Feliz Ano Nuevo...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We spent time in prayer tonight as a family, thanking the Lord for all that He has done for us over the past year, the things that we have learned and the experiences He allowed for our family to have. Our prayer is that He will continue to bless you in 2009...Happy New Year!

Snorkeling!

Well, since Brad arrived two days before my surgery and things have been really busy since then with a short-term team arriving this Saturday, Ken decided to take the day off today from work at the camp, and also keep a promise to Brad that he made last time he was here. Brad has seen the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, but had one day wanted to see the Carribean Coast. So, Ken woke all the kids up at 3:30 this morning and off to the Carribean Coast they went after a couple of days of making "plans" through a tour guide friend of ours of the best place to go snorkeling! It is about a four hour drive. I hope to be able to post some pictures from their excursion tomorrow.

Tired...please pray.

I am not a good patient. At least, it's hard for me to adapt the "patient" mindset. I am frustrated with feeling literally exhausted. I get up, walk around the house, and lie back down because I am so tired. Though, I am thankful that I did not need to have blood transfusions during my operation which my physician quite honestly was surprised by and had ordered before my preadmission testing came back before surgery. Next Saturday begins our three short-term teams in six weeks marathon. This week starts the preparations! Please pray for Ken, David & Katherine and our kids as they prepare for and work alongside the teams. Pray for me. I am tired of being tired.

Christmas in Costa Rica

We've survived our "first" Christmas in Costa Rica. If perhaps we "thought" these people were crazy before, I can assure you that we now "know" that to be true, for sure. What we learned is that Christmas Eve is the BIG holiday that is celebrated particularly between the hours of 12 and 2 a.m. In Costa Rican tradition you have a big dinner with your family, usually pork as it is a bit more pricey cut of meat and not eaten every day. We ate pork roast around 6 p.m. courtesy of Katherine's cooking, and the entire family with the exception of myself, went to the neighbor's and had pork ribs, fried pork and other various pork dishes around 8:30 p.m. Some time between 10 and midnight the Catholic families usually attend church together and the entire country opens their presents at midnight and lights off fireworks in celebration. It lasted here in our neighborhood until around 2 a.m. We couldn't stay awake until midnight, especially me since having surgery, so our kids wanted to break free from our American tradition of opening presents on Christmas morning. We honored their wishes and in Tico style, they opened their gifts at about 10:30 p.m. and we "heard" they went to bed around 3 a.m. Today, we have spent the day at home reflecting on Christ's birth, not eating a lot, making phone calls to loved ones back home and enjoying being together and centered around the birth of Christ Jesus. We hope you had a blessed holiday.

Happy Birthday, Jesus

Matt. 2:11, "After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary, His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh".

Merry Christmas!

Recovering

I am at home recovering from my surgery. I've had so many emails that I thought I would post something on here to keep everyone up to date. I got home last night. The physician said that the surgery went well. He was unable to palpate any other cancerous lesions on any of my other organs. He did take out all of the pelvic lymph nodes for biopsy and we will know those results in the beginning of January, about 15 days from now. I had a little damage to my trachea from the tube and developed an upper respiratory tract infection during the hospitalization. I am on an antibiotic for that, but the most painful part is when I have to cough from that. I do have my voice back now, having lost that and at one point, could actually have probably sung a raspy bass. I am not in too much pain and the medication that he gave me to control it is working well! A special thank you to everyone who prayed for me and us during this time and who are continuing to pray for me throughout my recovery! Thank you to my heavenly Father for seeing me through!

OVERWHELMED!

I don't know how else to state it, but we just feel truly overwhelmed with the outpouring of love that was shown to us by our home church in N.C., Hickory Grove! From Christmas cards with personal messages, to children's church drawings with sweet words of love and encouragement, to wall-to-wall sour patch kids, gummy bears, Jell-o pudding for my recovery from surgery, Christmas presents (not yet opened, of course). We don't know how to say thank-you, but please know that we are so appreciative and we feel so LOVED!

Well, right now I am surrounded at my laptop by bacon and egg eating scoundrels while I sit here and chew gum....hahahaha! I think they should have ALL joined me on my clear liquid diet!

Tonight, we will be making cookies, but not before we go out and buy a few more ingredients. The neighbors are beginning the process of making tamales that they will give out on Dec. 23rd. Christmas cookies are not a tradition here, so our family will make cookies tonight for our family to give away next week to our camp employees and those who help us and join us in ministry here. There's a lot of baking to do tonight! FUN!!!

Today is THE DAY!

We've been counting down the number of "sleeps" with Jordie, listening to Danielle and Jordie pass each other in the house and say, "how many more days"...and today is THE DAY! In a few hours we will depart for the airport to pick up Bradley (our future son-in-law). When asked by the doctor yesterday if I wanted him to work hard at getting my lymph node biopsy results BEFORE Christmas so that I could have a nice Christmas, I calmly told him "no". I want to wait until my follow up appointment in January for those results. I told him I had peace about whatever he will find or won't find at my surgery and besides I was prepared to wait the 15 days that he originally told me I would have too. Tomorrow, I begin my clear liquid diet.

When asked by my family what I wanted for Christmas, my response, to keep to our family tradition of making cookies together. That's all I want! And so, Danielle got a hold of Brad for him to bring down some necessary elements to our baking, Christmas sprinkles, pretzels, Rolo's, Hershey's kisses, etc. and so tomorrow night we have plans to carry out "our tradition" in the camp kitchen with our extended family, the Huitz's, our next door neighbor, Milena and bake cookies, watch the Polar Express and though I can't eat any cookies, I will thoroughly enjoy our time being together!

Surgery Clearance

I had a follow up visit with the Cardiologist today after not being cleared for surgery last week due to having high blood pressure. My blood pressure last week was normal the day before at the doctor's office. That day at the Cardiologist I had been in the hospital for hours doing preadmission testing and his office visit was the last one on the schedule. Today, it was good and I received written clearance to have the surgery this Saturday. The procedure is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thank you to all of you who received word about this follow up visit and spent time praying for me!

Prayers answered before spoken!

One of the issues with this surgery that has silently concerned me is that the hospital is about an hour and a half away from our home making it obviously difficult for visitation. When we discussed the upcoming surgery with some missionary friends of ours who reside in the capital city, they informed us of another missionary organization who operates a guest house not even ten minutes from the hospital. If that was not enough to Praise God for, they offered to call the Directors and let them know of our circumstances and also told us that they only lived ten minutes from the guest house themselves and that they wanted to provide meals for our family as they stayed there. My doctor has written into my admission papers permission for Heather, who is more fluent in Spanish, to spend the night with me after my surgery.

It amazes me how God intercedes for us before we even get a chance to speak to Him of our needs.

Thank you to those who are expressing their care and concern for our family by email, through Bonnie L. who has called us down here, through Global Outreach Mission. We are so thankful for ALL OF YOU who are supporting us through your love and your prayers during this time. We want you to know that God is good...ALL THE TIME!!!!

Today's blessings...a visit back home

I was up for about a half hour today and had a similar episode to what I had about a week ago of the dry heaves. I decided to get back into bed and listen to our Ipod. For over an hour I enjoyed listening to the Hickory Grove Quartet and while my hand clapping wasn't anything like it is at home with the whole church involved, I was blessed during my church service in bed...ahahaha. Later, I was able to go to our church service which I had thought earlier would not be possible! Of course, God is a God of the impossible!

"I was made to Praise You" the song

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a new Christian artist by the name of Rich Hodge, came to our home church in Syracuse, NY. He was accompanied by his young daughter, Sierra, and they were traveling together from church to church. Unfortunately, at the time of the concert Rich had cancer. He has since passed away. Back then his testimony and this song, "I was made to Praise You" had a significant impact on my life as a Christian and how I viewed myself in relation to God. I bought his LP (that's how long ago it was folks). It is a worship song that I have continued to hum while cleaning, sing while rocking my kids when they were babies and just ponder from time to time. As a tribute to his testimony and his family, our daughter, Heather, was given the middle name, Sierra, after his daughter. The words to this song are on my Facebook and Elizabeth L. left me a note about it. I draw a tremendous amount of strength from this song still today and I thank the Lord for the imprint that it has had on my heart. As I shared with the short-term children's ministry team from Threshold Church out of Charlotte, N.C. last night; my biggest prayer request through this is that it wouldn't be about me, and that it wouldn't be about the cancer. My prayer, is that it would be about Him.

Having cancer in Costa Rica

By now, some of you may have heard that I have been diagnosed with uterine cancer. We have been waiting the last two and a half weeks for the biopsy results and those were given to us yesterday. There are three stages to this cancer; I, II and III. I have been diagnosed with Stage I. We are thankful for this diagnosis because God could have allowed for it to be a Stage II or Stage III! This cancer is not a familial cancer, in other words, Danielle and Heather are not genetically predisposed to this same kind of cancer because I have it. Another reason to Praise God! In meeting with the physician yesterday, the rule of thumb as far as treatment of this cancer is surgery, that being a total hysterectomy. It is his recommendation that it be done sooner rather than later because of the confirmation of cancer. I cannot have this procedure done laparoscopically as was originally discussed with me because of the positive cancer biopsy results. More biopsies will be taken and if need be, pelvic lymph node biopsies will be done as well to see if it is any other place in my body, and this cannot be done laparoscopically. After much prayer and consideration into our options, Ken & I have decided that I will have the surgery here in Costa Rica. Remember, that I had my original biopsy two and a half weeks ago and our physician has been very frank with us from the beginning about further treatment. We know of other missionaries who have had surgery in the hospital that we will be going too and it is a very highly spoken of hospital here in the capital city. So, why am I up at 4:45 a.m. otherwise? Because I am lame...my stomach is growling and I am very hungry, but I have my preadmission testing tomorrow (well now, it's today already) and am fasting! Surgery is tentatively being scheduled for next Saturday, December 20th.

I know that this comes as a "shock" to some of you. I have often wondered to myself, "what does it feel like to be told you have cancer"? Of course, no one wants to ask that question! I can answer it for you though. From the human point of view, it is a shock. It is at first, scary. You sit in an office and feel like you are listening, but nodding your head like a puppet. It feels lonely because right now for this time in my life I am far removed from my earthly family and my church family.

How does it feel from the angle of being a Christian? I know that God is in control of this situation. He has allowed this because there is a purpose in it. Recognizing that, my desire is to bring honor and glory to Him through it. He is and remains an awesome God!

Catch up post...Nov. 21st

In Costa Rica, typically your 15th birthday is your "coming out" party. Heather's birthday is Dec. 3, but due to the camp being booked; we held Heather's 16th birthday party on Nov. 21, but we did it in Costa Rican "15th Fiesta" style. Here she is at the head table with some of, but not all of her attendants, from left to right: Heather, Francini, Leo & Yancy.

Dancing is a huge part of the Costa Rican culture! As a tribute to their American culture from the left, Kyle, behind him in the center, Heather & Danielle taught some of their daring Costa Rican friends "The Cotton-Eyed Joe" line dance. The lady behind Danielle in black pants and black shirt is Gabriella, our Pastor's wife!

Katherine & David planned some "surprise" guests for Heather. Here she is with a duo who serenaded her with typical Costa Rican guitar accompanied music.

The "coming out" party begins with a formal ceremony. Heather and her attendants were pronounced as they entered the building and her escort led her to her father in the center of the room. Once joined with her Dad, Ken and Heather did the first dance together, the waltz as her attendants looked on. Before they finished, her escort, our neighbor and Heather's best "buddy", Osvaldo, cut in and completed the waltz with her and the rest of the attendant party joined them on the dance floor. Heather and Ken, Danielle and Kyle practiced two nights for this dance since they didn't know it before under the direction of Katherine & David.

Following the dancing came a full course catered meal with waiters as our special present to honor Heather. Here, behind the waiter on the left, she is going from table to table thanking each person who came to help her celebrate!

For those who might have wondered....

Yes, we are still alive in Costa Rica. Let me just apologize! We have really been very busy the last couple of weeks and so, I've kind of let the posting to our blog get behind. We had a good Thanksgiving (I have pictures to share). Last weekend, we had the Pastor's retreat and 460 Pastor's and their wives were in attendance at the campground (I have pictures to share). Heather had a great 16th birthday Fiesta (and I have pictures to share)! It's just getting the time to sit down long enough to post the pictures that has been difficult. This week we have a team here from the great state of N.C., Charlotte to be exact, doing children's ministry at the camp and that has kept us out of trouble with the usual preparations of grocery shopping, cabin cleaning and bed-making. So, just in case you have been wondering. We are okay here, just really busy and truly I hope to share with you this week a bit more in detail of what we have been up to in recent weeks!