Prayer Requests

Hi friends and family!

As some of you know, we Vanden Bergs have been experiencing some difficulty as of late and I guess I decided it's time to let the rest of you know and boldly ask for your prayers.

First, Mark's mom was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer several weeks ago. She had a mastectomy and several lymph nodes removed, and she's had a few rounds of chemo so far, which are actually going a little better than we all expected. Her diabetes does complicate the situation sometimes but so far she's doing okay. We went to Sheldon to visit right after her surgery and we were supposed to go up again for Labor Day but she was in the hospital in "isolation" so we couldn't have seen her anyway so we didn't. We could have at least tried to visit, but everyone decided it would be best for Sean not to risk it (she had gotten a staph infection in her incision.) So anyway, that's our first prayer request. Mark and his siblings are handling the news amazingly well, but it's still a fairly stressful time for everyone.

Next, Mark was fired from his job at Principal about 3 weeks ago. His job was very closely related to the stock market, and when the market went a little "wonky" in August his team came under some stress. Unfortunately, although his boss liked working with Mark, he was on vacation that week and HIS boss really didn't like Mark and she fired him! She has been pretty critical of Mark in the past for things like not returning voice mails immediately and her biggest complaint this time was that he didn't respond to an email for 8 hours. Just a very extreme personality difference. Mark is too laid-back and easy-going for an boss like that, I guess, and sometimes he's not very good at defending himself. Mark is devestated of course and he's having kind of a rough time figuring out what to do next so we definitely need your prayers for that.

Third, both of my grandmothers have been having some health issues. My dad's mom was admitted to a nursing home after she fell and broke her foot and couldn't take care of herself and she's diabetic also and having some trouble adjusting to the new schedule there. She does seem pretty happy at the nursing home but it's 45 minutes away from my dad, which is kind of hard on him. My mom's mom is experiencing a lot of back pain and was in the hospital yesterday so they could give her some pain medication so she could get some rest. This is an ongoing issue that sounds very much like what's been going on with my hip/back and it makes me wonder if it's maybe a genetic thing. (My hip and back have been much improved with physical therpay, by the way.)

And finally, along with the lack of health insurance (which ended the day he was fired) and a sudden drop in income, we're also having some trouble with both of our vehicles. Mark's car has always been a.... let's say a "challenge" and although it can get you where you're going, it needs at least 3-4 hours to cool down before you can start it again! So it works well for long trips as long as you don't need to actually stop to get gas or run any errands or anything. :) And the van is just needing some regular repairs. So far we've spent $450 on a new water pump and the mechanic made it very clear we can't go more than another 1000-2000 miles without replacing the brakes, boots and rotors, which will be another $450. We felt terrible that we couldn't go visit Mark's mom last weekend but as it turns out we wouldn't have had a vehicle anyway! So now we're kind of stuck in Indianola until we can fix that stuff too. (On the plus side, the lack of vehicles is forcing us to walk almost everywhere, to school, to the library, to get some groceries, etc. so we're getting plenty of exercise!)

Anyway, I think that's it! I'm supposed to bring Sean in to the University for that blood test soon but that will have to wait until I can find a vehicle, but fortunately all 5 of us are very very healthy right now. Our dog Shadow seems to have some allergies but if that's the worst of our problems we can handle that!

Thanks in advance for your prayers and I will keep in touch! Have a great week!

In Christ,

Laurie