I would like to ask for prayer for my niece in California. My sister wrote me the following:

"[My daughter] had a serious accident November 25. She was driving home on one of the freeways and a car started to move into her lane. As she slowed, honked and moved right a bit, the car started shaking, she hit the gravel at the edge of the freeway and went over an about 30 foot embankment. After I saw the car, I was amazed that she survived. She was airlifted to the nearest trauma center. Although she looked really bad, the worst injury is a cracked C1 vertebra. Luckily it didn't get to the spinal cord, so she will eventually be fine. She also had large cuts and bruises, one of which cut a nerve to the right side of her face. So she can't move her eyebrows right now, but apparently it usually grows back. She's home and slowly recovering. Hates riding in the car because any little bump hurts."

My sister and her first husband left the Seventh-day Adventist Church due to the ideas and "ministry" of Desmond Ford at PUC where they were faculty members. Today she is in a second marriage and has had a successful career as a computer engineer. For this reason, I'd rather not reveal her name at this time.

Thanks for your prayers.

I'm so sorry to hear about your niece's terrible accident, and my family and I will be praying for her. It certainly sounds like God has been watching out for her or else she might have been hurt much worse.

We'll also be praying for your sister.

It's unfortunate that so many people left the church due to Desmond Ford.

Regards,
"John 3: 17"

My father in law was just in a bad accident this week. My wife is flying there to do what she can. There is so much hurt in this old world. Lets pray for all that are hurting.

And about the quote above .... Lets pray that your sister is still loving the Lord and finding faith in Him through ministry. None of us have all the right thoughts. But we can still love Jesus and accept his sacrifice on our behalf. When we get to Heaven we will be reprogrammed with the right truth. Even Ford may have to be reprogrammed along with the rest of us.

Will pray for everyone.

Redwood, we are praying for your father-in-law and your family in this trying time. May God be especially close to your wife as she is there with her father!

I'm praying for your niece, James. And also for Redwood's father-in-law. Auto accidents can be terrible things.

I don't want to hijack this thread and go onto a tangent about Desmond Ford, but IMHO the real villains in the Glacier View fiasco were the GC president and his cohorts, who fired Desmond Ford without scriptural cause. I've heard Desmond Ford speak on more than one occasion, and though he has a somewhat different view of things than I do, he is a true, dedicated Seventh-day Adventist Christian. To fire someone because he interprets the finer points of prophecy a little differently than you do, is not the Christian thing to do. He is an honest Biblical scholar who just happens to understand one small phase of prophecy differently from the "party line." And he never denigrates our church or its leadership in any manner.

I think Elder Wilson et al will have some serious charges to answer in the final judgment.

[If the Moderator wishes to move or delete this post I'll totally understand. I just feel sad when Elder Ford ends up taking all the "blame" for what is really only a difference of exegetical interpretation.]

Jeannie .... I am sympathic to your concern. But I guess I see it that the employer has the right to have the doctrines taught that they want. If someone teaches differently than they want ... why would they pay for someone to do that?

I am not well versed on what happened to Ford. But this is my initial thought until there is other info forth coming for this situation.

And Thanks for the prayer for my Father in Law. He is still in the Hospital but showing some signs of improvement.

By the way ... what scriptural cause were you referring to about his firing.

My sister has told me since that my niece is up and about but still cannot use your right hand.

Thanks for everyone's prayers.

Praying for a full recovery including the right arm. But I can sure relate to why she hates the car. I am the same way. I can't handle the car for more than 20-30 min. at a time. And sometimes that is too much. People just don't realize the shaking in the car.

And NO ... It doesn't have anything to do with my "loose screws".

I was afraid somebody would ask me to elaborate on that. I just don't recall exactly what it was, but it had something to do with the 2300-day prophecy and the sanctuary prophecy. Actually, these are both areas of study with which I don't stay current. I used to be able to teach these things, back in my teaching days, but now I'm getting rusty and don't have my notes on just exactly which Scripture texts are involved. [Needless to say, I myself am not a Biblical scholar -- I don't read the original Hebrew or Greek.] And the ironic thing is that many of our SDA religion professors themselves have now come to see the interpretation of these questioned texts in the same way as Desmond Ford sees it.