This Weekend

Normally I do not request prayer on our blog but circumstances force me to do this at the present time. Our normal intercessory prayer process is that I send Eric an E-mail and he handles our intercessory E-mail prayer team. He forwards on my requests, you prayer, the Kingdom comes, etc. It is beautiful! But this week Eric is enjoying his honeymoon in Mexico. So I am putting my hope in the fact that anyone who reads this blog will kindly E-mail it on to those that normally would be on the intercessory prayer team. Wow! That was a long explanation. Anyway, here is the request... Very early tomorrow (more like middle of the night early), Dan and I are driving to Camp Patmos in Kelley's Island, OH. We will be involved with a Middle/High School retreat. The theme of the weekend is the cross. I will be speaking four times about the ramifications of the cross for our lives here on earth (based on Hebrews 10). Saturday night the students will see a reenactment of the crucifixion. I will speak to three different sets of students with the imagery of three crosses behind me. It should be very powerful. I have no idea where these kids are at spiritually. I want the Kingdom to come to that little island though. I want them to fully understand they can draw near to God because of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. I want them to understand they have an amazing hope they can grab hold of and claim. I want them to understand that because of the cross, they can spur each other on towards love & good deeds. My desire is the same as Paul's in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. I want to rely on the power of God and simply preach Christ & Him crucified. I do not wish to see transformational change due to my "eloquence or crafty words." Would you pray for that? Dan & I hopefully will have many conversations outside of the organized chapel with the students. We desire to listen, discuss, and pray with them. Pray for us to seize every opportunity. Pray also for us as we travel. We will be in the car for around 1500 miles in three days. Finally, please pray for Gretchen & our unborn baby. She is not due until October 19 but the doctor informed her yesterday that the baby's head is very low. She told Gretchen it is highly, highly unlikely she would have the baby this weekend. But she also said I shouldn't travel after this weekend. This obviously doesn't encourage me greatly. Would you pray that our little baby stays inside of Gretchen until I come home? I do not want to miss this! I think Gretchen would want me here too. Thanks for your prayers. We stand on them. Jamie