From a cell to the sun

Dear prayer warriors,

Give thanks to God who gave us cells that grow and form into organs, tissue, bones, brain matter, and many other things. I take these little guys for granted for sure. Although lately a bit less. From the cell to the sun, creation does reveal God's greatness -what infinite praise is due The Lord in light of His created works.

We went and visited the canal and its locks. We saw how a way was made through the rainforest. The United States was such a presence there for so long. No wonder the currency here is the US dollar and there is so much America everywhere. It been interesting for sure. 

On the way from our shiny hotel we saw the poverty. It was widespread dirtiness, seemingly total and lawless. I used to ask "what is the justice in poverty" and why was I not born into it? In reading God's Word, I have learned that there is no justice in poverty only injustice. It cannot be written off by ignoring it or having a phony justification. 

Another notable remark in the journey is befriending Juan-Jose our driver. I have given him story after story about how Jesus came alive in my soul and turn the whole mess around. He was also surprised at the amount of help we have received from our churches since having Anna. I keep telling him that the help is actually from God through His church. God be praised. He does claim a Catholic faith and believes that everything happening in His life happens for a reason only God knows. 

May the Holy Spirit convict us all of our sin and cause us to see our desperate need for the only Savior. May Juan-Jose read God's Word, test it, and find it to be more trustworthy than his own heart. I pray for a deeper encounter with Christ for this man. 

As for us, Our appetite for healing increases as we hesitate to announce any progress. We concluded the injections today.  Regardless, Christ in us the hope of glory is more than enough. So instead of focusing on Anna's stem cell treatments showing dividends we focus on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. It has rained all day, this is our last day here. So we have had the Brooklyn Tabernacle choir on repeat as we sang praises and lifted up spontaneous praying to our God from the comfort of our little Panamanian hotel room. Praying with children is a gift from God. Singing to the Lord is a sweet gift too. 

In speaking with Lindsey back in our fundraising days I remember specifically feeling led not to ask people for money for the Stem Cell treatments. Mainly because I felt people weren't properly educated about it. I'm thankful for this wisdom of restraint because really it's just between us and God. We don't have to give account to any sort of person investing for a must-see miracle. Gods purpose is bigger still. Instead we asked for financial help to fund the upcoming intensive therapy trip to Portland, and many have helped for that it's over half funded. God has made a way!! We are looking to all the rich mercy God has for Anna. And Because of grace we ask for more mercy for Anna. 

Please Pray with us:

-That we would thank God for His purpose and love Him for making our trip a joy, a vacation, a unique family time and a time of receiving great help from Dennis and Nancy.  
-For continued healing of Anna's vision, Cerebral palsy, GERD, and cognition
-For an increased ability for her to communicate with us. 
-For a safe return tomorrow, making our connecting flight in Huston and that we could be able to sit together, as of now we are scattered. 
-that any temptation to doubt and regret our sacrifice made to see Anna healed would be squashed by knowing our faith is being refined in God's Fire currently. 

Injection junction and other prayers

This is a robust list of things we ask you to pray for. (Its an abridged post from the prayer email I sent a week ago but never posted here). Let's pray again, tomorrow at 9 am central time Anna will be given her first injection of cord blood stem cells from live births in Panama. The Lord be praised forever.  

"But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall." Malachi 4:2


A contributing reason why I write these prayer requests is because of something I was told by a family we befriended while we were in the NICU. This family had been walking down the special needs path 5 years ahead of us while depending on Him. They said, “I don’t want to be before the Lord and ask Him why He decided not to heal my son sooner… Only to have the Lord reply ‘you stopped asking me to do it.’” They resolved to always ask, we can resonate with that thinking because God is able! 

Please Pray:

-For Lindsey, Simon, Anna and I to experience health, sleep, and a perfect peace on this trip. We are a bit manic in thought about all this and it's tempting to second guess.  May we be spirit-led and Christ like.  We have faith in God’s sovereign hand.  

-For Lindsey and I to have time outside of family devotions to meet one-on-one with God however that looks. 

-For Satan and all demonic forces to be dealt with in the spirit world by the supremacy of Christ and His work for us. We do not tread in the kingdom of darkness but rather the kingdom of the Son. 

-For every trial to be presented before the Lord in prayer and for the solutions to be bathed in wisdom. 

-For God to continue to have a glorious mercy on Anna through the giving of His umbilical cord stem cells to Anna. 

-For no complications in administering them. that the 40 million stem cells quoted would be administered and that all the cells be healthy and well preserved.  

-For God to rebuild Anna’s neurological injuries and brain damaged areas causing them to work as He intended them to work when He first created such intricate things.  

-For Anna to experience ability in her core muscles thus strengthening her esophagus sphincter ending her acid reflux, enabling independent sitting, and allowing her head control to be unaided. 

-For God to bring miraculous healing to Anna’s optic nerve and her visual cortex. She has the most beautiful eyes that are not injured however she can hardly see because of the damage to the visual receptors in her brain.

-For Anna’s full healing that she could see, walk, talk, jump, whistle, dance, express, and make choices. 

-That Anna would come to know that God loves her and made all this possible because of His great love for her. 

Eye-opening Thanks

Dear Prayer Warriors,

Let me tell you a little about the wonderful ways God is rolling out the welcome mat for the Currats in Panama and Portland. I'm filled thanksgiving and excitement at this opportunity coming to fruition. Seven months ago we hadn't heard about stem cells as a viable way to bring partial healing to Anna and now we are on our way to get them. So many things had to fall into place, God did things for us in a way only He could so of course He is the centerpiece of my thanks and celebration.

We thank God for:

-Panama September 25th to October 1st (For umbilical cord stem cells)
-other families that have made the journey and attest to its worth.
-the selling of our condo (So many pieces about the sell was blessed supernaturally).
-becoming debt free
-our passports arriving three weeks after and on the same day as the sale of our condo.
-the careful research, preparation, and planing that Lindsey did on top of taking good care of our kids. Just ask her about the brown bag feeding plan for each day of the week.
-The prayers of many expecting nothing less than God's best for Anna.
-Having our own MVP team for Anna while in Panama, a couple from our church in Chicago is flying out to be with us that week in Panama City to serve and encourage us! So Lindsey and I can get some unique time together.
-our stay at a hotel that promises to be more than accommodating to all our needs.
-for upholding our health in the days leading up to our trip
-for a week completely out of the norm
-for Anna who has been showing signs of a growth spurt improving her ability to hold her head up, smiling more than before, and even rolling over back to belly on her own (about 5 times last week)
-we have a dear brother and friend taking us round trip to the airport

-Portland October 7th-November 1st (for intensive model of therapy)
-The fundraising and Gofundme efforts that raised close to half of the needed amount for 3 weeks of intensive therapy in Portland.
-for a place to stay in Portland for three weeks free of charge as a ministry to our family in Jesus' name.
-we have another round from Anna's MVP from our church in Chicago who is coming to drive Lindsey and the kids to Portland and stay the first week with them.
-for our minivan that God gave us and how it has served us well this last year. I love how He brought someone in my life that taught me how to repair it as needed and so we have confidence in taking it to Portland and back.
-For being 2 hours from Lindsey's family to visit them on the weekends in between.

-For my work granting the time off during the biggest change my departments have ever had since I became the leader there.

Getting Stem cells is like receiving a bunch of potential to regrow cells in the places where there was damage before. Injecting stem cells is very much a replacing of the dead for the living; which sounds a lot like what Jesus did for me when He came into my life. I gave Him my old dying self and He gave me new life in Him. I then became a new creation, the old has gone. And so it will be with Anna if it pleases the Lord.  

The stem cells are the potential, but they don't automatically know where to go. That is why therapy is critical. Working on the handicap be it vision, cerebral palsy, speech, feeding, etc directs the potential to areas needing healing. Anna having a natural growth spurt now is increasingly beneficial. This is why we had to pair the two trips.

Please pray:
-For a safe trip, for traveling mercies, for Anna's MVP's Dennis and Nancy they are leaving a day ahead of us (Today).
-For a continued momentum of joy and gratitude both in what's happening and in the promises of God because He is in control and has shown so much mercy and care for Anna.

In praise of God,

Nic, Lindsey, Anna and Simon

Submitting to the Healer's Choice

We are humbled to tell you prayer warrior that God has heard our prayers and has mercy on our quest. The stem cell door now has a time and place for Anna. The Lord’s hand of blessing was ours to accept as we had a smooth, lighthearted close with the buyer of our condo. My realtor having a heart for God and heart for Anna did all his work for free! This is another little piece to the mosaic of how faithful people are standing beside us, loving Anna in the name of Christ, and encouraging us onward in the Lord. There is an unfolding unity to meet our needs that is very glorifying to God if you ask me. “That they (believers) may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”-Jesus (John 17:21) 

That same afternoon we also received all our passports.

I’ve been thinking about the bigness of the Lord, what a vantage point! God is so big and “in the know”; in 2008 He knew that I needed to buy a condo so that in 2016 we would have the blessing of taking our yet-to-be-born-daughter to get stem cell treatments. Wow wee. 

 In faith, we never doubt that God is able to bring healing! Healing fits the Lord so well that it’s compounded in His name Jehovah-Rafa. In faith we declare full healing and proclaim God’s glory. I want to envision full healing “help me o Holy Spirit.” It’s hard to imagine Anna verbal, able to keep her head up, without GERD (reflux), Hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, cortical visual impairment, or optic nerve atrophy. I bet God knows what Anna is like without those limitations! I count on that. 

Yet in our fleshly thinking we see many people carrying a lifetime of disability without the mark of healing.  It’s tempting to accept this fate and see Anna as a spastic quadriplegic who cannot do for herself much at all, for all her years to come. Perhaps this is the road for our family. But God didn’t save me so that I would just rely on what I can see for myself. He redeemed my wretchedness to show how Jesus can restore a life far gone in drinking and mental disorders. If He can do it for me, I am convinced He can do it for anyone including Anna to the glory of His Name.

So yes the stakes are high! It’s our daughter, the cost is high, the assets are liquidated, and the “results will vary”. More importantly though: the time has come to believe that Healer-God is who He says He is. He chooses to heal with a criterion that is sovereign and mysterious to us. It will not be for a lack of faith should no betterment occur; His greater purpose is more important than Anna’s healing. What a privilege, the Lord has made a way for us to see Him work through the advancements He’s created in science. We who are a vapor, a blade of grass, momentarily here in His world, we get to gaze upon His Character of Healer so uniquely. We desire God in this –not what God can do.  May the dependence on Him become clearer, God we need You to show up and direct our steps.

In truth we can chill, God is so big He already knows how the kids will do on the plane.  Actually God is already in Panama, knowing full well which cells from which donors Anna will get. He already picked out the outfit the doctors will wear the day they meet us. He is in control and has led us.

Please Pray:

-For a safe trip to Panama City and back from 9/25-10/1

-For our continued health from viruses and any distracting illness as we travel down there.

-For my Spanish to be more than enough in every situation it is needed in.

-That the Lord would cause Anna’s neurological system to respond with full ability repairing all the damage.

-That miracles would be tallied as a testimony.

Thanks for praying and believing God for His best regarding Sweet Anna Pie,

Nic, Lindsey, Anna, and Simon