Prayer for Matt and Cameron Dodd

     I write again to bring sad news...some friends of ours that are missionaries in Papua New Guinea, Matt and Cameron Dodd, have been here on furlough.  In God's sovereignty, they were not supposed to be back in the states yet, but came home early because their daughter needed to have her tonsils removed as she was getting strep throat repeatedly.  Just this week they were sent to the ER and an MRI revealed lesions on Matt's brain.  Further testing revealed nodules throughout his body and the initial pathology has come back as stage four lung cancer.  Their faithful response has been incredible and so encouraging, but please lift them up in prayer! Here is what our old church and their sending church wrote this afternoon:

  Yesterday, Matt Dodd received the preliminary diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer with metastases to the brain and other organs. Matt and Cameron Dodd are back in the United States on furlough from Papua New Guinea, where they have been sent by GBC to translate the Bible and bring the gospel. We discovered that God in God's good and perfect plans are different than ours.

In their update, the Dodds ask for prayer writing, "Please pray for us as this initial diagnosis has demanded we re-evaluate our future--immediate and long term. Pray that we can find housing as our living situation will need to change if chemotherapy is going to be a part of our lives. Pray for our insurance and finances as both will be complicated by this re-routing of our lives. Pray for our kids who have really been such troopers throughout the last several transitions and whom we will need to ask to persevere through one more. Pray that the treatment for Matt would be effective, if that is the Lord's will. And pray that on the days where we can't smile, that God would uphold us for His ultimate glory and our ultimate good."

We also have the chance to assist the Dodds with financial and other practical needs. Grace Bible Church has set up a benevolence fund specifically for the Dodds. We can accept online donations (a percentage is deducted by the credit card processor):https://gbcaz.ccbchurch.com/w_give_online.php. We can also receive checks with "Benevolence: Dodds" in the memo field.

In the Dodd's word: "We are not sure of so many things ahead. There will undoubtedly be hard days to come. But all I can say is that today was a good day because the Lord made it and we can rejoice and be glad in Him. He has given us so much good and should we who are but clay speak when He gives us something like this? We are sinners and He has reconciled us to Himself at the cost of His own Son. His love for us is sure."

     So much has been on my mind as I've been praying for them--songs that I run to, Psalms that I run to, but most importantly the reminder of Who we are privileged to run to--our "Abba Father", Daddy, the God of the very universe who has created everything in this world by speaking it into existence and yet the same God that loves each and every one of us with His perfect love.  Just as no single snowflake is the same, no person is the same, and God's plans for our lives our unique and often never where we would go ourselves.  However, all those snowflakes come together in God's plan to make something beautiful like the picture above that I took when we lived in Montana and I awoke to a winter wonderland one morning.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  God does the same with us--He uses us and stretches us and He is at work using each one of us to write HIS story--not only for our individual lives, but for the entire world--the world that He upholds with His hands.  As we all face unknown futures, may we take comfort in knowing the One who hold our future!

    You can also read about what Matt and Cameron have been doing in Papua New Guinea for the last two years on their blog Without a Preacher.  Also please be praying for Zach and Cassidy Cann and Jeremy and Lorie Lehman, their co-workers in Papua New Guinea.  

In His Mighty Grip,

Rachelle