Finally!  I am so blessed to be sitting here in my own home, thinking about you, having the chance to write to you myself.  How can I even begin to thank you for accompanying me through these past two weeks?  For walking through them together with me, holding my hand, leading the way when I myself had fallen blind?  Your unceasing prayers and expressions of love bolstered my faith in our Great God and His mighty power to turn all my darkness to light.

Though I found myself blind in one eye, I was not overcome by fear, nor did I fall captive to the darkness of discouragement.  Indeed, I was surrounded by great peace and true rest the majority of the time.   Only let me be very clear that it was His light, His peace, and His rest.

And now the blessed light is returning to my left eye as well, rather much more quickly than we had even hoped.  Each day, I see more and feel less disorientation with the disparity in my vision.  Yesterday I was able to see color for the first time and read large letters without great strain.  The distances are still a blur, but I can identify large objects such as cars and trees easily enough.  God has been so gracious to me.

I want you to know that I am absolutely CONVINCED that this experience has come to pass so that God will be praised, so that together our hearts could exalt His name together.  “My life is an example to many, because you have been my strength and protection.  That is why I can never stop praising You; I declare Your glory all day long.  I will tell everyone about Your righteousness.  All day long I will proclaim your saving power, for I am overwhelmed by how much you have done for me.”  Psalm 71:8, 15

As you praise God with me, please also remember to pray for:

1. Good rest.  I have not been sleeping well for the past week.  Mercifully, friends have been helping with the kids and meals!  After today, Brad will be on school break as well so he will be available to help with our two sweet, redheaded boys.
2. My continued healing and the ability to know my limits (not a great strength of mine!
3. My acceptance of each day, with the vision I have, as a gift from His hand.

Thankful for your part in this miracle,

Shilo

P.S. If you would like a peek into what was going on in my heart through this time, please feel free to visit my personal blog at myplaceofpeace.blogspot.com.

We appreciate you.

Thanks again for your prayers for Shilo over this last week.  Seems hard to believe this whole ordeal started only one week ago.  We had an encouraging visit with the eye doctor today.  He was impressed with the quick recovery of her left eye after just 3 days of IV treatments.  She went from being totally blind on Tuesday to being able to see the outlines of people and shapes today.  This is an unusually fast rate of recovery, and we attribute it to God, of course, answering all of your prayers for healing. So the doctor was much more optimistic about her chances of full recovery of her vision than he was when we saw him 3 days ago.  He is hesitant to say how much vision she will recover, because in actuality it is impossible to predict as it all depends on how much damage was done to the nerve.  But based on conversations with several doctors, and some reading we have done on optic neuritis, it appears that the majority of people who have had it recover most of their vision to the point where they can function quite normally.  Ultimately, we know this rests in the hands of God, and we are trusting Him for a positive outcome, if it is His will.  It can take several months, however, for full sight to be restored.  So these next weeks and months will be a waiting game for healing to take place.  We appreciate your continued prayers for healing, but we are thankful to God for the quality of medical care we have received, for the quick recovery so far, and for friends like you who have rallied behind us in prayer in this time of need.

Shilo will continue her IV treatments until this coming Sunday.  After that, she will take a much reduced dose of the medicine via pills for three more weeks, which she can do from home.  So we will probably head back home early next week.  Thanks again for your prayers.  We have felt God’s peace in our hearts this week, even amidst fearful circumstances.  And we have seen God go before us, preparing the way through the body of Christ for quick access to quality medical care, and in other tangible ways like people caring for our boys while we visited so many doctors, and loaning us their vehicle when ours broke down.

We will try to update you periodically over the next several months as to Shilo’s progress.  We are encouraged by her progress, but know she is far from being completely healed.  Your ongoing prayers are needed and appreciated.

Our new home in the Chaco.

 It seems hard to believe that it has been 2 months since we left Pennsylvania to come to our new home in Paraguay.  We have been enjoying our first weeks in the country. Find out more below.

Our first month was spent in the capital of Asuncion, participating in an intensive orientation program, where were welcomed very warmly by our Paraguayan host church and host family, as they helped us begin to understand the culture and way of life in Paraguay.  Even though it was only a short time of orientation, we felt that we got to know quite a bit of the history, culture, and lifestyle of Paraguay, and got to make fast friends with some of the people from our host church.  While Paraguay and Venezuela share the same language (sort of , it is amazing how different some things can be between the two countries.
We arrived to our new home in Paraguay about a month ago.  Once again we were warmly welcomed by our new teammates, who helped us paint and clean, prepared meals for us, and just blessed us in a myriad of ways. The house needed a lot of work to be made livable, but we are grateful to God for providing it for us to rent this next year, as it will meet our personal and ministry needs nicely.   It sure feels good to be in our own place after having lived in borrowed housing since March 5 when we left WA state to begin our travels east.  Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for us, and gave financially, in order to make it possible for us to get to Paraguay and set up a house from scratch.  It is amazing to see how God has provided for all of our needs, even in ways we didn’t ask or imagine.  Seems to me I read a promise from God about that somewhere . 

Thanks for praying for the new school year coming up.  Teacher inservice meetings at the school have already started, and Brad starts teaching classes on August 24.    We are excited to see what God has in store for us this coming year!