but according to the Holy Scriptures. The relationship I have with a Holy, Holy, Holy God is such a privilege and His purposes are so much higher than mine. I'm on this earth to serve Him, however, wherever! All these trials just deepen my faith and love for Him. I'm chief sinner in the world of sports ministers. I love growing closer to Him and deeper in my faith. These times push me towards that end. And I couldn't have a better help mate to "do life" with! So here we go again, pray for peace for Chris during my surgery, the right amount of anesthesia and Dr. Kamerer as he cuts open my neck to remove the lymph nodes. Pray for courage & strength for me. Pray for no cancer cells as well as no form of lymphoma to be found. If no cancer exists then pray for clues to what is going on with my lymphatic or immune system. Thanks Everyone for your care, compassion and prayers!

BD, pursuing holiness despite being chief sinner in sports ministry. Glad His mercies are new EVERYDAY,

2 Peter 1:3-9

PRAY...PRAY....PRAY.....4

Nigerian Elections starting April 2nd, especially in the Jos area! Wow, this is such a volatile time in the Plateau area where Jos is located. These elections can spark widespread violent incidents between groups of people. Would you consider praying for The Abts family, all of our SFN staff families, the SIM missionaries there and the whole Christian body in this State? Pray for protection from the evil one and proper God honoring responses to the potential persecution that may fall upon them. Also, pray for our Muslim friends that somehow someway God moves in their hearts and minds, maybe through dreams, to reveal himself to them. Paul like transforming experiences! April 2nd and the days to follow!

LU Retreat...

Chris and I had a BLESSED time with 20 Liberty University students who are going to Ethiopia in May to serve at Camp Langano. What a terrific group of young people! It was a BLAST to lead this short retreat with John and Danielle....how totally cool was that!.....a great blessing. I'm so impressed with John & Danielle's ministry to these LU students, they are AWESOME leaders!

I spoke on "Setting Your Minds On Things Above" and then we engaged the students in a creative team building practical. Lots of fun, lots of team bonding. We all wished it was a day longer!

Pray for the team as they finish their fund raising and prepare to minister to the Ethiopian youth at Langano. They will be piloting the first 80 residential camper experience (double the number of normal campers)! What we learn from this experience will be applied to the summer camps. We don't want to lose the intimacy of the camp experience that we have had in the past but we need to provide this camping opportunity to lots more SF youth participants throughout the country. Eventually, we want to fill up all 144 beds we now have in our new cabins. With increased numbers of campers comes increased risk, so please pray for this May experience with the LU students and the new programming format. Thank You!

Burkina Faso

The phone rang while Chris and I were in the car traveling home from Liberty University last weekend. I didn't recognize the number. Usually that means I will just let it ring and then I'll check the message later. For some reason I answered it this time. "Brian, I don't know if you remember me or not but I'm B**** P***** (need to keep confidential), and I'm calling from the US Embassy in Burkina Faso." Well I did remember him, which was the second unusual thing to happen in the last minute since I have a terrible memory for names. 5 years ago on a plane some 30,000 feet above earth I shared my faith with this man as well as the ministry of Sports Friends with him. He was calling me to tell he his helping a friend launch a Sports Friends type initiaitve in BK. He even had contacted SIM leadership in BK about what he and his friend were going to do through sports in the local community there. While it was great to re-connect with this man I was sad when I got off the phone. The SF sports initiatives are as eternally impacting as the leaders are committed to a Kingdom perspective, having a passion for what matters most to God, leading from the power of the Holy Spirit and having a radiant presence that is from being an authentic follower of Jesus Christ. BP doesn't have that yet. But he must be considering what I've said because he kept my number. His sports projects may curb some bad behavior in some youth for a period of time but ultimately we need God to change his heart so he can be used in the process of God changing these BK young peoples heart. Will you pray towards this end today for BP? Thank You!

Palestine national team

Years ago I traveled to Gaza several times and organized a match between the Palestine National team and the Charlotte Eagles. It was a great experience which allowed us to bring in some interesting *books (66 of them!) to the country for our friends. Boy do I have some really interesting stories from my visits to Gaza. Ask me about them sometime if your interested -not for sharing on the web, if you know what I mean. The link below shows their first "offical" international match in the stadium we actually lived in for one week (very interesting). We were guarded by 12 soldiers with AK 47's around the clock. Moreover, we had military vehicles guarding the stadium at night and had meetings with Y.A. defense minister in his inter sanctum. God bless those books that we gave out. May they not come back void & without penetrating hearts forever.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=134394769