Primal Blog Tour

Ok so this is almost a month past due. The actual post should have been posted before Christmas, but recovering from a month of a child in the NICU put things in a different order.

I finally was able to finish Mark Batterson’s latest offering Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity. This book was offered to me for free from my friends at Multnomah/ Waterbrook Press.

Mark is one of my favorite authors. I have read both In and Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase and Primal lives up to all expectations. Mark does an incredible job dissecting the Great Commandment (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength). He points out that when we lose our way in our faith we often need to go back to these basics and the “primal” instincts of our faith to bring us back to a place of growth.

The thing I love most about all of Mark’s writings is his interdisciplinary breadth of resources. He is almost as comfortable talking about neurology as he is theology. His view, and rightfully so, that all truth is God’s truth allows Mark to maneuver between disciplines with the greatest of ease. It is with this ease that helps expand my faith with each Batterson read.

If you are looking for a light read, a fluff piece, this isn’t it. If you are looking for a challenging book that will shed some fresh light on a verse that we have read and thought about for years. This isn’t exactly the little known story of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. The call to greater compassion, wonder, curiosity and energy is a call to greater faith and love for God. Where the first reformation was  about deeds, the reformation needed today is one of deeds. We can’t afford to just be good at the Great Commandment,we need to be GREAT at it.

Mark writes in an easy to read fashion, almost as if you are talking about things over coffee. If you are looking for a book to wake your soul, to remind you of what where our faith has come from and to bring life to a faith gone stale this is the book for you.

The Hole in our Family

My little boy is now 26 days old. He is getting so big and making such great progress. Early on I “knew” we were a family of four, but with Jadon being in the hospital we didn’t feel like a family of four. It felt quite odd, like there was a hole in our family. I had two children, but I only had one at a time. Where I saw the one wasn’t home, and when I was home, I only had one child.

I had this epiphanal (sp?) kind of moment, don’t think I have these all the time they really are few and far between, one evening.

I began to wonder if this is how God feels. He has this huge family. Some of His children are home; some of His children are not. It pains me not to have Jadon home with us; it kills God not to have all of His children home with Him. This has given me a new view at bringing God’s “missing” children home to Him.

One day all of God’s children who have come home will be together in one place and we will celebrate in God’s big house.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. -2 Peter 3:9

What’s Missing?

Eskai and I made our daily trip to the NICU at Children’s Memorial Hospital and when we arrived we noticed something was missing on our little boy?

No, he hasn’t had his circumcision yet.

He no longer has his cannula in. On Saturday they dropped him from 3L with a high flow cannula to 2L on a normal nasal cannula. We figured that they would have kept him on that for a day or two before making any adjustments but when we walked in today we (and by we I mean ME) noticed that they only tube he has now is his feeding tube, and he could lose that in the next couple of days.

It is definitely a good sign that he is less and less connected to things. He will probably keep his leads and O2 sensors until he is discharged. Things are moving in a good direction. Thank you for the prayers.

Breathing Easier

Jadon is now two weeks old, it is hard to believe that it was only 15 days ago that we made a middle of the night run to Lake Forest Hospital to begin this whole journey. Now, 15 days later, I know my way down to Children’s Memorial Hospital in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago like the back of my hand.

I think just about every0ne in the Family is breathing easier these days. Jadon is more than a week past surgery and is recovering awesome (this is not to say that Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t mind if he picked up  the pace just a bit). His Doctors and Nurses are doing a fantastic job of taking care of him while he is away from us. He was taken off the ventilator this past weekend and is now on a high flow cannula (tube that supplies oxygen in through the nose). He had been a 4 liters of oxygen and today they bumped him down to just 3 liters (they had previously brought him down to 3 but had to move him back to 4 because of some labored breathing). He is now breathing easier after a few extra days at 4 liters.

We have had to look at his situation almost as if he has one completely perfect healthy lung (right) and one lung born a bit premature (left). This has given us a good mental idea of the recovery that it is taking for his left lung to catch up. The past two days his breathing has been fantastic and this makes us feel better. It has been easier to see his progress over the past couple of days.

He is also taking on more nourishment. If all continues to go well he will be on a continuous drip of milk that will equate to 2 ounces every 3 hours by lunch on Friday. Then at some point over the weekend or early next week he will get to learn the sensation of hunger and more of a bulk feeding, his current feeding is almost like grazing all day long. The steps that they are taking are to make sure that he doesn’t have any major reflux, which is common in Diaphragmatic Hernia patients, and to get his body used processing a full belly worth of food.

With the onset of flu season, Children’s Memorial Hospital (CMH) has limited who can visit patients. One of these is that no one under the age of 18 is allowed to visit patients. This means that Sarai hasn’t had the opportunity to really see her new brother… until today. One way that CMH has assisted families whose patients have siblings is by using web cam technology to connect patients with their siblings who are at home. Sarai was able to talk to and watch Jadon as he was sleeping in his bed. Even saying, “Mommy, make him open his eyes.”

If Jadon can continue to keep his breathing to a slower rate, they will continue to work him off of the cannula and after full feedings on the continuous we can begin a more normal feeding schedule. There are still quite a few little hurdles to cross before we can bring him home but we are hoping that the finish line can be reached sometime around Thanksgiving (wouldn’t that just add new meaning to that day for us). Everyone is impressed with his progress, so it is hard to be disappointed when it is slower than we want.

God is good and continues to give us strength. He continues to bring healing to my son. Soon we will all be at home together, as we should be, but until then Jadon is where he needs to be so that when he comes home he can stay home. Thank you for your continued prayers on our behalf.

The First 10 days

They say that rarely are two kids ever exactly alike. So far our two precious babies have been about as different as could be.

Sarai was born a little early, lost about a pound and has hardly had a scratch since her birth. Jadon, well he, has been a slightly different matter.

Jadon came on time, gained weight slowly and had to have a hole in his diaphragm fixed. He is going to be such an adorable little boy, and I can’t wait to bring him home from the hospital. Since surgery, Jadon has made steady progress. He took a little while to give back his anesthesia, which caused his CO2 levels to go up a little bit, but once they figured out the delicate balance between sedation and pain meds (to keep him comfortable and resting in recovery) he has started to make progress.

Once this balance was achieved his blood gas levels have looked great and they have started to slowly wean him off the ventilator. During this process they have also slowly weaned him off of the “heavier” meds and are now only using Tylenol for pain. On Thursday they started him on a slow drip of breast  milk (1 ounce every 3o hours) and have since doubled that.

The current plan has the ventilator to be removed today (Saturday, November 14) and for Jadon to begin nursing sometime early next week. This will be the last of the hurdles to clear before he can come home.  His lungs sound good, his bowels are moving properly (I am sure that you all wanted to know that) and he is showing that he can gain weight.

As far as Sarai, she has enjoyed her time with her Grandma, Grandpa, Nana and Papa (I am sure that we will have to break her of all the spoiling when they go home, but we DO APPRECIATE all the help they have given).  She has picked out a book a day for us to take to the hospital to read to Jadon. She even prayed last night for Jadon to come home because, “I miss him,” she said.

We are doing far better than we think we should be for all that has gone on in our world in the past month. It can be so hard to allow people to serve you when you have been so wired to serve others. God has shown us His love for us through the selfless acts of others. From Andy and Misty coming over to watch Sarai for us to go to the hospital and deliver Sarai (even taking time off to make sure she had someone to watch her all day, what great friends), to Tim and Mary Beth Babcock who have watch Sarai and helped orchestrate meals from friends and to all of those who have prayed (we’ve felt them), called, texted, emailed and asked.

We have felt the love of others and can hardly express in words what it has meant to us over the past 1o days. Our little boy is getting better and should be coming home soon. Thank you so much for how you have served us.

Jadon Redux

Eskai and I are of the type that choose to be surprised on our Delivery Day. So we went to the hospital armed with our hospital bags and a couple of names, not knowing which we would be having. The girl name we had chosen was Eliana Paige and as you probably know by now our boy name is Jadon Michael. Liking names with some meaning, Eliana means “God has answered” and Jadon means “Jehovah has heard.” (On a side note, his older sister’s name means “quarrelsome” and sometimes that name fits.)

I know that in the past week, since Jadon was born, Jehovah has indeed heard many prayers lifted on his behalf. I want to thank those of you who have prayed for us, for we have truly felt your love and support from wherever you may be.

On Monday, November 9 Jadon had surgery to repair his diaphragmatic hernia. His pre-operation x-ray was quite impressive as most of his intestines had found themselves in his left chest cavity. In a little over an hour, Dr. Kathy Barsness and her team had everything back in its place and Jadon resting comfortably in his spot in the NICU at Children’s Memorial in Chicago.

The hernia was able to be fixed with a few sutures, that will be with him for life, but as Dr. Barsness was finishing up the surgery she noticed that the diaphragm had pulled away from the rib cage in one spot. At this spot she used a small piece of Gore-tex to patch the hole. In her opinion Jadon only has about a 5% chance of the hernia recurring later in life. Even by the end of the surgery you could see the lung filling in the space. Dr. Barsness took pictures at several points during the surgery to show us what she did and how things look on the inside.

Everyone is happy with how Jadon came through the surgery. Now it is just a matter of time before he comes off the anesthesia and they get his meds balanced for comfort and recovery. He is still on the ventilator but will hopefully be weaned from that soon and then progress on to eating “real” food.

He has done so well so far. We feel very blessed to know that so many are praying for Jadon and our family and know that he will be making a full recovery real soon.

Jadon Michael Foster

I know that many of you already know all of this but here is the full story.

This has been quite a week in the Foster Family. On Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 4:37pm my son Jadon Michael Foster joined our family. Shortly, after his birth the nurses were having trouble getting his feet and legs to pink up (they were staying blue). The nurses began to listen to his heart and one side of his chest sounded quite differently than the other. At Lake Forest Hospital they have a member of the Children’s Memorial Hospital staff in Chicago who is available just for times like this. They took Jadon in for an X-ray and in a matter of an hour they diagnosed him with a Diaphragmatic Hernia.

Now before you go running off to Google Diaphragmatic Hernia (DH), you need to know that most of the issues a typical DH patient has are not seen in him. A Diaphragmatic Hernia is a hole in the diaphragm that has allowed some of the intestines to move into the chest cavity. This has caused there  to be greater pressure on his heart and lungs. They started supplementing him with oxygen and having him on a ventilator. They are using the ventilator to pretty much keep the stress off of his system.  Over the past couple of days they have been able to drop the oxygen from 23% to 21% (the same amount of oxygen that we breathe normally) and the ventilator is only set to 20 breaths per minute, down from 35. The nurses describe what he is doing as breathing “above” the ventilator, essentially the ventilator is cruise control for his breathing.

The doctors and nurses are amazed at how stable and normal he is for a DH patient. We have been able to hold him, and we have gone to see him everyday. Jadon’s neonatologist, Dr. Collins, gave him a score of 9 out of 10, and his surgeon, Dr. Barsness said that his only limitation may be that he probably won’t climb Mt. Everest or be an Olympic marathoner. Besides this hole in his diaphragm Jadon, he is a completely healthy baby boy.

They have been in no rush getting Jadon to the OR. The hernia (hole in the diaphragm) is the least of his problems and the intestines in his chest cavity are only an issue because they are putting pressure on his heart and lungs.  They want the pressure in his heart and lungs to be as low as possible and they are very happy with his progress. We are scheduled for surgery sometime on Monday, November 9.

After surgery the first step will be to get him off the ventilator, Dr. Barsness doesn’t see this taking too long with the way his vitals are looking. Once he is off the ventilator they will start feeding him through a tube and then eventually feed him from the bottle / breast. Once he has shown that his bowels are working correctly and that he is eating and gaining weight (all the stuff that they would expect him to do when he is at home).

Best case scenario is that he will be home in a week, but our goal is to have him home before Thanksgiving (I do need my boy at home to watch Thanksgiving day football).

We ask for your continued prayers for Jadon’s surgery and recovery. Eskai and I are doing well, though we’d rather have Jadon at home. Sarai is adjusting pretty well to the thought of having a baby brother (though she probably wanted a baby sister). It is still odd thinking that we are now a family of four and soon we will be all under one roof.

Thank you for your prayers and we will try to keep everyone updated after surgery and through recovery.

Life is in the small talk

How many of us are scared to share our faith because we don’t have “the speech” memorized? Who knows we might say something stupid, say the wrong thing or forget a large portion of what we are “supposed” to say?

I’ll admit, not feeling good about “the speech” has kept me from talking to others about Jesus. My other fear is often that I am trying to manipulate them or give them some sort of robotic, contrived speech, neither of which is generally helpful in the conversion process.

So how do we go from manipulation to nudging people towards Jesus?

Small talk.

You might be thinking, what? Yep, that is right small talk. The “white noise” of conversation. All the talk about the weather, the kids, the bills, the game are important foundational stones that may lead to later conversations about “ultimate” sorts of things like faith.

We have placed to much emphasis on the “initial” (introductions, etc.) and “ultimate” (faith and salvation) conversations that we have left out the middle ground where people determine if we are “safe” enough to trust us with the “ultimate” conversation. We have made our God conversations about holiness and avoiding sin that people don’t think that God cares about their everyday, and who wants to worship a God that doesn’t care (I’m guessing nobody). When we rush to the “ultimate” conversation, we communicate to others that we don’t care about the details of their life, and people get the clues about Jesus from those who claim to follow and worship Jesus.

Here’s a couple of things that we can do:

1. Ask Questions- Jesus continually puts the attention on others by asking them questions. The Gospels never present Jesus as a guru who has all the answers. Maybe we should try giving fewer answers and asking more well placed questions.
2. Make small talk- Not every conversation has to convey useful and important conversation. Neither should we become meaning addicts, seeking information in every verbal exchange. Enjoy the conversation for the sake of the conversation. Realize that because you took the time to engage in small talk today, you might have the opportunity to help them with faith issues later.
3. Practice normal talk- Too often we say things that could be considered “insider” language. Use normal English when you talk to others about your life. Your “daily walk” doesn’t describe your devotional life to someone who is far from God, to them it sounds like your exercise regimen.
4. Say “Wow!”- If someone you are talking to says something shocking and you don’t know what to say, say “Wow!” This will give you a chance to collect your thoughts before saying something potentially offensive, and who doesn’t like hearing someone say “Wow!” after something they have said. It’s like saying, “Tell me more.” Try that next time one of God’s missing children shakes your worldview.

Don’t rush past the small talk. Life is in the small talk.

Momentology

You might be thinking that I am starting the newest Hollywood fad religion, but nothing could be further from the truth. We tend to live for the big moments, the mountain top experiences. If this is how we live, then we miss out on so much. We miss out on the small, normal, ordinary events of our life. If everything was extraordinary, then nothing would be extraordinary, and to truly appreciate the extraordinary we need milk the ordinary for all its worth. Momentology is making a big deal out of moments one experiences in life, not just the big ones but the ordinary ones as well.

Jim Henderson wrote this in his book a.k.a. “Lost,”

When you can notice God in your own life, it’s easier to recognize Him in someone else’s. If you can make a big deal out of the small stuff in your life, it will be more natural for you to do the same for others.

We live in this world that celebrates the celebrity and believes that unless you are supernaturally gifted you can’t accomplish much. Do you want to know how things get done? They get done because normal, ordinary people do what they normally, ordinarily do. They put in the work, the time, the effort to accomplish the tasks that need to be done.

The beautiful thing is that it isn’t our job to bring people to salvation. God does the saving; we do simple ordinary things to nudge people closer to relationship with Him.

What can you do today? Seize the moments God gives us to be ordinary for Him.

Are you tired?

Sunday morning I was to bring our bulletins/programs for the week. It was about 9:15 when I realized that they were at home. Frustrated with myself, I jumped in the car and drove back to the house to get them. I was going to miss our weekly prayer time and the chance to hang out with some of my favorite people. As I turned north on Almond Rd. to head towards the house Galatians 6:9 stuck in my head. Here is what it says:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Just a piece of encouragement for you today. I am still feeling a bit weary, but I do not plan on giving up. We have a harvest to reap. “Father, use me to bring the missing back home to You.”