Prayer Request

Calling all saints... A close friend and neighbor of mine (Stef) has just been shockingly diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. He is 36 (that is my age) with 3 kids. He just shared the news on his blog today... here's a taste:

... Sandi and I are not running. We are facing this head on. We are usually people that do things ourselves and handle things on our own. Not this time. We will need to reach out and ask for help. Here is what you can do for us, PRAY!! Pray for patience, strength (mental and physical), wisdom of physicians, and COMPLETE HEALING!!!

He is a leader at church, in the community, at work and at home. But he has been stripped of self-reliance and is reaching out to the body for support. Would you please visit his blog and leave an encouraging comment and then keep him and his family in your prayers!!

(In a related matter I posted Don't Waste Your Cancer from John Piper over at AC180).

Race for a Cure

On Saturday my boys and I walked a mile for Breast Cancer. We took part in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I would never have done it, if it had not been a for a girl in my ministry at church who put Team Joy together in support of her mom... a survivor. So we joined the 125 people of Team Joy and the other 37,276 participants for the festivities.

My boys were excited to be a part of their first "race"... and were quite proud of the 38 minute mile pace that we completed. Not to mention how cool it was to wear race numbers.

I read some interesting stats in today's write-up in the Dispatch:

• The Columbus race raised $2 million
• The Columbus race is the 10th largest in the US.
  
• Columbus has the 4th highest mortality rate from Breast Cancer.
• 28 of 100,000 white women die of the illness.
• 38 of 100,000 black women die of the illness.