Sixth Update on Whitney

Whitney is ecstatic to finally have a donut! Yeah God for all the ways He blesses us with even those small things like donuts.


Whitney is snuggling with "Lillebi", a special mouse friend from the states. She is happy to have a soft and fuzzy new animal (she loves all animals and wants to be a veterinarian) to hug and talk to when she is sad or bored. Lillebi even has a big pink heart on her tummy to remind Whitney of all those who love her and are praying for her.

Whitney, "Miss Patch", is ready to sleep nice and cozy in her bed with her animal friends. We gave them all good night kisses and even kissed the band-aid patch that we put on her stuffed dog's right eye.




Faithful prayer partners,

I praise God for how He has used you to strengthen and comfort me in these days. Even though Whitney and I don’t have our local church body here to come around us and pray and visit, we have been visited so often by a multitude of you from the global church body via e-mail. We are probably the most “visited” folks in this hospital! In fact, I am trying to use this time to get a small note of thanks to each of you who have e-mailed to let you know how truly grateful we are for your love and prayers.

In fact, Whitney is continually surprised when I read e-mails to her from you (most of whom she does not know). She just can’t believe that so many people are caring for her and praying for her. I wasn’t sure if she really understood the magnitude of how many in the body of Christ were taking her, personally, before the throne of grace. However, last night I heard her heart on this issue.

I went down the hall to the little kitchen to get some water and when I came back into the room I heard Whitney talking. I stopped in the door because I wasn’t sure who she was talking to. It was then that I realized that she was praying. She was thanking God for all the people who are praying for her and for the people who send her funny and interesting e-mails. She was praying for the nurses and the doctors to know Jesus. She prayed for the Turkish Christian man we met whose mother-in-law has cancer. She prayed that God would give her courage and that she wouldn’t cry when she got her IV changed. And then she thanked Jesus for dying on the cross for her sins and taking her place. I just stood there with tears streaming down my face. I praised God for answering our most important prayer request for Whitney – a soft heart towards the Lord. Only God knows Whitney’s true spiritual state before Him, but I am just praising Him that she is, independently of me, talking to God about Christ sacrifice on her behalf.

Today, Whitney and I talked about the passage in Matthew 5:29, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” I am so thankful to God that He added the detail that it was a “right eye” because that is Whitney’s affected eye. We talked about how this life is so short and it would be better for her to lose the vision in her right eye if it would cause her to repent of her sins and have Christ as her Lord and Savior. She was really excited about the fact that she would have perfect vision in heaven if she gave God her right eye and her whole life here on earth. Now God might not have put that “right eye” thing in that verse just for Whitney, but it certainly was effective for her.

In regards to Whitney’s physical vision, today has been a fairly good day. She is still experiencing some blurriness (a little bit more than yesterday) in her right eye. I am trying to keep her resting and closing both her eyes more, but she has been cooped up in this room for 4 days and is getting a little restless. The Dr. will come in tomorrow morning to examine her eye and see if the hemorrhage in the middle eye is dissolving at all.

I think that the test that Whitney is having on Monday (OTC for those of you who are interested) will give us a much clearer picture of what is going on in there. Hopefully, at that time they will give us some idea as to whether we are looking at surgery, time for the body to heal on its own, complete vision loss, impaired vision, or a prognosis of complete restoration of vision. At this point, all of those things are possibilities.

Please pray that:

* Whitney would continue to rest and be careful with her eyes these “boring” days of the weekend even though she can’t fully realize the importance of doing so.

* The test on Monday would show very clearly what the problem inside the eye is. The best case scenario is that the hemorrhage will resolve on its own in a few more days and she will recover most of her sight. The worse case scenario (humanly speaking) is that the damage to this part of her eye is irreparable and that she will never have more than 10% or less or her vision in the right eye. Even a surgery, to repair a rupture or clear out the hemorrhage will not guarantee her eyesight will be restored.

* The doctors would be able to provide the right treatment or surgery for her eye.

* We would continue to rely on the Lord for His strength and take advantage of this trial to learn all that God wants us to.

* I would have the opportunity to share the gospel with Eylem, the nurse. We did begin speaking about her Muslim faith some yesterday. Pray for wisdom on my part and an open heart on hers.


We are ever grateful for your prayers. We look forward to more of your “visits”.:-)