Ministry Updates:
Dear Praying Friends,
Thank you for your prayers yesterday for our anniversary service. The Lord blessed and in spite of a few problems with our sound system everything went smoothly. We had set a goal of 150 and had a total of 175 present. Twenty-two of them were deaf adults. Our newly renovated building was completely full. We had special music by our youth choir, children´s choir, our family and the Schepers family, and did some special presentations to express our appreciation to several Dominican families for their support since the beginning of our ministry.
We administered Stephen´s chemo today in his port and will be going back in the morning to have his spinal tap done. We appreciate your continued prayers for him.
Sincerely,
Joshua Wesson
February 2010 Newsletter
We appreciate the e-mails, phone calls, and letters letting us know that you are praying with us about the needs we mentioned in our last prayer letter.
On a very short notice, the Lord sent us some help for our construction project. Matt Caldwell and Errol Kandell came down from Grace Baptist Church in Sulphur, LA and in a short time helped us accomplish a large part of our remodeling project. We have knocked out a wall to amplify the auditorium, raised another wall, built a baptistery and platform, added a ladies’ restroom and a large storage room, and are having a metal roof put on the auditorium. Our people are excited. We hope to have the renovations done by our 3rd anniversary service on March 7.
The earthquake in Haiti has directly affected those of us living in the Dominican. Many of the Haitians living here have lost relatives. There has been a great effort made on the part of the missionaries to help in relief efforts. We as a church have been able to gather supplies to send. This last week five other men and I were able to make a trip into Port-au-Prince to help Missionary Brandon Jordan bring supplies to his people
We are excited to see what the Lord is doing in our church. This last month, Nanci, Luci, Sebastian, and Derek, all followed the Lord in believer´s baptism. Our theme for this year is ¨Marching together leaving footprints¨. (It sounds a little better in Spanish.) It is our goal to see our people more unified in the work of the ministry. Thank the Lord we have seen them stepping forward in some new areas of the ministry.
We are still working on getting a vehicle to bring down for our church. At the same time, we are praying the Lord will provide for a vehicle for our family. Our truck has been in the shop 3 out of the past four weeks. This last time it cost us almost $2,000 to get it going again. It has been a good vehicle for the last ten years, but since it is our only vehicle we are looking into getting a 15 passenger van for our family that we can use for picking up people for church as well. Please pray with us about that need.
Also, please remember Stephen in prayer as he has a spinal tap due to be done on March 8th. Lord-willing, two years from the end of February he will be off of treatment and considered “cured”.
Joshua and Joy Wesson and family
josh@wessons.net
December 2009 Newsletter
As we have been celebrating the joys of the Christmas season, we also want to wish you a very Merry Christmas. For us this Christmas has already been a wonderful time, even though we have not yet celebrated Christmas Day. We are so thankful for God’s goodness to us. We are very glad that Stephen’s health continues to be stable, and that we are also back home enjoying a Caribbean Christmas.
We have had so many things going on we have hardly been able to see straight. We had a wonderful time with our deaf emphasis month. We reached a large number of new deaf and had a high day of 46 deaf during that time. That was also a record day for our church; we had 125 in attendance that Sunday morning. Many of the new deaf have already become very faithful and have shown a lot of interest. Bro. Abe Hanson was a tremendous blessing; the deaf did not want him to leave. His brother, Josiah, was also a wonderful asset to have during that time.
We want to thank all of you that have been praying for Stephen as we adjust to his treatments down here in the Dominican. All of them have gone very well. He just had his spinal tap that he has to have every three months, and everything went fine. Lord-willing, we will be able to continue all of his treatments here.
Since we have been back we have begun calculating the next step for our church as far as space and property. At our present rate of raising funds for our property, we are going to have to spend at least another three years at our present location. Therefore, we are going to have to make some temporary renovations so that the church will be able to continue to grow as we raise the funds. Over the last five months our church has given around $2,000.00 US. We will probably need around another $6,000.00 to provide sufficient space for the next few years. This will over double the seating capacity of our auditorium and also give us a very large classroom besides some other much needed changes. We will be able to take with us much of the materials used for these renovations when we purchase our own property. Pray the Lord will meet these present needs.
We want to ask you to pray with us also about our project of bringing down a vehicle to the Dominican for picking up our people for church. Our vehicles are packed to max capacity for most of our services. We have the possibility of bringing in a bus, but with taxes being so high on importing this type of vehicle, we are looking into another option of bringing down a used van instead. Pray that the Lord will give us direction and wisdom as we need to make a decision in the next few weeks.
We just wanted to thank you for praying for Stephen today. Everything went well and he seems to be feeling good tonight. He only experienced a little pain during the administering of the local anesthetic, but after they got him “numbed” he didn’t feel the spinal tap being done. After the spinal tap, we cautiously administered the chemo ourselves in his port and took blood samples. We were pleased with the over-all care he received and feel comfortable doing the procedure again in this way the next time (next March).
We appreciate the kind e-mails and calls we received letting us know you would be praying for us today. It is a comfort to our hearts to know that you are praying with us and that our Heavenly Father has us in His care.
We have been back in the Dominican Republic for about four weeks now. It is SO nice to be home again! Stephen seems to be doing fine. We have done one chemo treatment so far in the clinic here. The nurses here are not trained to access his port, so I will be administering his chemo through his port and taking his blood samples each month. We would like to ask special prayer for him this Monday, December 14, as he will be undergoing his first spinal tap here. We have consulted with the doctor to plan our course of action and have everything set up to do the procedure on Monday in the office. It will be done without the same type of sedation he is accustomed to having. It will be done with local anesthetic only as opposed to sedating him. Weighing out the options, we are going to try this route and we trust he will not have a great deal of discomfort. We appreciate your continued prayers for his health and wisdom on our part as we do our very best to care for him.
As I write this update we are returning to Oklahoma City from Branson MO where we have just enjoyed a fabulous week of family fun! The Wishing Well Foundation of Louisiana wanted to do something special for Stephen and in doing so, they sponsored our whole family to take him on a trip to Branson to see some real cowboys and stay in a real log cabin!! He had the time of his life (we all did), and we are so very grateful to the kind people who gave to provide us with such sweet memories and wholesome fun! Thought you might enjoy seeing a few of our favorite pics! By the way, Stephen continues to do very well. He begins his 2nd cycle of maintenance with a spinal tap one week from today. Thank you for continuing to pray for him.
Roy Rogers Jr, Grandson-Dustin, & Stephen
We thank the Lord that Stephen has finally made it to “maintenance”. He has come through the roughest part of his chemo and is now in the final stage ( and the longest stage) which will last for 2 ½ years. The doctors in Houston have transferred us to a doctor in Oklahoma City where we continue to do his treatments. He is still on quite a regimen of medicines, but handles most of them pretty well. He has days when he is weaker than others, but as a whole he is doing okay. His hair is starting to grow back; people tell him it may come back in curly---he says if it does, he wants to shave it again! We ask for your continued prayer for him as he still has side effects with the many medicines he is on i.e. leg pain, jaw pain, stomach discomfort…etc.
Also, please pray for me as I am planning to travel to the Dominican for a few days this month. I will be meeting with the Oncologist and touring the facility where he will be treated in hopes of gaining useful insight as to how we can be most prepared for continuing his treatments there.
Dear friends and family,
As the saying goes “No news is good news.” It has been over a month since we have sent an update. I feel bad that we have not sent out a simple note to let you know that your prayers are being heard. We appreciate greatly your faithful prayers for us and for Stephen.
We thank the Lord for how well that Stephen has done in this phase of his treatment. He just finished the last treatment of this phase last Thursday. The doctor said that this was a fairly easy stage and that he should not have any trouble. Praise the Lord!
We are getting ready to start his fourth stage of treatment on April 27th. This is called Delayed intensification. As the name indicates this is a harder and more intense phase that will take his blood counts down again and likely take his immune system down to 0. Please pray that the Lord will give him strength through this time. I will last about two months. We are looking as this as his last BIG hurdle to go over, because his last phase of maintenance will be easier than all of the others(as far as the dose of chemotherapy that he receives).
My trip to the Dominican went very well. We were able to take care of many things in our house and at the church. We also made the initial contacts with some doctors about Stephen’s future treatments there. We came back and gave the information to the doctors in Houston so that they can further investigate to see if his treatments will be possible without too much risk.
Please also continue to pray for Ashlyn and Katlyn as we try to keep them well so that they don’t give anything to Stephen. It seems that it is more difficult with the smaller ones.
Thank you for your prayers we depend on them.