For several years I have had my heels dug in
Staying in my comfort zone, afraid to step outside the box. Two miles from my parents, three blocks from my home church, everything else I needed within a short walk or drive down the road.
I remember exactly when I told God that I would go wherever he led us. We had just returned home from a 16 week stay in Oregon (which is a LONG way from home), and I realized while I was there that I would be willing to go anywhere God sent us.
It took me awhile after that realization, though, before I told God that I would go anywhere he wanted to send us.
It took me awhile after that realization, though, before I told God that I would go anywhere he wanted to send us.
It was then that the devil knew I was serious
and then he got serious.
It started when my baby was born almost 6 months ago. He was a perfect, beautiful, and healthy baby boy for about an hour. Then he had a spontaneous pneumothorax which landed him in the NICU for
5 days--the longest 5 days of my life. For 5 days we could barely touch him for fear that he would cry and widen the hole in his lung. It was such a blessing to hold him and take him home after that time, but that wasn't the end of our plight.
We'd been dealing with ear infections with our 2 year old. Poor kid practically took antibiotics nonstop. When he got bronchitis, I figured that was the worst of it, but after another ear infection we went the tubes/adenoid/tonsillectomy route. A week of waking up in the night with a screaming, dehydrated toddler, and we were in the ER with a chest Xray that also confirmed pneumonia (and more antibiotics).
It was 2 months that my baby was sick.
About a month before we moved to Wyoming Morrel started sneezing. It started here and there, and then became a constant struggle. We started finding things with mold on them throughout our house, and finally we found the source of the problem. Our ventilation system was moldy, and so was the air we were breathing. For the last month we lived in Missouri we actually lived in my parents' living room. We went to what became known as "the moldy house" to pack our stuff daily.
During this time Morrel got a sore that refused to heal and became very painful. Having a physician in the family has its perks, because we knew right away it was MRSA and took precautions to not pass it along to our kids. Unfortunately about a week after Morrel got it, so did I. They were both fairly mild, but rather painful, and we both had to take strong antibiotics.
By the time we made it to Wyoming we were healed from the MRSA.
We panicked and spent the better part of two months attempting to sell our minivan with no luck. Finally, 2 days before we left Missouri the car dealership called and had sold our van! It was by God's grace that we chose a dealership that had an identical van for sale already, because a company came in to buy BOTH vans, which meant we would get exactly what we wanted for ours. Selling our van, having a massive yard sale where we sold most of our furniture and baby stuff assured us we'd be able to cover our deposit and rent on our place in Wyoming. The U-haul company actually gave us a large trailer for the price of a medium one when they realized we had almost no money to work with. One of Morrel's friends even collected money throughout the Upper Columbia and Oregon Conferences to provide our gas money. My mom got a bonus from work the very week we left, so we felt better about emergencies that may come up on the trip. seemed to come together. All in all, and as per usual, God provided exactly what we needed and not a penny more.
We'd been dealing with ear infections with our 2 year old. Poor kid practically took antibiotics nonstop. When he got bronchitis, I figured that was the worst of it, but after another ear infection we went the tubes/adenoid/tonsillectomy route. A week of waking up in the night with a screaming, dehydrated toddler, and we were in the ER with a chest Xray that also confirmed pneumonia (and more antibiotics).
It was 2 months that my baby was sick.
When God Calls
Around this time Morrel was getting some calls and emails about a job he applied for last fall. He interviewed for it via video and told me afterward that it was the best interview he ever had and he felt like he was going to get the job. The job was in Wyoming, and before he even got the confirmation call we were making plans to move.About a month before we moved to Wyoming Morrel started sneezing. It started here and there, and then became a constant struggle. We started finding things with mold on them throughout our house, and finally we found the source of the problem. Our ventilation system was moldy, and so was the air we were breathing. For the last month we lived in Missouri we actually lived in my parents' living room. We went to what became known as "the moldy house" to pack our stuff daily.
During this time Morrel got a sore that refused to heal and became very painful. Having a physician in the family has its perks, because we knew right away it was MRSA and took precautions to not pass it along to our kids. Unfortunately about a week after Morrel got it, so did I. They were both fairly mild, but rather painful, and we both had to take strong antibiotics.
By the time we made it to Wyoming we were healed from the MRSA.
But the financial stress was compounding
As soon as Morrel accepted the job as youth mentor for the church in Wyoming, we got paperwork from the Veteran's Administration explaining that we would be losing our regular monthly payment of nearly $1000 for three months.We panicked and spent the better part of two months attempting to sell our minivan with no luck. Finally, 2 days before we left Missouri the car dealership called and had sold our van! It was by God's grace that we chose a dealership that had an identical van for sale already, because a company came in to buy BOTH vans, which meant we would get exactly what we wanted for ours. Selling our van, having a massive yard sale where we sold most of our furniture and baby stuff assured us we'd be able to cover our deposit and rent on our place in Wyoming. The U-haul company actually gave us a large trailer for the price of a medium one when they realized we had almost no money to work with. One of Morrel's friends even collected money throughout the Upper Columbia and Oregon Conferences to provide our gas money. My mom got a bonus from work the very week we left, so we felt better about emergencies that may come up on the trip. seemed to come together. All in all, and as per usual, God provided exactly what we needed and not a penny more.
After a fairly easy 1200 mile trip with 3 young children and two vehicles (my dad made the trip with us in his car), we made it to our house. We had found a place for the perfect price in the perfect place. It's a single-wide trailer sitting on a ranch with animals of all kinds, so the children love it. It's perfect, and we have been settling in nicely.
However
During our first week in our new home our infant had a noticeable amount of blood in his diaper. Being the 21st Century mama that I am I turned to Google, which basically told me that my kid had a dairy allergy. Problem solved! I'd stop eating dairy. Well just as a precaution, and at the prompting of my mom, we took the baby to the doctor to find out after blood and stool testing that he had C Diff. The stress of changing an infant's diaper with two bickering toddlers in an unbabyproofed house full of boxes and an assortment of junk worsened when I had to wear rubber gloves and sanitize everything with Clorox wipes and wash my hands before I could touch my other kids. My mom figured that the baby had to have gotten it from somewhere so we had Abel tested, and he was also positive.
What Goes around
Comes around
All the sickness that Abel had months ago in Missouri, and all the time he had been on antibiotics caused his body to lose all its good bacteria, so he had nothing left to fight this nasty infection. The antibiotics that I took for MRSA while breastfeeding Mark caused him to contract it from Abel. I decided I'd never give my kids antibiotics again. Then we found that although that's where this all started, they needed a very strong antibiotic to kill the C Diff, or they could get very sick. Adults are treated for C Diff with usually two very strong drugs simultaneously. Because of their young age my kids could only take one, and we only really had one chance to do it right. Miraculously they each took every single dose (every 6 hours around the clock) for 10 days, but how we got the medicine in the first place is a God story.
God at Work
The nurse called me to confirm what the boys had and explained that there was only one place in the area that I could get the medication, and they do not take insurance. We went to pick up the medication, which was very expensive for both boys and I actually had to call my mom to buy them because we had no money until Morrel got his first check a full month after our move. I waited for them to prepare both while also chatting with the receptionist. As we talked we realized that she is a member of the church where Morrel is working as youth leader, and all of her six children are youth in the church! What a blessing this chance meeting has been, because we have made great friends with this family.
When the devil sees a smile
It seems like as soon as things began to look positive in our new life here I had what looked like MRSA again. I went about a week in denial, and refused to see a doctor because of everyone in our family I am the only one who doesn't have insurance. Because of all the health issues we've had over the past few months this is a point of great stress for me. A mother should be able to protect her family, especially the tiny baby that only drinks breast milk! For this reason I started researching natural cures for MRSA, and happened upon one that seemed promising. I found what's called Manuka Honey, which has been reported to begin healing MRSA wounds within 24 hours. On a Friday I received birthday money from my parents and purchased the honey. On Saturday we had an outdoor church service at a park about 40 miles away and we spent all day there and all evening at a friend's (the same friend I met at the pharmacy). By the end of the day the wound was not healing. If anything, it had worsened. When I got home I couldn't walk, but was just dragging my leg behind me and sobbing for Morrel to help me. No way could this be MRSA, because this natural cure wasn't working!
Well, the age-old saying "it's always darkest before the dawn" is truth. After that day my leg healed steadily, and is now almost completely healed and a memory. Instead of a $200+ doctor's visit and a $30+antibiotic (that would be detrimental to my infant's health) I spent $15 dollars on a jar of honey that healed this wound that was causing me so much pain and stress I was beginning to be depressed.
Other healing
In His divinity, God knew that this mama was worn thin. I don't even think Morrel realized how serious my anxiety over our health was getting. God knew that it wasn't only about our health though. We were desperately waiting for Morrel's first paycheck from his youth mentor job, surviving on food stamps to eat, and putting gas in the car with money from selling Morrel's phone and my cloth diapers, and even some donations from some wonderful friends.The first job Morrel applied for, the manager called him within the hour of dropping off his application. He went in for an interview the following Monday at 9:30 am, and started at work at 2 pm that same day. Not only did he get a job, but he got a part time job, with Sabbaths off, that doesn't conflict with his youth mentor job, and he's working with youth in the after school program! God is good and faithful.
It seems the more he worked this other part time job, the more he worked with church youth as well, and eventually we started getting small partial paychecks from these two jobs.
At this time he started working another job mowing lawns a day or two a week, so he is keeping very busy.
The little things
Even with these small paychecks coming in (which didn't start until three weeks after our move) we still couldn't afford the little things: contacts lenses for me, shoes for the kids, seems like we were living "diaper to diaper". I even ran out of band-aids and I was covering my MRSA with cotton balls and masking tape for two weeks until my skin was so damaged that I bled each time I removed the tape. It's these things that we often forget about. We pay the bills and let the little things go, so when we can't pay a bill, you know we're bad off.
It started on facebook
First I sent a text to some friends back home in Missouri telling them I wasn't going to have my phone for awhile (I don't remember telling anyone in our new church, though). Then Morrel went to do some outreach at the welcome back BBQ at the college campus. After handing out flyers all afternoon with his phone number on them and meeting many college-aged youth and handing out his phone number, his phone was to shut off the next day. He just put up a simple status on facebook letting people know to contact him online.
We didn't notice, but one of our new friends defriended us both on facebook, and over the course of 6 hours on a Wednesday that was a sad day for Morrel (because it was the end of his military contract) a group of about 40 people (a lot of whom we haven't even met yet) decided that we needed some help, even though we didn't ask. In six hours 40 people raised $1000, a $25 gift card, and a pick-up truck load of food, diapers, wipes, toilet paper, Clorox wipes, Kleenexes (all those little things that we don't spend money on when we're broke), etc.
In six hours a group of people we'd barely known a month set out to help us, even going as far as to pay our phone bill (which ironically enough was paid with the partial check that Morrel got on Wednesday) and people who have been attending church, and who haven't been, and even some that aren't even members of this church pulled together as a family to help my family.
And when they surprised us
It was beautiful.
We have learned in the short time we've been here that you should expect at least a dozen people to show up when you've been invited somewhere for dinner. So when person after person showed up on Friday evening for dinner and worship, we didn't think anything of it. When the worship message was a study on the loaves and fishes and discussion moved toward giving and the supply multiplying we didn't think anything of it. When Morrel was sent into the house to get a package out of the freezer that had our names on it, he started to wonder what was in store. When we opened the card that held a stack of cash, we never dreamed it held over $1000. And as they told us the story of how this transpired, we had no idea there was a truck-load of goods in the kitchen, right by where we had sat most the night.
This is a church that had just met us, that has struggled to unite in recent months and years, that has taken measures to reclaim lost members. This church displayed the very Thing to us, which will win the hearts of many. It's the Love of Jesus that brought these blessings to us, through 40 wonderful people. It's the Love of Jesus that has caused many families that didn't know us to invite us into their homes in the past few weeks. It's the Love of Jesus that is washing over each heart in this church to make way for Great and Wonderful things to come. Hearts are softening in Casper, Wyoming, and God is working here.
This is a church that had just met us, that has struggled to unite in recent months and years, that has taken measures to reclaim lost members. This church displayed the very Thing to us, which will win the hearts of many. It's the Love of Jesus that brought these blessings to us, through 40 wonderful people. It's the Love of Jesus that has caused many families that didn't know us to invite us into their homes in the past few weeks. It's the Love of Jesus that is washing over each heart in this church to make way for Great and Wonderful things to come. Hearts are softening in Casper, Wyoming, and God is working here.
