"Christ will give you light..." Eph 5: 14-15

"The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent;  They are renewed each morning, so great is his faithfulness."  Lamentations 3: 22-23

Wow!  Getting my weary bones out of bed to face another day at the NH... this sure is something that I need to know inside of my being.  I am also filled with HOPE and COURAGE looking at my two youngest sharing the burdon of life - John's sudden brain cancer.  He took his walker to France - still not able to walk on his own after the brain surgery he had to discover the type of brain cancer that he had.  He found out that with someone under his left side... he could walk normally and have that closeness of walking with a living caring person to visit with an commune with...so much better than that platform contraption that PT had rigged up for him.  This gave his sister the living oppotunity to really be there for her brother and help him in a most basic and neede way!  This was our last day with her, and the two of them are supporting each other... knowing that from then on it would be the spiritual support of prayer - so needed and important, but this actual sharing is a wonderful thing!  We all feel little Sister Hallel's prayers and know of her love surrounding us with prayers daily, but we miss the daily actual having her with us.  John says many times that he should write a book about all the ways that his sister just above him - Susan/Hallel - has touched him and changed him and modeled for him how to live a life of LIGHT and LOVE as a true follower of HIM, Jesus Christ, now her spouse!

We shocked ourselves that it barely worked out last minute for us to go to France to be with Susan as she changed her name and took her habit... just a few weeks after John had brain surgery and after his second chemo for Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma!  It was a huge step in his recovery!  We drove home after accomplishing such a feat - we looked at each other as we left the airport to drive home to the farm, and there was a huge smile on our faces as we said..."We did it!  We actually went to France, and were there to share with Hallel this huge step of faith, and we too have been touched and changed and healed!"  We had gone to Lourdes to ask Our Lady just for that, and John said that it was very "Good!" 

Jesus and Mary thank you for the LIGHT that we are filled with on this new day!  Use us and uplift us out of this old tired body and heal us of the weariness that holds us back!  Thank you for the LIFE and LOVE that surrounds us in your Word and Family and Faith.  Be with all those at TEC this weekend and may Go day be one of carrying forth YOU!  Jesus, we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia

Bless-bless, Barb

There is a very special story I want to share with you from early in our battle fighting the enemy cancer - called the Grocery store girl… After weeks of trying to diagnose John’s brain cancer… he was surrounded by his 4 sisters and their families and his dad, so I took a mental health day, and went shopping to cook for the family some home cooked food. I was walking around a big Cub Food store in ST Paul, and went to the check out lane… a black lady about my age asked the usual question of how I was… I couldn’t just say the usual “fine”, but instead I blurted out that I wasn’t doing all that great. “Why? You have money for groceries unlike that man, who had to use food stamps.” She pointed to the black man, who had checked out just ahead of me. I agreed with her and then I said to her shock; “My 20 year old son has brain cancer, can you please pray for him?” She nodded with a shocked look on her face. At that exact moment a girl in the next lane, said “Are you from Marshall? I think I went to school with some of your girls. And did I hear you say that your son has cancer? Can I pray with you here and now?” Now I was the one set aback and I hesitantly agreed. Right then and there she prayed for John and for his family to have strength and healing….I looked up to see the check out lady and the man packing his groceries with their heads bowed with us – united in prayer!

I was forever changed by her, and no longer do I say that I will pray for someone… I do it then and there…whether email of phone call or here in this letter to you all! Jesus, thank you for your love for each and every one of us, and may prayer be every part of our lives - the air that we breath!