As of the time of this posting (10:15 p.m. Friday evening Dec. 4, 2009) the web site for The Village Church had nothing new posted regarding Matt’s surgery, but if you are interested in reading of some of the ways that Matt’s heart was (and is full) as he headed off into brain surgery today at 2:30 p.m. then click here http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/hvpastor/ 

I spent fifteen very special minutes yesterday (Thursday Dec. 3, 2009) talking with Matt on the phone.  I am glad that I was able to encourage him in a 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 kind of way: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”   I was in a very similar situation less than 10 months ago.  Christ is enough.  Now and always.

What’s the deal with pastors and brain problems? 

On or around this official Day of Thanksgiving, 2009, I, Mike Evans, declare that I am thankful to God for:

10. The fact that I was able to receive the surgeries I needed before the President’s Health Care overhaul ambitions were codified.  I have to wonder if the  $600,000 or so this whole ordeal has cost our insurance company would have been approved under government plans currently being considered by Congress.  

9. Incremental daily improvements both neurologically and physiologically…Even after working out for six hours a week for the past 5 months with weights, elastic bands, cardio, jumping exercises, etc. I am still unable to do a single pull-up.  Using the machine at the gym I see that I am still 50 lbs. away from being able to do an unsassisted pull-up.  I have to laugh or I would cry.  The muscles on the right side of my body do not correspond to the effort I have put in to gain them back. I have a goal of being strong enough by Feb. 12, 2010 to do a single pull-up.  I’ll keep you posted. (For those of you who were wondering…before the surgeries I could do 9-10 pullups). 

8. Culvers concretes anyday…chocolate custard with Snickers mixed in thank you very much.

7. The Human Family… The sheer number of people, both Christian and otherwise who care and show concern,  is much higher than I had expected…or fully appreciated!

6. The support of my biological and extended family… How could we have made it through this past year without your support?  This is a rhetorical question. 

5. Church Family… Our dear Crossroad Church has been very supportive through this whole ordeal.  I couldn’t ask for a better church.  Well I could I guess…but I wouldn’t get it. 

4. The privilege of having endured a severe trial with our faith still intact.  We have now experienced in a visceral way what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”  We have now tasted and we have now seen that the LORD is good.

3. Karla my wife who has been my constant companion through hills and high waters.

2. Life (if not due to the manifold and amazing Providences of God and the skills of scores at the Mayo Clinic you probably would not be reading this right now as I most likely would no longer be among  the living). 

1. God Himself and the assurance of a future inheritance of a Kingdom that cannot be shaken and where all things are made new (Hebrews 12).

Happy Thanksgiving my dear friends and family!

(From a posting last November,  2008 Thanksgiving)

I am officially taking Thanksgiving Day off from this blog thing.   But before I do I wanted to make a top ten list of things that I am thankful for this year, in ascending order:

10.  Buffalo Wild Wings on Tuesdays

9.    Technologies and human beings that can repair things even in the human brain

8.    Yesterday

7.    Health Insurance

6.    Today

5.   People like you who care and pray…and leave comments: extended family, friends old and new…even strangers whom I have never met, yet who have jumped in the wagon with us on this journey.

4.   An amazing church family whom I love dearly and who reciprocate in manifest ways 

3.   The privilege of seeing and appreciating all of life through the grid of a heightened sense of my own mortality

2.   My wife and children: Karla, Luke, Benjamin, Elisabeth, Gabriella, and Jared.

1.   The future inheritance of a Kingdom that cannot be shaken; where all things are made new (Hebrews 12)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This past Sunday evening (Nov. 8, ‘09) Karla and I were hanging out in the kitchen and out of nowhere I said, “Oh by the way, did I ever tell you that Tom and Stephanie came to visit me when I was in the hospital?”  She looked at me as if I were an alien…probably because that was eight months ago and this was the first she had heard of it.  Once I had thought about it myself I began to doubt it myself!  Was it just a dream?  Or….?

In his last post, Mike made it abundantly clear that he owns this blog, although I thought it was mine for several weeks!  He asked me to post a guest blog several days ago with one stipulation:  it is not to be about him!

Wow!  It’s very hard to believe that it was just one year ago (October 23rd, 2008) that this most interesting of years began for our family.  I can scarcely comprehend that 365 days have elapsed since we began this journey with a seizure that revealed a peach sized AVM (mass of intertwined veins and arteries) in my brain. 

It’s also Jared’s fourth birthday celebration which was largely ruined last year due to my theatrics.  

Thus began a journey for us that would take this family through the heights and depths…through good days and bad where my very life would hang precariously and tenuously on a precipice…between life and death. 

The Word Fellowship meets again Tuesday Oct. 27 at Crossroad Church here in Earlham. The Word Fellowship consists of a group of 35-40 pastors and church leaders. If you are either please consider this an open invitation to join us!

There will be 3 messages given with singing, and significant amounts of time allowed for discussion and prayer. Our theme for this Fall’s meeting is “Through Many Tribulations We Must Enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Specifically, we will be exploring what the Bible reveals as the relationship between suffering and the Kingdom of God.

Following our normal pattern two messages will be expository sermons with a biographical sketch for the third message.

Click here to see a very cool (10 minute) video of how the brain has an uncanny ability to rewire itself…even with half missing!

I had another seizure Saturday night (Oct. 10th, 2009) and this one nearly scared me to death.  I have wanted to set some things straight about our situation.  This is a good opportunity to do just that.  Our church had a Fall Festival planned and we were supposed to go out to a country home for hay rides, bon fire,etc.  But when it snowed nearly three inches it behooved us to move the festivities indoors.  

I don’t really understand codependency but I think this word most accurately encapsulates my feelings toward the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota…and St. Marys Hospital.  I know I need(ed) them and even though they may not admit it publicly I think they also need(ed) me…if only to glory in the miracle of a life that almost ended nearly seven months ago.