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A couple of days ago I wrote about the event on June 22nd and how my faith had grown through the experience. I wrote,

I spent some time on the land this afternoon after our staff meeting. I prayed. I thanked God for answering my prayers. He answered every single prayer that I sent up…of course not how I would have answered them. I would have granted a sunny day with nothing to worry about. I would have written the story different. But then it hit me, it’s not my story. It’s His. Even if God didn’t stop the rain - parted the water during the storm - would He be less powerful? less in control? less praiseworthy? The answer is no. He’s still God. He was worthy of all of the credit and glory and praise before this weekend was even a thought in my mind. To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure that God worries about rained out events as much as I do. I also don’t think that He’s out of control if He doesn’t, “come through” for me or my prayers. Sounds weird to think that way, “that wasn’t how I was taught growing up!”. He’s not my genie in a bottle that answers my prayers when I need something. God’s not interested in failure, He’s interested in faith.

I had now clue that when I wrote those words that I would receive the news we did last Wednesday…our little girl has two heart defects. My original post for this third part was going to be about how God had done so many miracles the day of the event. That the VIPs I had the privilege of working with that day and the hard work and time they put in were something to celebrate…but that the real reason to celebrate that day was the 90 or so people who got baptized. Life Change! To see the look on their faces as they worshiped afterward was breathtaking and unforgettable. We have a saying around here, “it’s why we do what we do!”

That was truly a reason to celebrate, but to tell you the truth - I haven’t felt like celebrating anything lately. We leave for vacation today and I won’t be blogging for a while. I wasn’t even going to finish the third part of, “The Event” for the blog, but then I started thinking about it. Although I don’t feel like celebrating, I do have a reason to celebrate. No matter the circumstances or trials that are plaguing Leah and me right now, I know that our God is a God to celebrate. Who would have known that I would have come to the conclusion I did last week about God answering prayers. God did! It’s like He’s prepared us…almost like He knows what He’s doing. Oh yeah, I can’t wait to preach in August on Jehovah Rapha, The God who Heals. Oh, by the way, I picked that a week or two before all of this hit the fan…think He has a plan?

Our prayer is that God heals our little girl before she’s even born. My prayer is that God confounds the wise and shows us His glory through all of this. I’ve got my ideas on how I think this story should go, but this time, I think I’ll just let the Author write this one.

I don’t know what the next few months will look like for us, but I do know that God is still God. He’s not good “if”, He’s good. What a reason to celebrate!

Emily’s surgery went great. The process was a stretch for Leah and me, but with the support of great friends and good doctors we all made it through fine. We got there around 7:00am this morning and answered a bunch of questions and got the paper work lined up.

They took us to a waiting room where of course, we waited. Then once called in, they re-explained everything to us and began to get us ready for the surgery. The next step was giving Emily medicine to help her relax. I totally wish I had some of that at home. Emily turned into a loud, funny drunk! I have never seen her so funny. All five of us sat there and guiltily laughed our heads off in front of all the nurses at how funny Emily was acting. She played it up too…making this funny laugh as she fell off the edge of the world.

As the drug took its full effect, she grew quiet and began to wrestle with what was really going on. She looked at me and said, “Daddy, I don’t want to go to sleep.” It broke my heart as she began to cry uncontrollably. The nurse said that the drug brought out what Emily was really feeling…fear. I felt so helpless. I’m her daddy. I’m supposed to help her, make her feel better or stop whats hurting her. It’s my job to protect her…but there was nothing I could do. They wheeled her into the next room and Leah and I held each other tight…crying.

30-45 minutes later, the doc came in to the waiting room and let us know that everything went fine and that Emily was waking up. “Praise God!”, we thought. As we said goodbye to Buddy and Debbie I felt so grateful to have them there with us. Having them with us during the surgery was a huge blessing and a distraction from what was happening in the other room. We’re were so blessed by them today…thank you!

As we arrived in the next room, the nurse pointed in the direction of Emily and I saw her. She was a wreck. She was screaming and crying, trying to get to us. She didn’t know where we were. I ran to her and held her tight. It broke my heart as she asked, “why did you leave me?!” I reassured her that we never left. Wow, what a helpless feeling it was as a parent during that moment.

Over the next hour and a half the drugs took their toll on Emily. She couldn’t get through the fear. Now that we’re home and we’ve talked to her about this, I look back and some of the things she said were really funny. Things like, “I’m never taking medicine again!”, or “I hate surgery! I hate hernias! I hate Dr. Webber!” (which by the way, he was great)

We didn’t laugh then, but we’re all laughing now. Emily is fine and is begging us for food…”I’m so hungry…I can’t wait any longer.” Thank you for all of your prayers. We appreciate it tremendously.

First of all I want to say thank you to all of you for praying for the Clem family. With Emily’s surgery today at 8:30am (two hernias) and the news we received from the doc yesterday these past couple of days have definitely been an emotional roller coaster for us, but the love and compassion our family and church family has shown us is indescribable. The road ahead is long and we appreciate everyone’s support during these first few steps.

As you know, yesterday we went to the pediatric cardiologist to check out something that a technician found a couple of weeks ago during a routine ultrasound. Turns out that what the technician found was true. Our precious little girl has two heart defects. The first is more common, VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect) which means that there is a hole between the two chambers of her heart. The second is Aortic Pre-ductal Coarctation which means that her aorta has not developed properly and has narrowed. The latter is more life threatning because if not corrected no blood would be sent to the lower half of her body, mainly her organs…liver, kidneys, etc… The doc wants to check again in 6-8 weeks to get a better understanding of whats going on.

What does that mean? Once she’s born, she’ll immediately be stabilized and have tests run to make sure they’ve caught/identified everything, they’ll then schedule open heart surgery during her first week of life. After surgery, she’ll have to stay in the hospital for at least ten more days post op.

This has obviously been a rough time for Leah and me, but I know that our God is capable of anything. We’re so thankful that we’re able to know ahead of time as some parents don’t find out until it’s too late. We’re so thankful for our family. Leah’s parents came over last night and spent some time with us…very encouraging. My parents have been so supportive over the phone and are anxious to see us next week. We’re going to AL for vacation. Our church family has been so great as well. I know we have so many people praying for us and our little girl.

My and Leah’s prayer is that our little girl will be healed of her heart defects before the time we have to see the cardiologist again which is 6-8 weeks. Our God can do anything! Pray that prayer with us. God help us to believe and not doubt!

As we’ve thrown around a couple of ideas for the name of our new little girl - scheduled to arrive in October - Joy seems to stick for us as a middle name…being Leah’s middle name as well. The first name is a little harder for us. We’ve tossed around Caroline, Haily, Katherine, Nathalie, Sarah, Hannah, etc… We just can’t decide on a name.

A few months ago, Granddad (my daddy) and Nana were up for a visit. One night as Granddad was playing with the kids, he threw out the name Jalapeño Joy. Now I know what you’re thinking, but don’t pronounce it the regular way. Say it like this, “ga-lap-ino”. Now it sounds funny. Sad thing is, this kids’ not even born yet and it’s already got a knick name. Where I come from (AL) if you don’t have a knick name you’re not family.

So I need your help on this. Two things:

1. What’s a good girl name for our new baby?
2. Please pray for our new little girl today. We’re going to Albany Med today to see a Pediatric Cardiologist. During a routine ultrasound, the technician noticed something irregular about our new baby’s heart. Hopefully nothing, but we’re getting it checked out.

The planning for this past Sunday started about 5-6 weeks ago. I hit the ground running planning out every detail from where the bathrooms would be to the menu for the food. Everything was going great until this past Thursday when the forecast looked grim for Sunday. Friday came and the call was made…let’s go for it. Saturday was one of most beautiful days so far this summer. “Why didn’t we have our event on Saturday? ‘Don’t worry’, I thought, ‘God will come through.” God won’t fail us, we’ve got faith!

As I drove on to the land Sunday morning the rain started coming down hard. It was raining cats and dogs on our last weekend in Malta, on our Celebration Event! The planning, preparation and prayers all ran through my head as I sat in my car thinking, hoping that the rain would let up. As I thought through the sound of the rain, my thoughts strayed from faith to failure…from belief to doubt. I had been so sure that God would give us a sunny day. “What if He didn’t do it though? Doesn’t God want this to happen? Don’t you want us to have a great day celebrating You?” I questioned my faith sitting alone in my car as my team stood under the tent waiting…for me.

I had a decision to make, faith or failure. I could sit there in my car and let my team wonder what was going on and just wait to see what happened, or I could get out of my car and lead the way with belief. At that moment, I felt like God said, “Chad, I care about this more than you do.” I jumped out of the car and went right to work. My team followed suit as the lighting started and the rain fell harder. My experience on Sunday was an awesome faith day for me.Buddy spoke this weekend about believing and not doubting. What great timing! I learned this weekend that through it all, God is in control.

I spent some time on the land this afternoon after our staff meeting. I prayed. I thanked God for answering my prayers. He answered every single prayer that I sent up…of course not how I would have answered them. I would have granted a sunny day with nothing to worry about. I would have written the story different. But then it hit me, it’s not my story. It’s His. Even if God didn’t stop the rain - parted the water during the storm - would He be less powerful? less in control? less praiseworthy? The answer is no. He’s still God. He was worthy of all of the credit and glory and praise before this weekend was even a thought in my mind. To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure that God worries about rained out events as much as I do. I also don’t think that He’s out of control if He doesn’t, “come through” for me or my prayers. Sounds weird to think that way, “that wasn’t how I was taught growing up!”. He’s not my genie in a bottle that answers my prayers when I need something. God’s not interested in failure, He’s interested in faith.

Yesterday was one of the greatest days in my life. Sure there were other days that trump yesterday - the day I got married, the days my kids were born - but yesterday was a very special faith day for me. It was the Celebration Event on our land. Yesterday was long, busy and draining, but it was also exciting and invigorating.

I’ve learned so much about leadership through this experience too. These past couple of weeks have been challenging and stressfull, but I’ve taken away more than I thought. The greatest lesson I learned yesterday was having the right team. I couldn’t have had a better team. I was surrounded by great people…without them it would not have been a success. People like Deana, Alan, Rob, John, Jim, Nicole, Scott & Chris.  They were difference makers! It was such a privilege and honor working with them. Yesterday was a success because of them. I was so proud of them.

So as my thoughts are racing to get a handle on this whole weekend – so much happened – I thought I’d stretch this out into 3 things I learned from one day. I learned, grew and experienced so much yesterday, just think what tomorrow will bring. I can’t wait.

Do you have the right team? Trust me, it will make all the difference in the world!

This weeks’ blog is one I’ve been reading for some time now. The perspective Kem Meyer has is very unique and sometimes deep but she has a way of breaking things down and keeping it simple.  She’s the Director of Communication for a large church in Indiana and does a great job keeping me thinking about communication affects everything. Here’s a great example of that:  Attractive?

We’ve been so busy lately Leah and I decided to have a family fun night. The Keefe family provided our dinner…how awesome are they! On demand music made the party. Here’s a clip of the kids jammin’ out!

7. Have I mentioned that my dog hasn’t peed on me recently…he gets so excited when I come home.
6. My kids think the Berenstain Bears were the greatest invention ever. Time Warner On Demand you’re the greatest!
5. Our Garage Sale wasn’t a huge success, but 1 day later I’m $38 richer.
4. Game 6 in Boston baby- great series - GO Celtics!
3. I got to play golf for Father’s Day. I don’t know if I’m a good golfer or if I’ve just played easy courses before, but Saturday was not a happy day for me and my handicap.
2. I have two more weeks as of today before vacation…I can’t wait!
1. Leah and I actually got a night to ourselves…Grandma and Papa to the rescue!

Today’s the day we’ve been waiting for. We moved into Ballston Spa November of 2006. By the time the annual town wide garage sale came around, we had no clue and were no where close to unpacking all of our stuff to even decide on what to sell. I know, we’d been in our house for at least 7 months, but after pushing so hard to get into our house, the winter coma got the best of us. We vowed that we wouldn’t miss it this year.

So this week’s plan was to have everything pulled out of the basement and garage and ready to sale stuff by Wednesday…ready to sell stuff on Friday and Saturday morning. That of course did not happen. Leah was sick…real sick for the past couple of days. She spent most of that time in bed. So, needless to say, we didn’t start getting things together for the, “BIG SALE” until last night around 6:30pm. Crazy how life gets so busy.

I pushed through this week. I’ve been so busy with the planning of the Celebration Event on June 22nd. It’s been occupying so much of my time…late nights, working on my day off, meetings, phone calls…you get the idea…normal Northway stuff. With Leah being sick, it meant more work. I just knew that if I pushed through Thursday night, I could relax and watch the game and then get up today and totally do absolutely nothing. No thinking. No phones. No computers. I fully expected my stuff to sell fast and furious. I just knew that my pricing would be irresistible. That would keep me busy. Note to self, “you need people to show up for that.” Leah and I looked at each other and said, “I’m bored!”

So here I sit on the computer…Leah saying, “why aren’t we talking?” Checking and responding to email…working. Been on the phone with the office already. Reading and writing blogs. I can’t sit this idol these days.

Have I lost the art of being still? I hope not. We need to place more value on it. I don’t remember that last time Leah or I have taken time out from work and the business of life. Hopefully today will make us a lot of money and the true return will be our time together as a family…doing nothing.