Brad update

We just met with the neurologist after all test results were compiled.  He went over every page, picture and test and Brad is healthy!  The doctor could see (and showed us) where there is some fluid in the base of the left side of Brad's brain.  This is a "variant of normal" according to this doctor and could not cause the problems that Brad had with his speech eleven days ago.  His conclusion was that it was either 1) Transient Ischemic Attack (the "mini" stroke) or 2) Complicated Migraines.  He decided to treat Brad for both giving him a low dose aspirin to prevent a recurrence of the TIA and another medication to prevent Migraine headaches.

We are feeling very relieved that Brad will not have to undergo any major treatment for something life-altering or life-threatening.  We will continue with our original plan to send all results to a physician in the U.S. for another opinion.  But for now we are going to continue our lives and jobs that we were called here to do.  But this was also a wake up call to live a healthier life and have committed to each other to change our eating and exercise habits.  We have to be good stewards of the bodies that God gave us.

We are so amazed at the outpouring of love and support that we have received.  We do not know how to express this to each and every one of you but to tell you that we would be honored to return the blessing one day.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to two amazing dads! 

Thank you, Brad, for being such a wonderful daddy to our son.  Your love and patience for Tyler amazes me every day.  I think that you were made to be a dad.  From the time our son was born you have known what to do, you are so natural at being a parent.  I am so blessed to share this job with you!

This is my favorite picture of my husband and son.

Dad, thank you for being such a wonderful daddy to my sisters and me.  I have learned so much about how I want to parent my child from you.  I miss you so much, especially on this day.  I look forward to times when we can meet for lunch or coffee.  I treasure these times we spend together.

Here is a picture of the man that I am blessed to call "Dad."

HOME IS WHERE THE SUITCASE IS

Life has a way of flying in crazy directions without asking permission.  We graduated from language school, accepted the role as cluster support, found an apartment in 15 minutes and moved in hours later, traveled to Lima to finish the residency process, traveled to Iquitos to spend 10 days in the jungle with fellow Extremies, landed back in Arequipa to spend a lazy weekend, all to wake up Monday morning with a crises on our hands.  And all of this has happened in the last month.  But God has been with us the entire way.  There is no doubt about His presence in our crazy lives.

I wanted to do a fun blog about our trip to the jungle but now need to take the time to update you on Brad's health.  The crises I mentioned started Monday morning when Brad realized that he could not speak more then a few simple words.  His mind was clear but when he would try to ask me a question the word that he was trying to say would come out a different word or not at all.  He was terrified but did not want to scare me.  I thought he was extremely tired and having a difficult time waking up and suggested he go back to bed.  After a few more minutes and seeing the panic growing in his eyes I realized something was very wrong.  A headache had started and Brad was losing color from his face.

I went next door to the office to ask Abby Duran if she wouldn't mind watching Tyler so I could take Brad to the emergency department.  We took a taxi the short distance to a private clinic near our home.  The emergency room physician could not find anything wrong with Brad's nervous system from a physical assessment and decided to treat the headache and nausea to determine if his difficulty speaking was caused from a Migraine.  30 minutes after IV medication the headache was minimal but Brad could not finish a sentence.  

The medical system is quite different in another country.  Each department within the hospital is independent, at least financially.  You have to pay one department before you can transfer into another department.  So, someone from the emergency department accompanied us upstairs to see the Neurologist and stayed by my side until I had paid the emergency department in full.  What a sweetheart.

The neurologist felt that Brad may have had a stroke and decided to admit him to run some tests to determine what had happened and why.  Brad was then taken by wheelchair pale and limp as a noodle to the next cashier to pay a deposit for a hospital bed.  The lady behind the counter was very kind and allowed Brad to get settled in before paying as I only had a Mastercard and they only accepted Visa!

Brad had an MRI on his head done that Monday evening.  The neurologist came into his room after the viewing the films and told us that he could not give us any results until he talked to the people who administered the test.  Tuesday morning he came in to tell us that he thought he saw a nodule on Brad's brain but the MRI staff thought it was normal.  The neurologist then ordered an EEG.  After the EEG the physician reported that there were some abnormal waves from the left side of Brad's brain (the side of the brain where the speech/language center is located) and he wanted to take the evening to study the results along with the MRI and come back in the morning.

So, Brad had to spend another night in the hospital much to his dismay.  That morning (Wednesday) the doctor discharged Brad with the diagnosis of Complicated Migraine and gave him some medication to take for 15 days and asked him to follow up with another EEG in 15 days.  We were uncomfortable with this and asked my parents to find us a doctor willing to look at Brad's information and give us some recommendations.  My parents acted quickly and located a physician from a local church.  Brad talked to this physician on the phone and we then spent the evening translating all documents from Spanish to English to send to the States.

The following morning (Thursday) Brad woke up with a severe headache located primarily behind his left eye.  This scared me because knowing the left side of the brain holds the language center and Brad had experienced a loss of speech earlier this week.  The EEG had also showed some abnormalities on the left side of the brain.  Our friends we work with in Extreme surrounded us to help send us to Lima for another evaluation there.  First, we went to see the neurologist in Arequipa who still felt that Brad was suffering from Migraines.  We just wanted to be sure he was safe to travel.  Within a couple of hours with the help of our friends plane tickets were purchased and suitcases were packed.

Pastor Segundo and his son met us at the airport and drove us a clinic in Lima.  The emergency room doctor called in a neurologist who stayed with us for 45 minutes discussing every detail and assessing Brad closely.  He believes that Brad had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) which is similar to a small stroke but he described it as what happens when a stroke does not happen.  He ordered several tests to determine what caused this TIA and wants to meet with Brad again after all results are in.  He took Brad off of all the medications prescribed earlier and placed him on aspirin.  The pastor then took us home, ordered us a pizza and gave us a very comfortable bedroom with a private bathroom.

We have spent that last three days here in Lima going to the clinic where Brad is completing all ordered tests.  We have been staying with a wonderful family with the gift of hospitality.  We know that we are in God's hands while we wait for the conclusion of this testing.  We will mostly likely be in Lima until the end of next week.  Monday Brad will meet with a cardiologist who will assess the condition of Brad's heart.  All results should be compiled by Wednesday and we will meet again with the neurologist on Thursday or Friday.

We want to thank all of you for keeping us in your prayers.  We have been amazed at the outpouring of love and support from family, friends, and people whom we have never met.  We believe so much in the power of prayer and have had a peace even in the scary moments.  Life is uncertain but God has never failed us yet.

Extreme Update

Family, Friends and Supporters, 

We wanted to  with share you some of the things that have been going on with our family and Extreme Nazarene.  God is definitely working in Extreme and it is more exciting to be a part of this ministry with each passing day.

First, Brad and I have decided to take on a second position with Extreme as a cluster support family.  This was a quick change but one that was obviously initiated by God.  We both had been thinking about this possibility separately and then it come up in conversation twice in one weekend while chatting with other members of Extreme.  We came together to talk about it on a Sunday and decided that we needed to pray about this as we both agreed that we still felt called to the positions that we came here to do.  When Wednesday arrived the subject was so heavy on our hearts that we knew needed to talk to Brian , the director, to see if it was even a possibility.  Brad called Brian that morning to set up an appointment for the afternoon and we stayed home from school to continue praying.  We went into Brian's office that afternoon and presented our plan of how we believed that we could function in both roles.  Brian laughed a little and confessed that this was the reason he had invited us to dinner that Thursday.  He was going to present this idea to us over dinner.

Brad and I  were excited that not only had God been moving in our hearts, we had recognized this immediately!  I don't know if you can related with us on the pure joy that is in your entire being when you realize that God is working in you.  When you realize that God not only has a plan for your life but He is sharing it with you.  He finds you worthy to work with Him towards the growth of His kingdom.  To me that is very humbling and makes me incredibly nervous!  But Brad and I agree that we have both lived outside of His plan and inside of His plan and life is incredible when you are in the hand of God.

So what is a cluster support family?  Extreme Peru is built on a concept called 40/40.  This brings 40 single adults from inside of Peru and 40 single adults from outside of Peru (right now from the United States).  One Peruvian and one Non-Peruvian are paired together with the objective to plant 3 churches under the leadership of an established church.  The goal is to plant 120 churches in Peru.  Several pairs of missionaries (40/40s) live together in a home in their assigned community.  Each group of 40/40s have a cluster support family that lives with them taking care of them much like dorm parents or resident directors in a college setting.

After sitting down with Brian to discuss the possibilities of us taking on cluster support while being able to accomplish our original positions it was decided that we would take the Cusco group.  This is exciting for many reasons.  First of all, it we will not move to Cusco for a year and half enabling us to complete all our travel for research of the 40/40 sites and to be apart of all the projects with Extreme Peru.  Secondly, we are able to be apart of the church planting.  We have the privilege to be apart of every aspect of Extreme Peru.  Cusco will also allow us easy travel to the other 40/40 sites when they need Brad and I to come and visit for our original roles of logistics and medical support.  When looking at the big picture it seemed that both of our positions were made to go hand in hand!  

With the change of positions came a quick change in the schedule.  We no longer needed to attend training with the current 40/40s in Iquitos as we will be attending the same training with our Cusco 40/40s next year (our 40/40s won't arrive for a year).  So we needed an apartment as school had ended along with our housing.  So here is the second change for the Hunt Family.  We had to find an apartment.  We needed to find a furnished apartment to fit into our budget.  We had three days to look for an apartment before our bus would leave to Iquitos.  We needed to travel to Iquitos even though we are not attending school to research the city for medical resources and logistical purposes since we will have staff there.

Monday morning, the first morning of apartment hunting the realtor drove us next door to our office building to show us a two bedroom furnished apartment.  She told us the price and then said she would like to offer us a different price as the owner is the same owner of our office site.  And amazingly enough it was exactly what we had budgeted.  She also mentioned that the apartment had just opened up yesterday and oh by the way the owner would like to buy you a television.  Two hours later we had signed the contract and two more hours after that we were moving into our new apartment!  So we are now in a safe area of the city 10 steps away from the Extreme office.  Our God is good and is taking care of even the simple details.  There are so many more things to mention about our apartment but I will make that a different entry with pictures.

We realized that Tyler's visa was about to expire and we needed to get to Lima to finish our residency paperwork as soon as we were notified that it was ready.  Thanks to God our paperwork was finished the day we realized we had an issue on hand.  We had to change our travel schedule to allow time in Lima and are not scheduled to leave for Lima/Iquitos until May 29th.  We are currently in Arequipa getting settled in waiting for an appointment time with the Immigration Dept. in Lima.  So if you wouldn't mind lifting the issue with Tyler's visa up in prayer we would appreciate it.  If we can get an appointment in Lima during the grace period we will not have to take Tyler out of the country to renew his visa.  This is an issue of timing in an extremely slow moving process.

Just wanted to give you an update on our lives here with Extreme.  Now that we completed language school (at an intermediate level) we have started working on the tasks we came to complete.  I will keep you informed!

Happy Birthday, Monkey...One year old!

This year has been the best year of my life so far and that is because of the little man that came into this world one year ago.  I wanted to share with you some pictures from the last year.

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Mother's Day

This is my first Mother's Day as a Mom (of a born child).  I had a really nice day.  This morning I went to church by myself since Brad is having problems with his sciatic nerve and is unable to sit for very long.  He kept Tyler at home so that I could listen to the service.  Mother's Day in Peru is a very big celebration and everyone was very excited to wish me my first "feliz dia de mama."  The worship time was very good for me today.  The words to the music were not posted which made it difficult for me to sing along so I decided to pray while my Peruvian brother's and sister's were filling the room with words of praise.  I was able to pray without interruption, something that rarely happens now that I am a mom.  I was also able to understand a good portion of the sermon about the mother of Moses and the sacrifices she made for her child.  After the sermon the children and teens presented the mothers of the church with gifts, sandwiches and juice.

This is the gift given to me by the children of the church.  A flower with a mirror in the center and hand-made card.

The teens contributed towards a gift basket and drew names for the winner...I won.  I am now the proud winner of rice, sugar, cereal, milk, tuna, juice, soup, pasta and salsa!

And waiting for me at home with my two guys was a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers!

And a present signed by my baby!  Inside is a curling iron.  I have been wanting one since we have been in Peru.

I am so blessed to be a mom.  I am so blessed to have a mom of Godly character that has been my role model and mentor.  I miss her terribly today and pray that she is having a blessed day with my sisters at home.

It's May...

I can hardly believe that it is already May again.  It seems like just yesterday it was May and I was counting the days until June when my baby would enter the world.  Little did I know that he would join us early.  So in two weeks we will be celebrating a birthday in the Hunt Family!  I will be sure to post more about that later.

Today has been a day of reflection for me.  I have had to work really hard today to remember why I am here in Peru.  So I have pulled out a piece of notebook paper that I scribbled some challenging words on.  It is from the book Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow.  I haven't read the book because I am still working on the next few lines, they are enough for me right now.

Prescription for Contentment

1.  Never allow yourself to complain about anything--not even the weather.

2.  Never picture yourself in any other circumstance or someplace else.

3.  Never compare your lot with another.

4.  Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise.

5.  Never dwell on tomorrow--remember that [tomorrow] is God's,

not ours.

This challenge has been amazingly difficult for me.  It is much more fun to think of the things I would change, the things that I miss and dream of how they will be in the years to come.  But I think that I agree that allowing my thoughts to wonder only allows them away from what God has asked me to do.  So, I have decided to take the challenge from Linda Dillow and work towards contentment in the life that God has given me here and now.