Mike McClenahan

Today we washed cars and sold baked goods to raise over $7000 for Emmanuel's school in Ghana for disabled and abled kids. Ten percent of Ghana's population is disabled, and most are destined for begging on the streets.  That's what Emmanuel's fate would have been, if not for his mother's words to him, "You will not beg, God has a purpose for you." Not only has Emmanuel not begged (his story is told in the DVD "Emmanuel's Gift") but he has become a challenged triathlete and has created a foundation to help kids in his home country.  KidsGames is learning about his foundation and the school we are raising money for. Emmanuel's dream is to have disabled and abled kids in the same school so kids are "mainstreamed" from the beginning.  700 preschoolers to sixth graders are participating in KidsGames at SBPC , which includes a "sport" (basketball to slot cars to scrapbooking), a compassion project (Emmanuel's sch...

This weekend Amy and I are in Calaveras County, in the small town of Murphys, to celebrate Kendra and Keith's wedding. We are privileged to be a part of another chapter in Kendra's life. We met Kendra in 1990--she was 15 years old and part of our church senior high fellowship. Amy led her small group. We saw her graduate from high school and college, be in love, marry and have children. We also saw her walk through a year of her husband's cancer and eventually his death. We flew back from sabbatical a year ago to be with Kendra and to lead his service. We prayed for Kendra, along with hundred, maybe thousands, who knew her and wondered what life would be like with  10 year old twins and a 12 year old daughter. God has answered those prayers in so many ways. Not in a magical make-everything-all-right king of  way, but in the hard work of grief, conversations, tears and struggle.  In the midst of this chapter of her journey she met Keith--a single dad who had never marri...

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake. C. S. Lewis

A shepherd calls I listen I recognize I follow A shepherd leads I am protected I am supplied I have all I need A shepherd lays down his life I am rescued I am included I am resting This shepherd is my shepherd I am known I am saved I am blessed He is lord He is good

Last post was a brief recap of the three marathons I ran in nine months (December 88 to September 89) and training while our boys were 12 to 24 months old. The Los Angeles Marathon in April 1989 was a learning experience. I learned that you can beat your previous time if you (a) run the whole way instead of walk and (b) break through the inevitable wall and finish the race. The marathon starts at the Coliseum and takes you through LA neighborhoods: China Town, Korea Town, Japan Town, Hollywood, and back to the Coliseum. There were so many people on Figueroa that it took me 10 minutes just to cross the start line. And with so many people it's easy to start out too slow and then set a pace that is way too fast. But the thing that surprised me most was the wall that I hit at mile 21. I felt it coming and didn't want to finish. My hips were aching, my feet were dying, but I wanted to finish the race at the Coliseum. My brother Pat recorded the marathon from one of the local s...

I was thinking back to 1988, a very significant year in my life. That summer Amy and I decided to train for the Honolulu Marathon with some people from our congregation in Glendale. This was not intended to be a competitive marathon, but a friendly marathon with about 20 who wanted to get off their sedentary rears and get in shape. The Honolulu Marathon was started by two cardiologists who wanted to test their theory that post-op heart patients could train for a marathon within a year of surgery if they trained slowly and methodically. So we trained for about six months, following a  strict schedule that increased our endurance and joining each other on Saturday mornings for group runs.  The challenge for us was we had year old twins. Amy would feed them and get them ready for bed so that when I got home from work we would run with the boys in the twin jogging stroller. Amazingly they fell asleep as we ran, we'd put them to bed and enjoy our post-run dinner.  We made i...

This has been a red-letter year* for Amy and me. We knew at the outset 2010 would be special: wedding in March, we turned 50 in April and October, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in June, and we spent four months together on sabbatical. As always, we planned but God has his own plans to make this year special. It was a joy, after performing over 100 weddings to be dad and sit with Amy at our son's wedding. It was an awesome day to remember God’s goodness, his faithfulness and his love that brought them together. We are so happy to see them settled into life in Pasadena together. Another son continued his masters and sang in several operas this past year. He came on staff leading worship at our evening service. What a joy to see him using his gifts and developing his music skills, and to see him become more and more of the man God’s calling him to be. We underestimated the significance of our sabbatical pilgrimage, especially to the holy land with...