Pray for Dina

This evening, I went with my parents to visit dear friends of ours, Dina and Jerry. He was the pastor of our church in SA while I was young, and they have always been dear friends of my parents. When I was 16, they allowed Annah and I to fly over to Spain to stay with them for a month to participate in their ministry there. About four years later when I lived in Spain, I took Melissa with me to visit them again. Jerry spoke at my high school graduation and Brett and I considered asking him to perform our wedding ceremony. Needless to say, they are special people to us.

In September, Dina was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. They decided to have her treated here in the US, which is why they are here. Both their children and grandchildren live in the area, meaning they are near family; and since they are in the area, it gives my parents the opportunity to visit.

Please pray for Dina and Jerry and their family. My prayer is, obviously, that she would be healed. She has stopped her chemo and radiation treatments, as there have been no obvious improvements; the new focus has been to relieve her of pain. Dina's greatest fear is that she loses sight of the Lord and that she forgets to glorify Him in all she does; what an amazing woman! Pray for her comfort and energy level, that she may be able to enjoy great quality of life even though her body is fighting against her. And pray for Jerry, as he's hurting for the woman he loves and is also away from their friends.

I'll end this long post with a quote from their most recent newsletter:
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the riches of life which has come to you by the grace of God. (Phillips Brooks, quoted by John Feinberg, The Many Faces of Evil).