Joel's Journey: September 2014

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Friday, September 26, 2014

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

In November we will be married 28 years!! Wow!! Flown by!!! God has carried us through many diff seasons of life. A house full of little kids. Feeling like I can't catch my breath with so many underskirt. Dark times with Daniels depression. Time of sorrow with Joel. (Still dealing with that) Times of plenty with jobs and work. Times of not so much plenty when food for sustannence was bought instead of mouthwatering food for the week. So God has been faithful! Right now, we are in the time of not so many resources! Like terry trying to scrape up enough to buy food. I'm not asking for God to allow money to float down from the sky. I'm asking God to bring jobs so the guys can work and people pay and we have resources. So if you think of it, pray that God will provide jobs. He can do that!!

I don't like to get all personal on the blog and sound like a whiner, but so so many of you all have been with us for almost 8 years and I feel safe asking you!

Thank you for being wiling to pray!!

The weather is amazing!! So beautiful on the farm!! what a gift it is to live here!!

The Big big news is Daniel and Erin are engaged as of Saturday!! We love her to pieces!!! It's thrilling to see our kids marry and start their own families!!!!

Much love!!

Friday, September 19, 2014

Friday

It's Friday!! eat a {homemade} donut!!

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Joel and Josiah's birthday!

Today, another birthday for Joel and Josiah! The day our second set of twin boys were born. Joel is missed greatly!! Josiah is here and having a big day on his 11th birthday!! What a blessing he is to us! He had a chess and checker party!!

Monday, September 8, 2014

thank you!

Thank you for your thoughtful comments!! For some reason I have no idea my password and all, so I can't comment directly back to you!! I hope the previous article was a blessing if there can be a blessing in grieving. It spoke thoughts and words that I certainly feel. Especially as Fall approaches! It's that time of year when my mind and soul go into replay!! I wish I could skip to Spring and summer again!! Joel and Josiah's birthday is soon coming. Why does it all have to be like this?? I want them both here!! I want to keep buying two of everything!! But, I wil tread through as you all that commented will do! Our village of grieving friends.

Thank you so much for keeping up. Seems like forever ago that we just started this blog to keep folks informed! Then again, it seems like yesterday that they were both here together in our family! Josiah is such a blessing! So so thankful he's here!!

Joel's Story

Joel, our 11th of 13 and a twin of Josiah, at age 3 was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, on December 6th, 2006. Joel had three perfect years of health and he and Josiah celebrated their 3rd birthday Sept. 13th, 2006. The first of Oct. Joel started having unexplained fevers for a few days and would return to active play. After the fourth round of fevers we took him to our family Dr. which they said his iron was low, so we treated that for a few weeks and took him back only to have his hemo. showing lower than before. We were referred to a hematologists and saw him a few weeks with blood checks twice a week. At a visit on Dec. 4th we showed the Dr. the bumps, (which were tumors but we did not know at the time) on Joel's head and he was very concerned and we were told we needed to admit him immediately and start extensive tests the following day. Joel went through rigorous testing and then the dreaded results were given. Joel was at a stage IV the most extensive stage, but we were hopeful that the Lord would use the means of Chemotherapy treatments to restore Joel's body. Joel endured 8 1/2 days in the hospital, came home for Christmas, and returned for his second round of chemo Jan. 3, 2007. Joel had a seizure that night after midnight and went into a coma due to a tumor bleeding in his head area and causing his brain to swell. After tests the following days, the Dr. declared Joel "brain dead" and took us to court to force us to take Joel off life support, as we did not agree with the medical field's definition of death. Our family sought to stand with the scripture, "life is in the blood,"and until Joel's heart quit beating naturally, he was living. We were making arrangements to bring him home and on January 23, 2007 his little heart stopped beating and he went to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Our lives are changed forever. God is faithful in the midst of this trial and we look with great hope to be with him someday.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Engagment!!