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Dear Friends,
Before Christmas, we came to you with news and some urgent pleas and wanted now to give you an update filled with thanks and hope along with news about our latest travels.
No Cancer!
The December PET scan shows I do not have cancer anywhere in my body. As expected after the radiation, I am losing vision in the affected eye but praise God, I have my health! That news alone gives me new energy to tackle the financial challenges our ministry continues to face due to our nation’s economic downturn.
Road Support - THANK YOU!
Your response to our pleas in December were fantastic and we are very grateful! God sure makes it clear when he wants something funded. Our whole family feels drawn to travel so it is especially comforting when God affirms our adventure by the way all of you came together in such beautiful ways. You help us feel at home on the road. With your help, we were able to address the most urgent needs. Necessary repairs for the RV, including the purchase of a full set of new tires, have again given us a roadworthy traveling home.
Travel Update
At the end of December, we drove to California for time with family and offered one home concert and two parish events. The morning we were preparing to leave I woke with, of all things, vertigo symptoms! Thankfully these symptoms subsided after a few hours and we began heading south. A series of storms was just hitting the area and a wind advisory of gusts more than 60 MPH was in effect. Thankfully, one more RV repair stop in Oakland, CA, kept us out of the wind until the threat lifted. Heading toward Arizona, Therese came down with the stomach flu. The flu takes on a whole new dimension of intensity when traveling in such close quarters! We stopped overnight in Modesto where I presented songs and stories to RE classes at a nearby parish. Departing Modesto late the next morning, we faced two mountain passes by nightfall where snow was coming down full force. The children loved it and I was trying to trust we would have good traction coming down the other side of these mountains. The adrenaline must have really kicked in as I drove all night, pulling into Yuma, AZ at 5:30 the next morning. After a wonderful time at St. Francis of Assisi parish in Yuma, we leave today. We plan to be in Cottonwood, AZ this coming weekend. Lent is filling up quickly between out two “winter home states” of Arizona and California.
Finances
I don’t want to give the impression that our financial situation is back on track – it is not – but we will touch more on that in a future email. For now we simply want to give thanks to God and to you for helping us through a very precarious moment in this ongoing adventure.
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