Family Soup Night & Sara's Birthday

Sharing a few photos from this past weekend. Time for a Family Soup Night, and time to celebrate Sara's birthday (which was early in the month). Such a treat to spend time together ... not an easy feat, as each of our grown kids have very full lives. We thank God for the time we could spend together on Saturday, Feb. 15 ...

Cru High Leadership Conference

Once each year we travel to Florida for our Cru High Leadership Conference ... a time for the City MTL's (city directors) of Cru High to gather together for training and inspiration. It's a good time of year for this conference, as we can spend a few days in a warmer climate! This year the temps in Orlando were in the low 80's while we were there - a great contrast to the freezing temps we have been having in Nebraska. 

So thankful for this time to spend together with other staff, and to be encouraged and inspired by time in God's Word together. The time went by too quickly ...

Sharing our thanks to God through digital scrapbooking pages ...

Click here to view two more digital scrapbook pages (on Cherry's Pursuing Heart blog) from our time in Florida, including an evening at Disney World's "Magic Kingdom"!

Our News & Prayer Update - January 2014

Here is an online version of our first newsletter of the year. We sent this out to many friends and family by email at the end of January - if you did not already receive this by email, please let us know of your email address, and we will add you to our MailChimp email group for our next mailing. Thanks for your interest ...

Our First News & Prayer Update of 2014!

One month is nearly finished of this new year, and here is our first update! We are so grateful for each of you - for your prayers, gifts, and the multiple ways that many of you are part of Cru High - Omaha. God certainly uses a team to accomplish what He desires to do in the lives of students.

OUR CAMPUSES - This new year has already been full of significant happenings in Cru Omaha. A few highlights from some of our nine Cru campuses: Students fromCentral High recently were able to get permission for Cru to be a school club on campus! We praise God for opening up this door for us to be able to hold events right on campus (in addition to weekly meetings already held off campus). Students from Fort Calhoun High are initiating and planning an event to draw more Freshman into Cru. And we ask for your prayers as one of our newest volunteers, Takiela, is working on having Cru approved as a school club at Bellevue East, on the edge of Omaha. She is taking the lead in opening up Cru on this campus!

DCC HIGH - We are grateful for how the Denver staff welcomed our students to DCC High, a student conference held in Denver from Dec. 28-31. (See the two photos at top.) Our students loved it - a highlight for them was an outreach held where they were able to personally purchase and give items to homeless people on the streets of Denver. Click here for more photos on our Cru Omaha blog of our time at DCC High.

FAMILY UPDATE - We greatly appreciate all your prayers for our granddaughter, Crystal, as she awaits her kidney transplant. She continues to experience nausea and general fatigue as her kidneys continue to decline, and her levels will be retested again the first week in February. Also testing continues for her father, Mark, to see if he will be able to be her kidney donor. Click here for more info on our family/ministry blog. And at the start of this new year, here are some photos of our ten sweet grandkids!

Five Grandsons!

Left to Right: Jake (4), Luke (12), Cruz (5), Cole (4), Levi (11). What a lot of fun these boys are! Levi belongs to Amy & Joe, Luke to Cristy & Mark, Jake & Cole to Sara & Sean, and Cruz to Carrie & Tyler. There is never a dull moment when these guys are together, as was the case this past Thanksgiving when these photos were taken. Luke & Levi are off in their own world whenever they are together, and life is filled with adventure when the younger ones play!. Such a blessing to have five grandsons! 

Five Granddaughters!

Left to Right: Brianna (7), Abigail (17), Eva (1), Ali (6), Crystal (15). Ali belongs to Amy & Joe, Abigail & Crystal & Brianna to Cristy & Mark, and Eva to Carrie & Tyler. Abigail will be graduating from high school (in TX) this spring. It will be a busy year for our TX family, as Crystal will most likely also be having her kidney transplant this spring or summer. Please pray for them! Brianna & Ali would love to live closer to each other. And little Eva is a joy and delight to everyone. We thank God for five granddaughters!

Update on Our Granddaughter, Crystal

It is past time for another update on our sweet granddaughter, Crystal Mae. Please click here for our update this past September, with the story of her kidney disease diagnosis in early 2013. 

Donor testing ... by both parents!

Crystal's Kidney Function

Since our last update in September, Crystal's kidney function has fluctuated from as low as 24% to a high of 35%. The doctor says that this can sometimes happen as kidneys fluctuate back and forth as they continue to go downhill. Her next testing of kidney function levels will take place the first week of February.

It is actually a huge answer to prayer that her levels have stabilized somewhat (instead of going rapidly downhill this past fall as we had expected), for it has given more time for donor testing. Both of her parents (our daughter, Cristy, and son-in-law, Mark) found out in early fall that both their blood types matched to be donors! 

Testing for Donors

Cristy continued on through the very detailed testing to confirm if she matched up on all levels, and it was a big disappointment for her to find out on one of the last steps of her testing, that she has a small lesion on one of her own kidneys. This eliminated her from being able to donate a kidney for Crystal. Cristy also now has had to find a nephrologist to check out the lesion on her own kidney. They will be watching to see if the lesion is of concern, and will be following up with another MRI this coming June. Please pray for this concern.

The testing to find a donor for Crystal is now continuing with her father, Mark. So far his tests are looking good, and even amazing as his kidney function is excellent! We expect that all of his testing will be completed during the first week of February. Please pray for wisdom for the doctors, and that he would pass all the tests to be the donor, if that would be God's will.

Pray for Crystal                                                                                                                 

Crystal continues to hold up well with her high school studies and activities, though she continues to struggle daily with nausea and fatigue. She is on various medications, also to help stabilize high blood pressure which accompanies kidney failure. How thankful we are to God for surrounding her (and her whole family) with peace and strength during this difficult time, and for the great faith He is growing in Crystal. She is an inspiration and encouragement to all of us!  

For more detailed regular reports, you are welcome to read their CaringBridge updates ... click here. And we will also be giving updates here, as well, especially as we near the transplant date. We will be traveling to Texas to help out for several weeks (even up to a month), as needed when transplant time comes. Of course, it is hard for us to be a distance away now, especially on the more difficult days, and we are so thankful that we have been granted time off to travel and be of assistance at the time of transplant.

January Birthday & Overnighter with Grandkids

Our first family birthday of 2014 - grandson Cruz turned 5 on January 8th! He is so full of life and fun, and loved the "hunting theme" family party on the 11th, and the hunting theme cake that his dad and mom made for him! Tyler had taken him along while deer hunting within the past month, and Cruz had been quite fascinated as he and his dad had come home with two deer that day!

The following weekend Carrie & Tyler had the special treat of flying to San Diego, taking advantage of a business trip to also celebrate their 9th anniversary! We had Cruz & Eva here for two nights, and they also spent some time nearby with cousins at Amy & Joe's place, and at Sara & Sean's place. Such fun to have family living nearby.

The two photos on the left are from their overnighter at our place, and photos on the right from Cruz's birthday party the weekend before.

Family Christmas

Exactly three weeks after our Family Thanksgiving, we gathered again for our Family Christmas! Our daughter, Cristy, and family had come up from Dallas for Thanksgiving, and for Christmas, we were blessed to have Seth come from San Francisco! Together with our one son and three daughters (and their families) who live nearby, and also Gary's brother, and my father, we were a group of 18 for Christmas! So incredibly thankful for family ...

We chose a different menu for our Christmas - sukiyaki! A fun dish that is cooked in electric frying pans right at the table - and so delicious! The top photo above shows us in the kitchen after the meal, cleaning up together. There isn't much that brings me more joy than to have our grown kids home - and also, in the kitchen with me!

The grandkids had a lot of patience to wait until mid-afternoon for the opening of presents! Christmas is so much fun with children - we enjoyed watching six grandkids opening their gifts (Levi - 11, Ali - 6, Cruz, Jake & Cole - all 4, and little Eva - 1). Of course, there were gifts for the rest of us as well ... but the greatest gift of all is just being together.

Later in the evening we put out a spread of snacks and goodies for all to enjoy while we played games together ... maybe a favorite part of our Christmas together.

So much to be thankful for at Christmastime ... the Greatest Gift of all, JESUS ... the gift of a loving family ... and expressions of love as we share gifts of love, good food, and presents together. 

Family Thanksgiving Day

We are always so very blessed when our family comes home - and on Saturday, Nov. 30, twenty-three of us gathered here for our Family Thanksgiving Day! All of our children and grandchildren were here, except we missed Seth (in CA) who wasn't able to come, and we're thankful he'll be coming for Christmas. Cherry's father (92 years old), and Gary's brother also joined us for the day.

Click here for a few more photos of our wonderful day together - posted on Cherry's Pursuing Heart blog. And now, we are preparing for family home again for our Family Christmas - such a wonderful time of year!