Update: July 23, 2009

(By Julie Marcum on July 2oth)

-I want to thank you all for your prayers surrounding the counseling session on Saturday. It was a time of sharing and healing for the youth and their families... a lot of tears and questions, but I think all went away feeling a measure of peace. Joanne did an excellent job of facilitating, and she is available for another session in a few weeks - hopefully by that time, all who were not able to be there will be able to come.

-Sunday saw 3 of our youth that haven't yet been able to come to church worshipping with us. It was wonderful to see Bruno, Rebecca, and Jonathan among us.

-Please pray for Ariel, who continues in the hospital. He is confined to his stomach for now due to some bed sores that developed on his back and is struggling with some depression. His parents came to church on Sunday and tearfully asked for prayers and visitation on his behalf. Josh went on Sunday evening and had a good visit with him. Hopefully his cochlear device will arrive this week.

-Rachel Sandoval is flying out tonight - pray for her trip home, her time with her folks, her search for an apartment, and her first year of teaching. Pray for them too as they are separated for a couple weeks. Butch and Jonathan will probably fly out beginning of August.

-As for our family - we are hoping for a return to a degree of normality this week - although it seems we cannot avoid catastrophe more than 2 days in a row. I made another trip to the emergency room on Saturday, this time with Jana. I thought her elbow had been dislocated again (see previous post in Feb.).... Thankfully, it turned out to be fine (I was dreading the thought of a baby in a cast again!). On the way home, our car broke down and we've had problems with our water supply being very dirty. We had to clean out the cistern and get the pumps serviced, so we've been without water for 2 days. Thank you for your continued prayers!