Some of you know, many of you do not. We have been run through the washer a thousand times in the last few weeks. But nothing can compare to what we are doing now.
Last friday, Matt, myself and the girls boarded a plane to return to america. We arrived in Chicago Saturday evening, went to my parents house to catch a few hours of sleep and from there headed to the Emergency room with our sweet Lola. Lola has been admitted to the Helen Devos Childrens Hospital, in Grand Rapids MI. She has been given a diagnosis of Leukemia. This is a shock to our system, and I wont lie we are devested . We are terrified. We are confused. But we are hopeful and we have decided to choose joy. I hope to be able to share more of our story in the upcoming days. For now we are just exhausted, and ready for rest. We will be in the hospital for the next week, and then in intensive outpatient chemo.
We would love visitors at anytime before 7pm. Lola is ready for bed by 7 
I need to stress that it is SO SO SO important that if you are sick, feel like you may be getting sick, have sick people in your house please do not come. Lola has a decreased immune system and it is very serious if she gets ill. And also keep in mind that she may not be up to visitors, or we may be in a meeting, so if you get here and are told we are not seeing visitors, we apologize and hope that you are able to come back another time. We also have declared Lolas room to be a room of joy. If you can’t be joyful in her room, dont come in. I have cried with plenty of people outside the room…. but we dont want to bring that inside.
At this time the only thing we need is your prayers. So many people want to help and we love that. When We left Tanzania we were not able to go back to our house there and bring anything with us. We had to leave everything we own there. The warmest clothes Lola had was a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I only had a pair of flip flops for shoes…. we were quite a scene on our layover in switzerland. I am certain we were the only people in summer clothes. We have all been given clothes to borrow for some time, and we will eventually need to do some shopping. We have a place to stay for as long as we need with some friends. We eventually hope to move back into a home of our own, and we will probably need some help at that time. We are currently borrowing a car, but will eventually need to buy one. There is a lot of unknowns. Our job is in Tanzania and it will be years before we can even think about going back there. So… when we feel ready, matt is going to need to find a job. Right now though, we are just so thankful that it worked out so that we are here, getting Lola the care she needs. The rest will fall into place.
We dont know why this is happening to us. Truthfully it stinks. But we do know that God is in control, and we have trusted our baby into his arms. God is Good. He will take care of us. We choose joy.
PS- I hope to keep posting on the blog and keeping everyone updated. It might be a bit before I get a chance to do it, as we are so busy getting everything going. Email is a great way to get a hold of us. We dont have phones yet, but hope to have a chance to take care of that in the next few weeks.
PS- sorry about my bad spelling. Im to tired to care….
Blessings to you all,
-Lindsey
lindsey @ following the call. org (remove spaces)
matthewjdeyoung @ gmail . com (remove spaces)
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