Oklahoma City for the next several weeks

Hello everyone,

We barely remembered but today Sonja and I share a birthday!  So now we're older.....by one year.  

We had a great Christmas celebration as a family.  It really felt like Christmas.  What a joy it was to give each other gifts and celebrate the birth of our Savior.  Jack and Coltrane loved their presents and will be taking some of them with them to OKC.

We are headed out this morning.  I will be back and forth here and there while Sonja will remain at the hospital with Coltrane.  Coltrane is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.  He will be getting a Broviac catheter to gain yet another access point for the doctors to work with.  He will then undergo four or five days of high dose chemotherapy.  the stem cell transplant will come after that which lasts a mere 30 minutes!  We will remain there until his counts recover.  They warned us that the first ten days will be awful and after that it will get better.  It was actually relieving when the doctors told us all this info.  It wasn't as ominous as it once seemed.  

What perfect timing for this transplant!  It's a time in our lives where we have to trust God completely and also a time that we can remember what great gifts children are, especially one that saved us from our sin.  So we are thankful for a God who became nothing to give us everything.  A God who loves us and who's word is powerful.  We hold on to the fact that God will never leave us nor forsake us, and that His plans are perfect.

We are so happy to get this started to get it over with.  

We have been truly blessed beyond comprehension.  So many people are praying for us.  So many people have been so very generous with their verbal support as well as their financial support.  God is working in ways that we can't ignore.  We received a gift today from a family that was unbelievable.  Sonja and I stood together holding each other, sobbing with each other.  They were sobs of great awe in our God and how He works in His people.  We saw this gift and knew that it was something you couldn't ignore.  You just think to yourself "You can't receive something like this and not be changed."  It really screwed us up in a beautiful way.  We saw with our own eyes, the selflessness of others.  The compassion was overwhelming.  We are so moved and destroyed.  God is so great, we are in complete awe of His might and power and kindness.  LOVE.

I hesitate to ask for prayer for this because I know what happens when you pray for patience , but please pray for:

Patience in this trial

Coltrane to not have negative side effects from the chemotherapy

God to protect our family from sickness (Coltrane will be extremely susceptible to any kind of illness

Us to bond together as a family even though we might be separated sometimes

Coltrane to be strong and not have anxiety

Jackson to understand and be confident about him and his family

Coltrane to not have any breathing problems after being intubated for his short procedure of inserting the Broviac