Soccer and our Anchor

This weekend has been low key and laid back.  The big news of the weekend is that ths little love started Upward Soccer!

She loved it so much and my parents even showed up to the game and surprised us!  They are busy taking care of my grandmother, so that it is a treat when they come to town.  We visited with them and had a yummy Mexican lunch before they headed back to Radford.

 

Upward is a wonderful christian soccer program where there is no score kept, a devotion is done at halftime, and it is a poitive environment to learn soccer.  Check out this girls smile running down the field!  I also think it is adorable that they follow the ball as a pack in soccer at this age:)

 

Kyle and I bonded last night by staying up very late to watch VT upset Ohio State!!  What a fun night to be a Hokie!  We watched every play and cheered like lunatics down in our basement while Mike, Hope, and David slept:)

 

 

Despite staying up way past our bedtime to cheer on the Hokies, we were up bright and early to head to church for the contemporary service at 10:00.  Kyle ran the worship board and helped serve communion.  David was perched on the front row getting his worship on with the praise band.  David insists to sit on the front row to be near the band!  He worships with total abandon and I do worry that he distracts others with his full-on praise, but several folks today commented to me that he is a lesson for us all on how to worship with abandon.  Once again, David teaches us all a lesson. 

 

Lately it seems that many folks from our congregation are struggling with really hard stuff like cancer, divorce, death of a loved one, sickness, family drama, etc. Bryan and David came up with a new sermon series entitled refuse to sink.  Today was the first Sunday in the series and it was powerful and awesome.  If you are struggling with a burden right now that seems bigger than you can handle, take a few minutes and listen to the sermon today which remindind us all who our anchor is in troubled times.  It inspired and encouraged me-hope it does you as well!

 

Here is the link to today's sermon.  I cannot wait to listen to it again- it was that good.

http://www.marionfumc.org/multimedia/

 

Bryan (worship minister) does all the graphics for the church.  Besides being crazy talented at everything musical, he is a master of graphics.  When this sermon series idea got rolling, he googled the word "hope" and this logo came up because evidently this is a popular tattoo!  I am not going to hit the tattoo parlor anytime soon, but I am intrigued about an anchor and a cross with the words "refuse to sink." 

 

Because of Jesus no matter what this life throws at us, we have an anchor to hold onto.  God was our anchor during 2011/2012 watching David endure chemo and radiation.  Life is hard, overwhelming, and brutal at times, but amazingly we have anchor to cling to even during the toughest storms.  Come join us next Sunday at 10:00 for a powerful worship service, or enjoy the sermon downloaded at your convenience. 

 

 

Because of Jesus we all have an anchor and we can refuse to sink.  Amen!

This is Childhood Cancer

September is childhood cancer awareness month. October is usually flooded in pink for breast cancer awareness, and September is gold for children fighting cancer.

Every child's journey fighting the Goliath called cancer is different. David was diagnosed on November 17, 2011 after complaining of belly pain for a day and having a fever. Every family has a different story and so here in this sacred place I will attmept to share how cancer has changed our life. This blog is where I shared this journey and I am forever humbled and thankful when people stop me in the community and ask about David and saying that they are still praying for us.

Immediately he was taken by ambulance to UVA where an oncology resident was waiting for us in the middle of the night. When Dr. Alisanki, the attending, arrived in our hospital room bright and early the next morning I knew we were in trouble. Big trouble as she calmly told us that our baby had cancer. Luckily she waited until later to share that it had metastasized and that he was Stage IV.

A day later, we were huddled around David's bed with dear friends like Ashley and Jason, the Jonas', some extended family and GG and Pops. Jonathan led us in prayer for David as he headed downstairs to a huge sugery to remove his kidney, adrenal gland, and to probe around to look for suspicious spots. God love Dr. Kane, he was the most patient and kind surgeon answering lots of really hard questions we threw at him. The nine hour plus surgery was brutal. Mike struggled the most during the surgery waiting for tidbits and news from the OR. Had they found more cancer? How was our buddy tolerating this huge surgery? Was he going to survive? It was brutal and I held it together until the end when they said it would be another hour. At this point it was past midnight and our supportive entourage was with us the whole time.

Amazingly David made it through that huge surgery and after a week of recovery he started an intensive chemo and radiation regimene. The radiation was the hardest on him and he lost more weight, lost his hair, and lost his sparkle. In the month of June his port had gotten infected and he had three back to back infections. One sad and scary night he got very sick here at home and he was medflighted back to UVA:( Here he is flying in the helicopter.

Our poor buddy endured lots of painful tests, lab draws, port accesses, echo cardiograms, antibiotics, mouth sores, during the chemo and radiation. Cancer treatment is not for sissies. The life-saving regimene of chemo and radiation comes with lots of side effects that often make kids very sick and often are fatal.

David's initial weight on diagnosis day was 56 pounds. He got down to 45 pounds which was scary. We kept him off of a feeding tube by using a calorie booster and feeding him whatever and whenever he wanted. Here is sweet Kyle feeding him an cupcake:)

Cancer is devastating on a family. Here is sweet David and Mike sleeping in after a rough night in the hospital. I will never know how Mike did such a great job as a Dad, superintendent, and Cancer Dad during the nightmare. He balanced it all beautifully on very little sleep and very little time off. I was able to take a leave of absence from my job, but Mike could not. This was also the year our county was renovating one school and building another. only God could have carried Mike through all the stress of the 2011-2012 school year.

Kyle and Hope lost precious time with us, as they stayed at home while we tended to Dave at the hospital. The guilt of not being home consumed us both, but we had to be there with David. He was so sick.

Childhood cancer is a nightmare that we hope and pray we never have to endure again. Despite the drama and fear we saw God move in amazing ways in our lives. He was truly with us each step of the way. I hate cancer, but I will always treasure how close we felt to God during that time, our amazing prayer warriors and friends, and family memories we were able to make in a difficult situation. God was so present with us and He changed us all.

So thank you for loving us through the nightmare, going gold and realizing that kids just like David are fighting this beast every day and that more funding is desperately needed to come up with safer treatment options. Cure Search is a great organization that we support that goes into funding for research. Out of every five children that are diagnosed with cancer, one will not survive. The facts are sobering and scary and sadly childhood cancer is the number 1 killer of children. Thank you for going gold to support the kids fighting cancer!

Labor Day Weekend 2014

This weekend was pretty amazing.  It started early for me on Friday with a day out shopping and having a leisurely lunch with two dear friends.  It was a wonderful girls day out and I loved it. 

Saturday was the the first home Virginia Tech football game!!  It was a fun day at Lane Stadium with Pops and my boys.  Hope and her Daddy stayed home and got some home projects done and I had a blast with my boys. 

When we got into the stadium I tried to take a picture of the boys, but Dave was not feeling very photogenic!  Ha!  There is no one in that place that loves it more than David.  He loves the Hokies and he cheered every cheer and watched every play.  He loved it.  I love that VT sports is the thing that I do with my boys and Pops.  Mike loved having a day at home with Hope watching football catching up around here and I loved cheering on the Hokies. 

Before the team comes out, one side of the crowd yells "lets go" and the other side yells "Hokies!" Here are Dave and Pops yelling with all their might.  David and Pops have a special bond for sure, and I love days in Blacksburg with this crew.

Jumping during Enter Sandman!  It got me a little teary thanking God that a healthy David was at a game and having  a blast.  I remember the day after he was diagnosed with cancer, we tried to waqtch a Thursday night game in our hospital room and we didn't even have the heart to cheer.  What a difference three years makes!  Praise God!

 

Sunday after church, we headed to the Williams Farm for their annual Labor Day party.  It was such fun!

 

They build a hay loft with slides for the kids to play in.  Here is Hope with some of her friends enjoying a snow cone.  They host a huge potluck meal with everyone contibuting side dishes and desserts and the family grills chicken, hamburgers, and hot dogs.  Yummy food set on a beautiful farm on the last weekend of the summer-pretty cool!

Thankfully David just sat on this four-wheeler for a quick photo op, he could not sweet talk anyone into giving him a key!  What a beautiful scene with the mountains in the background.  Southwest Virginia is certainly blessed with breath-taking beauty everywhere. 

 

After the big meal, everyone loaded up on these two wagons for a hayride out to the amazing and huge tree house.  A hayride in the dark was pretty cool for all the kids, but I did worry about losing David on the short hike up to the tree house!  I should have put a glow stick around his neck.  He was so excited that he was hard to keep up with.  Thank you Williams for welcoming us out to your farm-what a fun night that certainly left a ring around the bathtub.

 

Today on Labor Day we were catching up around the house and we decided to visit the pool one last time before it closed for the summer:(  With Steven Dimit's help, David FINALLY jumped off of the board!!  He was so excited and proud of himself.  Poor Steven burned a bazillion calories treading water waiting patiently for David to get the guts up to finally jump!  What a fun way to end the summer.

 

Summer of 2014 you have been a blessing.  I am sad that you are over, but I am kind of excited about Hokies football which will lead to Hokie basketball (woot woot), pumpkins everything, and gorgeous leaves changing colors.