April
8, 2017
Dear Praying Friends,
May our Lord Jesus fulfil all your
petitions. The past three months has not
gone exactly as we’d thought. The
ministry we’d planned to do in Singapore, Philippines and India started out
exceedingly well, it seemed. But once
we’d gotten to India as scheduled in late January, Ruth went for an MRI which
revealed a large tumor growing in her neck.
Turns out this was the cause of the hearing loss in her right ear that
we’d mentioned in our last newsletter.
Due to this, we had to cut our first overseas trip of 2017 in half, to
four weeks.
My father, Edward Schaefer, fell in his
apartment in Naples, Florida, at the end of February, and had to be taken to
the emergency room. Because we were in
Miami seeking treatment for Ruth’s neck around this time, it was possible for
us to rush over to see him immediately.
In our Lord’s kind and wise will, my dad went to heaven directly from
the hospital on March 4th.
As a result of the above, Ruth and I have
spent the past six weeks or more dealing with my dad and his things, as well as
keeping appointments with doctors and clinics leading up to Ruth’s surgery to
remove the tumor. This surgery took
place the other day, on April 4th, and everything seems to have gone
as well as it could go. She had the best
of doctors. And though this was expected to be a tricky and tedious procedure,
and though the tumor turned out to be “the size of an Idaho potato”, the
surgeon said there were no real complications. All through your prayers to our Father, dear
friends.
Please
Pray:
·
That our Lord Jesus Christ would be glorified in our lives in all things
forever.
·
That Ruth would recover and heal very nicely from the trauma of the
surgical procedure, and that when the final biopsy report comes it would
definitively exclude any malignancy.
·
For the Holy Spirit to give us all the strength and courage we need for
every day.
Chit-chat: It was great to see our friends in
the Gospel during our trip to Singapore and India in January and February. May the Lord give them all the encouragement
and faith they need to keep on keeping on for Him. My dear dad was 89 when he went to the hospital. He knew our Lord Jesus and had a very hearty
faith in Him. Once he knew the doctors
were advising him they couldn’t help him get better, Dad really started
rejoicing and saying, “Lord, come and get me!”
Thank God for such grace that enables us poor sinners to know how to
die. Ruth has been home
from the hospital for a few days now, and I’m very encouraged that she is showing
some improvement. I don’t know how long
it will be before she can resume all our previous travels and activities, but
there’s no pressure. I just want my
Ruthie back to normal. God
is love.
