A Jon Post
Following are a few snapshots of our lives over the last 2 months from a family that did a pretty poor job of communicating with all of you about where we are/what we’re doing. If you don’t have time to read it all please just skip to the end where I list a couple prayer requests.
#1 Week of September 22-28
A mad scramble to figure out if we would be able to get 2 our patients home, to the hospital, or to life-extending treatment in South Africa before we left. A mad scramble to find out if one of our patient’s tumor was operable or he needed to go home, and a bus ticket to send another one home who had finished her treatment and needed to spend her remaining days/months with her family.
Family minus Filomena
Zakarias, the surgeon didn’t respond before we left, we did not know if his tumor was operable, he stayed in our house.
Tomás and Eliza, the day we left for the USA (September 24th) we were up first thing in the morning to buy last minute bus tickets to send them to South Africa for more treatment.
Filomena The Day She Left
Filomena, we purchased a bus ticket and sent her home a few days before we left for the USA to make sure she was with her family after she was discharged with no more options to fight her cancer.
September 24th, we left our house at 11 AM and arrived at Layne’s parents house 40 hours later with all three girls in tow. Thankfully we had the gracious help of Jon’s parents who came to visit us and joined us in our long journey to the USA and helped tremendously on the plane.
(whew, that was a long first snapshot but we did a really bad job of telling everyone who reads this blog that any of that stuff happened before we left)
Jovie Meeting the Dolphins
Anaya Running with Dolphins
#2 Time in Corpus Christi, TX
The Texas State Aquarium with our girls. Grandparents helping them swim and play, as well as cousin time. Sitting with sweet, sweet supporters. Trying to recover from the jetlag and help our girls sleep in new places with new surroundings.
#3 October 30th More Travel
Flight from Corpus Christ to Phoenix. Left Layne’s parents place at 8 and arrived at Jon’s brother’s house 7 hours later. This was our first plane travel with our three girls alone. They are super stars.
Layne and Her Dad
#4 More Family Adjustments
Man… it’s hard doing this furlough thing with 3 little children. We could not ask them to be better sports through all of this but a new bedroom for a month, a new bed for a month, different living space for a month, meeting lots of people (supporters) for the first time on an almost daily basis. Well… it’s tough. Our girls are super stars.
#5 Time in Chandler, AZ
At Uncle Joe’s Duck Pond
Seeing more sweet, sweet supporters. Time with other Grandparents. Time with LOTS of cousins, girls napping in the car a lot.
So there are a few, far from comprehensive or descriptive, snapshots of our lives since September. We are currently in Chandler, Arizona in the USA trying to connect with those who pray for us and give to this ministry. We have been trying to sit down with each of you and we still have a little under two weeks to do that. We are very sorry that we haven’t pursued you and communicated with you all well enough to do that “sit down” better. We are finding out that we need to be more diligent with some things and one is our personal and purposeful communication with team mates.
They See Us Strollin…
Anaya Loves Karasi
In closing this little “snapshot” post. Can we ask you to pray for two things?
Would you pray that our children’s health improves? I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have American immunities built up or if it’s just a bug they would have picked up either way but all three, Anaya, Jovie, and Karasi have bad coughs and are very congested. It’s hard for them to rest and, thus, hard for their parents, especially Layne who still feeds and comforts Karasi in the night. Would you pray for them?
Would you also pray that each airplane on our return flight has LOTS of open seats? Neither Jovie nor Karasi are ticketed for those flights and are traveling as lap children. Anaya still needs plenty of help and attention on the flights and Jovie needs space to move so if we all try to jam into three seats it’s just really hard. Would you pray for our flights? Would you pray that a check-in agent magically upgrades us to first class? Would you pray that we have 15 seats to spread out on and rest on for the 40 hours of travel?
Karasi Loves Jovie
We love you guys. Thanks for loving us, even though we lost touch there for a bit.