Dear Praying Family & Friends,

It's been awhile since we last updated this blog site. Some of you who read this may have picked up from other sources some of what we will share here. The biggest and ongoing concern for us and the entire family is our daughter Barbara who continues to fight cancer. In the last posting you saw a picture of her with her "halo" that was used to hold her head still for the MRI and Gamma-Knife surgery on the small lesion that had showed up in her brain. She has had minimal side effects from that surgery. Immediately after the surgery she had a couple of mild seizures and a couple more seizures as they weaned her off the steroids but nothing since. She is still on 2 anti-seizure medicines.
Here is a recent picture of Barb and her family. Poor Robbie had just woken up from a nap in the car.


She started back to teaching for the LA school District as a Special Ed teacher for severely handicapped kids right at the beginning of the school year and has been able to manage that well. She has great staff who assist her in the class room and she has a very understanding principle as well.

This past Friday she went back on chemo as her oncologist wanted to treat the two small remaining lesions in the liver and one in her lungs with a round of chemo to either eliminate them or reduce them in size so that other methods of treatment might be employed. For unknown reasons she had a rather violent reaction to the chemo drugs that they gave her which are the same one that she took for a number of months before going off of them this past April. She was pretty wiped out over the weekend and took yesterday off work in order to give her body more time to recover from the reaction on Friday. Her older sister Ruth was with her over the weekend assisting her and helping to care for the 5 children. Barbara is back in the class room today. On Thursday she turns 40 and her good friend Barbara Cox from Faith Academy days is coming to spend a few days with her. She is off work on Thursday because it is Yom Kippur a Jewish Holiday which is celebrated in Los Angeles.

Prayer requests for Barbara would be 1) That she will regain total strength from the bad chemo reaction quickly. 2) That the reaction will have not caused any serious damage to organs and tissues and that the chemo will actually start to eliminate the three remaining lesions that she has. 3) That she will experience no reaction when she has her next scheduled chemo infusion which will be on the 24th of this month. 4) That she will experience a deep sense of God's peace and protection over her during these 3 months of treatment. 5) Pray for Barbara's husband Erik as he has a lot of extra responsibilities on his shoulders due to Barbara's illness. Pray also for the five children Kiayah, Clare, Elise, Robert and Vivianne. The 4 oldest are all in school but Vivianne is only two and still at home.

The beautiful Routh kids.

Joan and I had opportunity to visit her 94 year old mother both on our drive to California and on the way back. She lives in Vancouver, Washington with Joan's sister and brother-in-law. She had not been doing well physically for several weeks now. The doctors can't seem to isolate the exact cause of the problem so treatment has been minimal. Please pray for her and for Joan's sister Judy who is the primary care giver.

In another three weeks our son Tim and his wife Naomi are expecting their son to make his appearance in the world. Naomi's Mom who works in missions in Mongolia will be coming soon to spend 5 weeks with them to assist Naomi with the baby and to help care for 2 year old Renatah. We are all excited about the arrival of this new little guy. He will make grand child # 12 for Joan and I.



Our daughter Amy, husband Jon and their 4 children who reside in an Asian country are doing well. They just had a two week visit by Jon's parents Jim and Jan Holsclaw who are also in Wycliffe. It was a great visit and everyone had a wonderful time. It's always fun for the children to have grand parents visit. We spent a week with them the end of April and 3 additional days in May on our way back to Canada. Pray for Jan who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a couple of months ahead of Barbara back in 2006. She was cancer free for a time but in recent months her cancer counts have started back up and her doctor fears that the cancer has returned. He will likely put her back on chemo once she and Jim return to Orlando, Florida from this trip they are on to visit all their kids and grand kids.

Our oldest daughter Ruth is settling into her new teaching job at La Mirada High School in Souther California. She is a part of the Art Department with the primary responsibility to teach ceramics and pottery to seniors. She has always had an artistic bent but she started her teaching career by teaching PE at Faith Academy in Manila. Since returning to the US she has been teaching science and math for a number of years at the Junior High level. She is pretty excited about getting to teach something she really loves to do and as she said "On top of that I get paid to do it." :)

Joan and I have been back in Calgary here at the Wycliffe Canada headquarters for 2 1/2 weeks now. It's been a time to get caught up with those things that got set aside while we were in LA although I was able to carry on a lot of my responsibilities by phone, tele-conferences, skype, faxes and the like. Modern communications and technology are wonderful. During our time in LA we were able to put our Idyllwild, California house into escrow which is a bit of a miracle given the current financial crisis in the US housing market. Pray that it will clear escrow on time.

We are so grateful for all of your prayers on behalf of our family and the work that we are engaged in with Wycliffe as we serve the Lord in the Bible Translation Movement. We long for the day when all the world's people groups will have access to God's precious Word in their heart language. Thanks for standing with us in prayer and support. You are a great blessing to us and even a greater blessing to the Lord.

In Christ

Dave & Joan

Dear Praying Family,

It's Sunday morning at 11:45 and we all back home after attending early morning service. Barb did well Friday afternoon and night. She also did well yesterday (Saturday) but she did have two slight seizures 2 minutes in duration. We were expecting those as the brain surgeon who did the gamma-knife surgery said it would cause some slight swelling and that is what causes the seizures. She has not had any additional seizures for the last 20 hours. Please continue to pray that the gamma-knife surgery did it's job and that it will result in the total elimination of the brain lesion. Thank you for standing with us on this journey of faith.

In Christ

Dave & Joan



It's 11:50 in the morning here on Friday and Barb is back home after the gamma-knife brain surgery. Joan and I took her in at 6:30 and she was the first patient. They placed a halo on her head which they attached with four pins that go down into the skull bone a little bit so as to prevent any movement. She then went in for a 15 minute MRI which they looked at right away and then plotted out how to pinpoint the gamma-knife. She waited for about an hour before going in for the surgery that lasted around 30 minutes.

The doctors and entire staff were really good to explain everything prior to and after the procedures. They said the tumour/lesion had actually shrank some due to the steroids. They did detect one other very small "spot" which they said was not necessarily a beginning lesion but they went ahead and treated it as well. Their post-procedure comments were "It was a piece of cake" which we took to mean that it did not present any difficulties that might have made the procedure more difficult or more risky. Now we have to wait 3 months before the next MRI on the brain which the Dr. indicated could actually show an increase in the size of the lesion which is normal as the cancer cells begin to die and are absorbed and disposed of by the surrounding cells/tissue. He said it could take up to year before the lesion entirely disappears. Our prayer is that nothing else manifests itself over the next three months.

In a few days to a week she will go in to see her primary oncologist to schedule a colonoscopy as they want to check to make sure nothing is happening. Her previous CT-MRI indicated a little thickening of the wall and while they don't necessarily suspect anything they want to make sure as it could effect the chemo treatment which we are guessing will start in another 2 weeks. Barb is certainly not anywhere near being "out of the woods" We simply continue to pray that the upcoming treatments will be effective and that God will intervene and bring complete and total healing. It definitely has to be a "God thing" because her doctors tell her it's currently treatable but not curable. But we all know who has the ultimate power to heal.

We are not going to send a general update out until Sunday just to give time to make sure she does not suffer any adverse side effects from the procedures she just went through and the meds she is on. If she is feeling well enough she is talking about going back to teaching on Tuesday. Her principle is supportive and will allow her all the time off she needs to keep on an even keel. Her doctors are also supportive as they want their patients to live as normal a life as possible for as long as God gives them life. Teaching is wonderful therapy for Barb and her staff is so caring and helpful. It also keeps her health care benefits active which is important when you are getting treatment at one of the most expensive hospitals in the world.

Lots of love

Dad & for Mom and Barb

Subject
Update on Daughter Barbara






Dear Praying Family,

We are coming up on a week since we left Calgary to be with our daughter Barbara and family as Barb continues her battle with cancer. The latest development being the appearance of a small tumour/lesion in the posterior frontal lobe of her brain which had begin to manifest itself in the form of seizures. She was in the hospital last week starting on Monday and being released on Wednesday evening. During that time she was placed on steroids to reduce the swelling around the lesion as well as being put on anti-seizure medication. She had one seizure last Thursday after coming home but none since, which indicates the steroids and anti-seizure medications are working.

Joan and I and Barb met with her oncologist at Cedar-Sinai Hospital here in Los Angeles on Monday. He is still in a definite treatment mode and has her scheduled for radiation treatment on the brain lesion on Friday, two days from now. This is a one hour "gamma-knife" treatment where the radiation is directly aimed at the lesion without doing any damage to surrounding tissue, although it will for a time cause some additional swelling. This procedure is done in conjunction with an MRI which gives the doctors a visual look at the direction of the radiation making sure it is pin-pointed precisely on the lesion. Please pray for Barb's physical and emotional preparation for this procedure and that it will be done carefully and with better than expected results. The effectiveness will not be known for three months when they do another MRI. This is a very new technology and procedure and not offered in many hospitals around the world. We are grateful that Cedar-Sinai has the equipment and the staff who are skilled in preforming the procedure. While modern medicine is wonderful it still has its risks. Barb and the whole extended family knows that ultimately all healing comes from God who declared in Psalms 103:2-3 " Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all of your sins and heals all your diseases." This is why your prayers are of the utmost importance because the Scriptures also declare in James 5:15-16 "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man (person) is powerful and effective." Thanks for standing with us during these challenging days.

Once the radiation treatment is finished Barb is scheduled for a follow up colonoscopy, where the cancer originated, and will also be put back on chemo for three months for treatment of some small lesions in the liver and lungs that were showing some activity in her most recent CT-PET-MRI tests. While her blood cancer markers have continued to be in the normal range it is obvious that not all the cancer cells in her body have been eradicated so the cancer continues to show itself in various places in her body. Pray that the Lord will do a miracle in Barb's body allowing her immune system to take over and eliminate all cancer from her body.

Right now we are all living one day at a time and your prayers are a big part of God's sustaining grace in all of our lives. We will keep you updated on a regular basis.

Love & Prayers

Dave & Joan and for Barb and the whole family

Dear Praying Family,

This is a difficult posting for us because it deals with set backs in our daughter Barbara's battle with cancer. The last few days have been especially difficult and unexpected. Your ongoing prayers are critical and vital at this time.

Barb, through her husband Erik, posted the following on her caring bridge site this afternoon.

"The cross that Jesus has asked me to bear has gotten heavier. Sunday after Church I experienced a seizure and Erik called 911. Paramedics incorrectly concluded I had a panic attack. I tried to carry on as normal but Monday I had another seizure. Erik took me to my primary care doctor who then sent me to the ER. I was admitted to the hospital and I am still here. I had a CT scan & an MRI which revealed a new lesion in the posterior portion of my brain's frontal lobe. We are waiting for the consultation with the neuro-surgeon to ascertain the next move medically. I have lost some function on the right side of my body, especially my right arm and hand. Thankfully I am left handed. I am presently on anti-seizure meds, but had another seizure about an hour ago. Please keep us & the doctors in your prayers. Love Barb (typed by Erik)

Thank you for standing with Barb and the whole family at this difficult time. While this is not an easy time we continue to rely on God who has told us in Mark 10:27 "Jesus looked at them and said 'With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.'"

Love & prayers

Dave & Joan

Dear Praying Family,

Some of you may have heard by now that Barb's post operation CT/PET scans revealed ongoing cancer activity in her liver and lungs. Here is what she wrote on her blog. "Dearest ones, Thanks to all of you who prayed as I saw the Dr. today (Tuesday). He was upbeat despite the bad scan results. He wants to start me back on the heavy doses of chemo I was originally on. He said they worked amazingly well the first time and he expects them to do the same again. He acknowledged that real miracles and cures come from God's hands. He says after three months of treatment and another CT/PET scan he will advise lung surgery and possibly radiated beads to the liver. He says I am in a "brave new frontier" as there is nothing to compare my case with. I have the evidence of God's mercies to look back on and I can SEE the tender way HE has cared for me. So I know with confidence HE will see me through this round.It is through YOU, HE has ministered to me and I am forever grateful! Thanks for the amazing encouragement you give through this blog, e-mails, phone calls, visits, etc. I could not do this alone and thanks to the family of God I do not have to. You are all angels! A verse sent today by a person I never met yet she is praying for me: Psalm 96:16 "With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation". Praise with us for the hope we have and pray as I begin chemo that God will use the treatment to kill all cancer in my body. Praise for the fabulous summer I have experienced and all the wonderful times with the kids and pray that they will continue to see God's mercy even though their mom will be 'sick again'. I am not sure when chemo will start as the Dr. wants me to have a colonoscopy first as that was the original site of the cancer. I will keep you posted so you can pray specifically. All my gratitude, Barbara "


Barb will once again not only need the ongoing prayer support but she will need practical assistance especially during the week after the administration of the strong chemo drugs. Joan will once again make the necessary trips to California to help with the five grandkids and to be a source of support and encouragement to Barb and Erik. Thanks so much for your prayers for her and for the entire family.

I don't believe that we have mentioned here on the blog what wonderful times we had with our friends David and Muriel Standing from the UK who were here with us for a month, mid-June to mid-July. Life has been really busy since they left, getting caught up with a back log of work here in the Calgary office.

We go to Orlando. FL next week to attend a North American Forum of Bible Agencies. During that time we will also visit Jim and Jan Holsclaw, our son-in-law Jon's parents. Jan also has been battling cancer for almost 2 years now and just recently got out of the hospital for treatment of some serious infections. Her cancer counts have been elevated recently but she has not been on chemo as her CT/PET scans have not shown any activity to this point in time so the Dr. does not want to put her chemo until he is sure of what it is he is treating. Please be praying for Jan and Jim as they walk this similar road. We will also be visiting a supporting church in Starke, FL on this trip as well. Pray for safety as we travel and as we have opportunity to show the love of Christ to others.

Love & Prayers

Dave & Joan