Our God is the God of Hope

We want to thank everyone who came on Saturday to celebrate with us God's faithfulness to our family and Chris being finished with his chemotherapy treatment. It was so humbling to us the number of people who came to celebrate with us. We thank also those who could not come, but have supported our family. You have all blessed us in an amazing way.

John really wanted to share from his heart that day, but the large numbers of people made it impossible to do so. Therefore we want to share here what he wanted to share on Saturday.

We thank all of your for the support, prayers, help, encouragement and faith.
We thank God for carrying us through this time of testing.
We thank God for Chris' perseverance,
which came from a special provision of God's grace
as He carried us through this stuff.

Some wonder why it's happening, to sum it up in 3 words
"we don't know"

What we do know is that God is taking excellent care of us.
He takes trials and testing and brings good from it.

I (John) thank God continuously for delivering
Chris from this cancer.
But I also know that God's plan for each of us is long term.
In fact it is Eternal.
We all die eventually, some sooner than later,
but the good news is that Jesus defeated death already.
God's plans for us goes way beyond our earthly lives.

We don't know the reason for the testing,
but we do know the outcome.
God is using us all in ways that we can't fully understand,
but we can see it in hindsight.

God has used this year to build up incredible
inner strength in Chris.
Because of this,
Chris will go on and do great things with his life.
Things that he may not have been able to do
had he not gone through the trials.

One scripture of blessing for all our family and friends that have gone through this with us - And I emphasize that all of us have done this together as a family with God

May the God of hope fill you joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13

Our God is a God of Hope,
no matter the circumstances
Joy and peace are the outcome of trusting in Him,
no matter the circumstances

Because of our God, we continue to overflow with hope
that comes from the Spirit of God,
no matter what the circumstances are,
but because of Who our God is.

Everything

This is one of the most powerful skits I have seen done. I wept as I watched it.

Last Week !!!!!

Wow, it is hard to believe but this is the last week of Chris' treatment. It has been almost a year since we began this journey. Even though it has without a doubt been the most difficult year, we have seen the goodness of our awesome God. He has sustained Chris and our family in ways we never knew possible.

We rejoice that Chris will be done by Friday, and we are having a celebration party on Saturday. We really want to give God all the glory for His healing over Chris, and to thank our wonderful friends and Oaks family for their tireless support. We have no doubt that it has been the prayers of many that has battle for our family in heaven, and defeated the enemies purposes to bring defeat. God is victorious!!

We do not know all the people who see this post, but if you are in the Bakersfield area we invite you to join us on Saturday, August 25 from 4:00 on at our house. If you need the address e-mail us at mail@championclan.com and we can send you the address.

Blessing to you in the name of Christ.