Gilleymade- Arts and Crafts – Kingdom Outpost

Good-Byes

Our time at Hospital Loma de Luz on the north coast of Honduras has, for the foreseeable future, come to an end. In the past few weeks we have said many good byes, packed our home, been able to bless our community by genourously sharing many things we have been able to accumulate over the past few years. We are so greatful for the great work that we have been equipped and enabled to be a part of over the last two and a half years.

Numerically, I had the privelege of:
delivering over 100 babies,
seeing and giving care to more than 2000 clinic patients,
attending over 700 emergencies,
and providing more than 350 patients with inpatient care

A few highlights of our journey:

Countless signs of God’s covenant faithfulness witnessed.

20+ Sermons preached (with the help of the church children)

Many meaningful art projects created and shared.

15+ critically sick newborns cared for and discharge well, who probably would not have otherwise survived.

100s of evil scorpions, spiders, kissing bugs, ants, and mosquitos vanquished from our home.

Axel and 5 other children with nephrotic syndrome followed and managed into remision – Praise be to God.

20+ closed fracture reductions, casted and followed to healing.

Innumerous glorious sunsets and star fields enjoyed and contemplated.

My family and I are so blessed and thankful to have had the opportunity to live, work, and minister in Honduras, with an incredible team of doctors, nurses, and support staff, at a wonderful and well resourced hospital in a beautiful and loving community. This has been an immense priveledge.

I will never forget the special priveledge of baptizing a hospitalized patient dying of AIDs, and the solemn work of helping many other families and patients prepare for immenient death spiritually, relationally and medically.

We are so thankful to Samaritan’s Purse and its Post-Residency Program that has made this time possible, and continues to offer us support through our transition.

Please be in prayer for our family as we:
-Prepare for Bethany to give birth to our 5th child at the end of this year.
-Seek to discern God’s next mission for us as a family.

Thank you for following us on this journey to Honduras and back again. We will plan to keep updating our blog as we discern whatever good plans God has in store for us.

Grace & Peace,
Nathan Gilley & family.

T-Shirt Promotion

Ready… Set… Begin preparing for launch!

To help raise support for our mission work in Honduras, we have designed an awesome T-shirt for all of you! By ordering it you can help us financially, and by wearing it you can remember to lift us up in prayer, check our blog, and share our story with your friends. (While you are on our blog, subscribe)

This is the t-shirt design that we created (10 inch diameter – centered on the front of the shirt):

tshirtlogoLDL

The design looks on the coastal mountains of Honduras where we will be working, with the hospital nestled in the mountain’s foothills over the ocean. The hospital we will be serving at is called Hospital Loma De Luz which means “Light on a Hill,” an allusion to Jesus’ call in the Sermon on the Mount for his followers to be light in a dark world (thus the light rays and reflected cross). Arching over this design is the beginning of the Lord’s prayer – a reminder and request to cover us in prayer as often as you think of us. And at the bottom of the design, our web-page and goal, to be a family that embodies the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Bethany and I love a good T-shirt, so we have gone to the local t-shirt printing store to ensure we will receive soft, and comfy t-shirts that you will want to wear all the time. We will be offering these shirts in the 2 colors as below.

Front Tshirt Proof

We are asking for a donation of $20 per shirt. We are not planning on shipping these shirts individually but would be happy to figure out how to get your shirt to you. If you would like to tell us what you and your family want we can settle up when we get the shirt or shirts to you.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are not the views of Samaritan’s Purse or World Medical Mission.

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St. Patrick’s Shield

This is a prayer I wrote to be prayed when rising for the day. It is based off of an old prayer called St. Patrick’s Breastplate – a prayer that Celtic Christians often use to start their day. I painted this new prayer onto a sheild that I recieved when I was knighted as an eighteen year old (bit of a story there – we’ll save for later). And hung it over our breakfast table to remind us to open our day with prayer.

Here it is:

We bind ourselves today, in life and love, to the Trinity in unity,
By the power of the spirit, and this example:
Christ before me.

We arise today, in the power of Christ’ baptism,
dying to sin and living into Godliness;
Christ when we go down,
Christ when we arise.

We bind ourselves today, in faith and hope, to the Church;
Taking up the obedient disciplines of the faithful;
Christ over us,
and partaking of communion, the body of Christ;
Christ with us.

We arise today, in a world of God’s creation – fallen in sin,
Inspired by the invisible attributes of God in creation;
Christ all around us,
embracing opportunities for laboring in redemption;
Christ on our right,
Christ on our left.

We bind ourselves today, by the love of God for His glory;
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of us,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of us,
Christ in the eye that sees us,
Christ in the ear that hears us.

We arise today, for He is risen,
Christ is risen indeed.

Vigil with a Crying Newborn

God Almighty,
Who longs to wipe away every tear, and bring this world to right.

Make me your hand of steadfast love to the distraught,
Make me your voice of peace to the suffering,
Make me your embrace of consolation to the helpless.
Make me Christ to my child and make my eyes see Christ in my child.

Hear our prayers, O LORD,
and give ear to our cries;
Do not be silent at these tears;
For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, who sojourned here with us,

Amen.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

(Revelation 21:4, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Hosea 11, Ephesians 4:2, Colossians 3:12, Psalm 39:12, Revelation 22:20)

Ruth Crying in Daddy's arms — Ruth is 10 days old, and a wonderful baby. She occasionally wants to nurse more frequently than is possible – and find’s her father’s lack of breasts to be very upsetting.

Prayer is a powerful form to reframe our thoughts and expectations into Christlikeness, as well as a call for God to transform this reality into kingdom reality. This prayer is a lot of the former and a little of the later.

Newborns were made to cry, and crying is a good, God-given, form of communication for them. And in the mature human is a complimentary God-given motivation to do something about a crying baby. But when all the actions have been taken and your baby still cries – it time to join with them, and cry out to God. This prayer is meant to be a prayer spoken over or with the urgent and inconsolable cries of a newborn who is fed, changed, swaddled, burped, held – and yet still crying (as Ruth was for 2 hours last night).

After writing this prayer I followed these directions to afix the prayer to battery powered wax candle that we use as our nightlight during these long first nights while Ruth sleeps in our room. I was able to present this to my wife for our use.

20181014_154120

Grace and Peace to us all,

Nathan Gilley, Murfreesboro, TN, USA; October 14th, The year of our Lord 2018

Sojourner, Come In

At the beginning of our marriage, for our first Christmas gift as a married couple, my wife and I created a guest book for our home. I crafted a leather binding and my wife bound up the pages. Our first page contains this invitation:

Book intro

In these pages and dispatches, like our home, we hope to provide a glimpse of God’s inbreaking kingdom. We invite you to come in, and hope you will find our words to be life giving.