March 13, 2008

Dear Prayer Team,

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR SARAH as the Lord has led you!!! She stayed with me through Friday last week. She felt she was well enough to go back home and was very thankful for the encouragement she received from the Lord while here. Of course there was much more I would have liked to share with her before leaving, but will follow the Lord's lead for future opportunities to share. The night before Sarah left we had her family over for dinner, movie and games. Her mom speaks virtually only Navajo but has taken to me by God's grace!!! We played a game she likes. I was on her team and we won every game!! I heard through interpretation that she was rubbing it in some. : ) She noticed some of my horse equipment hanging on a chair and said in Navajo that she wanted to make me a horse blanket. It is hard for her to weave anymore, but it is a real encouragement to me that she would want to do that. She is not a believer, yet. When they were leaving she gave me a hug and a pat on the back.

When she came for Bible study Tuesday evening she seemed to be a bit down but trying to hang in there. Towards the end of our study a burst of feelings about dominant culture remarks made to her as a Native American came pouring out. I was surprised and just tried to listen. Praise the Lord for past experience again to understand some of the emotional issues that lead people into destructive habits/addictions!!! Alcoholism is a destructive addiction that many Native American get involved in and when the Lord helped me speak with compassion about the key emotional elements that lead to it, she calmed right down telling me I was right.

Sarah's sister, Della, is going through radiation treatments daily for two weeks as of Tuesday. This is another weight Sarah needs prayer for. She took her sister in to Gallup today and will again tomorrow for her treatments.

While Sarah was staying with me there was an emergency with a horse belonging to a boarder at my friend's place across the road from me. It was about noon on the 3rd when I took my horse across the road to work with her. Only 10 to 15 minutes earlier my friend's husband had put the boarder's horse in the arena. As I approached the arena the horse hollered causing me to look. I immediately noticed something was drastically wrong. He was trying to stay standing up then just collapsed straight down to the ground landing on his forehead and stayed that way for a few seconds then got up and went through the process again and again as I watched in horror for a little over a minute before securing my horse and running home to call a vet. It was straight up noon by that time and the vet was out to lunch with no way to contact them for an hour. I tried to get through to the owner who is a school teacher and was unsuccessful. I was horrified to find the horse continuing through the above process when I ran back over. With such continual activity there was nothing I could do to help him, so I took my horse out on the land behind and poured out my heart to the Lord. The owner is not a believer yet. I have witnessed to her though it's been several months ago. After a half hour the horse was falling down much faster and was more frantic. I took off with my horse again crying to the Lord all the way out and back. When I came back to put my horse up, the teacher's horse was just laying flat kicking his feet. I was sure he was dying though I had never seen anything like this before. As the day progressed I was able to get a message to the teacher who then left work to come over. Every vet we tried refused to come out, they all wanted us to bring the horse in. It simply was not going to be financially profitable for any of them to come!!! I'll confess to becoming quite angry about that. The horse started to get up once in a while then fall again. That night it got down to 16 degrees. A halter was put on the horse to try to keep him from slamming his head to the ground when he would try to get up as he really messed up his left eye and that side of his mouth. I ended up getting too cold to stay any longer after the owner had gone home to change into her skiing clothes. The horse made it through the night to everyone's surprise. When he was able to sit up I took warm water out to him. He saw those buckets and got to his feet and barely was able to stand to drink, but drink he did. He got stronger through the day. I offered to take him in to the vet but the teacher was unwilling to do that for fear of finding out he might not live. He is still alive, but I think the eye is going to be no good. We still don't know what brought this on or what his prognosis is, but this situation has opened a door of respect between the owner and me more.

Thank you for your prayerful support as the Lord leads you!!! I know I say that all the time, but whatever we do is to be done as the Lord leads. : ) Thank you for investing in this part of the Lord's work!!!!!!

In His Care,

Tobie Keiser

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