Thursday, June 26, 2014

Ministry Update





Nothing new with my health - waiting for my July 1st appointment with OHSU.



I did want to send you an excerpt from my friend and team mate Lisa Dirrim's newsletter about the recent camp our team participated in.



Family camp started out in a bit of confusion. When they loaded the buses down town, it appeared that 23 guests had not come, so camp would not be full. We started making phone calls and soon had 23 new guests invited. We sent Kenn back with the church van and another vehicle to pick them up. As the guests came off the boat and we checked them in, we were only missing 5 guests! Now we had more guests coming than we had space. After a bit of scrambling it all worked out, but some of the most significant things that happened at camp, happened with the guests who were invited late. God knew they needed to come, even if we didn’t invite them the first time. We ended up with 85 guests and 77 staff for a total of 162. The camp is owned by Hellenic Ministries, but the staff for the week came from Helping Hands (our ministry here), Oasis (the southern Baptist ministry here), a group from Harding College, a group from Grace Baptist Newhall, and others from South Africa, Czech, Albania, Iran, Afghanistan, France, England, Greece, and South Africa. The predominant languages for the week, were Dari and/or Farsi.



I had 14 kids under the age of 5. We were on a rug under a big tent with 3 women’s discussion groups meeting nearby. About half of the smaller kids ran back and forth to their moms. The first session was at 10 in the morning and the last one finished at 11 pm or later. The days were long with lots of fun activities in the afternoons, swimming, a climbing wall, archery, and canoeing. In Tasha’s discussion group, they decided to pray for 1 women and her needs each time they were together. The second time they met, before she could pick a lady, one asked to be prayed for. She asked for prayer that “she would have the faith to believe what was writing in the book (the Bible, the Injil). Another Muslim women prayer for her in the name of Jesus. By the end of the week this women’s prayer was answered. The next time they met, a women prayed that her husband in Germany would come to Christ first. Before they even climbed the hill to get the snack following the prayer time, this man called and told his wife, he had decided to follow Jesus. After this, every woman wanted to be next. While we did not see very many choose to follow Jesus during camp, many wanted more time to count the cost of following Jesus before making a decision. It was a very good camp.



Kenn was part of a men’s discussion group in addition to organizing and working at the first aid station. It was his joy to see the men who came to Christ last year at camp, come back as volunteers and serve as translators or kitchen workers and to see them share Christ with other men during the quiet moments at camp.



Please pray for those who made decisions and for those who heard but are counting the cost. Pray for chances for our team to share further with those who are seeking.



Serving Him Together,

Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)







Saturday, June 14, 2014

health update





Everyone,



I am feeling pretty discouraged. I have started running fevers again at night - I had one every night this week. I had been feeling pretty good and felt I was recovering well from the surgery but have taken a real nose dive. I am very weak and can hardly do anything. Even taking a shower wears me out so that I need to lay down afterwards. We went in to see my surgeon yesterday and she did some blood work and a chest xray to see if she could find anything but it may just be that the tumors are active again and causing this. I finally got an appointment at OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University) but it is not until July 1st. I would appreciate your prayers for endurance and strength during this time. I know it is hard for Kent as well because I am not up to doing anything so he just is stuck here taking care of me. Today he did go down to Eugene and will take my dad golfing for Father's day and then he is going over to our daughter's house for dinner. At least he will have a little break. I realize this is short and sort of whiny but it's all I have right now. Thanks for understanding and holding us up.

Love, Myrna

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Health Update






Everyone,



It's been a emotional roller coaster the last couple of weeks. I am healing from my surgery. Today I got the staples out of my incision which runs from my navel to my back. I was pretty uncomfortable at first but am doing pretty well now. Last week the infectious disease doctor called us and said he thought maybe I had a disease called Wagners so he wanted me to see a kidney specialist. The kidney doc called and scheduled me for the very next day. I looked up Wagners and was NOT encouraged by what I read. It is not a disease you want to have. Kent and I decided not to say anything to our family until after we went in so as not to worry people unnecessarily but we were both pretty stressed out. As soon as the doctor walked in and sat down she said "You do NOT have Wagners" WHAT a relief! She spent and hour and a half with us and said she really wanted to try to work with the other doctors to get to the bottom of this. We left feeling a bit encouraged. While at her office my blood pressure dropped quite low and I had to drink some hot broth that I am convinced they made from dead horse's hooves - at least that is what it smelled and tasted like. I was exhausted by the time I got home.



They next day my rheumatologist called to say she wanted to see me and could I come in the next day. I asked if I could wait a while because I wasn't really feeling up to it. They agreed. Within a hour or two my kidney doctor was on the phone saying that whether I felt like it or not I needed to go in fact she wished I had been able to go even earlier because my liver toxin levels had risen even more. Once again we were a bit frightened and wondering what this would mean. When we got in there the rheumatologist apologized for making me come in and said she thought the toxin level was because of the fungal medication and she would talk to the infectious disease doctor about it. She had wanted to see me because she assumed since I am off all my arthritis drugs that my joints would be swollen and painful. Instead my arthritis has never been better it is like I don't even have it. Once again we left feeling better than when we came in.



This week we got another call from the infectious disease doctor. He said "I am sorry to tell you this but we are at the end of the line with what we can do. All the tests are back and we can find nothing that is causing this." He said he had asked the kidney doctor to look at Wagners disease again, the pathologist to look at lymphoma again and had asked another infectious disease doctor to review the files. He said if these all come back negative - which they did today - then we are left with two things 1) I am starting on a very high dose of two different antibiotics in the hopes that it might kill whatever it is even if they can't find it - he said "This is a complete Hail Mary - we are just shooting in the dark and hoping we hit something" We will do a scan in 4-6 weeks to see what has happened. 2) I need to get seen by a research facility - in this case we are applying to Oregon Health and Science University. These doctors are doing research on diseases and things that the average doctor doesn't see so it is possible they will find something the other doctors have missed.



I asked the doctor if they didn't find it if this would just eat my kidneys completely and he said "That is my fear but I don't know how to stop it". Kent and I were both feeling pretty emotional about all this because of not knowing what that meant for our lives and our future or even my chances of dying. However today both our urologist and the infectious disease doctor told us that they don't expect this to kill me - their fear is that it would eat my kidneys to where I would need dialysis and perhaps a kidney transplant but that I would survive. We are both feeling a bit more hopeful and like we can face whatever comes as long as we are doing it together.



Please pray for these new doctors who are looking at my case with fresh eyes. Pray that the antibiotics would work. Pray for continued healing from the surgery and continued peace for Kent and I as we move forward. Thank you for your unfailing love and support.



Kent and Myrna Morley
Tripoleos 76
Elliniko 16777
Athens Greece
011 30 210 96 38 625
backhoeboy1@gmail.com
http://kent-uniquelymorley.blogspot.com
To join our Support Team:
Online go to: www.iteams.org select: US, Select: What do you want to do, Select: Give
Or Send to:
International Teams
411 W. River Rd.
Elgin IL 60123
Please designate for the ministry of Kent and Myrna Morley and indicate whether this is a one time gift or monthly support. Thanks :)