Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: April’s Cancer Update – April 2020

covid 19 blogThe world we spoke of last December has been transformed by the COVID-19 crisis. In our last update, we talked about airplane rides, hospital excursions, and theme park rides. Now, we wear masks to the grocery store, avoid airplanes, and enter hospitals with trepidation. The world of April’s healthcare has also been profoundly shaped by the coronavirus pandemic.

Though the coronavirus threateningly flies above our world, April’s health remains secure from the present threat of cancer. Her latest bone scan and CT scan have arrived full of good news. The tumors in her bones remain unchanged, having neither grown nor shrunk. And the tumors in her breast, lymph nodes, and liver have shrunk. We praise God for this good report. April can continue on with her current treatment plan.

Despite the good news, our home remains on high alert because of the COVID-19 threat.

April resides in the high-risk category because of her cancer and because her medications suppress her immune system. Were she to contract COVID-19, her chances for survival would be substantially lower than the average person. Moreover, doctors have noted that women with estrogen tend to be less susceptible to the virus. Since April has Her2- PR+ and ER+ cancer, she takes medicine that eliminates all of the estrogen from her body, placing her at greater risk than most. Not wanting to chance her health, we have embraced the quarantine, turning our home into a little fortress.

Because the COVID-19 dragon roams about our state, we have temporally shut our door to hospitality. We no longer accept the gracious offers of our friends to clean our house, cook us meals, and to watch our children. To strengthen our defenses, we stepped away from birthday parties and other social gatherings more than a week before the President recommended that all groups be limited to ten or less people. We limited Lily’s butterfly, dance, birthday party to our two fairy princes and one knight. We seldom cross the drawbridge of isolation into the COVID-19 world, visiting stores about once a week without leaving our car. We spend the remainder of our time, working from home, Cloroxing packages, and playing with our little kiddos. Luke, Lily, and Lacey have become acquainted with the virus, telling neighbor that they can’t play because of the coronavirus. Though we lament the need to fortify our home, we do not want April’s health to be undone by secondary causes.

IMG-7678 (1)We have not been the only one to mobilize our defenses. Both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Virginia have locked down their campuses. As the spread of the virus swept across the nation, April remained in contact with both medical teams. With one voice, the doctors at Mayo and UVA recommended moving April’s scans from Minnesota to Virginia, breaking protocol so that April could continue her treatment in the safest environment available.

Though the trip to Charlottesville takes about an hour, April found her trip this past Tuesday to be just as daunting as her six plus hour trips to Mayo. For the first time in her cancer journey, April had to go to an appointment without me. We did not want to expose our family to the outside world. When she arrived at the hospital, she went through numerous screenings. As she walked through the hospital that bore an eerie resemblance to this dystopian movie, she saw orange warning sign after orange warning sign requiring patients to keep their distance and to report their symptoms to a healthcare worker. She then sat in the “high-risk” waiting area, catching only glimpses of fellow, mask wearing patients being overseen by medical staff and security guards. Spaces that usually contained 30 to 50 patients now held only her. Thankfully all the precautions proved effective. April crossed the drawbridge back into our little fortress seemingly untouched by COVID-19.

Though the world suffers under darkness, our little fortress bustles with joy because we have seen God answer our prayers. He has blessed April with good scans. Moreover, as challenges related to the COVID-19 crisis have arisen, God has given April the strength to meet them. When the year began, April lacked the strength to cook meals, to clean, and to care for our kids. The past ten months, we have prayed for God to bless April with the ability to clean and to manage and teach our children at home. Today, she is able to do both.  We can say with the Psalmist, “Out of my distress I called on the LORD; the LORD answered me and set me free.” Our hearts are full of thanks! Thank you for praying for us.

Please continue to lift us up to the Lord.

  1. Pray that God will heal April and keep her and our family safe from COVID-19.
  2. Pray that God will give us wisdom as we seek to balance caring for April and caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
  3. Pray that God will continue to give April daily strength and energy.
  4. Pray that the quarantine will strengthen our marriage and our relationships with our children.
  5. Pray that God would save our children.

 

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Thank you for your love, prayers, and never-ending support.

Sustained By Grace Through Faith,

Peter and April

 

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Coronavirus and Skipping Church: A Pastor’s View

Western Christians now must decided if such precautions stem from wisdom or from fear. We do not want to dishonor the faith conquered the globe through the tortures of the arena, through the caring of black death victims, and through the suffering of the mission field. But at the same time, we also readily canceling church because of snowstorms, tornado’s, or the lack of natural resources caused by power or water outages. How do we make sense of the Coronavirus and the need to either cancel service or restrict our attendance at said services?

Below are the four principles guiding my approach the Coronavirus. I hope they help you find biblical clarity. 

1. Avoid Fear

We should avoid the tendency towards fear. We should not flee a service because we fear death or the virus. As my dear wife reminded me, God rules over the pestilence. He sends viruses as judgement, reminding humanity that God cherishes goodness and love (Ezek 38:22; Jer 24:10; Amos 4:1). Because God reigns over the plague,  his people possess the antidote to earthly fear, prayer. Psalm 91:3-6 declares:

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

Conversely, we should not rush to assembly because we fear the condemnation of our fellow Christians. We need to head Paul’s words to Timothy: “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Our first concern should not be what our neighbors or even history will one day say of us. Our concern should solely be the words of God. Any action not based in the Scriptures is the wrong action.

When tempted to fear, we must nestles our souls into the comforting wings of God, crying out to him for  forgiveness, mercy, protection and healing, knowing he is gracious. He will hear our cries and do good for us today and hold us securely in heaven tomorrow. The Bible speaks to pandemics. We should listen and heed its directions.

2. Listen to Authorities

We should heed the counsel of our government authorities. Romans 13:1 “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Unless we work in for the CDC, the department of health, or one of the institutions charged with overseeing the fight against the coronavirus, we should not flaunt the authority of the government, thinking we know better.

We do not know better. We are not the health experts, doctors, or nurses who have spent large portions of our lives fighting diseases and germs. We are the Monday morning quarterbacks depending on second information delivered by unverified sources. Tim Nichols helpful concludes,

No one is arguing, however, that experts can’t be wrong…Rather, the point is they are less likely to be wrong than nonexperts.

Christian humility demands that we admit the limits of our responsibilities and knowledge. God has not charged us or our churches with governing the nation. We need to trust God to rule through our government, heeding their advice as long as it does not contradict Scripture. I am thankful for how McLean Bible Church, Grace Community Church, and Capital Hill Baptist Church have model submission to the government authorities while simultaneous fighting for the right to assemble.

3. Promote Hospitality

To be hospitable is to be a lover of one’s community. When we come together, we must determine if our presence or if the gospel is causing social unrest. If men and women are opposed to the presence of the gospel, we should meet and risk persecution, imprisonment, and death. But if men and women are opposed to our presence because we have become either knowingly or unknowingly a biological weapon that could kill them, we should head their concern and avoid infecting them. At this point, our neighbors are not opposed to our faith. They are apposed to us harming them.

Moreover, the missionary, Jim Elliot, refused to use a gun to defend himself because he did not want to send an unbeliever to hell. We should follow his example and not allow our germs to unnecessarily condemn either believers or unbelievers to death. The famed sixteenth century Theologian, Martin Luther, concurs. He writes,

I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.

I have cancelled more than one outreach event at my home because a family member has become a roving, puking machine; I did not want to pass along both the gospel and the flu. To care for others well, we must listen to Paul who says, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” We must ask ourselves if we are furthering the well-being of others and furthering the spread of the kingdom when we host services and come to church during these trying times. If our physical presence distracts from the gospel and threatens credible harm to others, we should cancel our services and refrain from attending church. The command to worship together should be pitted against God’s command to love one’s neighbors.

4. Love

Lastly, we must commit to always love one another. Though, we may have to skip church, we do not have to forsake the body of Christ and loving our neighbors. As believers, we should stand ready to help the sick, to care for displaced students, and to assist those who lost their jobs. We may not assemble in churches but we can love small expressions of the church. In the days ahead, the church will have unprecedented opportunities to love the body of Christ and to love their communities. Luther’s heart again should ring true of us today,

If my neighbor needs however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely.

Let’s go!

What theological principles are guiding your decision about whether or not to host or attend services?

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT HOW ABC IS APPROACHING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Coronavirus: A Parable For the Church

Virus Blog

The Coronavirus has captured the world’s attention. It reminds us that everyone from the young to the old, from the blue collar worker to the college professor, and from the minimum wage earner to the CEO can be dropped into the grave by the tiniest of organisms. Death scares us.

But the world has focused upon the Coronavirus for another reason. The virus has tested China’s ability to handle a major health crisis. The nation claimed to have learned the lessons extracted from the SARS epidemic and the Bird Flu. Yet despite China’s promises to do better and her ability to wield the massive amounts of resources needed to create a hospital in 10 days, the Western press has found the nation’s management of the coronavirus to be less than inspiring.

The New York Post reported that China had discovered the germs in December and then hid the outbreak from the international community. According to CNN, the news of the virus reached the world because Dr. Li innocently and then boldly talked about the virus with other doctors and the press in an effort to protect humanity. The Wuhan police charged Dr. Li and several others with low level crimes for “spreading rumors online.” China also placed a gag order on the researchers who first identified the virus. on As late as January 8, 2020, China’s government continued to withhold vital information from the U.S. Center of Disease Control that revealed the virus had become more contagious. Though the nation possessed the resources, manpower, and technology to address the crisis, China still lacked the transparency, the ethics, and the humility needed to effectively address this latest medical challenge. According to the international community, China had not internalized the lessons of the past. Though the nation knew another epidemic would come, she was not prepared for it.

As China, the church also knows that viruses will come, testing their spiritual preparedness. Jude encouraged his readers to

Remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit (17b-19).

Though scholars have failed to discover the specific prophecy Jude has referenced, we know Jude has accurately represented the teaching of the apostles. Paul often warned the church about future spiritual virus in his pastoral letters (1 Tim 4:3; 2 Tim. 3:1-5). Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:29-31 summarized his view. Paul said, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” The apostle John concurred writing, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” The apostles new wolves, antichrist, and virus would come into the church. The church must prepare accordingly, remembering that no amount of growth, goodwill, or resources can keep germs away. They will come. Will we be ready?

To prepare for the next spiritual virus that will descend upon our church, we must capitalize on the times of peace. Jude provided his readers with direction for such preparation. He wrote, “keep yourselves in the love of God.” While such terminology sounds comforting, it still begged the question of how. How do we keep ourselves in God’s love? Jude gave us three phrases that will guide our preparation.

First, Jude told his audience to “build yourselves up in your most holy faith.” The phrase “build yourselves up” means to build on another’s foundation. More specifically, we are to build our faith on the teaching and testimony of the prophets and the apostles who delivered to us the faith once delivered for all (Eph 2:19-21). To prepare for the next spiritual virus, Christian need to be regularly studying the word and listening to the word preached. Believers who neglect the preaching of the gospel will not know truth and can easily be infected by false teaching. The best antidote for error is a gross familiarity with the Scriptures. For this reason, congregations must stand ready to remove pastors who fail to preach the Scriptures well.  The careless pastor destroys the church’s immune system and prepares the church for spiritual doom. Likewise the believer who neglects the preaching of the Bible and personal study cannot help but be destroyed when error infects his blood stream. Those who survive the spiritual pandemics of their age build their lives upon the faith once delivered for all.

Second, those who are prepared for the next round of spiritual error pray: “praying in the Holy Spirit.” The author E.M. Bounds noted, “Prayer and devotion are united as soul and body are united as life and the heart are united. There is no real prayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer.”  Many Christians lack joy, hope, peace, and love simply because they do not pray. James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” James does not advocate for the health and wealth gospel, telling us that if we ask hard enough we will get everything we want. He notes that “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions (4:3).” Prayers can be selfish and ungodly. Thus, John tells that we must ask for things “according to his will (1 John 1:14).” We must ask for God to grow our faith, to increase our patience, to provide for our health and material needs, knowing that God promises to care for us. Indeed prayer is a powerful and essential tool in the believer’s tool belt. James reminds us that “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

God works through prayer. He has ordained all that is to come to pass. He knows what he will do before we pray. Yet, he still works through prayer. I do not fully understand this paradigm. But God saves the Israelites because Moses prayed. He takes Jonah from the belly of the fish because he prayed. He saves Hezekiah because he prayed (2 Kings 2:20). God either answers our requests or he changes our heart, providing us with the peace of God as Jesus experienced in the garden of Gethsemane. Though prayer God blesses us and changes us and transforms our church into his image.

If we want to be ready to stand firm when viruses hit, friends be praying. Set aside time at night, in your car, or in the morning to pray. Create lists, use apps, keep a notebook. The method does not matter. The praying matters. Prayer is no trivial thing. It essential to the Christian life. John Bunyan powerfully said, “You then are not a Christian if you are not a praying person (57).”

And if we do not pray we evidence a sickly dependence upon ourselves or a lack of faith. Those who know God is there life source as revealed in Scripture pray.

Lastly, we must look to the future. Jude wrote that believers wait “for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” To expose virus takes courage as Dr. Li exemplified. He spoke when few others would, understanding the implications of covering up the coronavirus. Christians who are prepared for the next spiritual virus also understand the future. They know Christ will come back and that nothing in this world with devils filled can undo them. They do not fear correcting error, standing for unpopular truth, and the hate of their neighbors. The believer knows the outcome of the future. Nothing a false teacher or government does can separate him or her from the loving power of Christ. Their eternal destiny remains firm.

The coronavirus exposed the weaknesses of the China. What will the next spiritual virus reveal about your heart and about your church? Are you studying the word, praying, and gazing towards the future? Are you ready for the next spiritual virus?