It's been a bit since I’ve been able to post an update. We finally finished our commitments from our deployment for Hurricane Ian. Our last job was finishing up taking down some trees and clearing yard debris from our own yard and a neighbor’s yard that we had told we’d help with back from week one! Being busy down south and lacking help, it took over 7 months to get it done, but we did.
As you may know I discovered that I had a torn ligament in my right hip and my hip keeps popping out of the socket, and one in my right knee, and back issues, all of which they say are degenerative. On top of that, a small hernia that I got several years ago lifting a generator, reared its ugly head after I had a bad/hacking cough a few months ago that lasted about 3 weeks. Since then, it’s calmed down, but it hasn’t gone back to what it’s mostly been, so I may end up needing surgery.
Doctors are saying no surgery at this point for my other issues, just some rest, a light work schedule with nothing strenuous, and I need to strengthen my muscles in my back, hip, thigh, and knee to take over more for my ligament and lower spine problems. There’s been a lot of out-of-pocket expenses incurred with all the testing, PT, etc., and possibly more if I end up needing any surgery.
My physical issues are greatly improving, but I still have a way to go. I've been faithful to my excising and am trying to limit my work type stuff as much as possible, but as you know it's impossible to just quit doing what must be done when there's no one else to do it!
We did get some maintenance done while I impatiently waited to get in to see doctors, MRI’s, PT, etc., and there’s still more to do when we get back to Camp Calvary at CC Sarasota.
We decided to take off with our bunkhouse and visit with some family and friends as we’re waiting to see how things work out for me. Of course, there’s always something to fix on even the diesel and bunkhouse so I’m doing maintenance to those while we’re traveling. Just had to replace all the tires on the diesel and found out that the spare was original with the truck, which is a 94! Decided we should replace that as well!
I was blessed to share about Calvary Relief and from God's Word at 3 different churches first 3 Sundays and will be leading a Bible Study this Friday night. The first one was Fellowship Baptist Church Of Coney Island. It was a great reunion as we helped watch The LORD work a huge miracle when the church was extensively damaged from Hurricane Sandy, and they had no money to rebuild. We were able to help get them cleaned out, remediated, and rebuilt in just a couple of months when deployed to NYC right after Sandy hit. Here’s a link for the video of my teaching there, https://youtu.be/Op9XXBPuHNk.
The second was Calvary Life NYC the following weekend. We spent the weekend in Brooklyn staying with Pastor Richie Cancel and his wife, Sarah and their 5 kids. Several years ago, when we served alongside the Bowery Mission house for several years, the church that Richie was the Ass't Pastor at was our "home" church in Brooklyn. It’s also where we set up Camp Calvary during our first deployment for Hurricane Sandy. It was during our time there for Sandy Relief that The LORD called us into full-time disaster relief! We were able to catch up with a lot of "old" friends!
According to Richie back in the beginning of 2020 when he was trying to figure out when to officially start Calvary Life, I asked him what he was waiting for as it was clear that The LORD was calling him to do this. I told him if he didn’t have it going within a month, I’d be calling him. I didn’t have to make the call! The church is alive and doing a lot of ministry in Brooklyn. Join us as we continue to “Pray for Brooklyn”! Here’s the link for my sharing there, https://youtu.be/DdxcF6oIgRA.
In between those weekends I was blessed to attend the East Coast CC Pastor’s Conference at CC Philadelphia. It was a great time of refreshing in God’s Word and I was able to catch up with several folks from that part of the country that I hadn’t seen in years! Mary Jo also helped serve alongside some of her friends from CC Philly, serving us all our meals while at the conference. We also had a small reunion with some of the folks from CC Philly that have joined us in the field. If you’re interested in listening to the teaching from the conference, here’s the link, https://resources.ccphilly.org/topicdetail.asp?TopicID=176.
The following weekend we headed to Ohio where I’m from and my 82-year-old mom is still living. We set up our camper at Thom’s in Garrettsville, where he pastors Calvary Silver Creek. I was blessed to be able to again share about Calvary Relief and then from God’s Word at his church. I did an overview of Ephesians.
This is also a church that we’re very close to. Thom was headed from CA to OH to help his mom with a couple of things when we were deployed in OK doing tornado relief in 2013. He stopped in for 2 days and left almost 2 months later. During our time in God’s Word every day, The LORD began working in Thom’s life, drawing him deeper than he’d ever been with The LORD up to that point. That was the beginning of what has ended up being a church plant. After spending a lot of time helping him follow what clearly The LORD was doing in his life, I was blessed to ordain Thom into ministry in 2019. I’ll also be leading a their Friday Night Bible Study this week before we head out again. Here’s the link to the Sunday teaching, https://youtu.be/tpwgT-7PShs.
Currently we are still in Ohio, spending time with my mom during the week and at Thom’s on the weekends. We’ll be here for about another week and then move on to visit more family, friends, and churches and hopefully get the rest and healing that we both need as well as direction for what’s next for us and Calvary Relief! It’s hurricane season once again and of course many other things are happening all the time. More than likely what we’ll do next, hasn’t happened yet! So please keep all of this in your prayers!
I’ll be doing a synopsis of our Ian deployment and posting it soon! Thanks for your prayers and support!
If you’re interested in growing in The LORD as you selflessly serve others alongside of Calvary Relief, please let us know! For more info on joining us, click here.
If you’re interested in helping with any of the expenses with Calvary Relief, please click here.
If there’s ever anything you need prayer about or just need to talk to someone, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and let us know!
Here to serve and disciple until He calls us home,
Curt & Mary Jo
