December Mourning...D.O.T.S.
December 2015: Dark. Dreary. Dismal. Although festive Christmas lights brightened the evenings, day after day cloudy skies reigned. No white sparkling snow. No blue skies. No sunshine.  Tragically on December 14, our son’s friend’s father committed suicide.  And a few days later, one of our friends, who had 2 young children, after only a 2 month diagnosis, lost her battle with cancer.  Now the darkness and drear penetrated not only the skies, but also our hearts! “Not now. This is the worst time of year for this, “ we cried.  But as I read this comforting verse, “He  (God) will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4, I realized,  especially now, with the Savior’s birth, we are comforted with God’s peace and hope, even in the face of death.  As I read with my son, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson, I was reminded again of how Jesus comes to earth, not in the perfection of flawless hair and clothes or shiny clean faces, but in the muck and mire of the stable. In the same way, Christ comes into the muck and mire of grief at Christmas time. And on Christmas Day, Pastor Paul Garchow declared, “Just as surely as there is an expiration date on the mayonnaise jar in your refrigerator, there is an expiration date on suffering! Christ’s coming to this earth as our Savior guarantees that when Christ comes again there will be no more suffering!”  So even as we grieve losses in December, we are reminded that suffering will not last forever. No matter how dark or dreary some days may seem, the Christmas reality truly brings hope and light for those depending on the Savior.

You are invited to

“D.O.T.S.” Depending on the Savior,

Women’s Event,

Saturday, April 23, 2016, 8 am-12pm

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 210 S. Ringold St. Janesville, WI

Revelation 21:1-5 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”  

On your mark. Get set....GO! December Exercise Encouragement

This blog post first appeared on Concordia Publishing House blog on November 23, 2015:

http://www.cph.org/b-246-ten-tips-for-increasing-physical-activity-during-advent.aspx

Ten Tips for Increasing Physical Activity during Advent

Karen Sue Murdy

Nov 23, 2015

Everyday Faith

There are a lot of extra distractions this time of year. As you jump into Advent, preparing to celebrate our Savior’s birth, incorporate these ideas to overcome some of those distractions and enjoy the benefits of exercise!

1. While Christmas shopping, take an extra lap or two around the mall or store.
2. Try to get the most steps out of usual daily activities. For example, use stairs instead of elevators, and park as far away from the door as possible to get extra steps walking back and forth to your car each day. If your time for exercise is limited, increase your intensity. Instead of walking one mile in twenty minutes, power walk it in fifteen minutes, jog it in twelve minutes, or run it in eight minutes. 
3. Laugh and make memories with your family. Turn on Christmas music each evening and dance around your Christmas tree. This is one of my favorite Advent memories. Moving to the music with my four little boys each evening burned off some of their extra energy and my extra Christmas calories, in addition to restoring some sanity to my home.
4. Make your exercise time your prayer time too. Pray for each family member. Pray for difficult relationships. Pray that God will give you a forgiving heart. Pray that the Christ Child will be at the center of your heart. Thank God for the blessings of each day, of the Advent season, of the fulfilled promises of our Savior.
5. Instead of meeting with friends for a holiday lunch or dinner date, don walking shoes and pick a place filled with Christmas lights to explore on foot.
6. Combine physical exercise and Bible listening time. Download a Bible app or devotional app on your mobile device. Go for a walk or run while listening to a book of the Bible such as Luke or Matthew as you prepare your heart for the celebration of Christ’s arrival. Or listen while exercising at a health club.
7. Utilize your exercise time for stress management. Play your favorite Christmas music. Inhale fresh air as you enjoy some outside exercise minutes. 
8. Walk around your neighborhood with your family. As you walk, share Christmas joy with your neighbors by dropping off a small present (fresh fruit, a favorite book, a “coupon” to shovel the driveway, etc.). Invite your neighbors to Advent and Christmas worship services with you.
9. Every Saturday or Sunday, examine your calendar for the following week and schedule an exercise time every day. Even if you can’t get forty-five minutes a day, schedule at least a few minutes each day. Download and print off a monthly exercise log (like this one: http://wheatridge.org/logs) and hang it on your bathroom mirror. Each day in December, record your exercise minutes.
10. On Black Friday or Cyber Monday, buy yourself an Advent present: a Fitbit or other exercise step counter. Having a step counter increases motivation for exercise. Invite other people to be part of your Fitbit circle of friends.

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Don't forget on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, or anytime in December buy your fitbit pedometer or other step counter!  My patients prefer a waist step counter to the wrist one.

What are your best ways to keep up with your physical activity and exercise during busy and cold months?

Speaking of September, heading back to school and new books, here is a lovely summary of our incredible family mission trip this spring! A special thanks to Concordia Gospel Outreach for the many delightful books they donated!

(Originally posted at http://sites.cph.org/cgo/field-stories-comayagua-honduras.asp May 2015 written by Barbara Shippy.)

A Wisconsin Family Shares the Gospel and God’s Love in the “City of Refuge”

It’s a long way from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Comayagua, Honduras, especially when you’re a family of four traveling with two hundred (and one) pounds—four suitcases packed to the max—of medical supplies and Spanish Arch Books, coloring books, and Bible stories.

In early March 2015, Karen Sue Murdy, her husband David, and two of their four sons, Daniel and Sam, traveled from wintery Wisconsin to lush, green, hot Honduras for a weeklong mission trip in the City of Refuge.

The City of Refuge began as an orphanage and a bilingual school for abandoned and orphaned children. The City of Refuge has grown to include accommodations for missionaries and visiting mission teams, a medical clinic, a bakery, farmland, a retail center, ponds, soccer fields, and even a water park—all of which are used to help the City of Refuge be self-sustaining. By renting out the water park and the soccer fields, using proceeds from the bakery, and teaching children how to grow food, the City of Refuge is providing hope and a future for those they serve—the children, the widows, and the poor.

Before the Murdys left for Honduras, Karen Sue reached out to the full-time missionaries at the City of Refuge to ask what materials they needed most. In addition to medicine, the greatest need was Spanish books. While the orphanage had received “tons and tons” of English books, they were in desperate need of books in the people’s native language.

There to help out in the medical clinic and to spend time with the children in the orphanage, Karen Sue and her family immediately went to work interacting with the children and treating patients, using the supplies they carried with them all the way from Janesville, Wisconsin.

Concordia Gospel Outreach donated a variety of Spanish books, including Arch Books and coloring books, for Karen Sue and her family to use on their mission trip to Honduras in March 2015.

David, a physician, and Karen Sue, with her background in medicine as an exercise physiologist, worked together in the clinic to treat high blood pressure, pneumonia, allergies, joint ailments, and many other conditions. Daniel and Sam spent a lot of time interacting with the children in the classrooms and coloring with them in the Spanish coloring books that shared the message of Jesus Christ.

And while the Murdy family had to rely on their actions to be a witness of Christ’s love, the Spanish books donated by Concordia Gospel Outreach were essential to helping them share the Gospel message in the language the children and adults understood.

“It was a very exciting day when the books arrived from Concordia Gospel Outreach,” says Karen Sue. “Going over there, we wondered what impact we could really make not being able to speak much Spanish at all.”

But Karen Sue said the impact of the Spanish Arch books, coloring books, and Bible stories was immediate and wide-spread, among both the children and the adults. She recalls some of the most memorable moments being a forty-five-year-old woman reading the story about Jesus’ resurrection to her mother and a young girl reading stories to the other children.

A woman reads Libros Arco: Mi libro de Pascua (Arch Books: My Happy Easter Book) to her mother while waiting at the medical clinic in the City of Refuge.

Karen Sue said her boys commented on how the people they witnessed to had seemingly nothing, especially compared to life in the United States, and yet those people were so happy. She said the experience gave her children a new perspective on life and reminded them that what really matters is your faith and the importance of sharing that faith with others.

“For us, it was so awesome to have the books,” says Karen Sue. “Because even though we couldn’t speak the language, I knew the books had the message I wanted to share, and it was in the language they understood.”

Karen Sue sits with children at the orphanage and reads through some of the Spanish books donated by Concordia Gospel Outreach.

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For City of Refuge, and for many other organizations operating in Spanish-speaking countries, there is a great need for Christ-centered Spanish materials to use in the mission field. Concordia Gospel Outreach is able to send the Gospel all over the world because of the generous support of our donors. Every penny of every dollar you donate goes toward sharing the Gospel with someone who might never know Jesus. We encourage you to partner with us in this important work.

MAKING THE MOST OF 2% Especially During Times of Upheaval

(Originally posted April 23, 2015  http://www.wheatridge.org/making-the-most-of-2/)

Time.  Twenty-four hours a day, the amount of time each person has each day whether rich or poor, young or old, couch potato or marathon champion.  For most people, 24 hours is too short to complete all they desire to do.  “Not enough time,” people moan and give as a common excuse for not exercising. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends between 150-300 minutes (midpoint 225 mins) of exercise per week for important health benefits.  Of the total 10,080 minutes available per week, 225 minutes of exercise time is only about 2% of the total time.

Early morning walkers at an LEA Convocation

What about spiritual exercise – time reading the Bible, praying, group Bible study, community worship? Although there are no specific spiritual exercise guidelines like there are for physical exercise, a spiritual exercise guideline could include 15 minutes daily of personal Bible reading and prayer, 60 minutes per week of group Bible study, and 60 minutes a week of church worship for a total of about 225 minutes per week.  Still, that’s approximately just 2% of the whole week.

In spite of these both only being about 2% the time in each week, many people struggle with finding time for spiritual and physical exercise.  How can churches encourage people to be successful with both physical and spiritual exercise?  Perhaps bringing together physical and spiritual exercise would be helpful.

Here are some idea starters for combining spiritual and physical exercise:

• Encourage individuals to listen to Bible readings and/or sermons on their phone or iPod while walking, running, or even exercising at a health club.
• Host aerobics, Zumba, or other exercise classes with praise music in the church multipurpose room.
• Install a prayer labyrinth on church property for members to walk and pray.
• Offer active games and activities for all ages (not just kids) at church picnics and events.
• Instead of mailing invitations to church events (such as VBS) to neighbors, divide up into teams and deliver them by hand.
• When visiting shut-ins and elderly, ask if you may take them for a walk outside (if they are wheel-chair bound, offer to push!)
• “Pray What You See” by walking your neighborhood and praying for the needs around you (Read how God has responded to Pastor Chris Paavola who is doing this as he plants a church in St. Louis)
• Extra Credit: Encourage church meetings to be held walking around a room instead of sitting (Lower blood pressure, calmer tempers, and increased productivity just might be the outcome of such a meeting!)

These are just a few ways churches have sought to combine spiritual and physical fitness. Which of these ideas might work in your church? What other ideas do you have?

For exercise resources, please check out wheatridge.org/logs

March Madness: Barriers to Exercise

Skill, strength, stamina describe the enviable characteristics of the basketball players of March Madness. But the biggest gains in health benefits happens when people move from "couch potato" to the next level of fitness. So never fear, you too, can advance toward March Madness. My mantra: "Something is always better than nothing!"What is your barrier to exercise? Tell me about your 3 top barriers to exercise.  Brainstorm on how to overcome each one. If you have overcome barriers, please share how you have accomplished your successes.  You can post on my blog, FB, or email me.

I have just returned from an incredible mission trip to Honduras (more on that later.)  What stood out to me is how active the people there were, often times because the lifestyle demanded it. Many people did not own cars, and walked and biked to get places.  Laundry was often done by hand on a washboard-very impressive to see how clean their clothes were. Our American technology has become a barrier to exercise that we need to specifically surmount.

During this Lenten season, as you watch March Madness, and contemplate ways to overcome your barriers to advance your personal fitness, may this verse encourage you along the way!
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2

Best Practices and Exercise Diary

EXCITING times! Next week I will be leading a break-out session at Best Practices, an impressive national conference in Phoenix, AZ.  where church leaders gather to share literally "best" practices. Looking forward to seeing friends, old and new. If you happen to be there, please come and hear me speak! (Guess what I'm speaking about? Exercise!!)  In preparation for that, some of the resources I will be using at Best Practices are now online and available for anyone (this means YOU) to download and use. Please do!  

To get to these free resources:  http://www.wheatridge.org/logs
 or Google Karen Sue Exercise Log OR Wheat Ridge Karen Sue  

Currently these resources include: 
*2 Week Physical Activity Log
*1 Month Exercise Diary
*Exercise Guidelines
*Church “Walk to” Exercise Plan to Engage Your Community

Also, in that same location online, you can check out the mini-tour of Wheat Ridge Ministry! Wheat Ridge Ministries is “Lutherans seeding new ministries of health and hope in the name of the healing Christ.”

If you have any questions, let me know!