Hope this finds you all making a great start on 2011!!

We wanted to bring you up to date on Gene’s healing progress…

He just had a checkup and the doctor said it’s all healing perfectly, so far! His doctor also proclaimed, “Thank God!”  It was a real comfort throughout the whole process to know that our neurosurgeon believed and trusted in God to direct him.

Gene is still wearing a neck brace.  They put a titanium u-shaped rod in the back of his neck along with some bone grafts.  His left hand was pretty messed up, as the index finger was dislocated at the middle joint, and actually gashed to the bone at that joint.  He has to undergo some occupational therapy to try to get it strengthened… hasn’t been able to play his guitar. He also fractured his right collar bone and a rib on the right side.  We’re taking it one day at a time…he has been able to greatly reduce the pain meds also.  And that’s a good sign.  He’s up and around quite a bit, doing as much as he can.

All in all, we are so grateful to our Father in Heaven (Hallowed be His Name!) that he is alive and not paralyzed!!  (We found out later from the hospital reports that bone fragments were “in close proximity to the carotid artery at the first vertebrae”…so he could have bled to death!)

Psalm 91 certainly was true for Gene!  I quoted the last three verses of that psalm in the last update, but I hope you found it and read the whole psalm…it’s beautiful.  And it is His promise to us who love Him, believe in Him, keep His commandments and call upon His Name.

And speaking of “His Name”…three days before Gene’s accident, we saw an interview on God’s Learning Channel of Keith Johnson and Nehemia Gordon.  Keith Johnson has written an exciting book on the “Name” of our Father in Heaven. See the following scripture… and think about the many scriptures that refer to “the Name of God”!

“God said further to Moses “Say this to the people of Israel:  ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Yehovah], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.  This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation.‘”
…Isaiah 3:15 (Emphasis mine.)

In the prayer Yeshua/Jesus taught us, He says, “Hallowed be thy Name”….do we ever ask, ‘what Name?’  Keith caused us to really think about this!  We checked out what he says…and, lo and behold, there it is in our Strong’s Concordance … everywhere the word “LORD” is, it is from the Hebrew word, “YHVH” which, when the proper vowel pointings are applied to the Hebrew letters, it is pronounced “YehoVAH”.  And this is what Keith found in the oldest “vocal” Hebrew text (text with vowel pointings), the Leningrad Codex.  If you want to research this, there is a link to Keith’s website on the right sidebar of this page.

I have not counted them, but Keith says the Name, YHVH, is in there more than 6,000 times!  Now, when you really give this some thought, you have to conclude that the terms, “God” and “LORD” are NOT names…they are titles.  And they are the same titles used for pagan gods, as well!  Hmmmmm!

We are not sure just when we will be back in full swing with our music, but there is a possibility we will be able to do some things that are in the Hill Country area… not too far away from home.  Gene says singing may be difficult for him with the collar, but he will do what he can do!  If Yehovah sends us, we will go!

We thank everyone for all the prayers and cards of well wishes!

Gene and LaVada