Update on Hallelujah Acres

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, we only have a half day left here at the Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center.  Mark is doing great!!  We are so thankful to be here - we originally had planned to be here last week but because of surgery we had to put it off a week.  We know that like everything else God's timing and plan is perfect!

The people here have been wonderful and the group that we are with this week are terrific - below is a picture of our group with our leaders yesterday when we drove down to Hallelujah Acres in Shelby, NC.  We have learned so much this week and are very excited to implement everything into our lives when we return home.  When we came here I was worried that I would hate the food and always be hungry but I can say it is exactly the opposite!  We have eaten delicious raw food every day and I even like the juicing.  Mark has done more juicing than me and the difference in how he looks from Sunday night to now is actually pretty dramatic.  We are both convinced that this is the path that God wants us on - the correlation to the nutrition plan here to the scriptures is awesome.

We both feel renewed and rejuvinated and couldn't be happier with our experience here.  We highly recommend it to anyone!

Mark gets his staples out next week - he is still having some soreness in his abdomen but nothing out of the ordinary.

We're looking forward to a great Memorial Day week-end with all our kids and grandbaby in the North Georgia mountains.

Thank you again for all your love and prayers,

Mark and Lee

Jeremiah 29:11-13

 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.   Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail. 
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Day 1 - Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center

Dear Friends and Family,

We arrived here this afternoon and have already had orientation, a couple of classes and dinner - so all I can say right now is that the food is amazing!  If I can learn how to fix fresh veggies like they do we will be set!  It is very exciting!

There are 7 other people here - a very good group - I know we are going to learn a lot!

We are so thankful for this opportunity and for God allowing us to come here.

We're very excited about the whole week!

Thanks for your prayers - you can specifically pray that Mark can regain some of the 14 pounds he lost after this last hospital stay - before we had our first meal I was worried about that but now not as much!

Gotta run - they want us to get plenty of rest - they keep us pretty busy!

Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Home at Last!

I'm so thankful to report that Mark is home and resting and ready to fully recover!  We are so thankful to put this hospital stay behind us!  It was a rough one and we're ready to leave it behind us and move on!

We are planning on heading to Hallelujah Acres on Sunday and are very excited about learning all we can about nutrition and getting on this healthy diet!  Currently Mark cannot each much so we are just eating all organic veggies and fruit and taking his diet one day at a time.

We are blown away by the love people have shown us and are so thankful to the Lord for putting so many wonderful people in our lives!

Thanks for the prayers and support!

Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Doing Better! Praise the Lord!

We are so thankful that they removed the NG tube today and he is starting to feel SO much better!  In fact, I helped him clean up, took a walk and now he's sitting here listening to praise music and looks 100% better!

Our hope is that tomorrow they will start him on clear liquids and maybe he can go home Monday - it could be Tuesday - we will wait and see!

We are looking forward to a good night's rest as we hardly got any last night - I think at 5:00 Mark had been asleep a total of about 30 minutes - he just couldn't get any relief from the tube so tonight is going to be good!!

Thanks for your prayers!

Mark and Lee

Friday, May 11, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

There really isn't too much to update - Mark's condition remains about the same.  He still has the NG tube in which is very painful - the doctor said he may be able to take it out tomorrow - I sure hope so!!

We don't know exactly how long we will be here - we have to wait until everything internally starts working again and they see that he can hold down his food.

We were talking (well, kind of talking since he can't talk) about how thankful we are that this didn't happen two weeks ago when Jessica was getting married!  And how thankful we are that he has time to recover before Cameron's wedding.

Below is a picture of our crew at Jessica and Dennis' wedding.

We had to put Hallelujah Acres on hold for a couple of weeks but still intend to get there as soon as Mark feels up to it.

We are praying for a quick recovery and hope to get him home asap!

Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts - we are truly blessed to have friends and family who love us so!

Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Isaiah 30:20-21

 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Out of Surgery!

Dear Friends and Family,

Mark just got out of surgery and is in recovery.  The doctor said there was tons of scar tissue and they got it cleaned out really good - it was a total obstruction.  He said the surgery was very intricate since this was his 6th surgery and they won't be able to do any more surgeries in that area.

He will probably be here at the hospital for 5-7 days.  It will be a rough recovery - his last surgery was exactly 3 months ago and his muscles haven't completely recovered from that.

Thanks for all your prayers - we greatly appreciate it!

Love,

Lee

Going Into Surgery

This morning they ran more tests and determined that the blockage is not moving and they will need to do surgery.  We thought it was going to be right after lunch but they just took him back around 7:00.

Please pray with us as he endures his 6th abdominal surgery.

I will update later tonight or in the morning.

Thanks,

Lee

Back to Kennestone - Prayer Needed!

Dear Friends and Family,

We certainly didn't think that we would at Kennestone this past week-end but here we are!

Saturday night when we were going to bed Mark felt like he had some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning.  He took some Pepto and went to bed - twenty minutes later he was up with lots of pain.  He waited until about 2:00 to wake me up and as soon as I saw him I could see the pain he was in!

After about an hour he conceded and we woke up Cameron and he drove us down to the ER where they did a CT scan and discovered he has some sort of obstruction in his intestines.  They admitted him and he did get relief from the pain which I was so thankful for.

On Sunday afternoon after 4 tries they got an NG tube down his throat to drain his stomach and give him some relief.

Today, Monday, they have been doing tests to determine the exact spot of the obstruction and what is causing it and then hopefully what to do about it.  We have done a lot of waiting today and we still don't have any answers - I will update when we find out what is going on.

In the meantime please pray that this may be something they can fix relatively simple and without surgery!

Until this happened he had been feeling wonderful!  We are scheduled to be at Hallelujah Acres lifestyle center in North Carolina to learn all about our new diet - check them out at www.hacres.com

Thank you for your prayers -

Mark and Lee

P.S. We know just like everything that God is in control and has a plan, even in this.  If we focus our eyes on Him then first of all He will guide us and secondly we don't notice all the "stuff" going on around us.

We claim the promise "in this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer! I have overcome the world!" (Lee's translation)