December 7, 2012
Has it Really Been A Year?
What a year it has been as it has blown by! We have had a blessed year in so many ways. In the first quarter of the year we were very involved and concerned about Dad's re-occurrence of cancer. After a number of meetings with doctors and planning he had surgery in April at Shands in Gainesville, FL while Jamie and I were on the mission trip to the Philippines. It seemed as though it went well though he took a while to recover in Gainesville. He lost down to about 153 pounds from well over 200 and had some really challenging days. But by the middle of May he was able to return home.He and his nurses and chauffeurs (Mom and Karen, Ginny the driver) made numerous trips back and forth to Shands and were treated like kings there.
He has two bags now since the cancer attacked his bladder and colon and he and Mom and Karen have made the adjustments to life with bags and he is doing well. Just in early December, he went back to his oncologist in Valdosta and was told he was strong enough to start back his chemo. He began the treatments again on December 5 and all is well so far! Mom has been amazing getting up every three hours since he came home in mid-May to dump his bags! she is truly one of my heroes in this endeavor!
Jamie and I were in the Philippines in April for my 56th birthday and a group of our Filipino friends carried us out to a wonderful dinner to wrap up a great trip. We were so pleased to see the progress at the Pao/Asingan church of Christ. It had grown from the 34 that we had baptized in 2011 to nearly 200 some Sundays! It was wonderful for Jamie to get to return to the Philippines for the first time in over 40 years! She was a great asset to the work as she fell in love with the children and the children loved her!
We had a wonderful summer that included the annual Palmer Reunion that Jamie and I were the hosts of for the third time. It was at Pickwick State Park and is always great to get to see many of our extended family members.
The church at Trenton continued to grow and now appoaches 80 on Sundays and just grows closer to one another each day. It is truly a blessed group to be a part of on the way to heaven. We have had 5 baptisms since August and they have been mostly as a result of studies begun by our members.
As fall approached we learned that Lousie and Dirt would have another child in April. A few months later we learned it would be a boy and that his name is Eli. He is slated to make his arrival in early April just before Jamie and I return to the Philippines for our annual mission trip. It is hard for me to believe it will be my 11th trip! What a blessing it will be to take pictures of Ellie and Eli to our friends in the Philippines.
Now as we move toward the end of another year, we look forward to being with the kids the week of Christmas and getting to see Mom and Dad again. I pray his chemo will be easy on him this time. As we look to the New Year, we have made reservations for another mission trip to the Philippines in April with brother Chris Gerber. We also have reservations for a cruise our children gave us slated for mid-march to the Bahamas. We will, Lord willing return from the cruise to be home a week and then go with our young people to Nashville for the Lads to Leaders Convention. After that in less than a month we'll head for the Philippines again, so as you can see, God is blessing us in so many ways.
