That was one of the topics at the Discipleship Summit we attended in Anaheim California recently sponsored by the Anaheim First Church of the Nazarene and Pastor Craig Rench. He was our pastor who did our marriage counseling and was a part of our wedding (we actually had 3 pastors at our wedding) he has also been Todd’s mentor for the past 26 years.   The discussions, prayer times, sharing from our hearts, listening to what Jesus is telling us through the Holy Spirit, and finding practical ways to spend more time in prayer and helping others to hear what Jesus is trying to tell them was incredible!  If you want to dig a little deeper into making Christ-Like Disciples, read the new book by Hal and Debbi Perkins, Discipled by Jesus.

We were introduced to a young singer named Jason David who is impacting the lives of teens!  He has such

an incredible heart for Jesus and let me tell you he can sing!  He also raps and the ministry of his band is incredible with the youth of today!  You can find him on youtube and itunes!

We also spoke several times over the two weekends we were in Southern California.  At Anaheim First Naz where Todd spoke in the morning service and then they had a prayer service for us during their evening service.  It was an incredible time of sharing from our hearts our concerns and prayer requests and then having people pray out loud in several languages for those requests.  Prior to sharing in the morning service, Todd went in and the Korean church leaders prayed over him prior to the time of prayer with the regular English congregation leaders.  We also spoke at the Camarillo Church of the Nazarene. We enjoyed fellowship and sharing at the English service, and then later at the Spanish Service.

I think that was the longest service Todd has ever spoken!  Of course, there was the delay for the translation…. 🙂   We had a wonderful time of sharing with many of them after the service also – what a wonderful body of believers.

Another wonderful blessing was being introduced to Pastor Oni Plantilla and his beautiful wife Neth and sweet family who recently moved to Anaheim from Manila, Philippines!  They know so many people that we will be working with and were so encouraging about us moving there and how wonderful the people are and how we will just love it!  Pastor Oni’s wife wrote out some phrases in Tagalog and helped me with pronunciation.  I can’t explain how encouraging it was for me to have Neth share with me about the new home that I will be moving to.  Of course we are all now facebook friends and can keep in touch though miles and oceans apart.

There were so many new experiences and we met so many new friends.  One of our new friends is Pastor Mike Boswith who we went to visit with Pastor Craig Rench, to pray for his son.  We prayed for healing, Todd praying specifically for the connections in the brain to heal and strength for his body.  You can follow this journey of healing and prayer on facebook at Pray for Grant. It is a heart wrenching story of how a healthy boy went into a hospital because of a persistent sore throat, and ended up in a coma and the doctor’s diagnosis is not promising. Even with that, we know that we have a God who is in the business of healing and Grant is starting to communicate and move his limbs which they said he would never again do.  Praise the Lord! Please join with us in praying for Grant and his family.