Our Adoption Story:Take 3

It's fitting that I would do the adoption post while William is in Sudan.  It was the faces of those sweet Sudanese children that God used to, as Baptists say, "set my heart on fire" for adoption. Our story goes something like this...

In pre-marital counseling we learned that having children is biblical. Hmm. Interesting concept.

It is comical now, but when we were dating, not having a desire for kids was a bonus for each of us when evaluating the other as a potential mate. Not interested in having kids? Check. Then came pre-marital counseling... So we decided we would adopt. Getting pregnant kinda freaked me out (still does for the record) and there are "too many" kids out there already. (kinda like pet overpopulation right? seriously, that was my thinking)

Then came the footage Coury brought back from Sudan and those faces. The sweet, joyful faces of kids whose parents were killed in the war or had died from Aids. Those joyful faces that brought tears to my eyes and a desire in my heart for adoption and for kids of my own.

We started researching adoption in the spring of 2007. We (read: I) spent hours on websites and pouring over brochures and handouts from different agencies. We went to an informational meeting on international adoption and left knowing that we would adopt from Ethiopia.

Why Ethiopia you ask? Well, for one, it borders Sudan, which is a "closed" country, meaning, no adoption. But more than that it is part of a region of Africa that we feel drawn and connected to. We have some dear friends who were born there and have two sweet babes themselves adopted from Ethiopia. And, most importantly, that's where our kids are!

We decided to wait until January of 2009 to begin "the process". We had our perfect family plan in place, and years away. William's first trip to Sudan was during the summer of 2007 and Moses was conceived upon his return home. (so he's kinda an African babe:-)

In October of 2008, when Moses was 4 months old, I went to an adoption conference and met Susan Killeen, the director of Arise for Children. After speaking with a few families who had adopted through Arise we decided to apply with her agency. Arise is small, local, and a Christian organization. All three things we were looking for.

We turned in our application in March of 2009. Our home study was completed in July and we gathered all of our dossier* paperwork by mid-August. I had it all notarized, county certified, and state authenticated. I had an appointment to meet with Cindy from Arise to look over it one last time before mailing it to Ethiopia. I had a big check. And I had morning sickness...

The same week I was scheduled to meet with Cindy and mail our dossier to Ethiopia (which by the way is the last step before you go on "the list" and wait for a "referral" or, as I like to call it "find out who your kid is") I found out I was pregnant.

Because our babe from Ethiopia and Meadow would have arrived about the same time, we decided (aka Arise counseled us) to put our process on hold. I was bummed and hormonal and torn about putting our adoption on hold. Of course, knowing what I know now, our sovereign God knew exactly what He was doing.

The weeks leading up to Meadow's due date I started working on the paperwork again. I knew we would jump right into the process after she was born and didn't want to waste anytime. Four weeks after Meadow was born I submitted the letter to our home study agency requesting they update our file with our new family member. Because all of the paperwork is time sensitive, and Arise had switched partners in Ethiopia, we had to start over. All over. From the beginning.

I didn't know that when we decided to put our process on hold. That's probably a good thing.

We collected all of our paperwork. Again. Had it notarized. Again. Our social worker came to evaluate us. Again. And FINALLY, it was complete by the end of July. (Meadow was born April 12th)

The end of July until tonight is all kind of a blur.

William had his mole removed mid-July. I was schedule to meet with Cindy to have our dossier mailed (Again.) on July 30th. On July 29th we got a phone call from William's surgeon that his biopsy came back as a form of melanoma. An invasive form of melanoma.

We knew very little that day of what that meant for us. We knew that William had cancer and we knew only all the horrible, scary, nasty stuff you can read on the interwebs if you google "superficial spreading melanoma".

We did know that God, AGAIN, had something else (many things actually) to teach us before growing our family through adoption. I emailed Susan at Arise, told her of William's diagnoses, and that I would not be bringing our dossier in to be mailed.

Fast forward to November. I have spoken to our home study agency, social worker, and stayed in close contact with Susan at Arise. Everyone has been very supportive. Fortunately, Ethiopia is not super strict so William's diagnoses should not be an issue. Unfortunately, because of the time sensitivity issue of the dossier paperwork, I will have to redo everything when we are ready to continue our process. Again. Again, Again. But that's ok. I know that when we finally do bring our children home from Ethiopia, whether it is in 2011 or 2020, it will be in His perfect timing.

*I realize a lot of you may not be familiar with adoption lingo. The "dossier" is a BIG stack of paperwork required by the government of the country you are adopting from. It is what they use to verify that you are fit to parent a child born in their country. For Ethiopia it includes: proof of health insurance, life insurance, letter from employer, letter from bank, bank statements, child abuse check, police check, home study, health certificate, bloodwork, brith certificates, marriage certificate, pictures of your house, letter from veterinarian, and other things I'm probably forgetting. And once you have it all collected it has to be notarized, then the county has to certify that the notary is legit, then the state has to authenticate that the county that certified the notary is legit. It's no joke.

Counting Down

Wow. It's been a while... It's pretty bad when you have to read your own blog to remember what your last post was about.

A lot of juicing has been going on since my last post. Bill, Williams dad, or as he likes to refer to himself, "The Real William Wallace", has been staying with us for a couple weeks and overall it has been a huge blessing. He goes to work with William during the week and prepares all of his juices. He washes all the dishes in the evening and juices on the weekends too! We're so blessed by him serving us in this way.

This is week 6 of the Gerson and we are all ready for it to be over. William is tired of the bland food and being a slave to "the schedule". We are both tired of being on virtual house arrest. This weekend he'll start to wean himself off of the therapy, decreasing enemas and juices in preparation for his trip to Sudan.

Ah yes, the trip to Sudan. A blog topic promise I have not fulfilled...

William and/or I, depending on our season of life, have been volunteering for Nadus Films since 2006.The mission of Nadus is to equip and empower the Southern Sudanese holistically, through the medium of film, with the focus of seeing this war-torn region rebuilt. We focus our rebuilding efforts on four areas: water, education, medical development, and church development. William has been to Sudan twice now, as the Director of Photography for the first Nadus film, "The New Sudan".

The upcoming trip is for the principal photography (that's fancy film speak for "shooting") of Nadus' newest film project "Grace Surpasses". William described this as his "dream film" when we were talking about it a couple weeks ago! I'm super excited that he is able to go and work on this project. (also envious:-) 

It was seeing the faces of the children in Sudan that sparked my passion for adoption. Speaking of adoption, that brings us to another promised topic. I'll have to come back to that one another time.

TO BE CONTINUED…

answered prayers

We are well into week three of the Gerson and I have an unexpected time of quietness so I thought I would do a quick update.
Last week, particularly last weekend, was pretty rough. Friday was our anniversary, we had child care all lined up and we never even made it out of the house. Williams routine is just that intense. Add a toddler, a 6 month old and three dogs... That brings us to answered prayer #1: help. We came to the very clear conclusion last week that we couldn't continue doing this with our current schedule. I used all of my FMLA and paid time off during my maternity leave so me taking time off right now is not an option.  William is taking 3 weeks to go to Sudan next month and will, Lord willing, be making two trips to Ethiopia next year to pick up our babe (I WILL do a post on our adoption soon) and doesn't want to take advantage of his boss' understanding and accomodating his trips to Africa. BUT, on Saturday William's Dad called and offered to come and stay with us until he is finished with the therapy! This is fantastic news and we are super excited. He will be going to work with William during the day, doing all of his juicing, and helping me prep in the morning and evenings. Yay!
Answer to prayer #2: cash. I had a really encouraging conversation with the director of our adoption agency, Arise for Children, on Monday.  Turns out she decided to reimburse us a fee we paid for the next step of our adoption, because we haven't actually completed that "step" yet. It will cover all of the medical bills and pay for William's crazy expensive 20 lbs of organic food each day for the rest of the therapy!
Sunday evening at church we were feeling better and it was so great to hear Todd teach from the book of Acts on Gods power to answer prayer. In between nursing Meadow and trying to keep her from squealing with delight, what stuck with me most from the sermon, is that God has the power to answer prayer and we should pray like we believe that he does. Amen to that.

Why and More What

So, it's been over a week since we last updated the blog.  It is not because we have not had plenty to share but rather we have been consumed by the Gerson Therapy.

Lindsy shared a bit about our routine last week and maybe a little TMI for some with the coffee enema info. This week I wanted to share the "why"...

The Gerson Therapy has been around since the 1920's.  You can read about Dr. Max Gerson and his daughter Charlotte if you Google them.  The therapy is well established and has healed 1,000's of cancer patients and patients suffering from diseases ranging from migraine headaches to diabetes.  I know that many people may not understand why we would chose to go this route, but historically The Gerson Therapy has healed more people with Melanoma than traditional western medicine, and without the long-term side effects.

The basics of the Gerson are:
Chronic illness is caused by a lack of nutrition and built up toxins that have accumulated in the body.  Because of a lack of nutrition in the modern diet, our filtering organs such as the liver and pancreas are not functioning at 100%.  This makes our bodies vulnerable to the toxins we are exposed to daily.  The diet is based largely on raw, organic vegetables combined with 13 glasses of fresh carrot, apple and green juice. The juice helps to replenish the nutrients in my body, but it also creates an oxygen rich alkaline environment in which cancer cells can not grow.  I am on a no fat, no sugar, no salt diet, because cancer feeds off of these three things.  The coffee enemas stimulate the liver which causes it to purge the toxins while the nutrients from the juices replenish it with new raw fuel.

Thank you to all of you who continually pray for and bless us with items such as organic coffee and produce, for those who have helped us acquire our juicer, etc...
The good news is I feel great!!!  The biggest prayer request I have is for us to figure out a way for me to get more rest.  A huge part of the therapy is resting while the detoxing takes place.  As you can imagine this is very hard to do with a full time job and two kiddos.  Lindsy has been a true servant but we are both exhausted and feeling the drain of the routine. (and it's only week two!) This therapy is not just a "diet" - it's an intense treatment.

My options kinda came down to doing this or doing 6 months of chemo.  This is "natural" but it's still an aggressive attack on cancer.  This is not a choice but rather a necessity for decreasing the odds of Mr. Melanoma's face reappearing somewhere else in my body.

Again, thanks for all of your prayers and support during this. Before I sign off  I did want to share that I have had some great time alone with the Lord during certain down times of the routine and have been able to hear some great sermon podcasts during my daily prep in the morning. This has helped to keep my soul rejuvenated.  In this very moment I feel physically exhausted and slightly discouraged but the following scripture gives me hope and recalibrates my heart:

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Psalm 91:14-16

Hey ya'll. It's L.

We have been getting lots of questions on the therapy/schedule/juicing/etc. so I figured I would post a bit more of the "what".

This past weekend I put together some numbers based on Williams juicing/meal regimen so we would not have to make multiple trips to the grocery like we did last week.  Here is the weekly shopping list:

35 lbs of carrots
32 lbs of apples
21 oranges
6 lbs of potatoes
20 gallons of distilled water
21 servings of veggies
14 servings of fruit
8 romaine hearts
7 lemons
7 green peppers
2 bottles of flax seed oil
1 head of red leaf lettuce, endive, escarole, swiss chard, red cabbage, and water cress each

And that's just for William! Needless to say it's a lot to manage and I am having a hard time figuring out what to eat myself, what to feed Moses and, pray for me, because Meadow will be eating soon! It is also very expensive to buy all of William's food organic but we know God will provide for us.  He always has!

The routine is crushing at times and I understand now why people who do the treatment for months travel to the Gerson clinic in Mexico.  William and I both get up before 6am to start prepping for the day and we literally don't stop washing/chopping/prepping until after 10pm. His enema/juice/meal schedule is below for those of you who are interested.

As William said, please pray that we would find a way for him to get more rest, and please also pray that God would give me the strength to maintain this for as long as is necessary. (at least until William leaves for Sudan. Yes he's going to Sudan next month, more on that later)

6am coffee enema (and yep that's what it sounds like)
8am breakfast (oatmeal and fruit), freshly squeezed OJ, supplements
9am green juice, supplements
9:30am carrot/apple juice, supplements
10am coffee enema, carrot/apple juice, supplements
11am carrot juice, supplements
12pm green juice, supplements
1pm lunch (large salad, baked potato, veggie and fruit), carrot/apple juice, supplements
2pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
3pm carrot juice, supplements
4pm carrot juice, supplements
5pm carrot/apple juice, supplements
6pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
7pm dinner (same as lunch), carrot/apple juice, supplements
10pm coffee enema

Gerson Day One, Follow Up Doctors Appointment, and How You Can Help!

Yesterday was Day One of the Gerson Therapy. William is feeling good but it is crazy intense. Seriously. It's like having another job and you all know we have time for that.

To give you an idea of his day, it starts with a 6 am coffee enema and  from there he is juicing every hour, plus three meals of freshly prepared salad, veggies, and fruit, and four more coffee enemas throughout the day, the last one being at 10 pm. This is no joke people.

Today's blog is just the "what" of the Gerson Therapy or as some of you might be thinking "what the hell":-) Hopefully tomorrow I can go more into the "why".

We also had our follow up appointment at the JGB Cancer Center this morning with Dr. Miller.  William explained that we spent a weekend praying, reading and thinking about the decision to do chemo or not to do chemo and did not take the decision lightly and that we came to the conclusion not to do chemo.  Dr. Miller said "First, I believe in prayer. Second, it is very reasonable for you not to do chemo." Dr. Miller explained that among melanoma patients, William is in the "low risk" category. This was a huge relief and I think the first time we have heard the words "low risk" in two months! He suggested William have a PET scan every 6 months for the next two years to closely monitor any changes in his body.

Many of you have been asking what we need and how you can help us. We are so grateful for your generosity and desire to serve us! We do have needs; more than I think we realized or assumed we would. I'll lay them out here. We are looking forward to the day we can serve ya'll too!

First and foremost, we need prayer. Not in a cliche "prayer first" way but in a real we believe God hears and answers prayer way. God has power over death and disease, he is sovereign and has designed this 
trial for us. He is using it to grow our dependence on him through prayer and we hope the same for all of you. Pray for our strength and perseverance during the therapy and that Williams body would become a place cancer does NOT want to be. Pray that we would draw near to Him and rest in His peace.

Second, we are going through a LOT of fruits and veggies! Carrots, apples, oranges, and potatoes are the top four (in that order). We are anticipating that Williams food and food for juicing will cost about $700 a month. It would be awesome if folks could grab an extra bag of carrots or such when already out doing normal shopping. All of Williams food needs to be ORGANIC. If you have any connections with local farmers that would also be great; let us know that too. We'll be going through a bunch of greens also with all the salads we'll be eating.

The medical bills from the surgeries, MRI, and PET scan have started rolling in as well. We are blessed by SBTS's great insurance but still have an out of pocket expense of about $3,000. If you feel led to contribute in that way please do.

William is supposed to be taking it easy (no exercise or strenuous activity; walking only) for the time being so we are in need of some volunteers to cut our grass.  It will probably only need to be done once more for the year. Let us know if you are willing to help in that way.

A random item we are needing is a hot plate, the kind you plug in to an outlet.  I'm sure I can find one online but haven't had a chance to look quite yet.

That's all for now. There are a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head that I'd love to get out but finding the time for that is challenging. Hopefully more to come soon!

Don't Waste Your Cancer

I realize that having a blog means that those of you following it sort of expect regular updates...  We've been busy this past weekend preparing for today - the day William starts the Gerson Therapy.  So, I'm simply going to post a link to an article written by John Piper that has been amazingly encouraging to us and a wonderful reminder the sovereignty of God.  William came across it and we both keep it open in our safari app so we can reference it often.  You can replace the word "cancer" with just about any other trial: job loss, homelessness, adultery, death of a family member, bankruptcy, etc.  We hope you find it as encouraging as we do.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/resources/dont-waste-your-cancer

I will post an update tonight on how day one went.  I'll also include a list of "needs" that we'll have during this time.  Many of you have been asking and we are so blessed to be loved by you all!

entering blog world

We are entering a new world of blogging here. Welcome. As we said in the email thank you so much to everyone who helped purchase Williams new juicer! He's very excited to get started on his new Gerson diet (more on that later).
We had a great 24 hours away last weekend. (Thank You to the Noltemeyers and Deebs for the wonderful cabin and piece of paradise!) It was great to have time to reflect and just be in Gods creation. (I almost didn't know what to do with myself without any kids climbing on me or needing my attention) While we didn't come to any new or different conclusions concerning Williams treatment, we did get to spend time alone together and in Gods word.  It was desperately needed.  It was only the third night without kids in the last 2 years!
And now the word you have all been waiting for: William has decided not to do the chemo. Logically speaking, there are two reasons for this.  First, William is currently "cancer free".  There is a good chance he will not remain this way, according to the doctors, but right now there is no known cancer in his body. If it comes back, his immune system will need to be in tip-top shape to fight it.  Chemo will destroy his immune system, leaving him defenseless.  Second, the rate of success in treating melanoma with chemo is poor, really poor, and hellish to boot.
What he will be doing is the "Gerson Therapy". http://www.gerson.org/ Simply put "The Gerson Therapy is a safe, natural treatment developed by Dr. Max Gerson in the 1920’s that uses organic foods, juicing, coffee enemas, detoxification and natural supplements to activate the body’s ability to heal itself.  Over the past 60 years, thousands of people have used the Gerson Therapy to recover from so-called “incurable” diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and arthritis."
William was first introduced to the Gerson Therapy 8 years ago when the brother of one of his coworkers was using it to treat the same melanoma that William has. At the time, William knew only that the brother had cancer, not what kind.  Last month, when we first found out that William was diagnosed with melanoma, a good friend of ours who has Lyme's disease sent us a care package. We didn't know what he was sending until we opened the package and found the book "Healing the Gerson Way". The more we read about the Gerson Therapy the more it made sense and William realized the divine nature in which he was introduced to it so many years ago. Nothing surprises our God.
It's getting late so we'll have to post more on the Gerson Diet later.  We (I say we because we'll all be eating differently) will be starting on Sunday. 

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."