Our home is painted green and it looks great!

Once again I begin this post by saying that we've been extremely busy over the last few weeks. I am so happy to tell you that our house is painted and it looks awesome. We hired a few of Daniel's friends from GTC to help out, Josh & Shane blessed us by doing a great job and we blessed them by helping them get some of there money for going back to GTC for a second year. I'm once again blessed with the realization that I have what I feel are the greatest kids alive. Daniel and Natalie helped paint 4 straight days and Amy kept the house going along with cooking wonderful breakfasts, preparing lunches and making delicious dinners, no one went hungry. Gordy helped 3 of the days painting and I just helped to keep things going. I was able to go a Christian Homeschool Conference in Oregon on Friday and Saturday, so I came home to a job well done. I was telling someone the other day you know you've raised your children right when they can complete a job and keep the house going and everything looks great when you come home.

I know some of you are saying enough, what about Luke? Luke is doing very good. He has stayed healthy these last few weeks, though he continues to struggle at time with his breathing and secretions. His legs are looking better to me all the time and he is getting more bend in his knees. He stays busy with HBOT treatments, PT appts. and Dr. appts. We had his gastric emptying study done and found out at the surgeon appt. last week that he is having reflux and it looks like his stomach is emptying just fine, which was what we expected from what we see of him every day. She, the surgeon would like to do a Nissen Fundoplication on him, I know some of you have asked what that is. It is a surgery where they take the end of the esophagus and basically wrap part of it around his stomach so that the person having it done can not burp up gastric juices or throw up anymore. That is a very simple answer to a complex question, if you would like to more know about it go out to the internet and type it in and it will show pictures and tell you more than you ever wanted to know.

I recently have been feeling that Luke is very near his complete healing. If you have been reading this blog for long you know that we feel that Luke will one day be completely healed, he will walk, talk, run, play and do everything else a child of his age can do. We have had him prayed for by many people over the year and this past week we took him into have special prayer over him, I truly had felt that last week was going to be the week we saw his healing take place. Well on Wednesday morning as I was sitting by his crib crying out to the Lord once again, knowing in my heart that God is going to heal him but just not seeing it I began to feel extremely discouraged, depressed and filled with despair. I realized that it was an attack from the pit of hell, some of you may not realize but if you are a Christian you will live in a constant battle against principalities and powers of darkness. That said, I begin to literally cry out to God and tell satan and his demons that he can not have power over me because when I gave my life over to God I was covered by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross for my sins and since I've asked him to forgive me of my sins and to come into my heart He protects me and helps me do battle on a daily basis. Needless to say I came out of that prayer time feeling victorious knowing that God is going to heal Luke and felling the strength, joy and peace that only God can give to those that serve Him.

We decided to have him prayed for on Sunday after church, it is basically the first time that we asked the whole church to lay hands on him and to pray for a miraculous healing. It was a awesome time of prayer and we were told by Pastor John, who also happens to be my brother in law, that the Lord told him that Luke is healed and we are supposed to be giving thanks for that healing. Then last night Josh, one of Daniels friends that our family has all taken into our hearts, called with some great news, that as his father was praying for Luke's healing he told Josh the same thing that we had heard that morning, that Luke is healed and that his healing will bring great glory to the name of the Lord. I guess my prayer is that we will begin to see his healing this week and once again be filled with God patience knowing it will happen very soon.

We are hoping to leave this Friday for a much needed vacation. We plan to spend some time down on the Oregon Coast, one of our favorite places to go. Please pray that Luke will stay healthy and this will be a time of refreshing and renewing, as each of us needs a break from work and appointments. Thank you for your continued prayer support you are what makes the difference in our lives.

Love in Christ,
Luke's Mommy Sue