Down in Fargo, but not down in spirits

I'm writing to you today from Fargo ND at the Ronald Mcdonald house where we are staying. Just a plug for Ronald Mcdonald homes..if you ever get the chance to donate to them, please do. This place has just been a lifesavour for us
So, we had a pleasant trip down here yesterday (thank you Krahn's for letting us use your car). Only one bridge was open in grand forks, and then part of the I29 was closed as we got closer to Fargo, but we got here safely. Victoria travelled really well for which we are so grateful.
We met with the doctor this morning and he checked her over. Found a little bit of a heart murmur, for which they might want to do an EKG tomorrow, but we will see. Other than that, he referred us for putting in a shunt. Tomorrow we meet with the neurosurgeon and their staff. There is a slim chance that they might refer us to another hospital to get it done, but we will see tomorrow. It still seems a little surreal that we are here at a place like this..this usually only happens to everyone else right?
If you could remember to pray for our other children, as they are on their own for a few days. I am sure they will do just fine, but I'm sure they would love a visit if any of you are in the area..hint hint.
We have been really blessed and humbled by the kindness and financial help that people have given to us. (you know who you are) I am reading right now in "Don;'t waste your Life by john Piper about giving to meet the needs of others. You can only do that if your worldview is such that you want to invest in the kingdom and be rich towards God (as opposed to just hoarding and keeping if for yourself). So, I'm learning about that as well.
Well, I will sign off for now. Will write again tomorrow. Lord willing. Bruce   
Give your life away...for Jesus's sake.

Brian's visit, and living lessons of faith and trust.

 

Victoria Faith wearing the hat mama made for her. Her arms are open, just like we should be with our Lord.

 She is doing well, gaining weight, and resting well. (Just not long enough in the night yet :))

 

Perfect little parts. She loves to hold your hand, and seems like she hears well. How often do I not like to hold my Saviour's hand and walk with Him in submission, but one thing I know, our Shepard never lets go.

May our ears be tuned to listening to the voice of our loving Shepard. This morning He said to me, Bruce, trust in Me with all your heart, and stop leaning on your own understanding, acknowledge Me in all your ways and let Me lead. I certainly needed to hear that this morning, as the day before I was really discouraged with running into dead ends, trying to set up a surgery for Victoria. Then today, God led us to a nurse in Warroad who, in two hours was able to accomplish what we could not in two weeks. She got an appointment set up for us next week in Fargo (the same hospital where she was born), to see a doctor, then on Thursday with a neurosurgeon, with , if all goes well, the possibility of surgery Thursday afternoon. There certainly will be risks involved, but God knows all about that too. So Tuesday night we will head down to Fargo. Please be in prayer for us in this next week.

  

Here we are having rootbeer floats for Victoria's one month celebration. Some statistics say she beat a 50% odd for living that long. Hurray!!!

 

 On to some other news. Brian, Bruce's "older" brother had some meetings around Winnipeg, so came down for a visit this week. We have had a wonderful 5 days with him. The girls just loved having him read to them, I hope he didn't get too tired of them. No pictures for security purposes, but we did take him out to shoot some guns. Don't worry Kim, we didn't hide any in his suitcase.

'

 

We also took him mini putting, along with Abby and her younger sister. I think Ben won. We all had a great time.

 

We went to the Marvin Visitor center, which kinda gives some history to the company Bruce works with.

Here is my date, doesn't Linda look so young? Well, okay, I guess this is my wonderful daughter Elizabeth.

Well, that's all for now. Resting and trusting. Bruce

Surgery?

Greetings Everyone. I know it has been over a week since I have posted, but you will have to forgive me.  We have been praying about having Victoria go back to the hospital for a surgery, and feel at this time that that will be the right thing to do. The surgery will be to put a shunt in her brain to take care of all the cerebrialspinal fluid that is presently compressing against her brain.  There are two ways of doing that. Putting in a valve with a tube that would run (on the inside of her skin)down the neck, shoulder and end in her stomach. The other way is they can go into her brain with a little camera, find the third ventricle make that hole bigger in order to drain the fluid. I am not sure if the second is an option as we really don't know if the third ventricle is present, or accessible . I am waiting to hear back from a neurosurgeon from Mayo. So...we ask that we would have wisdom, be able to talk to the right people at the right time (you know, kinda the providence of our great God sort of thing), and  hopefully get this done within the next week.
Victoria has been doing remarkably well, and enjoyed being at church today, although I did find out that she does not like cold milk...I know I know, Dad's are so slow. Linda continues to recover well, but I am wondering if she is milking (pun intended) this sleeping so much in the day time thing, just a little too much :)))) (by the way, I really am just kidding, so no nasty comments.)
We continue to meet people and hear from people who have been praying for us and our family...we are humbled and grateful.
Benjamin has an interview this week for a part time job about 1.5hrs from here (while he waits to see if the border patrol position will open up), so please be in prayer for that on Tuesday. He would come home on the weekends, so we sure would miss him.
We have been really enjoying our warm weather lately, and Reuben might have gotten in his last snowboarding day in.
By the way, just to let you know...I was cheering for Canada during the hockey game at the Olympics. But unfortunately, my house was divided (:, oh well, they will get over it.

God is good today, and we just praise Him. Blessings on your day. If Jesus isn't everything to you, than what is???? Reach out and touch someones life today, who knows if they , or you will be around tomorrow.

Living Lessons

 Beautiful feet for a beautiful girl

 Victoria is already 2 weeks and 1 day old. Thanks to the "Pink Girls" who came over with these flowers in celebration of her two weeks

 Linda was actually feeling good enough on Sunday to go to church. We decided to dedicate Victoria to the Lord . (although long ago we had already done that). Reminds us that we need to all be dedicated to our Lord, for we are not our own, we have been purchased by our Lord.

How do you handle your stress? I get my girls to give me a backrub...well, sort of. Sure do love my girls.

l

 

Sunday at church, we had Abby take a family picture. The one below was taken with our camera, but I am sure Abby's will be much better. Such a blessing to be able to worship God together...anybody looking forward to heaven?

 

 By chance (yeah, right) I have been reading a book by John Piper called "Don't waste your life". The chapter I was reading two weeks ago was entitled "Magnifying Christ through pain and death" Paul said, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. So whether in life, or in death, we are to glorify our Lord. Here are some quotes:

Christ is made supreme when we are so satisfied in him that we can "let good and kindred go, this mortal life also, and suffer for the sake of love. His beauty shines most brightly when treasured above health and wealth and life itself.

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience Him in our losses.

What a tragic waste when people turn away from the Calvary road of love and suffering. All the riches of the glory of God in Christ are on that road. All the sweetest fellowship with Jesus is there. All the treasures of assurance."

 

So we take up our cross and walk with Christ on the Calvary road  of love and suffering.  We have much to be thankful for.  Thank you so much to all of you who have kept us in your prayers.

Our first week with our new blessing

Thanks Nick for bringing the kids down to visit

 This week we were studying out the earths mantle, so we made a model out of ice cream

Reuben working on some new snowshoes

      

 Swinging in Feb? yup, we sure have enjoyed the warm weather.

  

 Lunch time...again . I sure have enjoyed our little daughter.

 Caleb and Victoria

Rachel and her new sister

Greetings everybody. The Lord has blessed with a week like we've never had before. I can hardly believe that it has been almost one week since we came home from Fargo. "By chance" our bible reading schedule is taking us through the book of Job this month.  We certainly haven't experienced anything close to his life, but with job, we want to bless God for his goodness and kindness. He never knew why God did what he did in his life, and neither do we, but we trust in His providence in our lives. Thankfully, we haven't had any "friends" like Job . So many of you have blessed us with cards, gifts, food,calls, visits, prayers ect. We are blessed to have such a wonderful extended family. Thank you. Victoria continues to do well, and we are exploring other options medically..please keep praying about that. In the meantime, life goes on at our home. School work, music lessons, laundry, hockey, play, you know what I mean. Here are a few photos from this week.

More pictures of Victoria

Praise God for another wonderful day. Victoria is doing well, though we can see that she does struggle at times for breath. Linda is having her staples removed today, so will visit with our Dr. some.  She is recovering well, but if you know her at all, you will know that I must keep my patient in bed, so she doesn't get going too early. Please pray for the wisdom of God for us in terms of if there is anything we should be doing medically.  There is so much info out there, praise God we serve a God who has all knowledge. 

Living by faith friends,  in the presence of God Almighty.

Pictures of our Beautiful Daughter ,Victoria Faith

Its getting late, so we will start with these few pictures. As you know Linda and I went to Roseau last monday for an ultra sound. Our doctor wanted us to go to Fargo to see a specialist and get a better ultrasound, so that was schedualed for Wed. We took off on Tuesday, had the ultra sound on wed., were told the condition of our little daughter and decided that if they could do a c section that day or the next , we may as well go ahead with that. Victoria Faith was born Feb 10, 2010 at 3: 40 pm (around) . She is just beautiful. If she didn't have an extra large head, she would be just like any newborn. She has a condition called haloproscencephaly (spelling?). She only has a brain stem and a little tissue where normally there is a full brain. She is not expected to live long, but we are glad to be able to take care of her for Jesus until He decides He wants to take care of her. God's grace has been so sufficient for us these days, but of course the tears do flow. Do we know why? no, but we trust our heavenly father and are thankful that Jesus conquerored death for us. Is it hard? yes, so keep us in your prayers. Will try to send more pics tomorrow. Live for Jesus today, we never know how long we will live for.

Just before surgery

My lovely wife.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen!

Do you know the reference of the above verse?? Revelation 22:21...or...the last verse of the New Testament. Have you ever copied out part of a book of the Bible and gotten discouraged...or felt you could never finish what you began?? It CAN be done. Yesterday, April 7, 2009, Benjamin finished copying out the New Testament. The above photo shows how many notebooks it took for him to finish it...not too expensive a project...though it does take TIME. Still...it is time well spent. For every verse you copy out, you probably read it three or four times. First you look at it and copy the first part down...you look again, and copy more and look back and make sure you begin the second part at the right place...if it is longer, you look back a third time for the last part of the verse...you check and make sure your punctuation is correct...then you read over the verse again to make sure there are no errors or ommissions. By the time you are done, you should have a pretty good idea of what the verse is about...and just maybe, you will see something you have never noticed before. So I encourage those of you who have never tried this kind of Penmanship...it is a great option... and it can be done! Benjamin had copied some during his high school years...but had some extra time recently, and began Feb. 6th with Acts chapter 2. It took him 2 full months to finish the rest of the New Testament.

Isaiah 55 10-12 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not ruturn unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Science experiment for school.

This month the verse we have been studying is Matthew 5:13b ...But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. The major concept is: Inefectiveness brings harsh consequences. We have been learning about the many characteristics of salt, and how it applies to our responsibility as Christians to positively affect the world around us for good. One of the things they have been learning is that there are serious consequences for being ingrown Christians. This is illustrated by the Dead Sea. The dead sea receives water but never gives any back. The salt, which is useful in so many situations has killed almost all forms of life in the Dead Sea.



One project the kids did was to see how much salt it would take to make 3 cups of water dense enough to make an egg float. The egg was almost floating at 8 teaspoons, and at 10 teaspoons, it popped right up. They found that it takes approximately 1.1 tablespoons per cup of water to make the water have the same properties as the Dead Sea.



Lets remember to be "salty" christians!