2010 Christmas Letter

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

If you've been following the blog, you know that 2010 has been a bit of a rough year for us. Things started off well. We are in our fourth year serving as Pastor at Westside Baptist in Hinesville,GA and I still have the privilege of being a Technology Specialist for Liberty County School System. Cheryl was able to go to North Carolina to visit her Mom and sisters and she also went to Kentucky to visit Michelle and her family.

In early summer Cheryl received her diagnosis of Stage 4 ovarian cancer and we weren't even sure that we would see Christmas together this year. She had major surgery to remove the extensive cancer in her abdomen. Complications stretched that stay out to 13 days. Just before she was supposed to start chemotherapy, she developed a large blood clot in her leg and two small clots in her lungs. This resulted in a four day hospital stay and getting started on Coumadin to regulate her blood's clotting factor.

Since then she has bounced back and has gone successfully through five eight-day rounds of chemotherapy. We've have had the great support of our family, church family, neighbors and friends. Both Michelle and Jason have traveled down several times during Cheryl's hospitalization and chemo sessions. The grandkids, Jonas, Susannah and Dylan have helped brighten Cheryl's spirits through all that's been going on.

During all of this, we got news that my father's health was failing due to advanced congestive heart failure. Jason and I both went to see him on the weekend before Veteran's Day and he passed away the following Wednesday. This saddened us all very much. He has been like Cheryl's second father all these years of our marriage since she lost her dad shortly after our first anniversary.

When we traveled to Thomasville, GA for the funeral, Cheryl ending up spending the night of Novemeber 11th in the emergency room experiencing shortness of breath. They gave her pain meds and performed a number of scans and tests, all of which were inconclusive. We made it safely back home and decided to hold off on any further travelling until chemo is over and the doctors declare her to be in remission.

We had a great Thanksgiving with both kids, their spouses and children all together. This was the first time we've been able to do this since Jason and Sharon's wedding.

We plan to spend a quite Christmas at home this year. I've already given Cheryl her new 3G Wi-Fi Kindle2 so she can get some use out of it during chemo and I've built a new computer to replace my eight year old dinosaur that I built during Jason's second year of college.

Our plans for 2011 are still up in the air. I plan to continue pastoring the church and working at the school system's Technology Department. I hope to get our garden underway this coming spring. Our prayer is that Cheryl will be declared in remission when this last round of chemo and the associated tests are over so that she will be able to return to a normal busy life helping take care of other people in their time of need.

Above all, we praise God for the salvation He gave us through Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank Him for our 31 years together and we ask that we can have many more years before we part.