Experiencing Camping

 

Dear Prayer Warriors. 

 

I remember the first time I went to SouthEast Asia. It was my first time in a tropical place, my hair went from wavy to curly, my sweat clung to me like I had worked out all day, I could drink at 16 if I wanted, gamble. The milk got me sick, they were drying fish jerky at every other house, and people loved to karaoke. I’ll never forget going to a couple of places that were straight from a National Geographic magazine and one place that was straight from a feed my starving children commercial. Even though our culture emphasizes experience to the point of idolatry, traveling and new places does open our eyes to God’s good providence for us wherever we are planted. The traveling sense memory lingers more effectively than my chronological memory. 

 

Raising kids is full of chances to see them engage their senses for the first time. The initial experience and visits to places tends to stick with us more than the subsequent returns to the same place. I say all this because we took Anna camping for the first time. It was 30 minutes away, at a campground that the boy scout in me would cringe at, it was packed like sardines complete with a stocked pond, arcade, and swimming pool. 

 

Even with Anna’s compromised vision and ability to touch, Anna was taking it in. Anna spent 36 hours outdoors, some of it at the shore of a scenic mountain reservoir. Our campsite had the company of a babbling brook, screechy raccoons, crackly campfire,  dirty hands, smelly toilets,  and neighbors playing 80’s music while they ate potato salad outside their RV. The list goes on. 

 

We were in tent city. Even though we got a site with electricity for her Bipap mask the night was long. We didn’t have her hospital bed or positioning mattress. She struggled to clear her saliva all night long. As the temperature lowered, sleeping was a real challenge. I tried what I could to reposition her, to drain the mucus. Even though my bride envisioned every real need we had and planned with excellence, the disability still was an adversity. 

 

We cut Anna’s camping trip short one night and came up with more strategies to try camping with her again next year simply because we noticed her delight in leaving the tent in the early morning, she was participating through observation, I love how the bird songs got her attention. What a blessing it is that she is well enough to experience such a trip.

 

Please praise The Lord for:

 

• a good report on the sleep study. We increased her levels of forced air at night to help keep her lungs open, she has Chronic Atelectasis (lung collapse) when she sleeps.
• for completion of our home modifications for accessibility. Like being born again, this little fixer upper of a home is quickly bearing evidence of the Lord's gracious indwelling! Jesus is so excellent at  taking up residence and beautifying for His glory!!!
• a testimony Jesus wrote in our lives as we turned to Him with our car troubles. It just so happened that a radiator repair shop was a stone’s throw from my work, open on a Saturday, with a 2007 radiator in stock, while the other newer cars in the shop had to wait for their part to come in. He gave us the right-of-way. 
• A good, fun visit with our niece who helped us all last week!
• A great visit to the dentist. He told Anna that he had never seen a cleaner mouth on a cerebral palsy patient. 

 

Please pray for:

 

• night nurse coverage. Our nurse that returned for a while has decided to leave. We need wisdom to navigate the best options and get coverage for the winter months.
• a new PT, we have been looking at different companies, pray for one that would love and push Anna, glean potential based on her as an individual, rather than another spastic quadriplegic child on her workload. 
• continued health as we depend on God to fight our enemies when they attack whether seen or unseen. 
• Anna’s schooling, we have joined a Christian homeschooling co-op. Please pray for continued vision, mentors to guide us, and resources to educate our children and engage Anna. 
• continued weight gain for Anna as we struggle to find time to blend fresh foods rather than give her formula. 
• full healing, I noticed this week how much she enjoyed tasting some brownie batter:) O to have a whole piece of gooey, yummy brownie. 

 

Thanking God for you All, 

 

Nic for us Currats

Turning Temptation into a conversation with the Lord

Dear Anna's Prayer Warriors,

I started reading a fun novel to Anna over the weekend called Roll with It. It’s a pre-teen book that enters the life of single mom raising a 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. Its full of humor, candid feelings, and baking. The wheelchair bound hero is so likable having overcome so much yet treated like a baby so often. The hero’s perspective focuses on sensory pleasures like driving with the windows down, or the smell of baking as compared to hospital rooms. I don’t know if it crossed Anna’s mind like it did mine, but I couldn’t resist comparing. Reading about this character made me wish Anna wasn’t so disabled. Maybe the next time I’m in the car with her I’ll roll down the windows.

 

The first time I felt that longing was during Anna’s 3-week intensive therapy in Portland. I would see all these older kids what great gains through therapy. I was cheering kids I didn’t even know there filled with wonder at what Anna would look like at their age. All that remains a fleeing thought, I spend most of my time focused on the fact that Anna has overcome so much and is able and that there are many other kids more medically involved than her. Anna receives mercy and miracles that some don’t get. So, when temptation comes my way regarding this, it warrants a good talk with God.

 

God knows that one day Anna will be able. Able to see, eat, walk, sit, talk, right now that is not the case -but God knows when. I daydream about this brave, sweet little baker wishing the author was writing about my Anna. Oh, the power of fiction. But Jesus reminds me that I am His sheep, and He is calling me to keep on in the fold of His peace, Anna's weakness is bringing a weight of glory to God, beyond comparison. "it will be worth it all." I'm reminded in my head. That is what I need Anna to know about Her Father's plans.  Pray with me that it would be well with Anna's heart and mine come what may. His perfect love will cast out our fears! May Jesus shepherd my longings into greater surrender to Him and Trust in His plan.

 

In other news, during our wonderful anniversary celebration we met a “Simon”. We met the younger brother of a special needs kid. This man was about our age with a family of his own. His sister passed away a few years ago, so he had some remarkable insight to share with us. I marveled at how God shaped him through his sister. He repeated how he saw God’s faithfulness and learned that God is faithful to the end. Even in his life-long prayers of healing for his sister, he declared that none of it is wasted! What a great encouragement that was.  

 

Please pray for:

-our hearts and desires to be aligned right, placing our Savior, His Word, and His life before us daily. Seeking first the Kingdom of God, carrying our cross, storing up treasures in heaven.

-greater humbleness, surrender and trust. God is working. That the fruit of the Spirit would manifest in our marriage. 

-our clarity of when to return to church services. we remain free from the corona virus and diligent in precautions knowing that some of Anna’s diagnosis would complicate if she is infected.

-God to show us our place in His body.

-Anna has a sleep study tomorrow Tuesday. Pray for enduring the night, it is a difficult test with multiple disciplines, pray for God’s great comfort. May He be merciful, and gracious regarding the results. They are checking her lung abilities, her neurological activity, depth of sleep, and her feeds. 

-the contractors doing the home modifications, that they would work as unto the Lord. We have come to understand that their motivation is pay ahead of compassion, our concrete pour included 4 punctured sprinkler lines and they have been less than responsible in owning up to it. we are disheartened but hopeful that God would shine through us in these exchanges. We just want to see God’s hand of grace at every step and it seems absent.

- Anna’s head rest to be fixed and her seat to be remolded. She has been less than comfortable in her chair arching in weird ways, may God bring comfort. 

-wisdom in a documenting a homeschool curriculum for Anna, there is much flexibility however there needs to be documentation and implementation.

-a respite provider. We have a friend at the church that will provide a key need of ours through Lindsey’s counseling class. May the Lord lead us to another.

-people who work with Anna to have their hearts invested in her. I know this doesn’t sound professional but the best therapists and nurses we have seen are the ones that put their heart into knowing Anna.

-Praise the Lord! A bath chair came a week after I said we had a wall in front of us. Lindsey had forgotten to tell me that the appeal was accepted. We are praising God for this. 

 

Thank you for bringing Anna and us to the Lord in prayer,

 

Nic for Lindsey, Anna, Simon, and Renee