We Are Coming Home

 

        First, we’d like to thank everyone for your prayers and continued support of our family. We are so incredibly grateful to you all for everything that you’ve done for us and the Peruvian people. Here is an update. Please excuse the length and lack of pictures from this letter.

        As many of you have read on our recent blog, we have had some medical issues in our family, especially with Hannah and Hudson over the last number of months. Hannah had started to gain weight, but now she is starting to “plateau” again and has started sweating, complaining about abdominal pain and does not want to eat again.  We have done a number of stool studies, but continue to have negative results.

Hudson has also had some serious growth delay and even though neurologically he is meeting all milestones, he is severely underweight. We took him into the hospital a few weeks back and found that he has severe inflammation in his small intestines which explains why after just a couple of bites of food, he loses his appetite and starts to fuss. We tried to do stool cultures and an MRI, but have not come up with the cause for all of the inflammation. Due to the inflammation, he has little to no appetite and even though we give him anything that he’ll eat, he still has serious growth delay. In May, we noticed that he had dropped off the growth chart and now is even further behind the curve that he was on 4 months ago. In June, we got some limited testing done on him while we were in the US and found infections and figured that this was the cause. We treated him and he seemed to feel a little bit better…for awhile. At this point he was at the 1^st % for weight (this means 99 out of 100 babies his age weighed more than him). But then starting in the beginning of July, he again was not acting right. With weekly weights, we have now found that he had gained only 3 ounces in the last 10 weeks. This put him somewhere around the 0.1 % range (999 out of 1000 children his age weigh more than him). The most concerning part about this all was that he didn’t get better with antibiotics and he tested negative for campylobacter and C. diff that he had previously had in the US and now over the last week he has lost nearly a pound.

This of course is all very concerning to us and so we contacted Hannah’s pediatric GI doctor in Denver. He had previously been in favor of us returning to Peru, but with this new information, he is now not so comfortable. In fact, he is giving the recommendation at this point to not only return for further testing, but also to return for long enough that the kids have time for “catch-up growth.” This is more of a long-term type of treatment. Crystal and I have been praying about these recommendations and discussing them with the kids’ doctors here because of the implications of the recommendation. After much prayer and many tears, we have decided that it is in the best interest of our children to return to the US indefinitely. This has been a very tough and trying decision to make, because we really enjoy living here in Peru and because God has been using us in the ministry that is being done here at Hospital Diospi Suyana. We also have really enjoyed all of the people that we work with and feel like we are letting them down, as well as the patients that are waiting in line, by leaving. All at the same time, we know that this is the right decision and our leadership has felt the same way. We can’t with a right conscience, stay here and ignore the needs of our children that God has given to us to personally care for and to protect. We have always said that God comes first, then family, then our ministry. With that order, our kids’ needs are what we need to take care of.

Right as we were in the middle of deciding what needed to be done, we were at Bible study studying the book of James and came to James 4:13-17 that says: “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” We really felt convicted that even though God had called us to Peru, maybe the duration of time was our idea and not His. After praying about it, although we are very sad in our hearts for having to leave such wonderful people and such a great ministry, we know that God has other plans for us elsewhere and we just need to be ready and willing to leave behind our pride and listen to what He has asked us to do.”

We have talked with our leadership and have been given the okay to return home in mid-October and we will get appointments set up for the kids shortly afterward. If it is the Lord’s will, we would love to connect with each and every one of you over the next few months to talk about the great things that God has done and the ministry that will be continuing here without us.

So that being said, we just want to say thank you SO MUCH for all of you who have been such a tremendous support for us! We could really not have been able to make the impact here without each and every one of you. Since starting work at the hospital, John has been able to see over 2,000 people, of which every one of them has heard the gospel! We don’t know the eternal impact that was made during this time, but we are sure that many more people will be with Jesus in eternity because of all of your faithful support. 

Please continue to keep John in your prayers as he will be presenting an idea to the local community church leaders that will get them as well as other church members involved with talking to patients, listening to their stories, troubles and pains and also sharing the gospel with them as well. We feel that this will be an even better way for people to truly understand the gospel in their time of need, as well as to get local Christians involved in spreading the Good News of Jesus. Please pray that we will continue to stay focused over the next month so that we can finish the mission that was set out for us here in Peru.

Thank you all for your incredible support of the work being done here in Peru as well as for our family. We have felt so loved through this entire process and wouldn’t have been able to be a part of God’s work here without you all! May God continue to bless you all in your own personal ministries as well!

 

Prayer requests:

· That Hudson’s weight doesn’t drop anymore and that he and Hannah will start to grow again.

· For peace with our decision, that we can find work quickly and that God will continue to do great things in Peru!

 

A Difficult Decision


Well, we just wanted to post a quick update about how our family is doing health-wise and to ask for continued prayer.

First of all, Hannah, 2 years old, seems to be doing much better. Praise the Lord! Even though she has continued to test positive for C. diff and still has foul-smelling loose stools, she no longer has signs of inflammation in her intestines on ultrasound and she is gaining a significant amount of weight. She also has had a better appetite (although it still takes a fair amount of coaxing to get a full meal in). With these results, it seems less likely that she has Celiac disease like we had once suspected and the possibilities still exist for infectious causes (although less likely due to the extended period of problems) and inflammatory bowel disease that is currently out of a flare. Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to continue her diagnostic work-up from here and please also thank the Lord for healing her body if not permanently, at least for now and putting some weight on her.

Regarding Caleb, 4 years old, he seems to be growing well now and has also put on a fair amount of weight since being home. He is benefiting from the high calorie foods that we have been serving to Hannah and we are glad to see the weight gain. We haven't had any real concerns about him, but of course is getting the normal infections that would be expected from going to school with a bunch of other 4 year-olds. Thank the Lord that he is growing.

More recently, our concern has been for Hudson (almost 14 months old). Just as Hannah dropped off the curve before a  year old, Hudson also took a dive with his weight at 8 months of age. With Celiac disease being in our extended family, we actually decided not to give him anything with gluten in it until he turned a year-old just to decrease his risk of developing a problem if he did carry a gene for it. That being said, he still dropped off of the charts at 8 months of age. We got some labs done in the US in June and found that he was iron deficient and had the same GI infections that Hannah did and so we treated him for them and he tested negative for all GI infections one month ago. That being said, he has not gained even 0.1 kg in over 7 weeks of weighing him. He has lost all of his appetite and after just a few bites, refuses to eat anything else. He is drinking fluids which is sustaining him, but a child that is barely one year old should be eating and gaining significant amounts of weight rapidly. So, about a week ago, we took him to the hospital and did an ultrasound and found that he had significant inflammation in his small intestines similar to what Hannah had but with negative stool cultures. We decided to get an MRI (Since it won't expose him to radiation like a CT would) in Cusco to see if the inflammation showed any patterns that could lead us to a diagnosis (like Crohn's disease for example which if left untreated can cause serious bowel death, fistulas and abscesses leading to multiple surgeries over a life-time). Unfortunately, the company that did the MRI was less than helpful, told us that they had no oral contrast (very useful in diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease) and when they gave us the reading, didn't make a single comment about the intestines. To top that off, the CD that they gave us of the MRI had images so small, that it was nearly impossible to see much larger organs like the liver, much less the intestines. We called and asked for a better image quality and they said it wouldn't be a problem. So, Crystal went back to Cusco (2.5 hours away on winding roads) to get them and they said that she would have to come back on Monday. After a series of blatant lies that I will not bore you with (6-8 in a row), they sent Crystal on a hunt for a very specific DVD to burn the images that apparently is not actually sold in Cusco, with directions to a street that has no stores that even sell DVD's. We assume it was just to get her to leave them alone. We are finding that the MRI has and probably will be completely useless to us in making a diagnosis and that our chances of figuring out what is going on with Hudson and/or Hannah here in Peru is getting quite slim.

That being said, we want to exhaust our options for diagnostics here before considering coming back to the US. But, we also don't want to cause permanent harm to any of our children by wasting time/money/emotional stress on things that aren't going to help either.

So this is the question of the hour. We know that God has called us to be here in Peru and we have seen great things happen already. We know that God can use us here, or anywhere for that matter as long as we are willing to follow His calling. In our Bible study we were reading James 4:13-15 that says: " Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” " We want to be sure of two things.  First, that the Lord is still calling us to be here. We know that He has given us three wonderful children and that they are our priority above outside ministry, and therefore we need to take care of their needs. If we can't do it here in Peru, than that means in the US. But second, we also want to be strong and courageous just like God commanded Joshua as he was telling him about the Promised Land. We know that God is doing great things here and that Satan will attack us in anyway that he can to try and take away our strength. So with that, we know that our God is greater and stronger and higher than any other and that if that is all this is about, we will be fine.

In summary, we would love to have prayer from all of you about the following things:

1. How do we need to proceed in making a diagnosis for Hannah and Hudson

2. How can we best take care of them and make sure that they have no long-term affects from these illnesses

3. Do we need to return to the US for further diagnostics, try other routes here in Peru (Lima) or wait it out?

4. Is this God's way of calling us to come home to the US or are we supposed to endure so that God can be given the glory?

5. Give thanks that Caleb and Hannah are growing

6. Pray that Hudson will start gaining weight

7. Please pray for Crystal and I as the unknown is weighing heavily on our hearts and seeing Hudson waste away is tough to watch.

Thank you all for your continued support of our family and the ministry that God has called us to here! I apologize that I haven't posted about all of the wonderful things that have gone on, but I hope to do so some day soon.

God bless!