Crab mac-n-cheese!?! What kind of communist joint is this?
Jacq, reading an online review of the restaurant we are going to tonight.
Valley Ballyhoo…
We are headed to Western Carolina University today to participate in the “Valley Ballyhoo” (yes, I had to look that up to make sure I was spelling it right…), which is an annual back-to-school celebration where they give the student organizations tables to recruit at. We are handing out free stuff of some sort. It should be a blast! I’ll post pictures throughout the day of interesting things.
Financial Reality Check.
We are in the midst of the craziness. The first six weeks of class are upon us, and God is doing what only he can do, inclining the hearts of students to hear the gospel. It is a great time to be in campus ministry!
But, to be honest, there are a lot of things looming in the back of our minds, and at times making a dash for the front of our minds. As you know if you’ve been around our blog for very long, issues like Benjamin’s possible need for surgery and our desperate need for more monthly financial support have been a distraction from giving our full energy to ministering to students on campus. We have experienced a full range of emotions, and have repeatedly needed to remind ourselves of our position in Christ and the truth of the gospel.
The fact is, at the rate we are losing financial support, we will have to pull off campus full time within the next month to raise support (during the most critical time to be on campus). And if we don’t see dramatic increases in our support, we will have to leave staff very soon. I have had the verse from 1 Timothy 5:8 (if anyone doesn’t provide for his family, he is worse than an unbeliever) ringing in my ears for the past few months, and as much as I love ministering to students, my primary ministry is to my family. I have been tirelessly making phone calls all summer long, trusting the Lord to raise the support we need. We have seen some progress, but not at the rate we really need it.
Please pray with us that the Lord would bring in the support we need, and enable us to minister to students with all of our energy. I have never in my staff career felt more energized to be in ministry, and I really feel like now more than ever I am working out of my strengths, and seeing God use my meager efforts. Pray with me that God would continue to use our ministry to change lives, and that he would provide all we need to keep doing that.
Less diagnosis, more complication and waiting.
Since the middle of pregnancy, we have been sent to one specialist after another, all of them saying that there is a potential for problems and complications for Benjamin. First it was an outside chance of Down Syndrome, among other issues. Then it was a possibility of craniosynostosis (spelled that wrong in the previous post), or premature closure of the bones in the skull.
As we mentioned in the last post about the whole ordeal, we were waiting on a second opinion, after a diagnosis of craniosynostosis, and praying for a reverse diagnosis, which we were supposed to hear about today.
We got the call a little while ago from the geneticist, and we learned that the diagnosis is pretty much set. He has craniosynostosis and the next step is to talk to our pediatrician to see who he recommends perform the surgery, which most likely will take place at Wake Forest. We’ll let you know when we know about the surgery.
Now, however, there is a new wrinkle in the whole deal. They saw something in the CT scan that has them concerned about a whole new problem. (I think I’ve heard this before!) They are going to do an MRI because of some concerns they have regarding the corpus callosum, which is a part of the brain that provides communication between the left and right side of the brain, and helps in many other developmental ways.
The next paragraph is for family and close friends (who are probably the only people interested in this level of detail), but feel free to read anyways!
As far as I can tell from my brief research online, (check out http://www.nodcc.org/ for a very helpful overview of possible corpus callosum disorders), the primary issues that involve the corpus callosum are either that it isn’t there (Complete Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum or Complete ACC), that it’s partially there (Partial ACC), that it’s there but notably thinner (Hypoplasia), or that it’s there but in some other way not formed correctly (Disgenesis of the Corpus Callosum). There is no known cure for corpus callosum disorders. (God designed the brain, and though we have our best people on it, we can’t seem to find a designer/scientist/surgeon that can hang with God…)
They have scheduled the MRI for Monday (a week from today) at 1:30 PM. Here’s how you can pray:
- Pray that we would see and experience the gospel (that we have gotten, are getting and will get far better than we deserve, in Christ) even in the midst of this.
- Pray that we would have the finances to cover all of this. Praise the Lord for insurance, but we are still scraping the bottom even to pay 10%.
- Pray that Benjamin will sleep through the MRI like he did the CT scan.
- Pray that God would guide and direct the doctors, and give them discernment beyond their own ability and training.
Thanks so much for praying. God is doing something!
Here’s a lighter look…
So, if you’ve been around me (Ben) for 3 minutes or longer, you might find that I joke a lot. One of my goals when meeting new people is to figure out a way to make them laugh. Because genuine laughter (as opposed to courtesy, nervous laughter) is the ultimate ice-breaker.
Having said that, there are times that jokes just aren’t appropriate. But as we have been dealing with the news of a diagnosis of craniosynostosis (the premature closure of the bones in the skull, for those fashionably late to the conversation), I have found that one of the most therapeutic things I can and have been doing is joking about it. I have started to say that my son is just “too closed-minded,” because, well, that’s a funny way to say he needs surgery to open up his skull a little bit.
Crickets….
Yeah, so I am learning that me joking about an otherwise serious isue is only really funny to me. But its good for me to at times lift up the heavy blanket that is on this situation, and tell a joke. It may be awkward for you folks, but that’s the joy of a blog. We don’t have to deal with you awkwardly not knowing how to react to me joking about a surgical procedure on my son’s head. I can tell you how you should react. 🙂
Here are a few pointers:
- Let me do the joking, unless we are really close friends and it is just you and me. It’s not funny for anybody else. Not even my wife. (though she understands and puts up with me joking about it, she will start crying if you do, and then we are in Awkwardville, population 3.)
- Laugh. When I tell a joke, it’s OK to laugh. I understand if you just don’t think it’s funny… but if it is funny to you, you can laugh.
- If you don’t know what to say in a situation, or how to react in a situation, it’s better to acknowledge that fact (out loud) than to just be awkward. This applies to any interaction with us during this waiting period. We think about the surgery enough. When we are hanging out with you, we’d like to think about you, and how we can be friends with you. So, henceforth in dealing with us, if you want to acknowledge you’ve read the blog and are keeping up with what is going on and praying for us, but you don’t want to be friggin’ awkward, do this: Just say that. You can even use the word “friggin’” if you have talked it over with the Holy Spirit and He’s cool with it. Then, from that point on, we will do our best to move the conversation to something lighter, like Carolina basketball or International Business, or the process behind making falafel.
That’s all the pointers I’ve got, for now. But in closing, because it’s my blog and I’ll joke if I want to, I have come up with the following two potential one-liners having to do with the possible diagnosis of a corpus callosum disorder (the partial or complete absence of the division of the brain that connects the two lobes). We’ll find out the diagnosis after Monday when Benjamin goes in for an MRI.
- “My son can do all of that with half his brain tied behind his back”
- “We gave the other people a 250 million nerve-ending head start, and we are still whooping them.”