Hands Headlines

We’re just catching up on posting a few family birthday photos. Addison turned 6 in March. And Toby turned 4 a couple days ago. We had his birthday party with a “Cars Theme.”

Addison lost her first tooth just a couple weeks before her birthday. She lost her second tooth while we were at Sea World on her birthday celebrating:

After returning home from a day at Sea World, we had cake! Have you ever seen a Shamoo cake before?

Toby had his party at home with many good friends. Games, pinata, presents . . . good times!

Of course Toby got a custom cake, too:

This dog’s a runnin ragged. . . are we?

Life sometimes seems like a blur. Much of this blur is normal life - especially with kids - and we enjoy normal. Yet, there are days we just need a break!

Pray for Shannon and I to be refreshed and get some rest from the previous few months. This current season has been quite busy - almost overwhelming - with family and ministry going full speed ahead. Part of it is just the phase of life we are in with three young kids and home school. Children and life bring surprises - like trips to the ER with a broken arm. Also, we’ve done some extended traveling the past six months with family and ministry.

Another side is just finding balance to all of the great opportunities around us to serve the Lord - parts of our ministry are exploding in growth and we literally can’t keep up. Pray that Shannon and I would spend adequate time together and that the Lord would supply down time as well.

We continue to need your prayers for the Lord to deeply sustain and guide us.

Jerry Lee is Shannon’s Mom. Here she is with Toby at Christmas.

Back in October we spent several weeks in Virginia with Shannon’s family. Her mom spent 27 days in the hospital undergoing two major surgeries and other procedures to repair a failing lung. We can’t thank you enough for all your prayers - a real lifeline - during that time.

Her recovery has been slow but thankfully she is steadily regaining more respiratory capacity! Shannon’s parents were even able to come spend a week with us in February.

During Jerry Lee’s hospital stay, Shannon’s grandmother was also temporarily hospitalized with congestive heart failure. She was able to return home living with Shannon’s mom and dad. Last month she celebrated her 80th birthday. Please continue to lift up Shannon’s mom and grandmother. Thank you!

Usually it’s a bad sign when law enforcement has to be called in to physically remove one of your neighbors. But in this case, it was a very good thing. In fact, I have no problem that they even used deadly force to take him down. I hope you’d say the same thing if your neighbor was an 11 foot gator!

About 9 months ago I had a near collision with another neighborhood gator. (Read here) But this fellow had reportedly been reclusive but entrenched in our neighborhood ponds for over two years. He was finally spotted again on Monday in plain view in the parking lot at CCCI Headquarters where we work. Shannon and the kids had even walked through this parking lot an hour or so before he was sighted.

As you can see from the photos below, this gator was big enough to consume my family for breakfast. Emphasize was. He’s no longer with us:

Click and follow the link below to view the photos taken of the eliminated neighbor.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tom.yohe/LakeHartAlligator

Magdalena - Released from Shame

Learn more about “Magdalena - Released from Shame.” This is a new version of the Jesus Film.

Great Report from the Field See video footage from a film team in South America who captured women’s responses after watching Magdalena.

Stories of how the Lord is using the Magdalena Movie:

• Nearly 350 inmates gathered to watch the movie in a women’s prison in Central Asia. After watching the film, nearly 60 percent of these female inmates raised their hands, indicating decisions to accept Christ! One Central Asian ministry worker shared the story of a prisoner: “There was a woman who killed 42 people. And then she watched the film and she cried. God opened her heart. There are a thousand like her, millions like her, waiting for Jesus.”

• The Magdalena movie made its U.S. debut at the United Nations! It was an invitation only event for UN Ambassadors and their immediate family. Among those in attendance (actually they were the first couple to arrive at the UN Theater) were the Iraqi Ambassador and his wife! Many ambassadors were deeply moved.

• After watching the movie premiere for the in his country, one well known Muslim journalist commented, “I know now that Jesus is my Savior. He set me free. Thank you that you saved me from suicide.”

• The Lord has opened doors to allow the movie to be shown in public theaters in several Islamic dominant countries. The movie is shown in Arabic. During almost every showing, tickets are sold out and ever theater is packed!

• Read how one woman was touched when she watched Magdalena in our neighborhood. (see Hands Headlines print edition for April ‘08)

** To read many more incredible stories from the field, download this story sheet. It gives brief praise updates from 12 different countries where the movie has premeried. Each one tells of an incredible work of God and will deeply encourage you!

The “land down under” - a vast area of outback territory with kangaroos and koala bears. It’s a popular vacation spot but also a dry and thirsty land spiritually. Only 3% of the population would consider themselves as connected to any Christian church. Most likely even fewer have a growing personal relationship with Jesus.

Campus Crusade’s missionary staff in Australia and New Zealand have invited Shannon and I to serve at their annual conference September 23 - 28.We’re very excited about the opportunity to come alongside these 170 or so staff and hear what their needs are for Internet ministry and communication systems.Most of our time will be spent interviewing the staff, learning what existing systems they have, determining what technical requirements are needed for growth of their ministries and offering training and implementation for the global systems our team has already developed.

 Please pray for our travel and the conference . . .

•    Lift up our children - staying the whole week we’re gone with the grandparents (Eads family).  Pray for wisdom and perseverance of the grandparents, too!
•    Ask that we’ll not be too jet lagged in order to serve well at the conference. We arrive on Sept 23rd after 21 hours of air travel and a shift of 15 hours in time zones!
•    That God will be greatly glorified through the conference and the Australian and New Zealand staff would be even further grateful to reach out in Kingdom service.

A while back the Hand family adopted a practice which helps us remember you in prayer. Your name - along with the names of all of our ministry partners - is on a strip of paper in a bowl that sits beside our dinner table. Before every meal, one of the kids selects (at random) someone to pray for. The Lord reminds us of how grateful we are for your partnership with us and this is another way we can connect with you. Since you are truly a partner in our ministry, it’s our privilege to lift you up! Recently we’ve been reminded that you may have some specific prayer needs which we can lift up for you.

Our training events in Colorado went very well. We made it home just fine after 4,000 miles and a couple dozen photos. Here are just a few from the trip:

The video only takes 3 minutes to watch in entirety. It was created by CommonCraft. You can view the original on the CommonCraft site or read a transcript of the video.

This is the BEST NON-TECHNICAL EXPLANATION of how to stay updated on your favorite web sites. If you have ever wished, “Boy, I wish there were a simple way that my favorite web site would notify me whenever they post new stuff,” then this video is for you!

It explains how to use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to stay updated. Almost all new web sites are offering free RSS Feeds (or syndications).

RSS Subscription Feed for HandsHeadlines.com is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HandsHeadlines

Why not use what you learn in the video above to stay updated on HandsHeadlines.com? It’s one of your favorite sites, I’m sure!

Again, the video is super simple. It’s called “RSS in Plain English.” This is not for geeks. Normal people will like it.

If you are thinking, “I just want to stay updated by email, that’s all.” Then there is a different free service you may want to check out offered by a web site called FeedBlitz.com See our post about it here.

Day #4 on the road to Colorado:

WELCOME TO TEXAS! There’s not a font large enough to capture the spirit of the signage you see entering the Lone Star State. “Don’t Mess with Texas” is one visible tag line you see quite a bit.

Everything in Texas is big. And Texas itself is big. Real big. Even the pancakes we had for breakfast we about big enough to sink a battleship. (See below) Oh yeah, and just so ya know: the flapjacks pictured below were ordered off of the kids menu!! After 90 minutes, we collectively were able to finish about two of them!

We had a great time visiting with some long-time friends in Denton: Ross and Christy Bryant and daughters Rebekah (not pictured) and Reece. Shannon met Christy when they were both students on a Campus Crusade summer project.