Last week’s worship experiences were powerful.  Van and John Pham were our guests in worship and shared with us how much our church had meant to them over the last year.  Many of you asked for a copy of their remarks and for those of you who could not be with us, we wanted to have an opportunity to share in some of what happened on Sunday.  Thank you for the witness you make at Wesley.

~Greg

Thank you pastor Greg, Mac for giving us a few minutes to express our profound gratitude & appreciation to the Wesley family.

We are deeply indebted to you all for your prayers, thoughts, encouragement, generosity, love, time & labor for our family in the last two years.  No words can express our feelings & gratitude for your spirit-lifting presence in our lives.  Likewise, no words can adequately enumerate the countless loving thoughts & actions that you have showered upon our family.  Because of these limitations, please accept our deepest apology if we have mistakenly left out anyone from our thank you list or misrepresented any fact.  Nothing we say or do can repay each of you back for your awe-inspiring love and kindness.  We love you dearly & pray that Christ will bless you & your family with the love that you have bestowed upon us so freely.  We will never forget you!

Our family is now living in a beautiful home today because of the generosity of more than 30 companies & countless people that have donated materials, time, money, labor.  We do not have enough time to name each company & person, but please know that each of you made a difference for us.

1. First, thank you Pat Williams, for jumping over many many hurdles on our behalf over the last two years.  Pat, thank you for finding us a house in a wonderful convenient location, and finding for us a beautiful handicap-accessible minivan.
2. Thank you Donald Coleman & Ken Richards for coordinating and executing all aspects of remodeling, fixing, & rebuilding of the house.  We still get choked up each time we realize the magnitude of your care & attention to the details.  You took care of everything…from building a handicap-accessible kitchen, a handicap-accessible bathroom, a new garage, widening all of the doors, put in new A/C system.  You were talking with people, planning the work, and doing the work on our house ON TOP of your regular responsibilities.  Thank you so much for your sacrifices.
3. To the building teams, as we live in this house, there is not a single daily act that isn’t touched by your love.  We remember you each time we sit down to eat dinner with our family, you all went from your full-time day-jobs to work on this house for us, missing dinner & time with your own families. Thank you very very much.

So many other individuals & Wesley youth have helped us with the lawn, landscaping, building the fence.  We are concerned that we don’t know all of your names to thank each of you.   If you are here today, please accept our deepest gratitude.

Even after long hours of crafting our thoughts into words, we still feel that we have come up short for this thank you talk today.  The magnitude of your love is breathtaking: 

1. Because of you, our little premature baby, Paul, survived & is healthy & thriving.
2. Because of you, each of us managed to keep our mental health intact.
3. Because of you, Van can wheel herself into the rooms to kiss each of our little boys goodnight!
4. Because of you, I have faith, courage, strength & encouragement to take care of my family.
5. Because of you, we have a renewed belief in the power of the human spirit to lift others up and how one person can make such a profound difference in others.

Once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you have done.  Your compassion is inspiring.  May God bless each of you, your families, the Wesley Family with the same love & kindness that you have bestowed on us through our hardship and heartache in the last two years.  Thank you…Thank you very much!

Van and John Pham

This Sunday at all of our worship services we will be reporting on our Compassion in Action House Project.  You may recall that last year our congregation heard about a family in need in our community.  In her pregnancy Van Pham experienced a rare blood disorder that resulted in the loss of her legs and an arm.  Thankfully the baby was born healthy however can you imagine taking care of a two year old and a new born without the use of your legs and an arm?  In an instant everything had changed for Van and her husband John.  Spearheaded by Wesley and thanks to a lot of people both in and out of the church, we can now report on the progress in this family’s situation.  A new handicap van has been purchased, a home has been entirely renovated, kitchen, rooms, showers, even hallways are completely handicap accessible .  Van is now able to walk with the assistance of her new prosthetics.   This is a wonderful, faithful response to a very difficult situation.  Thanks to everyone through their prayers, gifts, and  service that made all this possible. 

We wanted to apprise you of the progress made in the Pham’s situation however we did not want to embarrass the family with exposure that they would be uncomfortable with.  We asked them if it would alright to share with you what has been happening over the last twelve months.  After telling of our ideas they graciously said that it was certainly alright with them and then Van volunteered and said, “I would like to come and say something.”  We told her it was not necessary however she insisted.  So we said which service would you like to come to.  She said, “all of them.”   We said there are five services and no one wants to sit through my sermon five times!  It did not matter to her, she is going to speak at all five services.  I was humbled by her response, Sunday is going to be special.

It occurs to me when something significant happens in your life you can’t be quite about it.  You have got to say or do something.  Sometimes I wonder if I don’t do a little too much strategizing in church and wouldn’t I be better off just responding as God leads.  Is there something significant you want to do.  Let us know at Wesley and maybe we can help.  Greg