My dad died six weeks ago. I wasn't there when he died and didn't see him before the end. Part of me didn't believe he was dead because there was no visual sign for closure. I even had a dream last week where my dad looked healthy and younger and I told him, "I knew you weren't dead!"

Last weekend, my three sisters and I converged on Sunriver, OR - my dad and stepmom's summer home. As we got closer to our destination, I felt heavier and heavier. It was my doom approaching. I knew that once we arrived at the house and he wasn't there, that his death was real. I was almost suffocating with it by the time we arrived. Friday night was tough.

Prayer is where the action is!

I keep having these opportunities to pray with people in amazing ways.

We just had a group of pastors from around the world who work with the least, the less and the lost, come visit and we got to pray for them. One pastor, who works in Camden, NJ asked for prayer for his foot which was afflicted with gout. We prayed and he could move his toe without pain. Yes, Jesus!

Last week I listened to a man from Tijuana who had come up here to get away from his family who had deeply wronged him, and a pastor who had betrayed him. We have been talking about how the hardest thing Jesus calls us to do is to forgive those who have wronged us, and to bless our enemies, but that this is the way of Jesus. I asked his forgiveness on behalf of the pastor who had wronged him and he was deeply moved. He is not ready to forgive, but he knows that he is in his own prison until he does. Pray for him to have the grace he needs to forgive.

Today we are feeling the rest that comes after a long awaited conversation has happened and gone well.

Tierra Nueva is in the midst of a paradigm shift - moving from being solely a mission outreach to including a growing faith community, a more intentional community living in the building, and a training center. All this has happened without planning but has grown to a level where it requires new organizational structures to help facilitate and cultivate it.

We have been blessed by the presence of Dr. Bruce Murphy (former pastor of Bethany Presbyterian in Seattle, former Provost for SPU, and former President of a Christian Liberal Arts University in Iowa - the name escapes me at the moment). He has sweet skills (bow hunting, etc...) Between Bruce listening and processing so succinctly what he heard and working through it with Nick Bryant, Tierra Nueva's resident community herald - what came was a gracious and hopeful forum giving some shape to TN going forward. And with that promise of shape comes a sense of rest.