A Good Day

Rebekah continues to do well although she has required several doses of her pain medicine. She is droopy tonight and has a headache.

Thanks for your prayers.

Surgery Number 5

Today the surgeon used the new skin we have stretched over several weeks to close over the graft donor site on Rebekah's forearm. He also pulled the graft site on her hand tight (he actually removed 1 inch of extra skin), sewed it down so that the back of her hand should look more normal, less puffy. The whole surgery took a total of 40 minutes! Longer to drive to Indy than the actual procedure. She will have the dressing on for 10 days. He was not able to cut out and cover the site on her forearm. He was lacking less than 1 inch of "new skin". He said he could finish that up in a couple of months if she wants it to be done. Please pray for her tonight and tomorrow, once the nerve block wears off she will be in pain.

Enjoy your Easter weekend celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Pray that many Peruvians will see their need of accepting the free gift of salvation, not through works but by faith.

Pre-op - surgery #5

Post op - a sleepy daddy's girl and another big dressing

At home relaxing

We Have a Plan

I know it has been a long time since I have updated, truly it has been busy and we have been gone.

Anyway, Rebekah has her 5th and final surgery (at least that is the plan right now) on Friday at 12:30 PM. We have to be at the hand center at 10:30. Surgery should take an hour, recovery and hour and then we are homeward bound. She was disappointed it was so late in the day since she will be very hungry by then. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight. I am sure we will make a food stop on the way home:)

We don't know what the follow up details will be but Dr. Greenberg will fill us in on all of that after surgery.

Thanks to all who are taking over caring for the rest of our children on Friday. The Knolhoffs taking care of Jacob, the Boyers taking Abigail and my parents taking Benjamin.

Please pray that surgery will go well and her pain would be manageable. Since she will have 2 good sized incisions this time I expect she will have more pain. But the joy of knowing this is the last one gives her hope. She also knows that there is a slim chance there won't be enough "new" skin to cover the whole site and we will have to do the stretching, etc again, if she wants.

Just Pics

Yes!

Yes! That was Rebekah's reaction when the surgeon told her he thought she had enough "new skin" to do the surgery. She was 99% sure she didn't so she was really pleased when he said that. She literally jumped out her chair to celebrate :) Surgery should be within the next 2 weeks, I will post that info when we have a date. This should be her last surgery until she is completely done growing, like in 4 or 5 years, about the time for our next furlough. Please pray for us as we wade through insurance forms and medical bills. It is getting more and more expensive! We are also looking to purchase our return tickets to Peru. We are planning on July 31 as our date to go home to Peru.

Pictures of the Farm

We are currently living in a farm house owned by our home church. We love living here in the country. Benjamin recently purchased a nice digital camera, these are some pictures he took of our farm.

View of the pond (Ben spends a lot of time here fishing) Old small building with windmill

View of the first floor of the barn (from the loft)

Outside of the barn

Ariel view of the back of the house (from the upper part of the silo)

Silo

These Days at Our House

What happens when you bring a family of 6 over 2,000 miles to a different country, their own mind you but different than what they are used to and put them around lots of people in closed up spaces (school and lots of different churches)? You get bombarded by lots of new germs!! These past 10 days have been a rough time here at the Stilwells, okay, not still well, still sick :) Three children have had strep throat (a first for the kids), the fourth has a cough (very usual for him), mom has a sinus infection along with an ear infection and some stomach issues. We are so thankful for a healthy daddy who has taken care of all of us. We are all on the mend and each day finds us with more energy, less fever and discomfort and thankful for a good medical system. It also reminds us that we are so ready to return to Peru! Of course, then we get to start all over, it will be winter down there and new germs again, ugh! Oh well, that is the life of a missionary, we wouldn't trade it for anything.

o Peru.