Two More Days

All day I've tried to console Sarah with reminding her that she will come home on Monday, if everything goes ok with chemo tomorrow and Monday. She is starting to understand more just how much her life has changed. As she realizes these changes she starts battling being down and not having much happiness. Since she is a Clark, there is a big joy in food. One of the changes that is depressing her the most is not being able to eat bread especially pizza. This is until her immunity numbers go back to a certain level. Like anything, when you want something and you cannot have it that something starts to taste very good in your mouth. To add to this frustration, the steroids are making her have a constant hunger pain and we have to be the one to limit her intake of food because she has two days of chemo coming.

Our prayer request is that the nasty side effects of chemo will not happen. I was encouraged watching the progress of Matt Chandler on YouTube. He is the pastor at The Village Church in Dallas who is having to endure 6 weeks of chemo and radiation. They continue to pray that the side effects are minimal and God is answering their prayers. He has even started preaching again. This shows how mighty God is and what He can do as we trust Him in this situation.

It is amazing how God is using Sarah in our lives. She is actually bringing comfort for me. I thought is was supposed to be the other way. haha Today she was unhooked from her IV so I actually was able to completely hug her for the first time in two weeks. I think of all of those times I took it for granted that I was able to wrap my arms around her and I pray that for now on I never take that awesome privilege for granted with any of my daughters. Each moment, each conversation is truly a blessing and gift from God.

So now I go to bed asking for my Father's arms to wrap around our family. We hopefully will be together again in a few days. We will have to be in total lockdown without any visitors but we will party!! We will be together again! Praise God

Stength and Help

Today brought exhaustion for all as we have been at this for two and a half weeks now. We are grieving the life we had that ended the afternoon at Princess Margaret Hospital when the doctors took me and Jay into a side room and gave us the news. We have been running on shock and survival and adrenaline, and we are running down some. The support from all our friends and family has been a lifeline for us. I am daily overwhelmed at the love shown to us and my understanding of receiving such love keeps growing as more people pour blessings on us. God continues to strengthen us and help us.

The hospital were Sarah is being treated is a teaching hospital, so routinely the head doctors bring the students in for a practical. Sarah finds herself on center stage answering their questions and being the guinea pig as they poke and prod. She does enjoy the interaction but then it all gets to be too much and she asks to be left alone. She has been a good patient though.

Tonight, when we changed shifts on who stays with Sarah, Hannah and Rebekah came up to see her through the door because they have all missed each other so much. We hope that Monday, Sarah will get to come home so we can all be under one roof again.

Thank you for your continued prayers,

What Love from our Family

Sarah's second treatment of chemo is going much better. She only has one chemo drug this time instead of three. She is more tired than usual, but the steriods are helping to keep up her appetite.

Today, she has been overwhelmed with the love of Jesus through His Bride the Church. We first received the box of fun things from our family at Bent Tree that were part of Anne's MOPS group. Second, we had visitors from Island ECC. Sarah was able to walk up close to the door and wave to these wonderful sisters from the mom's bible study. She had special visitors who stood at the door and encouraged her. The first was a wonderful lady who has lost her hair through chemo so she showed Sarah her wig and how her hair is growing back. The next was a young lady who is going through chemo now and they shared treatment stories and compared how many pricks they have on their arms and hands. Sarah just talked and talked to them through the door. It lifted her spirits so much to have someone to share her experience with and to be encouraged by people who love her. Tonight she will eat another meal prepared by a group at The Union Church. They sent yummy lasagna last night along with many cards that were collected from their children's sunday school class. All of this has shown Sarah that Jesus will send people from all places to encourage her through this journey. It also encourages me to see the Bride of Jesus, the church, reach out and minister to us even though they do not even know us. I am reminded of the song we sang at churches my dad pastored when I was young.

"I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God

I’ve been washed in the fountain
And cleansed by His blood
Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod
For I’m a part of the family
The family of God."

To date, we know of churches praying for Sarah in H.K., Mainland China, Japan, Cambodia, India, Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia,Canada, U.S. and probably more that we do not know of. Wow, what a wonderful loving Father. His love is truly unfailing.

Also, Sarah has some great ideas for fashion designs for kids with Leukemia and the would be modest and pleasing to God. (this was her project this morning, drawing new designs for clothes for kids in the hospital.) She would love to talk to a real designer. Even with all of her new "accessories" she has picked up at the hospital she is still trying to be Fancy Nancy. Someone gave her a design book to make drawings of her ideas so she now wants to be a clothes designer. I guess that is a piece of H.K. rubbing off on her. :)

The God of All Comfort

Sarah and I had a good day doing some crafts and reading and playing. She only threw up once and was just a bit tired and 'nausie'. It was a bit emotional today though as the little 3 year old next to Sarah got her head shaved. With the language barrier, we aren't able to carry on many in-depth conversations with the parents, and Sarah isn't able to do that with the other kids either. But we try our best and mostly just smile and nod a lot. So today when the nurse put the little girl next to Sarah in a chair and put towels on her shoulders and started up the electric clippers, Sarah and I were a bit shocked. We didn't know this was coming and we couldn't understand why they were doing it. It took several minutes for the nurse to shave off all the long, dark hair while the little girl just sat with a scared, sad face. All I could do was try and keep in my tears as I silently cried behind my doctor's mask. Sarah looked on with such compassion and sympathy and kept asking, "Why are thy doing that to her beautiful hair?" When it was all over, her father picked her up and put her back in her crib as she whimpered a little. I finally collected myself enough to find a somewhat English-speaking nurse so I could ask why they did that. The nurse said something about the hair staying dirty and falling out too much and they can't keep her chest catheter clean. She has been on chemo for 6 months.

Sarah thought she was next and I told her that it isn't something we will be doing any time soon and probably never.

We are in desperate need of God's strength to live each day and this trial for us has helped to remind us of that all the more. I pray that that God of all comfort will bring comfort to Sarah so that she might help in comforting the little one that sleeps in the bed next to her tonight and that this little one would know the love of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

The day after chemo

View the Chinese translation of this post here.


I wanted to give everyone a quick update after last night. Sarah had a good day, but she is really tired and still a little sick to her stomach. She still has a little appetite so that is good news. To date, she has only lost around 3 pounds since entering the hospital two weeks ago. We are praying we all can go back home together on Tuesday. At that time, we would come back to the outpatient ward to have chemo every two or three days.

We are reminded constantly how God is good. A friend of a friend offered to let us use their flat/apartment that is only 15 minutes from the hospital. They not only have been so nice to us but the greatest gift is they are allowing us to use their car and driver. (A perk given to some expats working in HK.) This way we are able to send Sarah food immediately after we cook it. Hopefully she will enjoy "home" cooking. This is just another example of God watching after her with detail. I must say the Clark family is being treated great also. Hannah has a play room that has enough crafts and toys for three kids, but as most little sisters she can't fully enjoy it without her sissy.

Anne and I also need your prayers because we will have to make hard decisions in the next few weeks as we finalize if we will go back to the U.S. or stay in H.K. for the remainder of the intensive treatment. There is not an easy answer. Both really have good and bad points. I believe this is why it is so difficult to make.

Blessings, Jay

Please pray

Praise God that the news has been good today! (see Jay's post for today)

Sarah finally succumbed to the nausea an threw up - her entire dinner. She couldn't get the antibiotics to stay down so they brought the liquid form. She was leery of the taste, so I had to taste it first. Thankfully, it was a sweet medicine. She took it and has kept it down. She is still 'nausie' as she puts it and is trying to find a position to alleviate the feeling.

She started getting a little down tonight about not being able to see her family and about realizing how long this treatment will be. She said she wasn't homesick but familysick. She really misses having her family all with her. And we are having many talks about the chemo and slowly introducing more of the facts. She got a bit overwhelmed tonight upon hearing that it will take 9 months for these first two parts and then a few years in all. Your prayers are being heard by Jesus and He continues to uphold her faith and strengthen her heart when the times are the hardest.

thank you

GREAT NEWS!

View the Chinese translation of this post here.

Today was our first "progress" report from the treatments. As I explained earlier we were praying that the index for blast cells (bad cells/Leukemia) would below 1 in like 10 million cells in order for her to stay in standard risk. Well, the doctor came back tonight with great news. Sarah's body has responded through the help of our gracious Lord and her number is ZERO. This does not mean she is completely free but it is below the microscopic level so now they are finishing the molecular test to see what it shows. We all rejoice at this great news of what God is doing!

Sarah started the IV chemo today. She had three different dosages of chemo. On a normal day it will only be one. I guess they want to blast the blasters! ok, I could not resist that one. As of tonight she is feeling a little sick to her stomach but she has not vomited.

It is great how God is using her devotion for Girls by Carolyn Larsen. Today was on the armor of God so we read Ephesians 6. She looked at me as she read the part about the fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the evil one. She knows the cancer is in her blood so this really hit home to both of us. We talked about what type of arrows the enemy is shooting at us now in order to try to destroy our faith. They were arrows of fear, anxiety, etc. etc. When we came to the hospital last week we brought her shield of faith pillow. This is being used today as we start feeling fear so we hold up our shield of faith to block the arrows. Anne and I bought this for her years ago and had no idea we would be in Hong Kong using this pillow to encourage Sarah through chemo.

All this has taken a toll on her ol' daddy. I was with Hannah yesterday and we stopped by Starbucks for a treat. I also bought coffee beans so we can make coffee at the hotel. Well, I walked off without my coffee beans. This morning when I walked back to Starbucks to see if they kept the bag for me, the guy just looked at me strange, but they did at least give me the coffee beans. It is amazing how life changes so fast. Sarah wanted me to start teaching her how to ride a bike without training wheels, but instead I am teaching her how to walk and push the IV pole. She loves for me to teach her how to work her new Macbook that her friends from Tung Chung bought her, but I never thought about her searching for wigs on the internet because she knows that she will probably lose her hair.

Yet, still God is good. I can't explain it totally, but I know with all my heart that God is good. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 28:7 "The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving."

Blessings, Jay