Katy Reel

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Our Dear Friends,

You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation--I don't want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God's deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.
2 Corinthians 1:11

THE TURNING POINTS OF LIFE
It’s late into the second night at Good Samaritan Hospital. I am tired but grateful to be alone with my thoughts for a few minutes. Capturing reflections has been difficult for all of us. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any yet as this news is just too new and difficult. Probably it is because mere humans can’t make themselves accept information that is so outlandish that we do better with denial. How can life turn on a dime, change irreversibly with no warning or heads up? Just last night, which feels like last month, we found out our dear Katy has a brain tumor.

THE GIFT OF YOUNG LEADERS
Katy is a young leader here in our ministry. I should have told you about her long ago. I hope you all get to meet her one day. We tell stories about the kids, youth and indigenous leaders that are treasured here. There are other stories … beautiful stories … about young adults who God has attached to this community through His gracious transformations. “They are too young” some will say “to have such an understanding of the sacrificial ways in which they are giving their lives away.” Katy is one of these.

KATY REEL
You should see her! She has found her heart’s home in the ghettos of Phoenix. Her arms are never empty and children wrap around her easily. When she started her two year internship, now almost two years ago, she was “teacher Katy”. She began her work helping Ericka build the foundations for a favored part of the ministry, our Headstart partnership with the City of Phoenix. These young women took the raw material of moms, kids, schedule less families and taught everyone to come to school everyday. It was hard work, knocking on doors, waking moms up, getting kids dressed. All of this was so shocking to our City of Phoenix partners. They couldn’t believe this was the way we were going to DO school. This is year two and these preschoolers are now testaments to the tenacity of these young women’s labors. Change is everywhere, emotionally, academically, in manners, in hope, in future possibilities.
Katy is more than teacher; she is a friend to her kid’s moms. She has entered into MOMS PLACE as a mentor and lover. If Katy isn’t with these kids she is with their moms, and these families are now devoted to their tender hearted and loyal advocate.
God brought Katy to us through a series of miraculous interventions. A dear friend met Katy in Indianapolis at a missions conference when she was just finishing high school. Her specialness stood out! My friend mentioned her to me. She thought her unique calling to serve reminded her of our daughter Heather. Both were providentially going to the same Christian college. These two were introduced through our friend, became roommates at college for five years and became best friends. Katy did her first internship with us after her first year in college. She remembers saying to herself that summer seven years ago, “I know one day I’ll be back.”

PRAY FOR KATY
Katy was having headaches. She has just taken on a new role in our ministry, taking on the coordination of all the education pieces of Neighborhood Ministries. The transition has been a little stressful. Headaches made sense in that context, but these were terrible the past few days, especially last Wednesday. Accompanying the headaches was a funny loss of strength and numbness in her right arm and one night also in her leg. She knew something was wrong.
Last night we went to the emergency room for the headaches. A CAT SCAN found a mass on her brain. They are calling it a tumor. Today there was a MRI. The results are unknown as of yet but will give guidance for the next decisions.

What else can we do than ask you to pray with us for Katy.
I have one request, dear friends: Pray for Katy. Pray strenuously with and for her --to God the Father, through the power of our Master Jesus, through the love of the Spirit— Romans 15:30
· Please Pray about this tumor, that it would be demolished, destroyed, completely removed
· Pray for Katy, that her journey through this terrible disturbance would be one where Jesus is alive in every dimension giving her peace
· Pray for all the medical personnel, particularly her neurosurgeons, that they would be beyond their best for her in giving care
· Pray for the work she has so much responsibility for

And would you pray for us
· For her family from Indianapolis who are here now in town (mom – Patti, dad – Rick, brother – Lenny and sister – Amy)
· For our fragile “family”, the body of Christ here at The Neighborhood Center and Neighborhood Ministries who love Katy dearly and carry this suffering in its fragility
· For rest, for love exchanged everywhere, for faith, for conviction that Jesus can be glorified in these troubles! Be lifted up, Jesus, in this!

I WILL SEND YOU “KATY” UPDATES OFTEN.
PLEASE PASS THEM ON TO OTHERS WHO YOU KNOW WILL PRAY FOR HER.

Will you let me know that you are praying so I can tell her?
And we love you and treasure your bearing us up. Kit


“The man who prays raises the question of what the limits of hope may be. Prayer is his way of declaring that the boundaries of life and the limits of hope cannot be drawn with the crayons of time and space. The man who prays pushes hope into areas where men who never dream, never venture. And so it is not difficult for him to believe. He believes his prayer reaches God and that it influences reality although never in a strict cause-effect relationship. Prayer is successful not in terms of what it logically produces or pragmatically achieves but in terms of what it forces reality to experience.
Dawn Without Darkness by Anthony Padovano