A Beautiful Father and Son Story!

This morning you told the story of Team Hoyt. I had heard of it and posted the video from YouTube on my FB page a coupe of months ago. But as you told it again I heard something different. When the son said, "When we race, I don't feel handicapped anymore," and the Dad said, "That's all I needed to hear." He got up off the couch and began training to run a triathlon pushing his son in a wheel chair and they're still running several years later. I believe the son is 44 now and the dad is 70+

This spoke to me and I'll share this with you. In 1996, my husband and kids and I began an outreach ministry to children. We were on food stamps, district clinic and moved into an abandoned building with the agreement of two months rent free if we would clean it out. Several dumpster loads later we began Bible clubs for kids. Last summer we fed 2500 kids Monday-Thursday nourishing sack lunches and drinks to their homes and sent groceries home on Sunday. We've been doing this since 1999. All my kids and now 9 grandkids are still here and working at Citychurch. We have a Christian school with 51 students through grade 3. And the kids all have scholarships. We pick them up every day, feed them two meals a day, and take them home after school. I'm a van driver and it's a vital ministry.

God has put it in my heart that Citychurch Outreach Ministry is going to be some part of a solution to hunger here and around the world. My son is coming home from Chad in Africa today. He and a doctor/missionary went to treat children and adults with the most basic medical care, giving vaccines for malaria and other basic vaccines and show the Jesus video.

My son is not a doctor. He's a videographer. He's been out of the country one other time. When he said he was going with Dave to Chad, I said, "Really?! Are you sure? You have a new baby, a wife and two other kids. We're working here with a skeleton crew here already. We just lost his Dad, my husband, 10 months ago after a long illness.  Are you SURE?  He said, "Mom, don't you think I can hear from God, too?" Yes, he can.

Ok, here's the end of this long yarn. One of the things James did while he was in Chad was assist in giving shots to the people. These immunizations and pills can save their lives. As the went from village to village, the people were so malnourished they didn't have enough muscle or fat to put the needle in.

While James was gone, I started reading Outlive You Life, by Max Lucado which I heard about on KLOVE. He said millions of people in Africa's lives could be saved with just one immunization. Hmmmmmmm, did James hear from God? I think so. Speak to me God. I'm not scared!

This is terrible because I am not even taking the time at this moment to read the story and this is the first place I can see on the site to post any comment so please forgive my comment on this page of your site and I hope the Hoyts will forgive me, too  The reason I am contacting you is that I cannot make a pledge right now, I just get by but I DO have a great pledge drive idea...  I am from the Pittsburgh area and we are well known for being sports FAN atics.  Why not have a sports team challenge for all of your cities that have one?  If you do it during the lunch hour or evening rush hour on the east coast, I know that Steeler and Penquin fans are so competitive, they just might decide to pledge if they can win a contest against say Cincinatti or Houston....  I am sorry I only have a few moments to get this to you so I will have to go.  Hope it helps!  God Bless Greatly!!!!!