Kiddos

This past weekend was a whirlwind of events.  Emily's oldest brother (who lives in TX) was in PA and proposed to his girlfriend here in Philly!  We got to be a part of the process and we are so excited to see God providing in His perfect way.  

Also, Emily's parents were moving and so we spent some time helping in that process of packing, loading, and unloading.  This was valued family time in the midst of plenty of hard work!  Emily's other brother and his family live over seas, but he was able to be present for the weekend of the move.

Lymary (pictured above) came with us to help with the move!


When we got home we returned to some other little ones waiting for us.  One of Jonerik's sisters, Limaris is in the hospital this week receiving her 5th round of chemotherapy.  She has a form of cancer called pericardial sarcoma which is basically cancerous tissue surrounding her heart.  It is very rare and unpredictable, but it is responding to the chemo and we are praying that the Lord will heal her of this.

While she is in the hospital we have had the privilege to watch her children.  You will recognize Lymary on the left.  The other kids below belong to Limaris - Dante (bottom) age 9, Dagiani or Gigi (right) age 3, and Damian (top) age 5.  They are riot and are certainly keeping us busy!

Lymary is at camp this week (thank you to anyone who gave money to support kids going to camp!  We'll write more on that later!).  Carlos is also staying with us this week because of his mom's work schedule.

So we have 4 kids this week!  We are having fun - playing Pretty Pretty Princess, having tea parties with the teddy bear (ok that's mostly me and Gigi), playing other games, reading, and singing.  These kids are great, but they have a lot of energy!  CEF has a group at Cornerstone this week doing a VBS every afternoon and the kids (and us) have been loving that.  What good timing.

You can be in prayer for us as we get a taste of parenting lots of kids.  We are taking it a day at a time.  It gets a little tricky when we need to go somewhere because we only have a car that seats 5 people, but we can walk most places in the neighborhood.  I have been blessed by the kids praying before meals and at night.  Their most common prayer is something like this, "Dear Jesus, thank you for this food.  Help us so mom can get out of the hospital.  Amen"  

The doctors are talking about the possibility of doing surgery on Limaris soon to try to remove the tissue that is around her heart.  This would be a very difficult and dangerous procedure.  We will post more as we learn when they might do this.  

God is moving in Jonerik's family and we are encouraged to know that nothing is impossible with God.  I have been greatly encouraged by 2 Corinthians 10: 3-4 - 

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.