Dear NEO family,

Have you taken time to praise God for His blessings today? Today, we can thank God for sunshine….and for the recent rain. We can rejoice that God is real and really cares about us, and has promised that He will not abandon us. As I count my blessings, my partners in ministry in Northeast Oklahoma are also high on my list!

I want you to share in my joy that the new NEO Website is almost complete. It will soon be switched over to our old web address, but for now it can be found at: http://neonaz.org/. Check it out and let us know any suggestions you have. A HUGE thanks to Ed Phillips, one of the lay leaders at Collinsville, for his work as our webmaster. Ed has voluntarily given his expertise and time and we greatly appreciate it. Gloria McKellips and Vicki Crossland have also worked hard to get info entered on the site.

We rejoice with Rhonda Kyncl of the OU Nazarene Student Center on successfully defending her dissertation a few days ago. She will be graduating on May 15 with a doctorate in English Composition, Rhetoric and Literacy. God has provided a full-time position on the OU campus. She will continue to work at the Writing Center on campus, but she also will be involved new faculty orientation and orientation for all new international graduate teaching assistants. Check out the 2:8 House and the OU Nazarene Student Center at http://www.28house.org/

Jim Kent pulled some ligaments around ribs last week.

Jesse Madaffari will be having double hernia surgery on Friday, May 22.

Ken and Diane Book have resigned from Okmulgee and are moving to Lubbock. Pray for the Books and the Okmulgee church during this time of transition.

Jonathan Martin, son of Phil and Debbie Martin (District NMI President) has been diagnosed with AAT Deficiency-related Emphysema. This is an inherited condition that is usually not diagnosed until a person is in their 30s or 40s. Jonathan has suffered severe damage to one of his lungs and there are signs of damage in the other lung. Specifically, we can pray that his body responds to the treatment. Usually, it is evident in the first transfusion whether the treatment will be effective. For more specific information on this disease, you can go to the website - http://www.alphaone.org/. Siblings Joy and Jarod will also be also be tested to see if they have the same condition.

Word in Due Season (from Family Research Council newsletter)
It was a speech so powerful and uncompromising that those in attendance couldn't help wishing that it had been broadcast to every church in America. With the nation in moral crisis, Christians everywhere are hungry for the kind of spiritual leadership that Archbishop Emeritus Raymond Burke brought to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday. With many from FRC in attendance, one of the most distinguished Catholic leaders delivered a call to conscience that deserves repeating.
"I come to you, not as someone who stands outside of our nation but as a citizen who... takes responsibility for the state of our nation and, therefore, cannot remain indifferent and inactive about what most concerns the good of us all... Over the past several months, our nation has chosen a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn. Our nation, which had its beginning in the commitment to safeguard and promote the inalienable right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" for all, without boundary, is more and more setting arbitrary limits to her commitment... With unparalleled arrogance, our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful... love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society... What those who were so enthused about the strong message of change and hope in the United States, delivered during the last election campaign, are now discovering is a consistent implementation of policies and programs which confirm and advance the culture of death, which can only finally leave our world without the Great Hope... The change which brings hope can only be the renewal of our nation in the divine love which respects the inviolable dignity of every human life...and which creates and gives growth to new human life through the love of man and woman in marriage. Any hope which is incoherent with the Great Hope is truly illusory and can never bring forth justice and its fruit--peace--for our nation and world."

Have a great weekend! You are loved!

Dave