April 1, 2006

• It seems that we have been on the phone all evening with Lorena and Rainey or with friends here in Stephenville.  Sergio answered the phone when I called down to Tepic earlier — and he sounds exactly like Rafael on the phone.  He will be taking Rainey and Benjamin to Guadalajara tomorrow morning for the flight back to the States.  He is all excited about the pending arrival of little Mya Naomi, expected within the next two weeks — and Minelli is definitely looking forward to the change.  Sergio says she is miserable — and I can sure understand that.  Mya will be their first, and we ask God’s blessings on them.

  
  

  Ben answered the phone in la casa royal — and I called him Sergio.  It is pretty bad when you cannot identify your own family members by their voices anymore.  He is definitely ready to get back to Stephenville and to school.  Sergio laughed at Ben for studying all the time he was down there.

  
  

  Rainey reported that she has been laughed at also.  As a good Baptist/Church of Christ kiddo, she never took catechism, so she doesn’t know when to kneel or stand during mass — and they have had daily masses this week for Papá with evening prayers for him.  It will certainly have been a new experience for her.

  
  

  We were just talking about the bizarre coincidences of her grandparents deaths.  Both of my parents died relatively young — within a year of each other.  Now both of Lorena’s parents have died, quite older, but almost within a year of each other.  I suspect this is quite unusual.

  
  

  We had discussed the fact that if Lorena were brought back to the States, she would have to be put in a nursing home.  This is an extremely unpleasant prospect, and I mentioned that some of her friends and family would kill ourselves trying to work AND sit with her and care for her in the nursing home.  Specifically, I mentioned that Duane Godwin would be one of those selfless, sacrificial victims. 

  
  

  I had no more than hung up on the last Mexico call than my cell phone rang.  It was Duane asking about Lorena.  When I mentioned that she wanted to come back to Stephenville, not this year, but in her goals.  He immediately began talking about helping to care for her.  Friends such as he are incredible!!!  Just a short time ago, he himself was on the verge of death.  In fact, he credits Holly and Wade Miller with saving his life, and mentions how impressed he was that Marsil drove straight through after work from her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to sit with him and care for him. 

  
  

  Now, he, once again, is offering to do the same for Lorena.  He quite literally saved our lives, once by letting me come home and get some sleep when I was not thinking clearly, and once when he was sitting with Lorena while she was suffering from her horrific lung infections and removed the canula from her tracheotomy when it clogged and would probably have suffocated her.  I will never be able to thank friends like Duane and Nony and Holly and Wade enough.  We are incredibly blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family.

  
  

  Toward the end of the call with Duane, I received a text message from Rainey to call her on her cell phone.  Needless to say, that scared me as I tried to guess what she had not been able to tell my in front of Mommy.  However, it was just that some of her cousins wanted to buy some of the clothes she had taken down because those specific brands are extremely expensive in Mexico — but the cousins didn’t have any dollars and Rainey was asking how to handle it.  I told her, considering how dismally far in arrears I am in paying Lorena’s bills, for her to just give the clothes to her cousins; I can buy Rainey more clothes here.

  
  

  Today, I say a ton of folks from Stephenville, Morgan Mill, Lingleville, Dublin, Huckabay, Lipan, Granbury, Hico, Bluff Dale, Tolar, and Fort Worth who asked how Lorena was doing.  The love, respect, and concern that she commands in her friends and acquaintances is phenomenal.

  
  

  Today, Duane tried to call her some of that same times I was calling, and he never reached her.  I had to inform him that she and Rainey had to go for a couple of drives.  They went to the naturist in the jungle (Duane laughed when I called him the witch doctor) who coats Lorena down with his magical brew of seaweed, herbs, eggs, and God only knows what all — but Lorena says that the treatments benefit her, so I KNOW they do!  Anyway, Lorraine said the doctor showed her (by having her feel) the strength that Lorena still has in her legs, and I know that to be the case.  It is wonderful how pliant and un atrophied her limbs are after two years as a quadraplegic stroke victim. 

  
  

  They also had to get a load of limas and the special herbal tea that the naturist makes for her.  Rainey told me that Lorena drinks it for breakfast but that she doesn’t like it.  Lorena immediately began to clamor trying to say something which forced Rainey ultimately to make a retraction; Lorena likes the tea, and she drinks sit with every meal.  We got a big laugh out of that, with many abject (if not heartfelt) apologies from Lorraine.

  
  

  Lorena’s miracle is continuing.  To God be the glory.  Thank you all for your thoughts and your prayers.  You make it so much easier for us to  walk this road.  Thank you!!!!

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