More sights from Deputation

Before any more time gets away, I must sit and post some more pictures of deputation. It seems life is busier than ever these days - traveling, packing and unpacking, homeschool on the road and catching up on days at home, catching up on bookwork, laundry, meals and housekeeping, fall activities and revivals etc. It seems at times we're hardly ever "home". Anyhow, here's some more pictures for you to enjoy.

We visited an air zoo in Kalamazoo, MI. There really is a Kalamazoo! One of the neatest things to me was this actual space ship engine. There are 4 of these under a space ship.

Here is a picture of a space ship with the 4 engines underneath. I didn't realize how big they really are!
The children got to help pick corn at one place we stayed.

The next fun part was husking it and feeding it to the horses.

The horses sure enjoyed their lunch. And we enjoyed the corn. It was yummy!

We enjoyed meeting the Isbells in Tennessee. They treated us royally!

Bro. Isbell got tickled that Jonathan ate 3 bananas one morning for breakfast. (Actually, 2-1/2 because he didn't finish the last half of the last banana). Jonathan stole their hearts and they tried to figure out a way to get us to leave him behind.

I would post a picture but I'm afraid I'll get in trouble with them. :-)

The Isbells took us to a battlefield near them. We had a great time and learned a lot about history.
The cutest little soldier I've ever seen.

Another cute little army man.

We enjoyed catching up with our friends, the McDonalds, in Tennessee. Our children were all close in age so it was kind of neat that each one had a playmate.

The day we were to arrive at their place, we baffled Ryan when we told him we were staying at McDonald's that night. He couldn't figure it out and kept saying, "Nuh-uh." We finally told him it wasn't the restaurant "McDonalds" but our friends, the McDonalds. :-)

They are pictured with 3 of their children. Their other baby was inside sleeping when we took this picture.

Doug and the children enjoyed 4-wheeling at Edwards.
We enjoyed a wonderful service with the visitation of the Holy Spirit at the church where Daniel & Angie Edwards pastor. We always enjoy being with them!
Regina and Jonathan had their birthday on the road. Remember they were both born the same day.

Jonathan got cupcakes for his birthday cake and Regina chose to celebrate her birthday with a friend when we got back to our homebase.

Trying to catch up

I know I haven't been keeping up with posting recently. We've been doing a LOT of traveling and have not always had internet connection, and when we were at our home base, I've had scads to catch up on. I have lots to post and will do my best to catch up (as life allows) over the next several weeks. Keep checkin' in.

Update on Brandon's eye

We took Brandon to his eye doctor yesterday for an appointment. We thank the Lord for another good report! His vision has improved even more - now 20/40. All of the blood and hemorraging have completely cleared away. His retina is still fully attached and the doctor was able to remove the stitches!!! Thank the Lord!!!

Brandon was delighted to know that he doesn't have to wear his safety glasses while doing mild activities - such as school or church.

We praise the Lord for the way He is working and continue to pray for 20/20 vision!

Thank you for your prayers! God is good! Rejoice with us in what He has done!

Sights from deputation - Pioneer village

Some friends took us to Conner Prairie - a village set up like it was from 1836. The people talked and dressed like they were living in that year. Regina was determined to stump them and she asked one lady if she had a cell phone. The lady said, "I've never heard of those before." The characters played their roles very well. The children had a lot of hands on activities and learned a lot about history that day.

Thanks a bunch to the friends who made this possible!

In the village, the children got to.......

Run a shave horse. It was used to clamp wood to work on it.
Play an Indian game of throwing Tomahawks at a piece of wood.

Milk a pretend cow.

Pet the animals in a barn.

Watch a potter make pottery from a footspun wheel. It starts with a ball of clay.

The potter shapes it as he spins the wheel with his foot.
It was fascinating to watch how fast he could mold a piece of clay.

The finished product. These are ink wells.

Outside the children got to pretend they were grinding the clay to make it smooth for the pottery.

See an outhouse.

Play in an oldtime kitchen.
Watch them dye cloths in a pot of water.

Visit a one room school house.

Visit a doctor's house.

Dip in wax to make candles.

Pump water.

See a Blacksmith shop.

Play an old game with a hoop and stick.

Home.....sick

We are back to our home base in the U.S. after being on the road for 5 straight weeks. It was very tiring, and at times trying, but all in all the Lord helped us and gave us a very good trip. We made many new friends, and caught up with old ones. We enjoyed the wonderful hospitality at all of the places we stayed. We feel like we've been treated royally. We saw lots of people, went lots of places, but are glad to be in our temporary home.

We were so homesick that we literally got sick. :-) Actually, we just picked up some viruses along the way and are trying to recover from them. Poor hubby drove 6 hours on Tuesday with a fever and chills. When we got home 3 of us were sick, but with a few days of rest and some antibiotics, we're on the mend and taking a breather before we head out again next week for a shorter trip. Looking forward to seeing more of you!

I'll try to post pictures when I get a chance, but right now I have scads of other things to catch up.

Deputation - Ready or not here we come!

We have been busy the last month getting everything ready to go for deputation. It's a lot of work to design and order prayer cards, print posters for churches, get a display board ready, print envelopes etc!

Our first service is tomorrow. We would appreciate your prayers as we travel many, many miles with 4 children. Hopefully we will get to see some of you along the way!

Continuing to heal

We had a follow-up appointment for Brandon on Friday. The doctor said he is still healing well, and he can resume normal activity now! Brandon was so thrilled! He can now run and ride his bike. The fear of a blow to the head is not a big issue right now. They are concerned about a blow to the eye, but since he is wearing safety glasses, the doctor said he should be all right.

He was able to see some of the letters on the 20/50 line with the damaged eye.

The doctor said unless things start to go backwards, Brandon can go with us on our long deputation trip at the end of August! We were praying he could.

The doctor wants to see him in 3 weeks.

We give God all the glory for what He has done so far and we continue to trust Him for continued and complete healing.

Thank you for all of your prayers, cards, gifts and concerns. It has been a great encouragement during this time.

13 years!

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. A lot has happened in those 13 years. We've had 4 children, moved 8 times, ministered together etc. I've been privileged to follow and be helpmeet to such a wonderful man. We've laughed together, cried together, and went through so much together. It is a wonderful thing to be married to your best friend. I couldn't have picked anyone better. The Lord knew what I needed. They say it gets better every year and I believe it!

We're going all out and will be celebrating by attending camp service tonight. :-) It's a little hard to celebrate during camp, so we'll try to do something after camp is over.

God is answering

The Lord is hearing our prayers and answering!

Yesterday we had an appointment with a local Dr. for Brandon. We located a Dr. that could possibly do the surgery that would be covered by our insurance.

At this visit, Brandon could now see 20/60 out of his injured eye, a remarkable improvement from just 4 days ago when he could see 20/200. The Dr. spent a while looking in his eye and could get a much better picture now that the blood is pretty well cleared. He said everything is healing really well, and he would NOT recommend surgery.

We were under the impression that Brandon was in danger of retinal detachment indefinitely. But this Dr. told us that it is only during the healing process that he is in danger of retina detachment. He said as long as he's healing well, we should leave well enough alone! Sounded good to us!!

We praise the Lord for this good news. We believe Brandon is healing well due to all the prayers going up for him. Thank you for praying for us. We continue to pray for complete healing and 20/20 vision if the Lord would choose.

It is a huge relief to us not to have to think of another surgery and now we hope to enjoy the local campmeeting here next week instead of facing surgery.

God is good. He is worthy of our praise. What a wonderful, wonderful God we serve.

Pictures from Brandon's surgery

My sweet boy in recovery after surgery to stitch up the cut in his eye on July 4th.

I held his hand until he got awake.

All ready to go home.
One of the few activities Brandon can do outside is control this four-wheeler.

Wishing he could be riding bike, but until then, this will have to do.

Sights from Hershey

We stayed a few nights at the Ronald McDonald house so we didn't have to keep driving back and forth from Hershey for the daily appointments the first week. This is our family in front of the Ronald McDonald house.

Each picture in the Ronald McDonald house had either happy meals or french fries in it. This one cracked me up. Regina was the first to notice the lamp posts in Hershey. In Hershey, everything is chocolate. :-)

They had these treats out on the counter at the Ronald McDonald house all the time.

No Sweat

So glad to be out of this heat and humidity.

From Accuweather in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:

Thursday, Jul 16
Some sun with a couple of showers. Winds from the NE at 8 mph.
High: 91 °F
Realfeel®: 111 °F

We are enjoying very lovely July weather here in hometown, USA. I realize it may be hotter in some parts of the U.S., but where we are, it is lovely! Maybe you can come visit us. :-)

Here are some random thoughts about being out of the sweltering Dominican heat:

*We find it strange for people to run air conditioners when the high is in the 80's.

*We've been chilly at night.

*We've noticed that we don't need to drink as much water or juices through the day.

*I've not had the daily pounding headaches I started getting for the past month in D.R. - perhaps due to heat exhaustion.

*We are not dragging all day long due to the intensity of the heat.

*The weather we are in right now is like our winter in the D.R.

*We can actually go the whole day without sweating!

*We are not dirtying as much laundry because we're not soaking our clothes with sweat.

Yes, this change is nice. But I don't know if I'm looking forward to winter. I think my internal heater broke down.

New update on Brandon

We met with the retina specialist yesterday in Hershey. Brandon is still making progress. He was able to see the second to largest line on the eye chart (20/200). Everything else was still good. The retina specialist said the retina was not detached but would like to do surgery on him in 2 weeks to prevent the retina from detaching. She said in injuries like this it is common for a delayed detachment of the retina.

We were not eager to think about another surgery and Brandon is starting to realize that this will mean little summer vacation for him where he can ride bikes, play baseball etc. He has done very well on bedrest, but is starting to feel better and is eager to get back to his normal activities.

We will have a follow-up appointment next week and then in 2 weeks probably another surgery.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We would appreciate your continued prayers. We will do our best to keep you updated as we know more.

Update on Brandon

Thanks to all who have been praying for Brandon. It means so much to us. The phone calls, emails, prayers, and concerns have all been a real encouragement during this time.

Brandon is doing well. Each day this week, he has been able to see a little more out of the injured eye. He started out by being able to see shadows and shapes and then on Thursday, he was able to read the large "E" at the top of the eye chart (20-400) with his injured eye and able to see the doctor's hand. The doctor said the pressure in his eye was good, there was still no sign of infection, and the blood in the eye continues to clear away - all good signs. He said since he was progressing quite well, we did not need to have another appointment until Monday. That will be with the retina specialist to tell whether or not his retina is detached. The first sonogram of the eye they did gave reason to think that it was, but the doctor did another sonogram on Thursday and said according to that sonogram, it didn't show retinal detachment. He still wanted us to meet with the retina specialist on Monday to be sure and we will go from there.

We sense and feel God's hand working through all of this. God is helping Brandon to heal, giving him a good attitude, helping to rest by reading books, and giving grace to all of us.

While in Hershey, we met 2 other ladies who have children with leukemia. The one lady's daughter has leukemia and is 8 years old. They have given her a 30% chance to live. The other lady has a grandson who is 4 and has leukemia. As we went back to our room that night, we thought about how blessed we are. You can live without an eye, but to have leukemia would be far worse. Brandon was pretty concerned about the 8 year old who has a 30% chance to live and before bed asked that we would pray for her together. Perhaps God wants us to help someone else through all of this.

The doctor said Brandon is by no means out of the woods yet, and rest is very critical, but he is progressing and we are thankful for that. As the blood clears away and the eye heals, we will know more of how much sight will be restored. At this point it is just waiting. We are still praying that God will restore Brandon's vision fully that it may be a testimony to all of the healing power of God, but if it is not His will, we are resigned to whatever He would choose.

We have finally made it to the house where we will be living for the next 6 months and are trying to get settled in. It has been hard on Jonathan, our two-year old, as he has been in a different place everyday. He doesn't seem to know where "home" is yet.

Thanks again for your prayers and concerns. God is on the throne and we believe He is hearing and answering our prayers.