Update on Elias

…finally the long awaited update.

It has been a very long and tense time of waiting for us and after calling up the hospital a few times we finally got a reply on Wednesday, but it wasn’t until this morning that we had the meeting with the neurosurgeon, who explained in detail what the final decision of the doctors was. That’s why the update today.

The team of doctors actually met a few times this week and last to talk about our case. Now we know for fact that there is still quite a bit of tumor left, more than 3 cm. (just over an inch)

The doctors don’t want to operate because it is too dangerous and postsurgical disabilities seem very high. Also, the tumor is too big for any radiological treatment. So what they have proposed is to leave the tumor alone and observe as long as possible. They suggested to do a MRI every 3 month to monitor any developments.

The tumor can either stay the same, or grow slowly, or even mutate into a malignant one. We don’t know. Anyway, Elias is doing so good right now and is developing fine that it seems to be better to wait and see how the tumor develops and only operate if we don’t have a choice anymore, since the chance of permanent damage is so very high. Now the whole situation comes to a stop, but is still not solved, we just have to let go it seems.

Our next steps are to fix Elias eyes (he is cross-eyed )and then do physiotherapy to help restore his balance and the use of his right arm, so that he can write again. This will take several months, and then not long after that we will have another baby. So please pray for rest in our awesome God, he is in charge and control of our lives.

Please pray also for wisdom what to do next. We will have to look for a place to stay either in Germany or Austria at our sending church at least until Elias has had sufficient therapy, or even until our baby is born. We don’t know, it doesn’t look like we will be able to go back to the Philippines anytime soon. We will be talking things over with our NTM and Church leadership to see what God has for us in all of that. These are certainly very challenging times and we need God to remind us of himself and that he is on the throne! We also need your prayers, so thank you for praying and please continue to do so. We really appreciate you all and would like to keep you posted on any developments.

In our wonderful Savior’s name

Richard and Family