We are experiencing God’s grace on a daily basis here in NYC! Thank you for your prayers and ongoing support. A few of the recent exciting happenings.
Much more to come. Pray that we continue to reach new yorkers with the love of Christ.
A good friend and former member of the Gallery Church invited several people to participate in a blog blitz or so I call it where several people blog about “home”. Thanks Elizabeth. This is fun.
Perhaps one of my greatest memories growing up was how we celebrated thanksgiving at my home. It really was amazing. My mom’s three sisters, their husbands, their children, my grandparents, and a close family friend couple would come over and spend the night. We’re talking 21 people as the norm. My cousins and I loved watching wrestling and often ordered the pay-per-view special that night (wrestling has dramatically changed these days). Back then Hulk Hogan was still telling us to say our prayers and take our vitamins. We had so much fun doing things like playing Monopoly until 2 in the morning (thanks Aunt Brenda). One of my most vivid memories would be having a fire burning in the fireplace, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade while eating a big breakfast. Often times Thanksgiving Morning fell a few days before the big slumber party. Either way, whether it was Thanksgiving morning or the evening of the big family slumber party I was always perfectly happy that I was home. Safe. Secure. Loved. Family together. Home. It is hard to put into words how cool it is to have the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in our back yard errr city. Cool doesn’t really describe what it does for me. The Parade heightens my memories of Thanksgiving and feels as though it transports me to the past in such powerful and nostalgic way. It is crazy that such a trivial thing as a parade can have such an emotional impact on my thinking…but it really does energize me and flood my heart with joy as I remember my family and all the amazing times we had together.
Shifting gears…It is always interesting leaving TN (where home was/is for me) for NYC and saying something to Jack about going home. I usually get tickled. It is still a little awkward calling NYC home around our family in TN because that is not their reality. But calling TN home wouldn’t really make any sense to Lillie, Elliott, and Jack.
When we think past the minuscule blip of history that is this present world is in light of eternity, “home” takes on a whole new perspective. We are all too often blinded to the reality of eternity. In our blindness we seek to construct, create or cultivate the most comfortable earthly homes and wonder when are hearts seem so restless. Isn’t home where we ought to be able to rest? Yet in the most wonderful homes there is a lingering homesickness for another place. Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah all knew they had no home here. They “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth…seeking a homeland…desiring a better country…a heavenly one…a city God was preparing for them.” Hebrews 1:4-16 We too, as we celebrate the holidays going “home” or leaving “home” or trying to figure out where “home” now is, must remember as Stephen Curtis Chapman penned, “We are not home yet.”
A home full of hope awaits all those who put their hope in the one who has promised to go and prepare a home for us with many rooms. We are not home yet.
Gospel Encounters - George from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.
an email I just received from Corey…
All,
Elias Gregory Boyd was born at Gateway Hospital at 11:07pm October 5, 2009! He weighs 7 lbs 13 oz and is 20.5 inches long. Leann did a wonderful job and there were no complications.
I know some of you didn’t even know we were pregnant again, but I am excited, so I am emailing everybody. Ezra is almost 2 now and is eager to meet his new brother “Dias.”
If you are in Clarksville and would like to visit us at the hospital, please wait till Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
I will head back to NYC on the 12th. Leann will follow with the boys about a week later.
Thank you to those of you who prayed for us tonight. God has provided again! He shall continue to do so for those of us who trust Him.
God Bless,
Corey and Leann Boyd
Yeah and pray for little Ezra too. Leann is being induced right now in Clarksville, TN. She is very nervous. Join with me in praying for her, Corey and little Elias on the way.
It is hard to put words to how precious Corey and Leann have been to me and Susan and valuable to the mission and work in NYC. We look forward to this family of four returning healthy and happy to NYC.
Please pray for a smooth delivery.
Thanks!
We’ve talked with The Boyd’s a lot lately about the purging process of many of our material things that we’ve been through as we’ve moved to NYC. The process is rather refreshing to the soul, though sometimes it is very difficult to do. Moving into tiny spaces in urban settings like NYC forces a purging of earthly treasures stuff. My friend Liz Lockwood recently tweeted about Noel Piper’s recent purging and a list of lies that keep us from a purging process. Read, identify and enjoy…
I’m so grateful for initiatives like this, that can contribute to a church planting movement in NYC! Thanks for partnering with us SEBTS!
It has been a long, long, but good day. We rose early this morning…and the last drink Jack could have was @ 7am. No food this morning was allowed. There is much I could share by way of details on the day, but really am too tired to type it all out. The waiting to go into surgery was tough. Had to be there @ 9, we got there a little early. Surgery was scheduled for 10:30, but Jack didn’t get in there till closer to 12:30. Long day of waiting. Jack did amazing, never asked for anything to drink or eat, until he saw the water fountain around Noon…and that was probably more him wanting to play with the water than to drink it. The surgery went very well. Dr Waner and his team are amazing; his maker far more. Jack has to wear these little arm braces to keep his hands away from his face so he doesn’t play with his stitches. Once we convinced him they were robot arms he was surprisingly okay with wearing them. Though his lip is and will be swollen for several days, his smile is remarkably beautiful. You can see all his teeth and there is no big bump popping out. I was so happy seeing that. They are running a biopsy on the legion they removed from under his lip. Thank you for praying with us through this. We have felt your prayers…and the fact that Jack was singing his songs tonight is the fruit of so many of your sweet prayers. Thank you!
Very early in little Jack’s life we noticed that his top lip had a little bump or growth of some kind on it. When he was a little over a year old upon our pediatrician’s recommendation in Tennessee, we took Jack to a doctor at Vanderbilt. He told us that the bump on Jack’s lip was a vascular malformation and recommended us to a doctor that was in New York City, Dr. Milton Waner. We were living in Clarksville, TN at the time and could not afford the flights or out of network surgery at the time. In God’s providence a year later, we find ourselves living in New York and were able to walk down the street to Dr. Waner’s office. Our understanding of the caliber doctor that Dr. Waner is has been growing ever since we heard of him and we are so grateful that he will be operating on Jack in the morning. After looking at Jack’s lip just for a moment, he turned to me and said that he didn’t know what it was, but that it needed to be removed, and that they’d take it to the lab and see what exactly it was. He said that it was probably either a cyst on a saliva gland or possibly a hemangioma. In short our time with Dr. Waner and his office has been amazing. They have been the most compassionate and seemingly competent physicians I have been around. Very comforting for a parent.
Jack’s surgery is in the morning @ 10:30am. Thank you for your prayers for him. Below are a few links of videos and articles about some of Dr. Waner’s work.
Dr. Waner video on the early show http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/26/earlyshow/series/main602359.shtml
New York Times article about Dr. Waner
Our God is amazing at how He gifts men and women like Dr. Waner!