Update on Mike

Mike had surgery today at 2pm to insert 10 coils to fix and repair the area where he had the aneurysm. They weren't even sure that he would make it through the surgery. Well, the doctor came out of the surgery and told his wife, Cindy that he had a perfect surgery!!! Everything went perfect!! He expects that Mike will have a full recovery!! How amazing is our God?? He has healed Mike and given the doctors wisdom to complete this surgery perfectly. Yesterday he was given a 1% chance to live, saying that he wouldn't make it through surgery. Now, he has made it through and is already trying to communicate with family. Please continue to pray for Mike over the next 48 hours as they are still critical.
I am off to bed, but I just wanted to update and let you know the progress of Mike!!!

Keep praying for Mike! It's so amazing to see how God works and how He answers prayers!

Urgent Prayer Request...

I promise that next week, things will be back to normal and I will be back to writing better posts that have more interesting things to say. I am home for a day from traveling, so I don't have a lot of time to write...but I do have a serious prayer request:

A good friend of our family, Mike Benson had a brain aneurysm on Monday and is in critical condition in the hospital. They are possibly going to do be doing surgery today. Please pray for him, his wife, Cindy, and his two sons, Brent and Drew. It breaks my heart. Please pray for this family. Pray that God gives the doctors wisdom to know how to handle Mike's situation as each moment his life is in danger. Ask that God gives Cindy, Brent and Drew a peace that only God can give.

Thank you friends!!!

More from me soon!!!

Weekend Adventures, Birthdays, Housework and more...

Well..I have almost let a whole week go by without an update...so I thought I would take a few minutes and let you know how the weekend went! I had a wonderful time at each stop of my adventurous weekend. It was like I told Clark, if I could have done each event without the driving in between it would have made it so much better!!! I had such a great time teaching those precious little children how to write Chinese. I was a bit nervous because I haven't ever taught anyone how to write Chinese, but they did an amazing job and I was so proud of them! And then the other 3 events on my schedule went well and I just had a great time! :) At each church, it was just amazing to see how Father wanted each person to be there and to hear what He was doing overseas and allow them to challenged. I love to see how He works!!!

I thought I would give you an update on my "birthday week" as well!! Today is my birthday if anyone out in the blogging world didn't know, but because of the busy lives we lead, I decided that I needed to celebrate it more than one day. So, I began with the cake. I wanted a cookie cake for my birthday. But I knew that I would have to eat it with other people because if Clark and I had a cookie cake with just us, we would eat the WHOLE thing! So, on Tuesday night after Club (our Young Life meeting) we went over to our friend, Donnie's house to join our 24 group. Now, many of you may be asking what is our 24 group? Well, a group of us love to wind down after our club meetings by watching 24, our favorite, most addicting show!! But it doesn't come on until the spring, so we watch old seasons! So, we are on Season 3 (I haven't seen it) and so we watch1-2 episodes a week. So, I chose to have my cake there and celebrate with my 24 friends. (I have pictures, but I left my camera at Donnie's house so I will have to add them later!) Then yesterday, Clark gave me my birthday present! Yay for presents! :) I got an I-pod Nano. I have been wanting on of these, because I thought it would be very useful and practical when we travel back overseas instead of trying to carry all of my Cd's with me. So, I was very excited, it's so cute and a pretty blue!! Then last night, we went to eat Indian food (our favorite place to go when we are celebrating something special!) and then to see a movie. And then today, we went out to eat with the in-laws. I chose Japanese food for the occasion. I am trying to get in each of the Asian countries! :) So, overall my birthday week has been great!!!
I am gearing up for another busy week next week, trying to take a few days to catch up on things. Today I am trying to relax and read a great book that my wonderful friends, Rob and Jenn got me (What is a Healthy Church? By Mark Dever) If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, it is excellent!!!! And then tomorrow, I will do the housework that is calling my name......

Busy Weekend Ahead...

Friends...I have a very busy weekend ahead of me, I just wanted to ask you to keep me in your prayers...on Sautrday, I am leading a part of a children's conference. On Sunday, I am going to be at a church and on Monday another church and Tuesday another church and finishing it off with a YoungLife event Tuesday night! Please just ask that I will do it all in the Lord's strength and not my own! :) Also pray for Clark as he heads to a retreat for leaders of YoungLife (I am also going to try to make part of that retreat in the midst of all my travels!) I will give my weekly update after the weekend :) So...don't worry, I won't be gone for long (not like last time when we were gone to YoungLife camp for 3 months!! :)

Recap on the weekend...

So...to update on on the weekend....man, how do the weekends always get so busy?? I was so excited that we were going to have a weekend with nothing to do but just stay around the house and then next thing you know, there is something to do here and then there and then there and then the whole weekend is full!! I guess I should know that is how Clark and I are, always busy!! So, on Friday, we headed down to Andalusia to see St. James (a school here in Montgomery) play football and they lost, but we had a great time. We got to see a lot of our students and we got to see our nephew, so that was lots of fun. On the way home, we got lots of good talking time, which I always enjoy!! On Saturday, I woke up early and worked out and came home and Clark and met some friends for lunch and headed to the Huntingdon football game. We have a friend who plays on the team and so we went to watch him play. He did a great job, way to go Will!! After that, Clark and I came home to celebrate our anniversary! :) He took me out to eat out our favorite restaurant, Jubilee. The best seafood place ever!! Then we went walking in a beautiful park here in Montgomery, it was such a nice night. We walked all over and just talked and had a great time being together. We went and got a movie and came home to watch it and ended up watching the Auburn game (not so sure that was the best idea!) On Sunday, we went to church, ate lunch with his parents and then had a Journey of Prayer. All of the Young Life leaders went around to 3 schools representing all of the schools in Montgomery and prayed over them, it was so awesome to be able to stand on those campuses and pray over those students and administration as they have begun their school year. Oh that God would be seen there!! And then to end a great weekend we went to a 16th birthday party for one of our friends!! It was lots of fun! :) Now...if you are still reading about our weekend...yay for you! :) I have always wondered if people really wanted to hear about our weekend, so I thought, well I will write about it for once and we will see. I don't know, I always like to read about other people's weekend's, so maybe people will want to read about ours!! Who knows? :) I hope you all have a great week!!!

One year ago yesterday...

One year ago yesterday Clark and I were saying our vows to spend the rest our lives together as husband and wife!! I can't believe that a year has past by so quickly. We have learned so much about each other and learned to love each other more each day. What a great year its been. Today I thought I would leave you with the card that I gave Clark for our anniversary...it made me laugh because so much of it I am afraid that I am guilty of doing :)

Happy Anniversary to My Husband

I've stole the covers till your froze

changed my hair, my shoes, my clothes

I've lost it when I'm PMS-ing

May have nagged when I'm obsessing

I've run up hefty shopping bills

and critcized your driving skills

So, I think it's time to say to you

Hey I'm your wife, that's what I am to do! :)

I hope that made you laugh as much as it did me!!! :)

This is year our prayer is that we would continue to make God the center our marriage and continue to be refined to be more like His Son!

My Prayer....

Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes all my own desires and hopes and accept thy will for my life. I give myself, my time, my all utterly to thee to be thine forever. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit. Use me as thou wilt, send me where thou wilt, work out thy whole will in my life at any cost now and forever.
Prayer by Betty Scott Stam

No worries....Seek Him First...

Last night I was laying in bed and reading a book about Gladys Aylward, someone called to China back in the early 1900's. I was readng about all that she went through to get to China. Such a different process than Clark and I are going through right now to get back to overseas. Through this whole process, I have been such a worrywort, thinking there is no way that any of this will work out. If something happens than that means that it has put us back and we aren't going to go. Looking at the life of Gladys Aylward gave me such encouragement to look to God above all. Despite wearing the same clothes for 5 1/2 weeks, sleeping out in the snow in Russia (where she should have died!), almost beaten up, almost kept by the Russians and not allowed into China, she looked to God to get her to China and He was faithful to do that. God used so many people and events to get her to the place where He wanted her to serve. And as I read this story about this woman so faithful, I thought, why can't He do the very same thing for me and Clark? He can and He will. But first and for most, I must keep my eyes on Him!! I am reminded of the verse in Matthew that we have heard oh so many times, in chapter 6, verse 33: seek FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

Will you please pray for me? My faith hasn't been what it should be at all. Clark constantly tells me, "Laura, if God wants us back in China, He will get us there. He will put everything into place to get us back there." But I keep thinking that I need to "do" something to make it happen. Last night was such a neat eye opening for me to see that God works today just like He did in Gladys Aylward's life.

Marriage

With our first annivesary quickly approaching, I have found myself reflecting over this past year and how we have felt like our marriage has been. Oh my, oh so different than I thought marriage could ever be. If you would have asked me when I was in my early 20's, I would have had a completely different answer than I do now after completing this first year. I think that I read too many novels and watched too many romantic movies. I had this idealistic picture that everything would be this romantic sweet perfect picture and it is just not like that. And who would want it like that? Marriage is a give and take relationship. It is about thinking of someone else before yourself. It is definitely one of the hardest and best things that I have had to go through and wouldn't change it for anything in this world. I know that Clark and I still have a long way to go in learning and figuring things out about each other and I am thankful that we can grow and learn together. I am thankful that God created marriage and may our goal continue to be one of a picture of Christ and the church. Oh that others would see that as they look at our marriage!

The Song at the Bottom...

I was looking around online today and I found this song by Ketih Getty (the one who wrote In Christ Alone) and I loved it so much that I put it on my blog! I loved the words and it was so powerful and challenging to me that I wanted it to stay on my blog for a while...so take a minute, scroll down to the bottom and let God challenge you with these powerful words...be ready to be changed my friends....ah..let God take the knife and put it in the sin that is in our hearts so that it might be put to death and so that we might live free in Christ!!!

Blogging Absence...

Okay...so I guess we have been going to Young Life Camp a little too long haven't we? I must admit, I haven't been too good at this whole blogging thing as if you haven't noticed? That is if if I even have any blog friends left reading this ole blog! :) I honestly don't know what happened to me! I think that it has come down to complete laziness. I would come to the computer in the morning, check everyone else's blog, see what is going on in their lives, next thing you know, I don't have time to write on my own blog, or I don't even know what to say! I turn off the computer and say, tomorrow, I will write...and then the next day, it starts all over. And then the next day comes. It happens day after day that I begin to get embarrassed that we are still at Young Life camp :) So...I apologize and let me start afresh and hopefully I will be better about updating you all with what is going on in the Forman household.

We desperately need your prayers as we are seeking God with what He has planned for us next and it has been a hard past two months, good but hard!! We have continued moving foward with the process of going back to China. We are starting the paperwork and trying to get everything checked off so that nothing remains undone by the due date of October 16th. Pray with us that we will use our time wisely and prayerfully answer all of the questions and fill out all of the paperwork and that I won't nag at Clark to get it done and not procrastinate! :)
We have also gotten back into full swing of things with Young Life which keeps us pretty busy!! Between visting students at schools, going to football games, practices, hanging out with them and being apart of their lives, and making time for ourselves, we barely have time to breathe!! We love it and love being apart of their lives, pray that God will remain at the forefront of all of this, we can get so caught up in doing that we forget to bask in Him!

And hopefully, I will be adding more pictures soon....my parents took Clark and I to Biltmore Estate this past weekend and we took lots of pictures!! But they were on my parents camera. So my mom has to send them to me...so once I get them, I will add them on here!!!

Until then....thank you again for faithfully praying for us..... God is a God of peace......