Praying, Hoping and Trusting God

I received an email from our friend Lindy on the 14th of August, and it was a hard email to read. I can not pretend to understand the fight she has been in for over 3 years and I have written about her and her family in my blog before and today I am going to copy her latest blog post into my blog and ask for all of you who know her and all of you who don't, please pray for her and her family.

Six Months

August 16th, 2012

Since my last post I had another blood transfusion (last Friday) and thoracentesis (this past Monday).
I said to Dusty that ever since I went to the ER and spent a week in Spectrum a few months ago that things with my cancer have changed. For the worse. Yes the chemo is shrinking the spots we can see, but it’s clearly not helping with the fluid. The doctor who performed the procedure said I would probably have this every three to four weeks! Ouch! Having the fluid drained hurts.
Last Wednesday we met with Dr. VanderWoude. She thought it was going to be a routine visit until I dropped this question on her. “What’s my prognosis?” She sat down and explained to me and Dusty that I’m at the point where chemo, any chemo, is not going to give me more time. She said I can keep taking the chemo if it makes me feel like I’m “fighting”, but she said that if I choose to stop treatment it’s not giving up. I would be opting for a better quality of life. Chemo made me miserable. It was no way to live. Most of my time was spent sleeping or in bed. We left her office with a big decision to make.
After an afternoon of ups and downs, prayers, thoughts, and questions, Dusty and I decided to stop the chemo. I’m done with the misery. Dr. VanderWoude estimates I have 6 months left (give or take).
We are now working with Hospice. I will meet my nurse tomorrow. Her name is Jane.
Please pray for our family as we work through this new phase of life and guide our children through it. Pray for the kids. Our family. Our parents. Our friends.
We’ve been blessed by so many. I will update my blog whenever anything exciting happens. I promise.
Thank you to everyone for bringing us meals, the gifts cards, and donations.
We will continue to have all communication go through Dani.
Please do not stop by unannounced. We just can’t deal with that right now.

Today at the breakfast table, I explained to our kids about this post as best as I can, and Mercy (who has honestly prayed faithfully each day for Lindy for over 2 years) said, "But Mom, I pray everyday! Why isn't God answering my prayers?"  Oh Mercy. I tried to explain that God has not given us the answer we want yet, but there is always hope and we have to trust God and keep praying everyday, every time we think of her, Dusty, Brooklyn, Max and Samantha. My kids were pretty upset, but determined to keep praying and keep asking God for that miracle. If it was that hard to try to explain to my kids, oh the unbelievable pain that Dusty and Lindy are in trying to help their 3 precious children understand. Please pray for a miracle, our God can do the impossible, He can heal and restore her health.
Her blog is on the bottom right of my blog under blogs we follow if you want to stay updated for more prayer requests.

Sleep Living

Sleep living, I am not sure if that is actually a phrase that I am allowed to use, but I am thinking that it is the phrase that best describes where Bryan and I are at right now. We have been going non stop since July4th between work, volunteers and teams, last Saturday was the only day we did not have something going on, but then we had a beautiful Dutch family showed up for a tour of Beautiful Gate. The volunteers we had, Cassi and Andrew were a lot of fun to host and we had such a nice time with them. Then we had the Holland Christian Team and that was an amazing experience full of tears, laughter, painting, panic (well at least Hannah, Anna and Olivia got to see me panic), heartfelt moments to cherish, and just loads of fun with the kids and staff here. Then we had the team from the United Kingdom which was also full of laughs, fears, bonding with babies, painting, games and surprisingly even make-overs (NEVER expected that in Africa). Now the volunteers have all gone (except Paige but she is our new daughter so she doesn't count) and the teams are done till October, so we have a little break.
I am refreshed in my spirit from new friendships that have been formed. I am awed by the love and strength of many volunteers as they stretched themselves out of their comfort zones, and were blessed because of it. My children have a library full to overflowing and it brings me tears, and the Beautiful Gate children have also been blessed beyond measure by new books and toys. My heart is full to overflowing with gratitude and love for many who have done so much for Beautiful Gate and also for us. We know that we are far from home, but we know we have not been forgotten. Please also know that we have not forgotten any of you either. I have about 50 facebook and email messages that I need to return or send, and every night I have been meaning to do it, but I just can't think straight and I am surprised I was even able to get this post written. So while my heart is full, the rest of me is a bit worn out from the last 6 weeks. Thanks for being patient with me and good-night!!!!!

A Poem about my Home

Two days ago, I was busy making some beds for our UK team when I looked out the window and saw SNOW! It snowed for about an hour and the wind was blowing hard and it was COLD! I seriously thought I was back in Michigan for a winter day. It was the first day I was actually cold outside in Lesotho (that is usually a word we save for indoors where it is usually in the 40's).

Yesterday was also a very cold and windy day and during homeschool, I asked Faith to write a freestyle poem about her home. I laughed when she read it to me and thought it was worth sharing. I have no doubt it was inspired by the sudden change in the weather, brrrrrrrrrrr

A Poem about my Home

My home is warm
in summer.
In my bed it is warm too.
In winter one room is warm,
it is the living room.
But if you wear two of everything
in the other rooms,
you might get warm.
And that's my home!

Faith Geurink
Grade 1

Overnight Shift

I had a great experience last week that I wanted to share about, but my internet has been gone for 4 days so I am just now getting a chance to blog :) TIA!!!
The team from Holland, Michigan decided to bless our overnight staff by offering to stay up all night and perform all the duties that the overnight staff normally does and to allow them a little time to sleep. I was with 4 of the team members and we were in the Pula houses. Our staff was a little stubborn and kept feeding the little baby in the room (10 day old) and insisted she would let us help her later, meanwhile I had a fantastic conversation with one of the girls from the team so neither one of us were tired, I can not say that about the other 3, hahaha. Finally at 3am we were put to work.

I was in the kitchen washing dishes, another girl was learning how to make the porridge and stirring it with a big wooden stick :) The other 3 girls were waking up kids and having them sit on their little potty chairs (which I assure you the kids did NOT like at 3:30am). They bathed kids and helped them get dressed and I moved on to making all the bottles for the babies on both sides of the house. Then I moved over to the other side of the house and had the fun job of putting kids in their nappies (diapers), slathering on some Vaseline and getting them dressed for the day. I had to laugh when a few of the kids said, "M'e Anita did you sleep here last night?" The overnight staff were happy to have our help and they thanked me over and over again. Then one of the house mothers (who had slept during the overnight) came into the bathroom where I was getting kids ready and her face was shocked, "You Me' Anita! You stayed up all night at our house, thank you so much!" is what she said as if I had done something grand. I actually had a great time and if I did not have 3 kids and a job as their teacher, I would do it more often.

What struck me the most was their thankfulness as if I had really done something amazing. I gave up a little sleep for one night and they made me feel like I had done something worth a medal :) Sometimes it is the small things that really make a difference and I am glad God put me and the other girls there to do our small thing for those house staff!

Lost then Found!

Yesterday was a day of reality for the team who is visiting us. We were going about our day with the routine that we have kind of established when things changed quickly. Bryan shouted out to our friend Christina to run up to Khotso 1 and get the house mother because 3 police officers had just shown up with a child. Bryan and the house mother had the police fill out an intake form and discovered that this little boy had been found wandering in the woods near a school. He was a sweet little boy and very polite as we said "Lumela" in greeting to him and he responded in a nice quiet voice. The house mother got him all cleaned up and tucked in for the night. When we went back into the house with the team and explained what happened, it was obvious that many of them were quite thoughtful. While they are busy getting ready to eat a big dinner, play some cards or games and get cleaned up for the night, it was a reminder that there are children out there who are lost or abandoned, who are scared and lonely and it is all very close by.

We rejoice that his parents showed up today to take him home. I do not know all the details of how he got lost in the woods but I am happy that he has his family back. I also rejoice that the police brought him here where he could easily be tracked down and not traumatized too much by this incident. There is such need around us and it is great to report a good reunion this time, but I am sure it was a long night for the child and his parents!!!

Gifts from home !!!!!

 Elijah and Mercy hugging Faith on their birthday.

 Faith is happily cuddling her new blanket from Great Grandma Lue.

 Elijah, Faith and Mercy were so EXCITED to get an entire dufflebag full of books from Elijah's best friend Jordan. He is such a sweet boy and for his 10th birthday, he asked all his friends to bring books for Elijah, Faith and Mercy instead of a present for him. I cried so much the day his mom emailed me to tell me that story. Thanks Jordan - my kids were so happy with their books that they did not want to open the other gifts from home.

 Thanks Josh, Katie and Olivia for the books (and Sammy too)! Thanks also Sammy for all your work in the secret gift too. You are awesome!

 Mercy was such a good girl during school today, she quietly looked at all her new books from my mother while I taught Elijah and Faith.

 Then we had some cheese nips from Sandi and they were so good and cheesy that Elijah had to close his eyes and savor the flavor.

 Showing off some of his new books. He surprised me because the first book he wanted to read was Black Beauty because he wanted to know if it was the same as the movie he watched once.

Peek-a-boo, Faith got a few Junie B Jones books from Randy, Lynae, Ethan, Josiah and Levi! She was so excited (and thanks for the pants and stuffed animal too) Elijah was very excited to get a few new magazines and sweat pants too! Thanks Meyer family.

The kids got mad at me for taking so many pictures so I do not have pics of all their gifts from friends at home, but really want to say thanks to the Kroll family (the cards and kool-aid and yummy things for cooking), Vern and Dianne (they loved their bendable dolls and already ate one of their bags of M&M's and I am stocked again with my favorite cooking items from home), Sam and Bethany (I have never seen those cherry candies before but they are awesome and I have hidden the Reese's pieces from my family members because they are one of my favorites, hahaha), Thanks Paige, Kelly, Kristin and Rick for the birthday presents for the kids. They were already asking me when they could sign up for the webkins web page ;) and Mercy loves the baby critters. Elijah's walki talki's actually work great and are such an awesome thing to have on campus (we better watch out or Bryan and the staff might "borrow"them). Thanks Haven Library for all the books and the cd, that was so thoughtful too.

Our kids library has grown so much and I was overwhelmed with gratitude to so many friends and family as they pulled out book after book from the bags brought by the HCHS basketball team. I do have to admit that as a bunch of teens watched my kids stop what they were doing and get SUPER GEEKED about reading, they were not super impressed, HAHAHAHA!!!!! But I am happy and proud of my kids for their love of reading :) Thank you for your thoughtful gifts and for thinking of us all. The team will be blessing the staff and kids later this week with some gifts as well.

Driving confidence

Well, first of all the Holland Christian girls basketball team has made it safely and yesterday they received all their missing luggage (which caused great rejoicing among them). They are a great group of girls and I am looking forward to seeing their eyes open to the culture around them as they go through the week.

Yesterday, Terp (their leader and our good friend) had a surprise lined up for the girls (which I won't spoil as I am sure they will want to tell all their friends and family about it first). All I will say was that getting there was an adventure for me. There were 22 of us that needed to get to the place and so I needed to be a driver. I have done very little driving and only really driven in town, but yesterday I was driving through rural, semi-mountainous Lesotho and part of South Africa and through a new border post, a police stop, and on a road that a little Camery should not really be able to drive on especially with 6 people in it making it even lower to the ground. I won't lie and say I wasn't extremely stressed out during this adventure, but the good news it that I have a lot more confidence in my driving skills now (and now know how people around here get through the pothole and rock filled roads in their little cars)!!!

It was a lot of fun to sit in the car for about 6 hours with 3 high school/recently graduated girls. I had a little foreshadowing of what Faith and Mercy could be like in 10-12 years. (I better not even go there!!!) One of the girls happens to be the babysitter of Elijah's best friend Jordan and I can tell that Jordan and his mother Sandi have only said good things about Elijah because she seemed to like him before she even got here (thanks for the gifts you sent the kids,Sandi and Jordan - she made sure they were in her carry on so that they did not get lost which was wise since their luggage did get lost). All 3 of the girls were teasing him and laughing with him and teaching him new games from their Ipods during my drive and although I don't think he would admit it - he was having a great time :) Faith and Mercy were in a different car so I am not sure how their ride went but I am sure they had a nice time with new friends to talk to.

So yesterday, I was gaining confidence in my driving and my kids were gaining friends. It was a blessed day and I am sure we will have a lot of good times with this team over the next week!