On the prayer front

As long as I am asking for prayers ...

Please continue to keep Karl's mom in your prayers. She is now at home, but they are still sorting out what to do about their situation.

I haven't heard anything lately about James, but I assume things are going well there?

The elderly Florida couple who spend most of their day with me in the gift shop both have health problems. Alice is exhibiting signs of early Alzheimer's or dementia, which adds to Bill's concerns. He just went to an orthopedic surgeon this past week and learned that the reason he has been having trouble with his right ankle is that the joint has completely deteriorated and now the bones must be fused. He is less worried about walking -- he already has to limp around or use a motorized chair -- than he is that it may mean he will no longer be able to drive. They are already planning to sell their home when they get back and move into a retirement home nearby. Bill told me they do not expect to ever return to Wisconsin. They have been active volunteers -- he is a past president of the Preservation Society -- almost from the beginning in 1990 or so.

Meanwhile, the folks who lost their homes in the Lake Delton disaster are still waiting to find out what will happen to them. There are a number of fund-raisers going on in the area for their benefit.

My friend, the archbishop of Baghdad, and his people are obviously still suffering greatly. So many Christians have fled Iraq that it is uncertain whether the churches there will recover even after the war is over. The Roman Catholic population has always been small, most Christians being Chaldean Rite -- in communion with Rome, accepting the pope but with their own way of celebrating worship and with their own bishops and so on. Whenever you see anything in the news about an Iraqi archbishop, it is almost never about my friend Archbishop Sleiman (the Latin Rite archbishop), but about one of the Chaldean bishops. Jean Sleiman is probably safer from violence since he is not so prominent. Most of the violence suffered by Christian clergy has been suffered by the Chaldeans.

And on and on and on, of course.