In Lumine lately

Here's an update on In Lumine's recent publishing activity:

Over the last month our sales manager Vlada has been transitioning out as she prepares for her wedding and then moving to Russia. We've hired a new sales manager, Olenka who is a member of Christian Bible Church in Chernigov.  It's always fun having new people join our team but we will miss Vlada who was a huge blessing to this ministry.

Our book projects continue their very slow march forward.  The Ukrainian edition of The Jesus Storybook Bible for the Bibles for Orphans project is being printed and should be done in the next week or so.  We are making distribution plans with the organization Ukraine Without Orphans to distribute the books to churches over the summer.  We will also be putting together materials to help the churches' involvement in local distribution of the books to orphans on Orphan Prayer Sunday in November.

Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin is finally going to go to print in July once we finish up some publishing paperwork.  We'll also be printing Randy Alcorn's The Treasure Principle in July if all goes according to plan.

In the queue to go to print are The Purity Principle by Randy Alcorn, a reprint of For Your Joy by John Piper, and finishing the A Book You'll Actually Read series by Mark Driscoll.

In the category of "books we have translated and are preparing for print" we have A Praying Life by Paul Miller, The Gospel as Center edited by Tim Keller and D.A. Carson, and God Focus by Walter Price.

In translation right now are The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, Redemption by Mike Wilkerson, and The Porterbrook Network theological education course.

Our next books will be Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp, Finally Alive by John Piper, and The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler.

In May we were able to give away a few hundred copies of What is the Gospel at a conference for pastors which is something we love being able to do.  We are looking forward to summer conferences where we will be able to give away more books.  

I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of the publishing world in Ukraine, as well as how best to structure things so that we can grow without me overexerting myself. 

Our garden this year

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Spinach

Life lately

Here are some photos from Danny's instagram feed of things we've been up to since we've been back in Ukraine:

Borsch! 

We arrived back in Ukraine just in time for the last of the fruit tree blossoms.

We've been going for walks in the evenings. 

Seedlings for sale in the local market. 

Planting peppers.

Graphic design work for In Lumine.

 While we were in America a friend brought her piano to our house to give it a home for a while. 

A visit from the McNamees.  It started raining so we skipped the bonfire and made do with our stove top for to make s'mores. 

Liese leading worship today at CC Kaharlyk. 

Another of our evening strolls. 

Back in our home

We've been home for a few weeks now and getting into the rhythms of life and ministry in Ukraine.  With my health we've been trying to go slow and ease into things but it has been difficult to not just jump back into the busyness of life when pastoring a church. We forget about all the little things that come up in pastoral ministry until the end of the week when we realize that it is too much.   I did really well for the first couple of weeks with very little head pain and enough energy but after a poor night's sleep on Saturday and preaching on Sunday, I've been feeling poorly today. 

There have been some big changes in our ministry as I've taken over leadership of In Lumine Media.  The overall workload of In Lumine shouldn't be too much, but these last few weeks have been filled with me figuring out everything I need to know about book publishing, business, bookkeeping, etc in order to figure out how we are going to move forward.  I love this ministry and am excited to be a part of it but at the same time I'm worried about how I'm going to balance it with my pastoral responsibilities and the rest I need to recover.  God is teaching me to trust him more in not feeling like I have to always be planning and getting things on track.  I know I don't have to always be thinking about my "to-do" list but often I find it fills my thoughts and keeps me awake.  So slowly I'm learning how let go of things that are in the future. 

Yesterday I preached for the first time in 6 months.  I enjoyed spending time studying all week and teaching the first half of I John 3 (sermon notes are online here if you are interested).   Liese lead worship for the first time in nearly a year (and in my opinion she rocked).

On the one hand it is really good to be home and to be with our friends.  On the other hand I'm still sick, it is hard adjusting to a new workload with In Lumine and the limits of my illness, there are so many things that remind us of the loss and pain of last year, and it has been really hard seeing some of our close friends here going through some very difficult things.   People keep asking if we are glad to be back home and we are still trying to figure out what the answer is. 

Update

We are preparing to head back to Ukraine on the 28th of April and as our time in the US ends we want to bring you all up to date. 

Danny's health has been improving over the last month and we are very thankful for that.  He saw two doctors on the Central Coast and had a bunch more tests done and one of the doctors looked at the test results and said there was nothing out of the ordinary in those results and the other doctor said that one test could show signs of adrenal fatigue.  Since there was nothing else to do we started treating adrenal fatigue and within a few weeks Danny's pain levels went down and his energy levels started to increase.  (wikipedia has information on adrenal fatigue here and it is basically what often is called burn out)  The headaches still come and the fatigue isn't gone but overall there is less pain and less fatigue and for that we are very thankful.  

Our time in the US has been just what we needed.  We were able to spend a lot of time with Liese's family and be a support to them as they were a support to us.  Our friends in NorCal were very encouraging and a huge blessing.  Our time on the Central Coast has been very relaxing and refreshing for us.   Danny's aunt and uncle in Mexico flew us down to visit them and we had a really encouraging time talking with them about life, ministry, missions, and hardships.  We've been able to spend a lot of time with our nieces (both in NorCal and SoCal) which is something we miss, being so far away from them as they grow up.  Time with friends in the SLO area has been great and we are very thankful for all the friends we have.

As we return to Ukraine we will need to reassess various aspects of our lives and ministries that lead to adrenal fatigue and make some adjustments as Danny continues to recover.  It may be a slow road to recovery but things are looking up and we know God has a purpose in all this and is teaching us about ourselves and our relationship with Him.  We are looking forward to getting back home and back to our friends and church in Kaharlyk.

Some photos of what we've been up to

Going on adventures with our niece

Sitting on pyramids in Mexico

Visiting Danny's uncle's church in Cuernavaca and speaking about the gospel and hardships. 

Having way too much fun with these two

Attending CalvarySLO's easter service and sharing about the Bibles for Orphans Project

Enjoying California

Surfing on the weekends

Medical news

It's been a while since we've written anything and mostly because there hasn't been anything much to write about. But last week I saw two doctors, got the results back of a bunch of tests I had done and now I have something to go with.

So between the opinions of the two doctors I saw, I have something between Central Pain Processing Disorder and Adrenal Fatigue.  Central Pain Processing Disorder is the "we've crossed everything else off the list" kind of diagnosis.  Adrenal fatigue comes from my low cortisol readings on an adrenal stress test.  The cortisol readings are just on the edge of being normal, but they are still very low for someone my age and so we are treating adrenal fatigue.  Adrenal fatigue is treatable and I should recover from it in the next few months with the right treatment.  If my cortisol levels go up to normal and I still feel bad all the time then the central pain processing disorder is more likely.

The good news is that for the last three weeks I've had more energy and felt better than I have in a year. The headaches for the most part have gone from being 5 out of 10 on the pain scale to 2 out of 10.  Energy levels have gone up as well, but my stamina hasn't so I still get tired quickly if I'm active.  Because of how I've felt these last few weeks I'm optimistic about treatment and that I'll get back to some sort of normalcy soon.

Introducing: East to Nest

East to Nest is Liese's new Etsy shop!  

While we are here in the States Liese decided to make some nesting doll quilts to sell.  

She's got a couple online, have a look at them (here), they are pretty awesome, and give her shop a like, pinterest pin, facebook share, tweet, or whatever the kids are doing these days.

January

January has just flow by.  I thought we were supposed to be resting and recovering but somehow we are still busy.  But it is a good kind of busy and a low stress kind of busy.

At the beginning of the the month we drove up to Yachats, Oregon where my aunt and uncle live.  They run a vacation rental service called Sea-Nik Vacation Rentals (check them out if you are looking for a place to stay on the Oregon Coast, their houses are awesome) and they generously offered to let us stay in a couple of the places they manage.  That section of the Oregon coast is beautiful, pretty much the Big Sur of Oregon.  While there we got to see some friends and family that came from all over Oregon and I really enjoyed catching up with my aunt and uncle whom I haven't seen in more than 10 years.  

When we got back to Yuba City I went again to the neurologist and talked about my meds and how my pain levels are.  He is treating my headaches like low-level migraines and working on managing the pain and possibly preventing them.  The medication he has me on is working more and more as instead of feeling exhausted and in pain every day I have a few hours of fatigue, and a little pain now and then throughout the afternoon.  Resting and getting on a good sleep cycle is helping a lot but the the underlying issue is still there and my stamina levels have not improved.  I am happy to not be in pain all the time though.  

Right now we are in Goodyear, AZ at my sister's.  We came out to help out as she had some out of town work so we stayed with our niece while my brother-in-law was at work.   So far we've had to endure the first 5 consecutive days of rain in 8 years, 55° temperatures, and watching The Lorax several times.  So, yeah it's been a pretty good trip.  

Sermon notes online

About a month ago a friend suggested that I start putting my sermon notes up online as a way for people to stay in the loop with what is going on in Kaharlyk, get to know our church, and know what we are studying.  Since I write my sermons out in English the notes are pretty much exactly what I preach, which makes it easy to share them.  

So if you are interested click over to dannyfootenotes.com and have a look.  

I've put up all the sermons I preached in 2012 and most of 2011. 

In the spirit of full disclosure I have to admit that Cara Denney has told me for years that I should have a blog called "Foote Notes", so she is to blame thank for the title. 

Onward and upward

New Year's Day is always accompanied by almost everyone everywhere looking back at last year and looking ahead at next and hoping, wishing, proclaiming, exclaiming, and/or stating that next year will be great/better/awesome.

2012 was a rough year for me.  Ok, it was the hardest year of my life.  So I want to look ahead at 2013 and hope that it is better, want it to be better, want it to not be difficult.  Yet as I think and hope I'm stopped by the thought that I'm not in control of my life.  I didn't choose the events of 2012 and I don't get to choose what happens in 2013.  In 2012 I was an adopted child of the King of Kings and in 2013 that is who I will be.  In 2012 I was a redeemed sinner in desperate need of God's grace and nothing has changed on that front.  I belong to God, I have been bought with a price, and what He chooses for my life is not for me to decide.  

I would not have chosen to have daily headaches for a year straight.  I would not have chosen daily fatigue.  I would not have chosen to lose my first son before he was born.  These were very difficult things that made 2012 a hard year and I'm trying to be thankful for them and yet it is difficult to find something to be thankful for in them.  I'm thankful for the amazing friends we have that showed us love and support.  I'm thankful for God's grace to make it through each day.  I'm thankful for the good news of the gospel that lifted my eyes up to see God's mercy in the midst of pain and uncertainty.  I'm thankful for God's unfailing provision in my life.  I'm thankful for my wife and that our marriage stayed strong.  There is much to be thankful for in 2012 but I'm  still learning, or seeking to make sense of what I'm to be thankful for in the painful things.  

God does not promise that everything will be happy and pain free. He promises to conform me into the image of His son that I may be satisfied by the only thing that truly satisfies.  I often want God to do that by giving me good things, happy things, things that cause my heart to soar, my soul to sing.  I want to see sunsets in which his glory is displayed to all of creation. I want to see lives transformed by his grace. I want to abound and overflow in generosity to others.  I want to see the goodness of God in the land and know that He is good and He is the only thing that matters in life.  I want that to be what happens in 2013 but if God has other plans who am I to say what is best? 

Merry Christmas!

To the Mendocino coast

Our friends at Calvary Chapel Gridley pitched in and surprised us with a week's stay at a cabin on the Mendocino coast.  It was a huge blessing and we are so thankful to have such caring friends.

The weather was typical California coastal weather.  We had rain, fog, wind, sun...sometimes in the same day and we enjoyed every minute of it.  The days it rained we just relaxed in our cabin and when it was sunny we walked on the beach and through the redwoods.

Doctors, headaches, and a way forward

Yesterday I had an appointment with a neurologist. After examining me and talking about my symptoms in depth it seems that from a neurological standpoint there is nothing wrong that is causing headaches.  The doctor said the headaches just seem to be chronic low level headaches and the best course is to try to find something that will work as a preventative.  Right now finding something that can prevent them and or take them away is just as big of a goal as finding out the cause of the headaches/fatigue.  So I'm trying a low dose of a medication that has been found to help with migraines and pain associated with nerves.  It should take a while to build up in my system so after a month I'll go see the doctor again and we'll go from there.  

In the mean time we are just resting, spending time with family and catching up with friends in the area.  Also, enjoying 70° days.  California is an amazing place.

our plans for the near future

For the last year I have been getting headaches pretty much every day and they are accompanied by fatigue.  When we were in the USA in January I had a bunch of tests done as well as an MRI to try to figure out their cause but everything showed that my body was fine.  A few months ago I began talking with my co-pastor Wayne about my ability to minister because due to my constant pain I have had to take large steps back from most areas of ministry.  We decided that it would be best if I took several months to rest and seek treatment rather than continue in the state I'm in.

So we have made plans to go to the US for 6 months with the main goals being to find treatment and to rest.  We'll start in northern California where I'm scheduled to see a neurologist and then go from there.  At the end of January we'll go to the central coast and spend 3 months there seeking further treatment if necessary.  We'll most likely be speaking at our home churches but so far we haven't made any concrete plans.

It is going to be hard to be gone from our church and our home for such a long time but we trust God that He is leading us and that in order to be able to continue to live in Ukraine we need to find some sort of treatment for this constant pain.

We'll try to keep this blog updated with progress and anything we find out.