Please Pray

Dear friends and prayer warriors,

Our family was at a get-together last evening in celebration of my mother-in-law's 60th birthday, and I learned that some friends of ours from our previous church (Andrew, Julie, and their family) are in need of your prayers.

We just learned that their son, Joshua, has stage 3 "Wilms' Tumor." He is 2 1/2 years old. His symptoms came on fast and occurred just four short days before he ended up in the hospital having tests run. The tests concluded that he had a large tumor on one of his kidneys and it was bad enough that the entire kidney had to be removed. They learned shortly after about the cancer. There is a 95 % cure rate, which of course, is very encouraging.

They also have two other children, one 6 and the other a month old. As you can imagine, this is an intense time for their family, and I know they would covet your prayers. Julie sent me an email this morning and with her permission, I will share some specific prayer requests:

• Please pray for Joshua, as the next step will be enduring 24 weeks of intense radiation and chemotherapy.
• Pray for Andrew and Julie as they continue to care for their other two children (as I mentioned above, one is a newborn...one month old). She shared in her email that the logistics of traveling to two hospitals for treatment and caring for two other children will be very difficult to coordinate.
• Pray that the side effects of Joshua's therapy won't be drastic. The information they received from the hospital yesterday was overwhelming.
• Pray for sleep and rest for this precious family and for strength to endure the weeks and months ahead.
• Pray for their peace and trust in a sovereign God who holds them in His hands.
• Pray for big sister Emma as she walks through this process with her little brother and parents. Pray for baby Rebecca to continue to nurse well and to help her mom get some much needed sleep.
• Pray for Joshua as the Lord leads...

I will continue to update here as I receive more information. Please pray. We all know there is power in prayer.

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."

~Matthew 21:22