16th update on Whitney

Our flight left Houston at 6:10 a.m. on Sunday, October 12th. We enjoyed one last McDonald's in the airport and then boarded a plane to Chicago. The Chicago airport has a really cool children's museum and play area. That was a blessing for us because we spent 5 hours at that airport. I had a great opportunity to talk with a woman and her husband, Michelle and Jim, in the seating area of that playground. He is a pilot and she is a pediatrician in the states. They are not Christians, but asked a lot of questions about why we chose to move to Albania.


Here is my first sight of home. Albania! After a super long delay of 7 hours in the Munich airport I was so glad to see Tirana. It looked so small compared to some of the other cities that we have flown into recently (Istanbul being the most massive - 12 million people!). I could not wait to get off that plane and into Kris's arms!


Here we are all back together again. After 34 days of being separated, we had so much to catch up on. Whitney got right back to school the day after we arrived. We took some time to go walking in the park down the way from our house. (Not the typical American park though - no playground equipment, broken hypodermic needles on the ground, used condoms in the brush, shattered bottles on the path, lots of trash around, animal and human feces to watch out for, and packs of dogs to beware of - just a nice walk in the park. LOL. Really, it is kind of pretty if you just don't look down too much. However, we are thankful for it because it breaks up the concrete jungle of the city.)



Kris was so happy to have all the girls back in his loving arms. They spent lots of time having daddy/daughter tickle time. He is such a super daddy! I pray that each of my girls marries someone as godly and terrific as their dad.


>October 17th

Faithful praying friends and family,

We are so thankful to God for His tremendous mercy to us these past weeks. We are so happy to be back home in Albania now. Here is a quick update on how things are going:

• Praise God that the doctor’s visit Friday the 10th was quite encouraging. Whitney’s vision tested at 20/50 (compared to the 20/100 when we first visited on Sept. 19^th)! She still has the “blind spot” from the hemorrhage, but the doctor believes it will dissolve over the next weeks and is not in danger or re-hemorrhaging at this point. Although she may recover some more of her vision in the next 3-4 months, corrective lenses will not help her see any better. The damage to her eye was to the retina and glasses will not help the vision impairment in this area of her eye. Thankfully, Whitney does not seem affected by this “disability” in the least. I praise God that He is giving Whitney the strength and maturity to handle this life change.

Pray that her eye would continue to heal and that the hemorrhage would dissolve quickly. Pray that Whitney’s vision would continue to become clearer in the next few months.

• Praise God that Dr. Khawly, the retinal specialist, will follow up with Whitney’s condition via the internet. It was so gracious of him to offer his time and expertise, free of charge, to confer with the ophthalmologists here in Albania and in Turkey until we see him again during our furlough in 2010. It is such a comfort to know that we can call or e-mail him with any further issues or questions we have. Also, the injection of steroids into the retina that he gave her in the surgical procedure, adds another level of comfort in being so far away from specialized care.

Pray that the steroids will protect her eye from developing any dangerous blood vessel growth to the injured area of her eye. The doctor said that if she begins to have some blood vessels develop in her scarred area in the macula that her vision would be affected immediately. If we can catch that soon enough we can have it surgically repaired in the states.

• Praise God that we made it back home to Albania safely on Monday afternoon. Kris and the girls picked us up from the airport in Tirana amid tears and hugs. What a joyous reunion! Even though I really enjoyed our time in the states, I was so excited to go home and be reunited with my family. God has blessed me immensely with an awesome husband who took care of everything in such a phenomenal way while I was gone. Praise God that he is feeling better as well.
• Praise God that I was able to give a copy of C.S. Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity, to the nurse Michelle at the doctor’s office in Houston. Also, during the 7 hour delay in the Munich airport I met an Albanian woman, Monica, who lives in the USA. She is a nominal Muslim, but has attended a Protestant church once with her kids in New York. God gave me the opportunity to talk with her about a relationship with Christ and how religion is different from a relationship with the Living God. She was very receptive and said that she would go back to that church when she returns home.

Pray for the salvation of Michelle and Monica.

• Praise God that Whitney is back at school and is settling in just great. Thankfully, we were able to keep up with her homework while we were in the states, so she is not too far behind her class. She was especially excited to get back to P.E. I talked with her P.E. teacher and it doesn’t seem that her vision problems are causing her too much difficulty with depth perception in sports. We are so thankful to God for allowing her to be able to be involved in something she really likes and excels at.

Pray that God would protect her eye from any further injury during her day-to-day life. We don’t want her to live in fear of vision loss, but to be aware and careful at the same time.

• Praise God that we can continue to monitor Whitney’s eye condition with daily updates on the blind spot and blurriness, monthly eye tests at home, visits to the eye doctor her in Tirana every 3 months, and a visit to Turkey every 6 months to see the retinal specialist. We are just so thankful that Dr. Khawly gave us some concrete things we can do to follow up with her recovery.

Pray for wisdom as we monitor Whitney’s vision. Since I am not a trained eye doctor, I need that extra wisdom from God to discern the slightest changes in her vision that could be really detrimental. Also pray that we would have a spiritual impact on the lives of the doctors and care givers that we will be interacting with often in the next months.

• Praise God that I had so many opportunities to talk with Whitney about God’s character and share the truth of the gospel with her. She does seem to have more spiritual sensitivity than before this “accident”.

Pray that God would continue to work in her heart and that she would become a young woman radically committed to the Lord and sold out for His glory to be known in the world.

Donald Grey Barnhouse once said, “Jesus is the God of detailed circumstances. Nothing has ever happened that has not flowed in the channel that God has not dug for it.”

I just love that! It has given me such comfort as I have reflected on its truth in our lives over the past few months. What a mighty God we serve! He is so deserving of our passionate and whole-hearted worship and thanksgiving.

God has called us to a new level of thanksgiving in the days of uncertainty, loss and pain. I have been meditating on these words in Psalm 50 recently. “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me…He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me” (14a, 15 & 23). Many times it has been a hard and painful thing to thank God for Whitney’s eye injury. Sacrifice always costs something. What I “sacrificed” (self-pity, the distorted view that Whitney deserves to have good eye sight, a false feeling of control, a fleeting sense of security that comes from relying on human strength or wisdom, etc.) was a pittance with what God lavished on me in accepting my meager (and often weak attempts at) thanksgiving. The amazing thing is that what God commanded of me (“offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving”), He also gave me the strength and desire to do (II Cor. 9:8). Then, He rewards me with peace, joy, intimacy with Him and a confidence in the unchanging character of God. Wow!

There are really so many things to thank God for regarding Whitney’s eye injury and the circumstances surrounding it. As I look back at all the ways He provided for us, directed our paths, answered specific prayers, gave us amazing opportunities to share about Him with others, comforted us through His Word and the body of Christ, and grew our faith in Him I rejoice that He brought this “momentary, light affliction” (II Cor 4:17) into our lives. We certainly have seen that “He inflicts pain, and gives relief; He wounds, and His hands also heal.” (Job 5:18). His purposes truly are for our good and His glory. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Well, I will not be sending out any more updates about Whitney unless something changes in her condition. Please feel free to e-mail us at stirealbania@gmail.com or check out our blog at www.stiretestimonial.blogspot.com for further information or just to keep in contact with us. Of course, you can hear about our whole family and ministry here in Albania monthly, in our e-updates. If you are not receiving those and would like to just contact us and we will add you to our mailing list.

Thank you again for all your faithful and loving prayers. We thank God for you and for the way He cared for us through you.

Seeking Him,

Chelle Stire (for the Stire family)