John Mark our Gift from God

These past few months have been quite an emotional roller coaster ride. I have never walked down a road such as this one, but all I can say is that I am thankful God is my Rock!

Deuteronomy 32:3-4

3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! 4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. 

We arrived  back in Chile mid June for our second term and had been dealing with the transition to the capital city. August rolls around and we were just getting into the swing of things with student ministry, when all of a sudden our worlds were turned upside down. 

August 28th we went in for a 20 week sonogram to find out the gender of our baby and found out more than we wanted to know. The doctors detected that our baby boy had swelling in his brain due to cerebral spinal fluid build up, a condition also know as hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus can be life threatening and can cause brain damage depending on the amount of swelling.This news was very hard to handle because Josh had a brother with severe hydrocephalus and this is what automatically came to mind. There was really nothing we could do but pray and wait because this can’t be treated until after the baby is born. This meant he would have major brain surgery where a shunt would be placed to relieve the liquid. All we were told was to wait and see how this progressed through out the pregnancy. 

At this point we had kind of decided on a name for our son, so we felt like we had to make a decision to begin praying for him. So we chose the name we had both most recently agreed on, a strong biblical name, John Mark. A few days later after we had received the news I decided to look up the meaning of John Mark which to my surprise “John” means God is gracious and “Mark” means warrior-like, a fighter. The name sounded very appropriate for our precious son, our gift from God.

So we prayed and so many prayed with us. We had a couple more sonograms after wards indicating that the swelling was not increasing. Just as we were beginning to get a good grasp of the situation things took another unexpected turn.

Thursday we went in for another sonogram and the doctor now believes that there is a high probability that John Mark has holoprosencephaly. Big word, right? It basically means that the brain did not divide right when developing so it is fused together instead of having a clear dividing line between the right and left hemispheres. The hydrocephalus that had been detected earlier is now a secondary issue. We will do an amniocentesis on Oct 2 to determine whether this is a result of a chromosome defect, and if so this is "incompatible with life".  Most babies don't make it to term and if they do they only live days. There is no way to treat this condition, therefore there is no intervention and the shunt would no longer be an option. 70% of babies that have this condition is a result of a chromosome defect, but there are cases where it is not and there is more hope for life. Please pray for 1)that the amnio reveals that it is not chromosome related 2)that the diagnosis is wrong, the doctor can't guarantee us anything and 3) for a miracle. 

In one of our desperate efforts we contacted a pediatric neurosurgeon from Boston who has agreed to review our case. As a matter of fact he has seen images of our most recent sonogram and is not convinced with the recent diagnosis. So 4)pray that this is so! He has requested we send his medical team more images for review. 

As you can see this has been an emotional ride and we have a lot of waiting to do. We need your prayers. There is so much uncertainty, but one thing is constant and that is the Lord in our lives. He is our refuge during this battle! We know He is good and He will fulfill His purpose through John Mark!

Isaiah 61:1-2

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. 

Below is a 21 week 3D sonogram pic of John Mark. He is so perfect and beautiful. As a matter a fact John Mark doesn't present any other typical malformations that accompany any of these conditions. We truly believe he is in God's hands!

Psalm 139:13-16

You, Lord, have made all the delicate, inner parts of my body,  You fabricated them in my mother's womb. I praise you for making me so wonderfully. I marvel at your workmanship. You were there while I was being formed in seclusion! You saw my substance while it was yet imperfect, and you registered in a book all my members and the days of their development. You recorded this even before my members were formed.