okay - definitely time for an update!

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything substantial on here!

Medical
I promised a more detailed post about my healing so I will start with that.
During our Ladies' retreat at the beginning of June, our speaker had spoken alot about how she felt that God had wanted her to speak to us about how He WANTS us to be pain-free and healed of any illnesses, etc. And that we needed to really believe in the fact that God can not only heal us, but that He wants to heal us. That really hit home with me because I had really been struggling with the whole "healing thing" and I had come to the conclusion that if God had wanted to heal me, He could have done it before I was even diagnosed. It wasn't like we hadn't prayed enough times that God would heal my pain and take away all the symptoms I was dealing with. I had decided (on my own) that my quick diagnosis must have been God's answer to my prayers. So over the weekend, I spoke with a couple of my good friends about how I had thought that God didn't want to heal me, and that my diagnosis had been my answer to prayer. I then had some long talks with God, first off asking for His forgiveness for me not allowing Him to be able to show His power in my life. Fast forward to Tuesday, I somehow got gluten contamination and was quite sick and in ALOT of pain, pain I hadn't had since my biopsy and me completely cutting out gluten. Wednesday at bible study, the girls started talking to the guys about our retreat and how great it had been and what the speaker had spoken about. At the end of the night when we ask for prayer requests, I really felt God leading me to ask the group to pray for me for healing of my celiac disease. We then all came together in a circle in the middle of the room and they all laid hands on me and we started praying. At this point, I was still dealing with a lot of stomach pains from the day before and so as I prayed, I asked God to let me know that He was touching my body and healing me by taking away the pain in my stomach right then. There are two guys in our group who are quite the prayer warriors and between them and the women who were still pumped from retreat, it was quite the prayer circle! I don't know how long we prayed for, but somewhere in the middle I started to realize that the pain in my stomach was gone. At that point, I started crying and rejoicing out loud and thanking God for healing me. Well, that just got everyone pumped and we kept praying, thanking God for what He was doing in my body. That Friday, I had a cheeseburger with a wheat bun!! and had NO pain or symptoms at all! From that first bite, I just kept going, eating whatever I want, it has known been almost 8 weeks and I have been eating whatever I want with no pain or symptoms of celiac at all. Thursday the 19th of July, I finally went in and saw my family doctor to ask her to redo the blood work that first diagnosed me with celiac disease. She was reluctant and was quite open with me that she is not at all religious and while she believed that I thought I had been healed, I would be doing a lot of damage to my body if it wasn't the case. On Saturday, the 21st I went and did the blood tests and am now waiting for the results. I called my doctor's office today and they are not yet in, but if they aren't in by tomorrow, the receptionist will call and ask for the results over the phone. It is still quite exhilarating to be able to tell people that I no longer have celiac disease.

Ronel
This is one reason I haven't been posting lately ~ I really have no new news about our immigration process, except that Ronel has finally made contact with the DMP( Dr who can do his medical) and found out that it will cost him $200 US for his medical exam - this is the equivalent of $1500 Haitian dollars. This is money that neither of us have at this time, plus I need to have to $1500 Cdn for sending in with the immigration paperwork. My friends have been fabulous and we have been talking about doing some various fund raisers to raise money to get Ronel here. Calling Ronel has been hard because it is getting harder and harder to be okay with the fact that we are still not in the same country, and that for right now phone calls and memories are all we have, and a hope that one day - IN GOD'S TIMING - we will be together again, as husband and wife, living in the same country able to really start our live together. I spoke to Ronel on Sunday and found out that other than the medical exam, he is only waiting on one piece of paper - an archived copy of our marriage certificate. So, other than waiting for that paper, we are both just waiting for the funds so that we can get this immigration process started. Then comes more waiting! Filing isn't the end of the road, it is only another beginning - the beginning of a 6-18 month wait. I know that God can get our paperwork through the process quickly if that is His plan and I am learning daily that I CAN'T take control of this, I have to leave it all in God's hand. Not having control is hard for me, especially on something this big! I especially struggle with having no control over things like money! It is a daily prayer that gets me through each day without breaking down and bawling because my husband isn't here, but I also know and can hold on to the fact that I KNOW that God told both Ronel & I that we were to be together and that this time apart is not for forever. Being able to call and talk to Ronel is both a good and not so good thing... Good because I miss him like crazy and being able to hear his voice is better than nothing at all! Not so good because it makes it harder being away from him, and on "bad" days when I can hear the strain in his voice and hear how much he misses me, without him having to say a word, is some days more than I can handle on my own.

Oh, and I just looked and I have not yet shared that at Ronel's follow-up appointment for his gallstone, the doctors couldn't find anything! So this means that he will not have to have surgery! Thank you to anyone who was praying with us for this!!

Other
I was blessed at the beginning of July to house sit for a family in my church who went on a missions trip to Mexico with our church. They have two Korean home stay students and so needed someone to stay at the house and cook dinner for two students. I was completely blessed by the amount that they paid me for the two week stay and that was put into my "get Ronel here" fund! I will also be staying there next week while the family goes camping (but the students still have school) after I get home from my camping trip this weekend with most of the people from our bible study. We will be going to Kamloops and staying in the (huge) yard of Terri's aunt. I am excited because I met Terri's aunt last October when we all went up to stay at a B&B in Kamloops for our staff retreat and loved her and her family. The girls who are going will be heading up Thursday evening after work and then the boys will follow us on Friday evening after they all get off work.

I am looking forward to the first night being a girls' night and then a weekend of fun and lots of laughter!

Okay, off to bed now as I have a long day tomorrow at the lake with 40 children!! (and 3 other adults!)

It's a girl!

Congratulations are due to my friends Erica & Danny on the birth of their baby girl - Audrey Katherine. She was born on Sunday, July 15th and is absolutely adorable! I can't wait to love on her!

God really had His hand on this darling child as 4 family members were in Mexico on a missions trip scheduled to return on the 15th and another family member was leaving on a a missions trip on the 16th and the due date was the 19th so someone was going to miss the arrival of the baby. (this is the first grandbaby on both sides) Erica started having contractions on Thursday and her family members in Mexico made the decision to leave early and head home (they had a separate vehicle due to #'s) and so made the long drive home (36 hours) but late Thursday night Erica's contractions stopped. They started again Saturday with Audrey being born on Sunday just before noon. This meant that all the family was in town and able to be there for the birth! If Erica hadn't had contractions on Thursday, the family members that were in Mexico would not have been home in time as the team didn't get home till about 6:30pm. One of Erica's big prayers was that her mom & dad would be here for the birth and God had it all planned out!

A big congrats and lots of love go out to Erica & Danny! I can't wait to see the lovely new family!

To my little sis!

Congratulations are due to my little sister, Leslie as I got a call today letting me know that she got engaged yesterday to her boyfriend of 14 months, Mike.

Iam very happy for the both of them! I asked if they had any dates in mind and she said she's thinking about next year - June-ish and we are all hoping and praying that Ronel will be home with me by then and the whole family will be together! This means that next summer some time, all 4 of my Mom's daughters will be married and now we just have to wait for the engagement news from my big brother!

I love my sister and Mike and wish them all the best as they plan for their wedding and the rest of their lives together!!

Happy Canada Day!

Have a great long weekend!

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

Okay, this is going to be quick and I will write about it in more detail later..... (this way, if I don't, you can bug me until I do! )

I was HEALED June 6th, 2007 of Celiac disease!

I have been eating food containing gluten since that day with NO side effects at all - no pain, no nothing!

I will write more later but wanted to share this with you! I have been meaning to get this on here but I have been so busy and also catching up on sleep!

Ladies Retreat

This past weekend was our annual Ladies Retreat with the ladies at my church. Each year we do this the first weekend in June and we head down to Cedar Springs Christian Retreat Center in Sumas, Washington. This year we had Kimberly Dirmann as our speaker. She was a delight to listen to and really made us think! God really spoke to me this weekend and I know that I am entering a new season of change and expect some great things to happen!

After retreat was over, our two car caravan headed off to do some shopping! The exchange rate was really great this weekend and so shopping was fun! We headed into Bellingham, had lunch at Red Robin's where I was able to customize a gluten free meal for myself and I got to eat french fries!!! (Imagine that being said in a VERY excited voice!) Red Robin's uses a dedicated fryer for their fries so I didn't have to worry about cross contamination from other fried foods (like onion rings, and any other breaded fried food item) I haven't found anywhere else yet that does that (other than McD's and I don't really frequent there!) I got some fun new tops and a pair of dressier knee length shorts, some flip-flops, a new water bottle and a gorgeous new necklace!

It was overall a great weekend, we had fabulous weather the whole weekend and it rained & thundered after we got home so that was all good!

I got to talk to Ronel yesterday & today after not talking for a week because of not being home (I watched a friend's child last week at their home and then was at Ladies' Retreat) and it was SO nice to hear his voice. A week is a long time when we normally talk every couple of days!
Ronel has his follow up appointment tomorrow (the 6th) to see how his gallstone is doing. Please keep him in your prayers. He said he had a fever and cough over the weekend also and I am praying that he isn't getting sick. It is rainy season there now and so it is more common for people to get sick at this time of year.

Well, I am off to bed now!!

fun changes

Well, I had fun tonight working on creating my own personalized header for my blog. I used a photo I took in Haiti on a trip to Mirebalais in Dec 2004. I loved this tree that was so HUGE and the photo looks so awesome with the great colours behind it. I did stretch the photo so the tree looks a bit larger than normal.

I went down to Bellingham with my mom a week or two ago and purchased Photoshop Elements so now I can do as much digital scrapbooking stuff as I want to!

I don't know what other changes will be in store for the blog but with my new found hobby - who knows what is next!!!

Dietitian visit

So, this past Wednesday (May 23) I went back down to Vancouver General Hospital for some nutritional counseling with a dietitian. I was told when we scheduled my appointment that it would be an HOUR long and so I took the morning off work and headed down for my 8am appointment.

I met with the dietitian (she was actually a dietitian intern 4 weeks from finishing and I was asked if I would be okay with meeting with her - I said it would be okay with me) and we went over a lot of info that I had already learned with all the research I had done online since my diagnosis.

She confirmed some things I had been wondering about how careful I needed to be about cross-contamination and there were some thing that she told me that I hadn't known. She did strongly recommend me joining the Canadian Celiac Association as it has lots of info and they send out newsletters with up to date info about gluten free (GF) foods and new products or info. She also told me about a pocket sized "dictionary" that lists TONS of food items and tells you if they are GF or not or if they are questionable. It would make grocery shopping more enjoyable as there are often items that I am not sure about if they are GF or not and so I currently have to leave them or risk getting sick!

I did enjoy a wonderful meal of brown rice spaghetti with meat sauce on Friday night with a friend of mine! It made me very happy as there has been a lot of monotony in my meals and I look forward to some variety in my diet!

I will be going back to the dietitian for a follow-up at the end of June. I think she wants to make sure that I am getting everything I need in my diet. Right now the thing I have to work on is getting in all my grains. It is a bit more of a challenge since I can't have most of the common grains! I also have to find some gluten free vitamins that I can take as my dietitian is concerned that since I am not able to eat the enriched flours that I am not getting most of the vitamins like the B vitamins, niacin, and others that are added into the foods we eat! ( okay - so the foods YOU eat!)

Right now my diet is consisting of mainly fresh foods - very very little processed food as most of them contain gluten in some form. I am glad that I have found the brown rice pasta as that allows for another option. I mainly have been eating salads at work for lunch and rice & chicken or nachos for supper. Thankfully I really enjoy fresh veggies and love salads with lots of veggie variety in them and I found some dressings that are GF!

Now that I have seen the dietitian I am planning on a field trip of sorts with some of my girlfriends to go "visit" the various stores around this area that carry gluten free items. There is a gourmet & organic grocery store in White Rock that also has a rice bakery and carries a wide assortment of GF foods. I want to check it out for "special" food items - food that I won't eat all the time but can have for variety, special occasions and when cravings happen!

yeah - finally done

Well after all my troubles yesterday - I finally got my layout done!

If you would like to see it you can go here

you can see not only the layout I did today but all of the other layouts that I posted as well!

I was not feeling well today and so came home early from work and slept for the majority of the day. I'm still really tired and can't wait until I can go see my family doctor on the 30th of May and hopefully we can find out why I have been so tired lately!

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I tried to do a digital scrapbook layout tonight and was almost completely finished when the program decided to freeze up & I lost the whole layout! I tried to redo it and again it froze! I was so happy with the original layout and I can't seem to recreate it a second (or third) time! It is SO frustrating!

Hopefully I will have better luck tomorrow!

Good-night