A Whole Different Life

Wow! It's been forever since I've blogged, everything here has changed and I barely remember how to negotiate the pages. I don't know how often I will wander back over here and blog but I wanted to say a few things and thought today was a good day to do so. Let's start with why it's been forever. Life has CHANGED! And it's all been good. John is bigger, healthier and into everything. His energy levels are through the roof and ever since we took casein out of our diet he is so much stronger and more able to do things that I am constantly challenged to stay ahead of him. That is so much fun. Mark's job keeps him away all day and some days late into the evening, but he's happy, he's constantly challenged and no day goes by that he doesn't have the opportunity to sit and comfort and give Christ to a person in need. I used to blog a lot because I spent a ton of time alone with no one to talk too, my friends lived in my computer and if I spoke to someone outside of church or the hospital it was rare, simply put I was very lonely and spent a lot of time talking to myself in my head and that spilled over into the blog. I still think about God and His love and mercy for us all the time, but now I have places to share that, even if it's just a friendly smile and wave to someone passing on the sidewalk. This past weekend Mark and I were honored to get to bake and share our love with dear women, who like us have lived with barrenness. What a delight to serve in this way. Our hope is that they have this retreat annually and we can serve them each year. We both love to care for people and food is a language of love that brings joy to both the giver and the receiver. That is possibly the biggest change here, outside of John's health, we have so many more opportunities to serve and to care for people, we are looking into places that will let us help New Americans, cook for underprivileged kids, and serve in other ways too. At least for me joy comes through service. Today John and I are off on a new adventure to learn how to ride the bus and metrolink and get our truck back from the mechanic who fixed it. I have wanted to try the bus system out for a while and hooray, today is the day. I'm looking forward to how many people we can say hi to, and John can give that beautiful smile too. He is so excited. I don't know when I will be back to blog again. A few years back silence meant that John was sick, now it just means that my day is overflowing with the joy of being around people and staying busy with life. I have smiled so much here that my sign name is a 'G' moved along the side of the face to indicate smile. Life is great, but now it's time to get some math and reading done so that we can this adventure started!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good sign, yes, I know that's not how the poem goes, but for around here it is so much of what in life is changed. We are blessed this year to get to spend Christmas with Mark's dad and his family in North Carolina. We are looking forward to this time with family. This year has been a big one for John, more growing, more going, and way way way more signing. Between attending a Deaf church, getting involved with Deaf friends and meeting Deaf therapists who like to work with John and help me learn more sign too, we are finding that ASL (American Sign Language) is more and more John's first language and a comfortable fit for Mark and I as a second language. Mark and I both have days when we feel likes our brains are being stretched but it's good stretching and seeing John being more comfortable communicating with people and happier to just go off and talk to people at church because he knows they understand him is so wonderful, so worth it. Mark's residency at Lutheran Senior Services is going well, it's a hard program with many struggles, but by God's grace Mark keeps slogging through it and in May we will see what God has planned for our future. I'm enjoying life in the city, with friends nearby, our Deaf church and all that's here. There are days when it's harder than others to get used to Mark's long hours away from home, but those pass and we get on to other days when the time flies by and Mark is home before we realize it. We pray that each of you has a Merry Christmas, enjoy the celebration of the life of Christ and finds the New Year has some blessings to bring too.

Thanksgiving in All Things

Happy Thanksgiving! We greet this day with Mark on call at Lutheran Senior Services for the day and into the late evening and John and I hanging out at home because John's cold, while improving, is still too intense to go hang around with other people. Still there is so much to be thankful for... ...Christ who died and rose again to save us from our sins, who each day provides that which we need and who has promised that we can never be taken from His hand. ...a church where John can see Christ's Word of forgiveness in his own language, where we can learn and grow and where we are surrounded by people who love us and want to help us help John grow into his language and culture. ...family who loves us and supports us, no matter the miles we know that we are close to their hearts and they to ours. ...friends both near and far who bring us joy, a sense of belonging and help us through the journey of this life. ...thorns, yes, I said thorns and yet those things that seemed to be thorns in the beginning are turning out to be blessings and make us realize that God's ways are not our ways, but in all things He works out for our good those things around us. The gluten/wheat sensitivity issues that Mark and I have led us instantly to an introduction to a new friend and open doors to help us help others when they find that they have these type issues too. John's deafness has led us both to a new church where we all feel at home and to a new culture and language that we had an inkling of before but here we find blooming all around us and the beauty of it just amazes us. John's health issues have opened doors for us to tell others of the love of Christ and the care of people who want to actually help. ...we are thankful to be here in St. Louis, to be together, to constantly have our eyes pointed back to Christ and to know that it is our life in Him that gives us true life here amongst our neighbors, our family, our friends.

An Update, Finally

Well it's not much of an update, I must admit that it is so much easier for me to just log into facebook from time to time and post pictures and updates that I almost forget this site is here. I will try to get better at posting here too, but life is so full and busy and fun right now that the quick 2 line format of facebook just really is working better for me at the moment. Who knows what the future will hold. We moved. Yep, really. 10 years in one house, that's longer than I ever lived in one state let alone one address. Some parts of leaving were harder than others, it's never fun to leave friends behind but the time came for Mark to start his CPE Residency in St Louis and so it was time to load up our stuff and go. We live in the Dutchtown area of St Louis, 100 year old houses all packed close together and we really love it. Whenever we step outside there is someone to say 'hi' too and more often than not they have a friendly 'hi' to share and even some small talk. It's been great getting to visit with the neighbors around us and the lady next door is a treat. I honestly feel like I have moved home, which is a bit silly because I never lived in this area of St Louis and never really lived in St Louis much at all. But my family is from here, both sides have roots around here, I'm not too far from where one of my aunts lived when I was a kid and I have fond memories of visiting her. John and I are slowly getting used to Mark not being home all day. That is by far the hardest adjustment. But we are making it and spending our days taking walks and getting unpacked. John is playing power chair soccer and we are practicing in the alley with an exercise ball and the chair that he got to take home with him. He is going to be starting swimming lessons next week and gets to have skiing lessons this winter. The availability of stuff for him here is just amazing! The best part of this so far is friends. We have good friends here and not more than 2 days in a row have passed without seeing them. Mark's first night of on-call when he would be coming home late and I would ordinarily be a little stir crazy and waiting for him passed so quickly I didn't even realize he was running a little late because my two friends came and stayed to visit until he got home. John is adamant that 'friend's mommies' can come back again and soon. I think he thought they were here just for his entertainment, or maybe he was here just for theirs. So far it's been a good move, we've had to downsize more than we thought, but those missing material possessions aren't missed after all and the time with friends and friendly neighbors and the enjoyment that Mark is having in his studies is priceless. And given a few more weeks Mellon may actually stop barking at people on the sidewalk, but alas there is a pit bull across the alley that is making her look like a stellar good new neighbor and we get compliments on her behavior regularly.

A Dog's Life

Mellon is John's dog, there is no doubt that she belongs to him body and soul. This day John 'helped' her by letting her off her chain in the back so that she could run and play, well she jumped the fence and went on a merry chase through town. She's a big dog, so we stayed close to her and met a few neighbors along the way as she visited every dog, horse, small child, cat and interesting bush she could find. We were rather impressed, she never picked a fight, never got involved with the more aggressive dogs around and never did anything really bad she just wanted to run, and run with glee she did. She eventually ended up out in the country and with the help of a really nice man and his two sweet little girls we rounded her back up and brought her home.

John showed us how she got loose, he took her chain off, just as we suspected but he couldn't tell us until he could show us. So we explained to him that she could have gotten hit, or lost, or killed or taken to doggie jail and that he needed to take care of her by making sure that those things didn't happen to her. The rest of the evening they spent like this.





She could have easily gotten lose, but no she went with him through narrow doorways, long cartoons, and circles through the house. Occasionally she would look at us like we needed to rescue her and of course we didn't because she is John's dog and he wasn't doing anything bad, just annoying, lol, kinda like her earlier in the day.

He continues to drag her around like this and she does slip away when he isn't paying close enough attention but then she always sits and lets him get her again. We couldn't have asked for a better dog for him, we are so thankful to have her.

Crack Me Up

I can't remember what they were watching on my computer, Kick Buttowski, Top Shot, something like that and of course they were enjoying it!

Who are you tonight?

John has watched a good bit of Dr. Who with us and so when Mark came across this little weird looking flashlight he gave it to John and told him that it was his own sonic screwdriver. John was cracking us up this night reading with his sonic screwdriver. Other nights he has out the wand that Mark carved for him and is cursing the dog as Harry Potter and still other nights he is dashing through the house looking for stuff with his sword, he's Link. Gotta love that imagination.