2:45 pm, Monday, October 27,2008

The Helix Nebula (also known as NGC 7293) is a planetary nebula ) about 650 light years away in the constellation Aquarius.

It is 2:45 pm...

Steve just called to say his flight from Flagstaff is on time, and that if all the connections continue to be on time he plans to be home tonight before midnight.

It is 2:45 pm...

Dan Whitmarsh, pastor of Lakebay Community Church, is almost certainly being prepped for a corneal transplant to correct the pellucid marginal degeneration in his left eye.

It is 2:45 pm...

He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love.

Lord, here are two men who are precious to you. Keep them as the apple of your eye, and return them to their families and congregations, renewed and ready to serve you.

It is 2:45 pm...

What else is He seeing? Who else is hoping in Him?

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Please join us in prayer...

A couple of weeks ago our daughter Susan, a senior at Seattle Pacific University, got good news: she had won the American Graduate Scholarship, which pays $50,000 a year for the first two years of graduate studies in the humanities, contingent upon being accepted to one of 25 internationally respected institutions.

Then she got the bad news: neither Princeton nor Cornell accepted her. She asked for her application to be reconsidered. Princeton flatly refused, Cornell thought about it but had to say no. Apparently they had made their first offers and didn't want to upset the delicate balance. Then came the clincher: the University of Toronto, from which she was still awaiting word, wasn't on their top 25 list.

Upon hearing this, a dear friend wrote:

"Oh, what difficult news! But what wonderful grace! God has promised to direct our paths, and He will. Watch and see."

Well, He does seem to be up to something. Today Susan heard that she has been accepted by the University of Toronto for their MA program in Classics, with strong encouragment to consider continuing on in their Ph.D program. Funding is available for the second year, but she needs to pay for the first year.

Please join us in praying that perhaps the AGS might reconsider their preferred institutions, on the basis of the following:

The Times Top 50 Universities for Arts and Humanities, 2007

1. Harvard University US 100.0
2 University of California, Berkeley US 96.5
3 University of Oxford UK 94.4
4 University of Cambridge UK 92.3
5 Yale University US 84.3
6 Columbia University US 83.3
7 Princeton University US 80.1
8 University of Toronto Canada 79.5
9 University of Chicago US 77.6
10 Australian National University Australia 75.9
11 Stanford University US 74.7
12 McGill University Canada 71.3
13 University of California, Los Angeles US 68.4
14 University of British Columbia Canada 67.2
15 University of Sydney Australia 66.6
16 Cornell University US 64.4
17 University of Melbourne Australia 63.9
18 Peking University China 61.2
19 University of Michigan US 60.3
20 Duke University US 58.6
21= National University of Singapore Singapore 57.6
21= Johns Hopkins University US 57.6
23 New York University US 56.7
24 University of Tokyo Japan 54.7
25 Massachusetts Institute of Technology US 54.4

(etc)