Home never felt sooo good!!!!

I am home from my surgery! I returned home Sunday (9/28) afternoon after a 5 day stay at Ortho Indy Hospital on the NW side. Dr. Riina and his staff did a great job and I thank God for gifting those those people! The hip pain and numbness in my right leg are gone! I obviously have lots of pain from the surgery, but I am excited about the other pain being gone!! Pray for patience and a quick healing process. Also pray for my wife as I will be her patient (or testing her patience) for the next few weeks. She has been great! I could ask God for anything more!

Surgery - 9/24

I would covet your prayers as I will be having a spinal fusion surgery done on Wednesday, 9/24/08. The great people at OrthoIndy will be doing the surgery, but the greater physician, our Lord God Almighty, will be overseeing the surgery. Please pray that everything would go as planned, that God would be glorified through this process, and that I may be an effective witness as I go through this journey. As always, thanks for your prayerful support!

Radio Show Features IRL Ministry

Don Kay's Autosport radio show featured the IRL Ministry during the live show last Tuesday's night at McGilvery's Pub. Check out this link for more info.............. http://www.autosportradio.com/current_show.aspx

2008 Food Totals Are In!

Throughout the season, the IRL Ministry coordinated food pick up and delivery from IRL team hospitalities to shelters local to the tracks. This food was either extra unused food or left over prepared food that would have been thrown away... The total food collected was 63,000 pounds of food!!!!! Praise God!

We also collected between 25-150 pounds of soap each week.

Miami – Community Outreach - 2500 pounds
St. Pete - St. Vincent Depaul - 9200 pounds
Kansas – Kansas City Rescue Mission - 3500 pounds
Indy – Seed of Hope and Wheeler Mission - 4500 pounds
Milwaukee - Family House of Milwaukee and St. Benedict's (www.stbensmilwaukee.org) – 3800 pounds
Texas - Meals On Wheels - 4500 pounds
Iowa - Hope Ministries (www.hopeiowa.org) – 7000 pounds
Richmond - Good Samaritan Ministries – 3500 pounds
Watkins Glen – Salvation Army - 3800 pounds
Nashville - Nashville Rescue Mission – 4500 pounds
Mid Ohio – Bulter Clearfork Nutrition Center, Crossroads Center for Change & Mt. Herman Baptist Church, Harmony House, Salvation Army, Freewill Baptist Church, Heartland Alliance Church – 2500 pounds
Edmonton – Our House - 1200 pounds
Kentucky - Heavens Helping Hands - 1500 pounds
Sonoma - The Christian Help Center in Vallejo Bread of Life Ministries in Vallejo and Casa de Vallejo this is a shelter for the homeless and City Ministries International in San Francisco that feeds the homeless on the streets of SFO - 4,000 pounds
Detroit - Detroit Rescue Mission – 5000 pounds
Chicago – Morningstar Rescue Mission – 2000 pounds

Thanks!!!

To everyone who supported me this past season......
Deatra, Tyler, Reid, Doug, Pingnan, David, Mark, Bob, Hunter, Father Phil, Chris, Sally, William, Andy, Dizmas, IRL Ministry Supporters at Indian Creek, Geoff, Zane, George, Carry, Jimmy, Sarge, Laura, Eddie, Linda, Dan, Amy, Darren, Pam, Rex, Crysty, Rose, Bryan, Henry, Doretha, Kelly & all those of you who prayed and donated!

God Bless you all!

Wow! What a season!

Awesome day today! We had Chapel services in Victory Circle this morning. God gave us an awesome day! We had Andy Schroeder and his family providing the special music. Andy is from my home church, Indian Creek Christian Church (www.thecreek.org). Special thanks to Andy! Jim Evans from Windy City Raceway Ministries (www.wcrm.net) coordinated the food pickup from Morningstar Mission in Joliet (www.morningstarmission.org). We had a great time of prayer before they took the final shipment tonight!

We had a great prayer time with the teams on the grid. I had the opportunity to prayer with some of the safety workers and officials prior to the race. I also had a chance to talk to Len today. Len is the guy who wants to convert me "the other way". I just offered to have the conversation with him at sometime and gave him one of our Racing Daily Bread books. to look over. God will take it form here or provide another opportunity at a later date.

We will have a food ministry updates soon. I will list all the donation weight and locations. Continue to pray for the upcoming study at Vision Racing. Thank you all for your prayers and support this year! Check back for regular updates!

Chicagoland Speedway

Had a good day of practice and qualifying today. I had an opportunity to talk to one of the chef's about his parents who are both suffering from cancer. He has kinda resolved that "whatever happens, happens". I told him that we can pray and it is the kind of faith that the woman that touched Jesus' cloak had when Jesus healed her. He replied that he would think about that and like that way of thinking. Neat time of sharing.......

Also had some time with the crew member who lost his son a few weeks ago. He seemed to be doing better. Please continue to pray for him and his family.

We have a few food pickup logistical problems today. Pray for those to be smoothed out tomorrow. Also pray for our services tomorrow!

God's Plan, Not Ours!

We had a good race yesterday and great Chapel services. The musicians that played for us played jazz Christian music with a piano and a sax... Pretty cool sounds.... We had Chaplain Bob Lewis from the National Guard accompanied us the past couple days. It was awesome to have him there with us. He wanted to help where ever he could. He went with us on the grid for prayer with the teams. He prayed with the Panther Racing, National Guard sponsored team. It was a neat moment!

We had good prayer time with the teams. As the season progresses, they seem to be more and more responsive. It is exiting. I had one guy tell me they wanted me to "bless the car" because ti was cursed. I had another guy approach me after they had crashed out of the race. He said, " I thought you prayed for our team." I responded gently, " sometimes God's plans are necessarily our plans." He agreed and said.... good point..

One race to go one my schedule. Chicagoland Speedway next weekend. Pray we will continue to share Christ. Pray for these crew guys as they are tired. Pray for Chaplain Lewis and all our troops. Pray to do God's plan, not ours. Pray!