“Full health, and undying bodies, will be the reality”
On Friday night we returned home to the sad news that our friend Todd Miller had passed away suddenly while on a run with his wife. His death was completely unexpected.
Todd and Jenn and their family served the Lord in Central Asia for many years, and had recently moved to New Zealand where Todd enjoyed teaching on biblical topics, including church planting, at Eastwest College of Intercultural Studies.
Jenn and the family have been constantly on our minds and in our prayers. Kierra is just a little younger than Hannah, next comes Brynn, and then Micah, who is a couple years younger than Nathanael.
We’re thankful to hear of the support that the Miller family has had. Todd’s parents and siblings were able to quickly get to New Zealand, and Jenn’s oldest brother and his wife are also coming (actually, may be there now). The funeral will take place in NZ in a few hours.
I’m mainly posting this to ask you to pray. It should go without saying, but as Jenn wrote in a recent email,“The pain is too great for all of us to bear”. May friends and family, and most of all the Lord, share the burden.
I can’t imagine the decisions that will need to be made. The new school year begins for the kids in February. The family is hoping to bring the body to Canada, and have a memorial service there in the coming weeks.
There’s also a practical way you can help. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help raise funds for travel and funeral expenses. You can donate and share the page with others here [campaign completed. Thanks!].
Todd passed away Saturday (NZ time), and he was scheduled to preach on Sunday. Instead, his sermon was read, and has been posted online. The title of this post is taken from his sermon. It seems that God wanted this message to have a much wider audience than it would have had originally.
Why not take the time to listen to Todd’s sermon, as you remember the family and pray for them? Listen here: Todd Miller’s Sermon on “The Poorâ€
So, this is obviously a time to put up a classic Cathy photo. Here you can see Cathy with Hannah and her brother David (sporting a very cool Canada cap). This was over 8 years ago, when they were all going to school together (though in different grades). Cathy is dressed up in Mexican garb for a special presentation.
We’re finishing up the Gospel of Mark this month, with the climax of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We started Mark a year ago. We’ll be looking at the wonders of our justification and sanctification as well in the next couple of weeks. And we continue with a discipleship study three times a week, taught by three different people. My first study of the year is tonight.
On Sunday, I spent hours and hours washing dishes, with the small trickle of water. (Wow, look at all those containers I washed! And there were more later. I guess that says something about what we did over the holidays! But alas – the cookies are gone. Only a bit of 
The quakes affected this year in interesting ways. It seems that all of Mexico is dragging and discouraged. Even for those who did not lose their homes, the quake meant closed schools, and so extra homework, longer hours – on the one hand we all feel the results of the quakes, and we’re all tired of 2017. On the other hand, we are thankful to be alive, and have a home (although many still do not!).