Please Pray!

Hello from Thailand! I (Jen) just arrived here yesterday to help with a conference for TCKs (Third Culture Kids) that are about to graduate high school, to help prepare them for the upcoming transition. Thanks for praying this week that we are able to connect with the students in a real way. Please pray as well for Mikayla at summer camp and Steve and the boys as they travel into the mountains to visit the village where I grew up; we want to see if they are interested in partnering with us to reach the Agta. And please be in prayer for our family as we are apart this month. Steve and the kids will travel home on the 7th, and I will be home on the 15th.

We also have another big prayer request to share with you. On the way to our meetings last week, we stopped in Manila to see a hand specialist about my wrist. I injured it in April and have been wearing an immobilizing wrist brace for 3 1/2 months now, but it has not improved. The specialist is the top one in Manila, and he said that the tendon that holds my 2 wrist bones together was severed, causing the bones to separate. He described a surgery to repair it that involves harvesting a tendon from my arm, drilling holes in both bones, then threading the tendon through and around the bones to reconnect them. However, this hand specialist has only done this extensive procedure once, so that made us a little nervous. We emailed our medical department in the States, and they agreed that I need to have it looked at by somene else. So I will be traveling to Singapore after my conference here in Thailand to see a doctor there. Please pray that the details for this last-minute trip come together and that the doctor would have some experience with this very rare injury. Also, if this doctor recommends the same procedure, pray for wisdom to know where and when to have it done and what to do with the kids during that time. The recovery that the Manila doctor described involved a cast up to my shoulder with a wire through the bones that keeps my palm facing up and immobile for 6 weeks, followed by 6 weeks of physical therapy. We appreciate your prayers during this uncertain time. We are staying encouraged and resting in the fact that God is in control, but there are a lot of unknowns out there right now. We are praying that this medical situation will not take us away from our location for any longer than is necessary. Please pray with us.