Hello, my friend,

Some days it's hard to get out of bed, much less, log on to the computer and then read through tons of emails. That's one of the reasons I appreciate that you've taken the time to open up this email.

I'm torn between feeling eager and excited about Invisible Illness Week next week and struggling with coughing, a cold, flaring badly. . . you know the story.

So I'm going to ask a couple of favors (1) will you help me spread the word about Invisible Illness Awareness Week and (2) please, please pray for our outreach next week as well as for me personally.

I'm including one of our press releases below about Invisible Illness Week. We have a few of them on the web site and more are scheduled to come out over the next week. If you have discovered Rest Ministries and are reading this newsletter, the odds are that you may be a Christian or someone who is open to hearing more about Jesus. But there are millions of people online, who are posting about the darkness and the depression of living with illness and they don't have anyone to turn to.

This is why we have National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week - to provide a 5-day conference online (free!) that you can benefit from, but also as a way to introduce Rest Ministries to people who are searching for hope and a way to get through this life with illness.

Over the next week you will receive some bonus emails from me. I hope you know this is an exception and that you won't unsubscribe because of the extra mailings.

As you know, we don't have any funds to be able to spend extra money on advertising or marketing of Invisible Illness Week. By letting you know what's happening with II Week, and you sharing it with friends, it helps us considerably.

Here is today's press release. Feel free to copy it and share it anywhere (email friends, post on Facebook, post on your blog, etc.)

Chronically Ill Are Perfect Audience for
Virtual Conference, September 14-18

A virtual conference is not the results of budget cuts for National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, but the result of what benefits the most people who live with illness.

SEPT 2009-SAN DIEGO - Hard beds, traveling expenses, long walks to conference rooms, peers going overboard on the perfume, and extreme fatigue are predictably part of your average conference. For the chronically ill, however, these inconveniences oftentimes make attending an actual conference impossible. National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week celebrates its seventh year, and with the power of social networking, 009's "virtual" conference September 14-18, 2009 is sure to be a success.

"I can only leave the house once a week, twice if I am really lucky, so a weeklong conference is normally impossible for me," says Juliann Krute who lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and many other illnesses. "Having a conference that I can attend-even if I am in too much pain to get out of bed-is fantastic!"

The conference will feature twenty live seminars via Blog Talk Radio that anyone around the globe can listen to LIVE or archived. The 2008 workshops have had over 12,000 listeners and are also available on iTunes.

Topics for 2009's conference include:

• Applying and Winning Disability Assistance When You Are Chronically Ill
  
• Managing College with a Chronic Illness
  
• Find the Job You Desire and Can Do
  
• It's OK to say NO: Building Healthy Boundaries
  
• Coping with Chronic Illness in Your Marriage

[ See more here ]

Guest speakers are some of the top chronic illness advocates online today including Jenni Prokopy of chronicababe.com; Rosalind Joffe of keepworkinggirlfriend.com; Maureen Pratt, author of Peace in the Storm, and Christine Miserandino of butyoudontlooksick.com. They are joined by.Kelly Rouba, former Ms. Wheelchair NJ 2007, and best-selling authors on marriage, Bill and Pam Farrel.

Invisible Illness Week was founded by and is sponsored by Rest Ministries, the largest Christian organization that serves the chronically ill.

Lisa Copen, 40, founder of Rest Ministries and creator behind National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week says, "Regardless of where one's spiritual ties are, there is an fundamental human desire to feel understood, to feel like those you love have some idea about what you are going through." Copen, who is explored this in her book Why Can't I Make People Understand: Discovering the Validation Those With Chronic Illness Seek and Why says, "One of the most difficult adjustments to illness is that you feel life is passing you by and no one around you even realizes it. We hope through our conference we can provide a place where people find the true source of being validated in their pain, how to live joyfully despite their illness, and of course, we want to increase awareness about how many suffer silently. Like our theme says, 'A Little Help Gives a Lot of Hope.' It really does."

For more details about the free conference and other resources visit www.invisibleillnessweek.com

Thanks again for spending a few minutes with me today. I pray that you will have that assurance that God will never leave you or forsake you, even during the darkest moments.

A nice reminder... 1 John 2:17 "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

God bless you,

Lisa Copen, Rest Ministries Founder
Rest Ministries Chronic Illness Pain Support