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Dr. visit update

Yesterday, my July 18 doctor visit got changed to today. Unfortunately, there is still no clarity. The doctors still don’t know if there is malignant cancer or not. There are abnormal cells but they are not sure of the cause – if it’s cancer or if it’s cells from the PSC disease or dead tissue. So they have sent the cells to specialists in Stockholm. All these specialists do is look at these types of cells to see if they are cancer or not. Treatment will depend on what they say. I may have to go to Stockholm so they can look in the bile ducts via a spyglass method. They can go in a back door and look directly in the duct. They can’t do this here in Luleå. They are aware of our departure date for the USA and will press Stockholm for an answer. So we wait to see what all this means.

 The positive part is that when I did a CT scan last week of the thorax and abdomen, there was no metastasis of cancer. None was found in the lymph nodes or elsewhere. Everything looked the same as it had when I was in the hospital. Also it’s positive that I am feeling well. These point out that nothing is growing or changing. The doctor said that if it was, I would feel poorly pretty quickly. I guess the liver is pretty sensitive in that way. That’s it in a nutshell. Thanks for your continued prayer for the healing of my liver!!!
Today, a friend sent me Psalm 121, which Tony & I read while waiting for the doctor (Thank you, Cora!). What a blessing to know that my God is my guardian, the shade on my right hand, the One who never slumbers or sleeps, and who keeps my feet from slipping and stumbling. Thank you Jesus!! We are depending on You!!!

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Update on Gwen

We just wanted to catch you up to date. In the hospital, they did an MRI. The surgeon said that there was something in my liver that that looked different. He mentioned a possible tumor. It has also been confirmed that I have a new disease, related to Crohns, that attacks the bile ducts in the liver and they squeeze shut, not allowing the bile to go where it should but backing it up into my blood – it’s called primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). They also did an endoscopy. The doctor widened up one of the bile ducts going into the pancreas but couldn’t do anything for the bile ducts in the liver because he couldn’t reach them. He took a biopsy of the liver which was sent to the university hospital in Umeå. They got the results and had a conference with the Umeå doctors. We don’t know the results of that conference yet but have an appt with a doctor on July 18. Since I have been home from the hospital, praise Jesus, I have not had fever, throwing up, or pain!!! Our plans for returning to the States on August 17 are staying the same.

We are standing in faith and praying that God will heal me one way or another. Also, we’re praying that I will continue to be symptom free and the bile will flow where its supposed to. Many praying friends here in Luleå are standing with us in prayer for healing. Of course, the possibility of cancer is a scary thing and we are going back and forth between peace and fear. If you are a person of faith in Jesus and prayer, we invite you to pray with us in faith for healing! Thanks!!

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Thanks for your prayers!

Thanks for your prayers for Jonathan and Frank. Jonathan, my nephew, is home from the hospital again. He has his ups and downs and needs continual prayer. But we are relieved he is home. My sister-in-law’s brother, Frank, is still in the hospital but doing much better! He’s eating again, walking with assistance, and has his sense of humor back. Thanks so much for praying, friends!!

On the lighter side of things, who can go to the local grocery store and pet this????

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About us personally, Luleå, Uncategorized

Santa Lucia Day

Happy Santa Lucia Day!!! This is a very important Swedish holiday. Even though the kids don’t get off from school, it is celebrated a fun way. Here are some pictures from Domkyrkan (Luleå Cathedral) where I went today to see the Lucia celebration. Jensina and Jiana were also there with their classes. It reminded me of going to the American Swedish Museum in Philly for the Lucia celebration in the US! Unfortunately, the celebration in Sweden today doesn’t have any real Christian aspects. If you would ask a Swede about it, they would probably tell you it is a celebration of light. It represents the longest night of the year and from here on out, the days keep getting longer until Mid-Summer’s Day in June. They know very little about Lucia or her love for God. Join with us in praying that the true Light of the world will become known here in Sweden for who He really is, their Savior and the Lover of their souls! Hope you enjoy the pictures. Gwen 🙂

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Learning about Sweden, Norrbotten, & Luleå, Uncategorized

It’s been tooooooo long!

Busy with dishes!!!

It has been a long time since we’ve blogged here. Life gets busy sometimes!!! We’ve had a couple of little snowfalls and now we have another. It is so beautiful!!! We are much more settled in now. Tony has started his Swedish for Immigrants class and is studying numbers and telling time. Telling time is mostly the same except for the half hours. To say 2:3o in Swedish, you would say half 3 instead of half past 2. They also have 5 before half 3 for 2:25 and 5 after half 3 for 2:35. So that is something new for us to learn!!

The girls are enjoying school for the most part and are just finishing a week off for fall vacation!  They’ve also started going to a weekly kids’ club at a local church. Please  pray that they begin understanding more Swedish so they feel  like they fit in. Thanks.

This weekend, we had 2 special events in Luleå. The Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden visited Teknikens Huset, a kids’ science museum at the University of Luleå.

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We also attended Luleå Expo, an art and craft exhibit from the Norrbotten area of Northern Sweden. We saw many great arts and crafts,  including a fun magic show! I met one young woman who is a glass blower. Hopefully, we can get to that shop sometime to see them make and blow the glass. There was another woman from further north who has about 50 sled dogs and uses them for the tourists in the winter. It was fun to learn about her huskies and see the glass paintings of her dogs that she does during the summer months. There was also lots of knitting, homemade breads, meats (some made of reindeer and moose), candles, and much more!!.  They also had a special display of the Norrbotten Medieval times. It’s been a fun-filled weekend!!!

Jiana, John the magician, & Jensina

Next week, Tony goes to the beautiful city of Budapest for a planning conference with United World Mission.  Please keep him in prayer as he travels and works on plans for the next year. And for me as I stay home 😦 with the children. Thank you! God bless you all!!! Gwen 🙂

 

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Storforsen naturreservat

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What an awesome time we had!!! These pictures don’t begin to capture the beauty of these rapids. Every few seconds, I had to stop and take another picture! Are they ever powerful!! Truly amazing! From the 1800’s until 1982, loggers were using the Pite River to bring logs down to the port of Pite. They took a different path from what is there today. Too many logs were getting damaged so the loggers made a floatway to “squeeze” the water to where they wanted it to go. Isn’t it beautiful?? The Dead Falls is where the water used to run. What an amazing creation God has made with man’s ingenuity!! We had such fun watching the falls, having a picnic lunch, visiting the Logging Camp Museum and running around in the Dead Falls!!!! –Gwen 🙂

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Learning about Sweden, Norrbotten, & Luleå, Uncategorized

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Surströmming!!!

It’s surströmming season and we did it!!! We ate surströmming!!! All four of us!!! So what is surströmming and what’s the big deal? It’s a northern Swedish dish of  Baltic herring that has been fermented! They catch it in the spring and store it in a brine in barrels for a couple of months to start the fermenting process. Then, it is canned where it continues fermenting until it’s eaten. If you’re smart, you’ll open your can of  surströmming outside! It does have an awful smell that permeates everything. We ate it in an open-faced sandwich with very thin crispy bread. Butter the bread, pile on the potatoes, cut the fish into tiny pieces and place it on the potatoes. We also added onion, tomatoes and sour cream. UMMMMM. It mostly tastes like salt, but there is a flavor that grows in your mouth and stomach that I can’t describe! Leftover food is thrown away because the smell and taste infuse it all. It was a very fun evening at our friends’ home, but our tummies were talking to us about it late into the night!

So what else are we doing besides eating sour fish? Our boxes finally arrived last Wed, but badly damaged! We knew they were damaged in the States, but still were shocked at the sight of them. Some things were outside of the boxes, many had been opened, with lots of torn and crushed boxes. Thankfully, not much was damaged but things are missing. Unfortunately, we may not know all that was taken until we are back in the States and see what we left there. So we are now carefully going through everything and compiling a list of the damaged and the missing. We’re also putting together furniture from IKEA and more will arrive later this week to be built! And we have a couple of painting projects we’re working on together as a family. Pray we will also be faithful in our Swedish studies in the midst of everything else.

We took the girls to Leo’s Lekland (Play land) to celebrate the end of summer. They started school yesterday in different classrooms. It just doesn’t yet seem right to be going to school in August. The weather has definitely become colder (highs in the 50’s) so that helps. They are in Välkomsten (the Welcome School) which is the school for kids who are immigrating to Sweden. Here they will learn Swedish, then when the teachers feel they are ready (probably between 3 months and a year) they will go to the regular public school. Everything is in Swedish so it is a challenge. Please pray they will catch on quickly. For Jensina, pray that she will stand strong in the Lord and have a Godly influence and leadership on her classmates rather than vice versa. She is the youngest in the class. Also pray that she does her homework and English and math that Gwen will be teaching in the afternoon with a good attitude – this is often a struggle for her. For Jiana, pray that as she stands strong in the Lord and makes the effort to become friends with the other children and thus be a Godly influence.

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Learning about Sweden, Norrbotten, & Luleå, Uncategorized

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