Deeper

This weekend Earl & I went to a Young Adult's Retreat called "Deeper" with a bunch of awesome people from Calvary Temple. We were at the Calvary Temple Camp at Red Rock Lake in the Whiteshell. This is us enjoying the sun and doing some canoeing. I hadn't been on a canoe in 3 years and loved it-even though Earl did a lot of the work. :)
The last 2 weeks have been intense. The tumor in my left leg has grown tremendously. When we left Redding, it was really small and we were super excited about how it had gotten so much smaller while we were there. Within about a week of coming home it felt about 4 times bigger. That is completely insane-it hardly seems possible. The tumor is so large now, that it is causing a lot of pain-especially nerve pain at night.

Earl & I are desperate and so hungry. We are pursuing healing at all costs. Therefore we've started to focus on inner healing. We're starting to understand the importance of that. Everyone has wounds and lies that for whatever reason, they have grown up believing. It's so amazing when you go through the lies that satan has tried to deceive you in, and find the truth, how freeing it is. All of us have opened up doors where we have allowed satan to come in and deceive. When we shut those doors and command satan and his lies to leave, not only does inner healing happen, but now physical healing also has a chance to happen. That is something that we are going through and learning. As much as it's hard-it's totally worth it.

This last weekend was totally amazing. The friends that we've made through Beyond and who were at the retreat, are so encouraging. Saturday night, one of my friends went up to a bunch of people and invited them to come and pray for me. I truly don't know how many people came up and surrounded me, probably about 15-20. They were crying out to God and asking the Holy Spirit to heal. I felt so loved-I know the only way I'm healed is through God doing a healing miracle. Here my friends were agreeing and believing with me for that miracle. The thing is, about half of the people I had never met before and some of them, I still don't know their names! After praying and praising God for a long time, the Holy Spirit revealed to one of my friends the strategy that He wanted to use for me to be healed. She was reminded of the passage in the Bible where Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he asks his disciples to pray for Him. When He comes back to His disciples, who are asleep, He asks them if they could not even stay awake for just one hour? Matthew 26:40 My friend felt that the Holy Spirit was saying a similar thing-Could we not pray for just one hour? Even more specifically, she felt people needed to pray in tongues for one hour every day, until total healing happened!


So immediately my friends look at their watches and start praying. I lay on the floor cause it was about midnight. A bunch of them lay on the floor, put their hands out and started praying. How beautiful-what love! An hour later we went to bed and the next morning from 8-9 the same thing happened. These friends have committed to this until healing happens. For those that are able, we are going to try and meet once a week to stay accountable. Our friend asked that we post this strategy on our blog so that everyone who wants to can join us. Gladly email us with questions.

God is so good. Yes, the pain is bad, the tumors seem to be growing and I am constantly fighting fear and yet I know God wants to heal me and I've got a group of friends who are pressing in for me. The battle is being won-satan is being defeated!!

So this is where we are at. Thank you for understanding that this blog is like our journal. We are learning and growing and are using the blog to pour out our thoughts, feelings and experiences. We are not asking that everyone agree with what we are saying-we are just pouring out our thoughts. We do not in any way, want this to be a place where theological debates are held, but rather, a place where, if people want to, they can read about the lives of two people who are fighting through and defeating cancer. We want the blog to be a place of encouragement for everyone-where only encouraging, life-giving words are spoken by us and others. We love you all!

And just an encouraging side note, the back pain that I've been battling has been about non-existent since Saturday night since people were praying-God is so good and prayer works!!

Just a quick note to let you know that we're home and have been since Monday night!

We had an incredible time in Redding and are continuing to absorb all that we learned. How awesome to know that God is ALWAYS in a good mood, that He loves us more than we can fathom and that He wants to heal me even more than I want to be healed.

Over and over in the last months I've been told to rest and not strive-that I don't have to work for my healing. That's been hard for me because I've always been performance driven. Somehow I felt that if I read my Bible more, prayed more, just in general was more Christlike, then I would be healed. That somehow God was waiting to heal me until I reached a certain level of perfectionism. I had such a wonderful reminder of that again while we were in Bethel. I remember a couple of times people telling me while they were praying for me, "You don't have to pray, you just get to absorb." And so, while others prayed, I absorbed a lot of prayer, and Jesus did a wonderful work not just in my body but also deep inside. Instead of begging God to heal me, I have the privilege of asking for more of His presence and with His presence healing will come. For me that is so freeing!

I'm so thankful for what I'm learning and experiencing. Having a relationship with Jesus and learning to listen more to the Holy Spirit is so exciting!

Earl turned a quarter century last Sunday and so we celebrated with our families yesterday. Getting old is really rough on him as he's not feeling very good today. :)

Thanks once again for all your prayers while we were on our trip. We're so super grateful for the time we could spend out there and for what we could all learn.
Have a wonderful evening
Ramona

Fun story of the day.
While we were in the Healing rooms they called out a few conditions and gave those of us who were at the conference a chance to pray.
Ramona and Dawn (a friend of ours who is herself battling cystic fibrosis) have a chance to pray for a lady with a shoulder problem. As they are praying I can see them smiling and I can see this lady testing out her arm. When I go back to chat with Ramona a little while later, the lady they were praying for is actually up front giving her testimony of healing. She had pain in her right arm that disappeared.
Blessings,
Earl

God is good.
I think it's time to just write. No words will quite sum up what we're experiencing right now anyway.

Chris Gore (one of the pastors) has an incredible testimony. To sum it up, he has lead meetings where they have seen 35,000 miracles in 9 nights. He also has a daughter at home with cerebral palsy that he's obviously contending for. Last year at this same Healing conference, he was up with her the whole night while she was screaming in pain....then the next morning, he was speaking on the goodness of God. Wow!
We saw two pretty ridiculous things happen in Ramona's body. At two different times we were praying over the tumor in Ramona's left leg and felt some shrinkage. It's pretty fun to feel it soften up. Peter, a doctor from the UK was also there praying with us. It's awesome to have his affirmation of what is going on.
Also, we watched Ramona's legs change length. You may wonder what that has to do with healing cancer.....and so do we. Keith (third year student) came to us yesterday and asked if Ramona's legs were different lengths. Sure enough, they were. So, we prayed over them and then one grew. That was pretty fun. They changed, but they still weren't equal. Her body felt like it was lop sided the other way. Later on in the evening, we prayed again and her legs changed again!!!!!!
These are the testimonies we remind ourselves of as we fall asleep while battling for the pain in her back.
A ridiculous number of stories still untold.
Heading to the healing rooms now,
Earl

Yesterday we took a ride to the coast. My wet hand is as close as Ramona got to the ocean :) It was kinda cold and a bit of an awkward descent to the water

Okay, I know this picture didn't turn out to well. We drove hundreds of miles to see big trees...and we finally found them. It was a fun little date on our one day out here that doesn't have any thing planned.

The Bethel church is in the background. You can see the edge of the 24hr prayer house on the left

Ramona is cooling her feet in the Pool of Bethesda. (seen in picture above)

You know, it's alot easier for me to describe these pictures than to explain what's actually going on out here. I just mentioned to Ramona that if we won Lotto 649...it would only be another good part of the day.
On Sunday we were incredibly blessed. Bill Johnson spoke sunday morning and Kris Vallatton spoke Sunday night (both messages available at www.ibethel.tv) It was almost surreal. While Bill was speaking I kept catching myself looking at the screens instead of him...I was hardly used to him being real.
Ramona was prayed over after both services on Sunday. Both times were incredibly powerful and encouraging. The words spoken over her spoke so much.......life.
Today we both had sozo sessions. This isn't couselling, it's kinda like having a wise/spirit filled person guide you through the process of the Holy Spirit speaking to you and revealing things.....etc....
Again, powerful and freeing and....you're kinda left with this fun feeling afterward
We had coffee with Matthew this evening. He is the guy who prayer over Ramona Sunday morning after church. It again was just an incredible blessing. It really feels like tonight was simply a giant leap in our relationships with Jesus. There were so many words spoken over us tonight again. So many things spoken over us in the last few days....just line up....and speak to who God is and the incredible plans He has for us.
I've journalled about as much in the last five days as in the previous month and a half.
Tomorrow the Healing Conference begins. The feeling I get is that we haven't seen anything yet.
We've definitely seen some breakthrough in Ramona's body. Although the completion of her healing hasn't happened yet (last I checked...maybe I should quickly stick my hand under the blanket and find out), we can't help but have our faith sky rocket in this sort of an atmosphere. (The quote from Bill Johnson "A day without a miracle is just a boring day" is true)...
We're really blessed with peace
We realized again today how incredibly supported we've been these last three years...I again want to thank everyone for investing in our lives....
It's due to your financial gifts and prayers that we could ever come here.
to be continued......for a long time
-Earl

It's truly a pleasure being at Jacob and Lilly's house. (this is the picture that doesn't include Hannah Montana)
We were at the Healing Rooms this morning. It's unbelievable. I'm not sure how to describe it. Either you have experienced the presence of God or you haven't. Descriptive words by themselves don't feel like they will accomplish much. There is a much bigger expectation and peace for us being here a second time now. It's a lot of fun to be in such an atmosphere of.....joy. Although we didn't watch Ramona's hip grow out and cancer disappear right there. The understanding that God is good and loves to heal is....confirmed and solidified over and over. It's fun to hear testimonies of healing and watch people waving canes in the air instead of leaning on them

We went to Lake Shasta this afternoon as a family of 10 and took the ride to the Lake Shasta Caverns

Thanks so much for praying for us......

For now,
Earl

We kinda forgot to take pictures last time we were out in Redding...so we're being more intentional this time. This first picture is Ramona eating ice cream in Denver.

And... we're safely at Jacob and Lilly's house. It's time to sleep. We're going to Bethel's healing rooms in the morning.

Off To California!

A little update...
Earl & I had an awesome time at Beyond last Sunday-God's presence was super powerful!! Thanks to all of our awesome friends there who pray and pray and pray. We love you and appreciate you so much!! It's such an awesome thing to be surrounded by others who believe!
And so now our bags are about packed and tomorrow we're off to Redding, California. Earl & I are really excited to see what God's going to do there. We both expect big things. We're longing for huge spiritual growth as well as the cancer being eradicated!! Pray that the tumor pain that I'm experiencing now will not distract me too much. It's so hard not to fear when you have pain due to lung tumors and you know that if they get too large-you'll die. HOWEVER, I believe I will live and that God's got huge plans for our lives. Satan knows it and is just trying to give me fear.

And so that's that. We'll see how well we are with keeping you posted. :)

Ramona

I'm in one of these moods where if I don't watch myself....I'll just write endlessly...we just got back from an awesome time at Beyond......

...in my attempt to keep this business-like, I'll get to one of my points.
I was just going to mention that Ramona is not doing chemo this week. We're flying out to Redding on the 22nd and don't want Ramona's counts to be low while we're out there....

...Ramona is also mentioning that a good thing to pray for is her breathing/chest.....something just isn't quite right....

Be blessed and have a good night....

-Earl

We went to Kendra's funeral on Friday. It's always tough for me when someone passes away, but it's especially hard when it's someone who's battling the same thing I am.

Kendra was diagnosed with E-wing's Sarcoma about a year ago. We spent numerous hours together in the hospital receiving some of the same kinds of chemo. Kendra had a bubbly, happy spirit. She loved to talk!
Kendra and I were both going to beat this and one day we'd have a big reunion with all our other sarcoma buddies and introduce our families and very importantly, our babies.

The last time I saw Kendra was the day she was told that she was palliative. I told her not to believe it, just because the doctors think you're palliative, doesn't mean you're going to die. We both serve a God who's way bigger and does incredible miracles. Even though Kendra had just heard such horrible news minutes earlier, when she visited me she was her usual happy self. She kept saying, "God's got a plan. Either He's going to heal me on earth or He's going to heal me in heaven."

Well, she's in heaven now and a part of me is so jealous. Not one drop of chemo is ever going to touch her again. Right now she has no pain and is running around, having an amazing time.
Kendra, I guess our big reunion is going to happen in heaven someday where we can show off our new bodies and praise Jesus together.
It's going to be lonely in the hospital without you-I miss you
Much love,
Ramona

Well, it's quite a day to be posting. I don't even know where to start.
This morning we went to Cancer Care to talk to Dr. Wong about the CT scan that was done during the last round of chemo. There are two parts to the results. The first part is awesome. Ramona's right leg, the one that's been causing all the pain lately, shows a big liquid mess. Although, 'liquid mess' is not usually great news, the exciting part is that the CT shows that this liquid is not malignant. So...right now she's left with a big wound that definitely isn't fun....but at least there's nothing growing (I believe we refer to that as answered prayer!).
The lungs showed a dis coordinate (I think that's the word he used??? it started with dis...) response. The biggest tumors in the lungs shrunk, some tumors stayed the same and two small tumors in the lungs grew a bit (since February). There are no new tumors! So...I guess that is a high percentage of good news. The two small tumors that aren't responding to chemo may result in an adjustment to treatment plans (We talked about all kinds of options and will wait for Dr. Wong to talk to his people). Feel free to aim specific prayers at those two tumors.

This afternoon we heard that our friend Kendra is now hanging out with Jesus in heaven. (I haven't looked back to see if we've mentioned Kendra. She was fighting a sarcoma too.) I'm sure Kendra must love being in the pain free presence of Jesus. Lorlie, we're praying you have peace tonight. It's been a long battle for you guys.

I will admit, this makes me a little scared and little bit angry, and I'm really in the middle of processing everything. I don't know why Kendra was not healed, yet I refuse to believe that Jesus didn't want to heal her. Jesus taught us to pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" Remember, Kendra is now in heaven, which is awesome for her, but what about "on earth as it is in heaven".
Those of you who have ever played sports with me know that I get mad a little too easy. When I'm playing hockey, if I see some cocky guy get all excited when he scores a goal, I'd like nothing more than to stretch him out on the ice. If I'm watching TV, I get mad when the the team I'm cheering for doesn't win. I, for some reason, always think my team deserves to win.
I feel like I'm stuck watching Satan win. Jesus has come to "give us life to the full" and Satan has come to "steal, kill, and destroy". Excuse me, but Satan is not more powerful.....
I think I'll just leave my online processing there for now....

We received a gift a few months back, that I have not mentioned until now. We've received many gifts in the last few years and are thankful for them all, but this is neat. I love when people who are hungry to know God and know what He's doing help us out.
Thank you to Rick and Elaine and everyone else who contributed money to pay for our next trip to Redding, California. The weekend we spent in Redding in February was probably the three days of most accelerated spiritual growth of our lives. The teaching coming from there as well as the testimonies continue to be incredible (www.ibethel.org). We have our flights booked for May 22nd. Our stay will include a healing conference May 27,28, and 29th. We're really excited.

....I think it's time to give Ramona her needle. (Not fun for her) (What's with all these (ridiculous)brackets today?)

Ramona's also having alot of stomach discomfort that can be prayed for.

-Earl

Ramona's out of the hospital. I'll tell you all the things we're thankful for shortly. Right now, I'm thankful for a bed.
-Earl

A quick note from the St. B kiosk.
According to the time on Ramona's chemo pump there was 52 minutes left of chemo today. There will be a few little things to do after that and then we're heading home. Round number 20 is almost done.
Ramona has essentially slept through this round of chemo. She actually threw up today too. For some reason she's not feeling good. This, as well as her infected right leg, give a few specifics to pray for.
...time almost up...
-Earl

What a beautiful day. Ramona is here giving herself her IV antibiotics out on the deck. Taking this picture helped me to procrastinate studying for a few seconds (I learned in church that right brained people think best laying down...I think it's working). Tomorrow morning we're heading to St. B to have Ramona's platelets checked. We're a little suspicious that they're really low.

Here's Ramona with her new blanket. The credit for it goes to her Petkau family. Thanks

The easter egg in question is actually visible on this picture. Can you find it?

I think we're playing Buzzword here.
Ramona's leg is still her biggest source of pain.

Ramona is again at the point where her blood counts drop out. Hemoglobin is 90. We'll head in to Cancer Care tomorrow morning to get two units of blood. The white count is 0.2. This, again, essentially means that she has no immune system right now. If you were a nurse you would probably either tell Ramona to stay home or wear a mask or have any sick people around her wear a mask. Ramona is extremely tired today, hopefully she'll have energy by the weekend. We definitely plan on enjoying Easter.
-Earl

Okay, so we have some good news that we kind of forgot about, but while we were having coffee with Mark & Raelynn tonight we remembered, but I'll show you a bunch of random pictures first. This first picture is my view from the laptop now. Ramona is heating up the cheese sauce for our usual 10 p.m. 'meal'




This is us on Valentines Day. We're at Don Pedro's. I'm very glad the tumors are smaller now than they were then.

This is Ramona's fourth set of hair. It is now unfortunately in the garbage or clogging our sink. It actually disappeared a month ago already.

This is us at Celebrations in early January. Rick and Elaine took us here for our anniversary. I can't remember what Rick was wearing that night, this is either him or our server :)

Anyway, Ramona had a MUGA scan last week.
A quick re-cap of MUGA scans.
Three years ago when this all started, Ramona's heart had a 75%....fraction....thing...meaning her heart was healthy (if you're going to bother with a science degree, I would recommend learning a few scientific words). After a few rounds of chemo (three years ago), her fraction was down to 51% which is the very bottom of normal and indicates that heart damage had happened. So anyway, this apparently irreparable heart damage had improved in the last few scans (the scans have showed numbers in the upper 50's)
The scan last week showed her heart was at 61%! That's pretty ridiculous.

IV antibiotics should be starting for her leg tomorrow.
We'll also hopefully get Ramona's hemoglobin checked tomorrow so she can get fueled up for the weekend if needed.
-Earl

This is Ramona's leg. It could definitely use some prayer. It is apparent that chemotherapy does not aid the healing process of radiation wounds.

Um...Thursday afternoon Ramona was released from St. B. This last chemo round has been better than the previous two rounds. Although Ramona still has relatively little energy, she's up walking around and searching for bread in the freezer as I'm writing this.



I need to run to class,
Earl

So...I can't sleep. And instead of counting sheep I might as well post all the blog-ish thoughts that are going through my mind. For those of you who know me at all, it's fairly significant that I can't sleep. And, Ramona, I apologize that on the night when you're not home I'm wide awake in the middle of night, instead of my usual complete grogginess when you're in pain.
The reason I'm awake is likely one of two reasons. On the way to the hospital, Becki was with us (and is actually in the hospital with Ramona right now too) and I thought it would be wise to show her how dumb Ramona and I were while we were dating. So, we're taking a different route to the hospital to pick up our nachos from Carlos and Murphy's on the way. We stop at the parliament buildings on the way to do what we like to call "purple city". You would think I could come up with better dating ideas in this wonderful city of ours. Anyway, this involves first staring into the lights shining up at the parliament building for a minute or so...then just looking around at the city lights. As you might have guessed, the whole city looks purple.
As I'm noticing right now, the temporary thrill or purple lights seems to be overshadowed by this floating feeling I've had since.
The other reason I'm awake may be the absolutely amazing sermon I just got to listen to. It would be easiest to just post the link instead of explaining the sermon. Since I'm not sure how to do that, just go to the website http://www.ibethel.org/ . There are innumerable good sermons, but the one I just listened to was called Spoil! (All the youth that I was speaking with on Friday, this sermon would be the perfect addition to give you countless examples of how amazing God is).
We live in an amazing time, with such a wealth of information available. There is such revival going on world-wide. If you're ever discouraged with what's happening in your own life, there are countless stories online of what God is up to. The fact that you're reading this means you have access to it. For me, even doing something as simple as googling "sarcoma miracle prayer" gives me stories. The Bible is filled with miracles, but for myself, it's taken months of time just listening to other stories of what's happening in the world right now, to bring back my fascination for the Bible.
This Sunday morning, I heard a message including that Jesus' body was broken for our healing. Then Sunday evening I go to church and my friend who was ushering starts talking to me and telling me that the night before he was coughing blood and then he invited his friends over to pray and now he's in church ushering.
I still don't fully understand communion, but I knew that Jesus' blood was for the forgiveness of sins and his body was broken for....ya...maybe forgiveness too??? Jesus' body was broken for our healing, which includes physical healing. It's amazing to hear just a few accounts of the hundreds or thousands of healings that are happening here and around the world every week.

These last few weeks, were in some ways pretty tough. Ramona has had significantly less energy and the middle few days of this time away from the hospital were very pain filled days. Ramona had a transfusion a few days ago, which may have slightly improved her energy, but slight at best.
Interesting story from about a week ago that made for big encouragement in the tiredness.

I went to work one morning and, as often happens, there are new guys in my area (Teen Challenge guys rotate through there). So, I said my introductions to the guys I hadn't met and went to work. I was working outside by myself half an hour later when this new guy, Linden, comes to me with fresh recollection " Hey, I know you, you're the one from Beyond with the beautiful wife". Although I'm not used to the direct approach of my friend from the Bahamas, it sure is nice to meet another person who sees things the way I do. Anyway, I agree with him and he continues ".....the lady with the short haircut that looks like a model".
Anyway....eventually he got off the topic of how beautiful Ramona is and he began to talk about cancer. He began to tell me that two of his brothers had died of cancer and his dad had died of cancer. Cancer is a topic that we could relate to on some level.....but let me try to explain this correctly. This is the point of the conversation where I naturally was beginning to brace myself for what I knew was coming. I was expecting him to speak about our situation as if the inevitable doom was coming and he could empathize with me and all that kind of.....stuff.
Anyway, thank God, I was wrong. Like before, I can't remember his exact words but he told me that when saw Ramona he knew in his heart that she was going to live. This is awesome and very encouraging for us.
I wish we kept track of this from the beginning just how many times people have heard from God and it's been spoken over Ramona that she will live.

....I think I'm starting to get tired.

Ramona needs a miracle more than ever. Thanks so much for praying.
I really don't know how to sum up the presence of God...I'll just paste a little piece of an email I received.



Keep trusting in Jesus and hold onto His perfect promises over your lives! I understand it must be a time of great trial you are going through, but our precious Lord Jesus is there to comfort and sustain you through the very hardest of times...bringing hope and joy where there seems to be only despair and sadness. Jesus, we believe in Your power to heal and we declare Supernatural healing over Earl's wife today. Touch her with your mighty hand and breath life into her body! Nothing is impossible for You! There is Power in your precious Blood. May His Presence touch your very being today and fill you with peace as you trust in Him



ps. This email was written from a place where it's not unusual to see people raised from the dead

99,100. There we go, that's all the sheep, Good night,
Earl

There is an incredible amount of information that should be added to this blog. For now, thanks so much for being in this fight with us. Ramona is going in for chemo round number 19 tonight........