Martins' Memos |
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| Duncanville | Texas, USA |
April 2011 |
How quickly events and circumstances can change! Although we’ve been able to communicate the events of the past 7 weeks with many of you by email, those who only receive our printed letters may be shocked to learn that Lenore had major surgery on February 28th to remove her colon (total colectomy) due to cancer. A routine blood test in January – done partly in anticipation of going to PNG in June - revealed that she was very anemic, so her doctor urged her to have a colonoscopy. The colonoscopy revealed two “masses” in her colon, both of which were later confirmed to be cancer. One mass was a stage 1 cancer (confined to the colon); the other was a stage 3 cancer (with some spread to surrounding lymph nodes), and the source of her anemia. We praise the Lord that a CT Scan showed no spread of the cancer to major organs.
27 March 2011 – a month after surgery.
It has now been four weeks since her surgery and she is recovering very well. After two weeks of a mostly soft (low-residue) diet, she is now able to eat nearly everything she wants and her bowel function is back to almost normal. Thankfully, the surgery did not require a colostomy (external bag) but the surgeon internally connected her small intestine directly to the rectum. Amazing! The surgery was done by Dr. Roberto Rodriguez utilizing laparoscopic techniques – resulting in a faster recovery time (four days in the hospital).
Since one of the masses was a stage 3 cancer, Lenore will need to have about 6 months of chemotherapy to eradicate any rogue cancer cells that might remain in her system. We were much encouraged to hear the oncologist say that her cancer is “totally curable.” She will begin chemotherapy in a few weeks once she completely heals from surgery and gets her blood iron back to normal.
We cannot adequately express how grateful we are for your prayers. Even if you did not know what was happening, we thank the Lord for motivating you to pray regularly for us. Our many years on the mission field have taught us that the Lord can motivate people to pray even though they are unaware that we might be going through a crisis situation and have no opportunity to inform them of our need for urgent prayer. Prayer does make a difference! In fact, we have been overwhelmed by expressions of love and concern from all over the globe. Lenore describes the response as a “flood of love”!
Since Lenore will be undergoing chemotherapy until about October, we have postponed our plans to visit PNG until sometime next year. Please continue to pray for Charles Kowak and the 15 Manus people who were planning on attending the Adapt It workshop this June, that they will be encouraged to continue their Bible translation work. We know that God does not make mistakes, and so we are confident He will use this time to better prepare His servants who are trusting in Him. We know that, without a doubt, He has used the past two months to draw us closer to Him.
Not long after we heard of Lenore’s cancer diagnosis, the Lord cheered our hearts with news from Jason and Anne that we would become grandparents in October! The arrival of our first grandchild should coincide with the completion of Lenore’s chemotherapy – two events we can really look forward to!
Joel and Rebecca have returned from their latest ministry trip to Africa. From all accounts they had a wonderful experience there. Joel spent two weeks in Kenya helping the Africa International University with some IT needs.
Rebecca worked on the practical implementation of her capstone project for her Doctorate of Nursing Practice, both in Kenya and in Ethiopia. She is on track to graduate from Baylor University with her doctorate in just two months!
It was almost midnight in Dallas when we received word of the 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan on March 11th, and the resulting tsunami that started out across the Pacific Ocean. Knowing that there is nothing but 3,000 miles of open ocean between Japan’s east coast and Manus Island, we immediately began praying for all the people of Manus Island, and other coastal areas of PNG where many villages reside only inches above the normal high tide level. As the predicted tsunami approached Manus and PNG we sent an urgent email to a family at our main translation center in PNG whom we knew could contact national translator Charles Kowak by cell phone 300 miles away out on Manus Island – asking them to warn Charles of the potentially disastrous waves and tidal surges that were predicted to strike that area in the middle of the night (7 hours after the quake struck Japan). We were relieved to get an email message back a few minutes later saying that they had successfully contacted Charles. Fortunately, he and his family had heard the tsunami alert via the provincial radio station, and together with thousands of other villagers, they all fled inland to higher ground.
Later we heard from Charles that many people were so afraid that they built temporary bush shelters in the jungle-covered mountains and did not return to their village homes for several days. Fortunately, the Lord spared the south Pacific areas from widespread destruction. Manus Island experienced a tsunami of only 3-6 feet. Charles says that his own village was flooded for about a quarter mile inland, but that little damage was done. It was probably low tide when the tsunami struck and most houses are up at least 5 feet high on posts – only minor damage and no life lost. Praise the Lord for his protection!
Since Lenore’s surgery I have functioned as her primary care giver. As she has regained her strength, I’ve been able to devote more time working on version 6 of Adapt It. We are still planning for its release in the next few weeks. The changes and new features of version 6 will make the program easier to use and translators more productive.
We are so grateful for the loving prayers and sacrificial gifts our partnership team has made to keep our ministry productive. Although we have health insurance coverage, we expect our part of the cost of Lenore’s surgery and upcoming chemotherapy to be significant. We are asking the Lord to provide for those extra expenses, and to enable us to be more productive than ever in our ministry of Bible translation. Gifts for our ministry during the past 12 months have averaged about 94% of what our mission determines should be our basic ministry budget. We praise the Lord for motivating each one of you to share with us from what the Lord himself has given you through his abundant grace.
| Gratefully serving together in Him! |
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“And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause. (2 Corinthians 9:8).
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