The Past Seven Months!

Has it become evident that I have no time to update my blog???? Over the past seven months, God has continued to reveal His great faithfulness to our family.

Lucas recently had another surgery. You can read about Lucas on Avery's blog. To make a long story short, about 18 months ago, I began to pray and fast and ask God to give Lucas new skin in place of the scar resulted from his burn injury. The doctors were sorry to inform us that there was nothing that they could do to make this happen. No problem. With God, all things are possible. So we prayed.

In the meantime, infections became a huge problem. Last fall, Lucas began to feel very ill due to the constant infections in the scar tissue. It seemed that the more we prayed for new skin, the worse the infections became. By November, the infections were quite bad. He was on the brink of going back into the hospital again. But, without antibiotics, without surgery, with no help at all, God healed that infection. Without grossing out any readers that I may still have besides family and friends, I'll just say that it ruptured and continued to ooze for 2 weeks. Then, it began healing on its own. After nearly a year of constant infection, he was so much better after that.

Through it all, we've continued to ask God for the impossible. He recently had surgery in which the doctor used a new technique. The end result- Lucas has new skin on 1/3 of the scar tissue! The skin is smooth and has feeling, just like his other skin. It is discolored slightly, but that's okay because most of the skin on his back is discolored. I joke that he looks like a calico boy!

Lucas continues to handle it all like a pro. He's the strongest, bravest, funniest little boy in the whole world! He gives others great courage as they face seemingly insurmountable problems.

On another subject, I will only be teaching for about 8 more weeks. After much prayer and consideration, we have decided to take a huge leap of faith (financially) and I will not be teaching any more. There are many reasons for this decision, but the main reason is that we feel God is calling us to homeschool our kids. Right now, we're all very excited about this. Check back next December! :) Who knows- maybe I'll start posting on my blog again.

Sorry for no pics- check Avery's blog for pics. He's not much better than me about updating his blog these days, but he does have recent pics!

Staph

Staph is such a nasty word at our house right now. Staph as in staph infection. Lucas has been fighting an ongoing staph infection in his burn since last November. In March, it was cultured and it was not MRSA. But, it's come back quite strong in the last two weeks. He took a full round of antibiotics and the day after he finished, it was worse than before. We do not know what type of staph he has now. It may be MRSA, or it may be a different antibiotic resistain type. Regardless, it's agressive and resistant. That means that antibiotics aren't clearing it up. Instead, it's developed a resistance to antibiotics and is having a field day in his little body right now. It has once again become systemic, meaning that it's not confined to the burn site, but is manifesting throughout his body as little sores on his skin. We greatly appreciate any prayers offered to Jesus, who I am reminded died for every disease, including nasty resistant staph infections.

What I have learned is that antibiotics, hand sanitizer, and lysol are wonderful most of the time. But if you ever notice, antibacterial products say that they kill "99.9%" of germs. That means that the remaining .1% were strong enough to survive the poison bath they just received. Not only that, but they're pretty smart little critters and they know that they must mutate in order to resist future attacks waged against them by moms and teacher everywhere. Once they mutate, they're even stronger and they're even harder to kill. Yikes. What a viscious cycle.

Thanks for praying! We're hoping that one of the sores will manifest itself to the point that we will be able to take Lucas to the doctor to have a sample taken. The problem is that the majority of the infection is deep within the scar tissue and the doctor has been unable to successfully obtain a sample for a culture to determine what we're fighting. He sees an Infectious Disease doctor in early Oct. Hopefully, we'll have some idea of what this staph looks like by then. I'll keep my blog posted when I know more.

Aren't these children gorgeous??????
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I hardly ever update my blog anymore, but wanted to share a few pics that were taken last weekend. The family is doing great!

Yosef is in 5th grade this year. His math is at a 6th grade level. Yeah!!!! His reading is still behind, but is steadly improving. He is such a good student! And such a good son! So much bonding has occurred in our family, especially with Yosef. He's an incredible kid.

Kaitlyn is in 3rd grade this year. People have been saying that she is an old soul in a young body. That's because she's such a quiet, thoughtful little girl who is so happy doing little crafts, knitting, etc. She is soooooo sweet.....when she's not throwing a melodramatic fit. We're working on that.

Mihret is in 2nd grade and is doing great. Of course! She just continues to do so well in school. She is just an amazing little thing. I can't imagine life without her.

Lucas is in 1st grade and is still such a funny little fireball. We're working on teaching him responsibility. All of the kids now have a chore chart and a weekly allowance of one dollar that is paid for good work. The key is that I do not remind them to do their jobs. If they do them, they get paid. If they don't, they get deductions. Lucas is finally getting the hang of it.

This chore chart has been such an awesome thing for our family. I am so much less stressed now. I don't have to tell the kids all of the things they need to do anymore because it's all written down. The drastic reduction in my talking (bossing) alone has helped tremendously. Plus, with the kids all helping so much, we have so much more free time to spend together as a family. The kids are so motivated by the reward of family time each night. By the time they move out of the house, I think I might have evolved into a really good mom!

Lucas is continuing to heal from his burn. The scar has had four infections this year. Not good. Three of them have been staff. Not MRSA, which is good. He recently had steroid injections in the scar. Already, I can feel the scar shrinking and becoming smaller. I don't really see it yet, but my hand feels it when I rub him everyday. I am so thankful for this improvement. But still, this is not exactly what God has asked me to pray for. I continue to ask God to give Lucas new skin. But for now, this is an incredible miracle that we are so very thankful for.

And the other news is that we are trying to sell our house. We feel that God is prompting us to start moving in a new direction and the first step is to get our house ready to put on the market. Let's just say that this is going to require a lot of money and work and time. We're in no hurry and we're not stressing. Just doing what we feel like God is leading us to do.

Let the Redemption Begin....

Please take a few minutes to watch Steven Curtis Chapman and his beautiful family as they appeared on Good Morning America this morning. ***Be sure to grab a tissue first! What a beautiful faith this family has.

Ethiopia's Tiniest

This little girl is three years old and weights just 10 pounds due to mass food shortages in Ethiopia. Her name is Bezunesh, which means something like "You are more and more" or "You are so much". Her mother must love her so very much and yet she is watching her baby die of starvation. According to CNN, there are at least 120,000 Ethiopian children who have just one month to live if food relief doesn't come through soon. It's so easy to feel guilt over the plush American lives that even the American poor live out. While we complain about rising gas prices, our bellies are still full. The price of rice in America rises just a few cents and the big stores like Sam's Club and Costco start rationing how much rice we can purchase. So, we run out and buy the maximum alotment of rice...just in case. And even in purchasing that maximum alotment, we spend less than a dollar more per bag than we're used to spending. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the price of rice and other foods is soaring so high that even working class Ethiopian families, such as my dear Ethiopian friend, are finding themselves going hungry. My friend's father is a college professor! If even a college professor's family is hungry, how much less of a chance do the unemployed have under such conditions. The world is such an unfair place. To be American is to be rich relative to most of the world. Regardless of economic status. Lord, please intervene for these people...and use your people to do it.