Good News from Montana

Among other vocal and motor tics, Jesse's Tourette's manifests itself with violent neck tics. His response to surgery has been one of Mayo's best to date. He is enjoying a 90% tic reduction and a significantly reduced level of anxiety. Although DBS is FDA approved for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease and Tremors, it is not FDA approved for the
treatment of Tourette's. At this time, the use of DBS for individuals suffering
with Tourette's is in the experimental phases. In Jesse's surgery, the
neurosurgeon implanted two leads with four electrodes at each end were placed in
a strategic location in the thalamus region of his brain. Hopefully more
surgeries with Jesse's level of success rate will bring help to thousands of
other people who suffer as Jesse has. Mayo has asked us to work with them to
secure funding from the National Institute of Health to towards that end.

Jesse has matured about 5 years in age as he now takes only 8 mg of 2
medications compared to 2,418 mg of 6 medications before going to Mayo. He is
changing before our eyes. He has lost 50 lbs as a result of the med reduction
and brain surgery and the severe physical and emotional suffering he has endured
for 10 years is extremely diminished. The healthy, happy young man that he is
developing into is best described by one of his neurologists as, "nothing short
of a miracle." Truly God has given us a miracle!

Because our campus ministry started growing (8 campus women, including 3 grad
students baptized in past the 15 months) at a time when Jesse's situation was
especially devastating and time consuming, I believe God put an idea on my heart
to start a ministry to convert more women my age so that these young women could
have more "spiritual moms" available to help them. Through Jesse, I had met a
few women that were 50 or older, plus I started reaching out to the physical
moms of our recent converts. I decided to start a weekly bible study group at
the beginning of last summer and we have now had 3 conversions (3 moms of
members) as well as being days away from a 55 year old women being restored. The
mom of our men's campus intern was converted 2 months before I started the
study.We have 3 to 4 visitors when we meet every other week. On the opposite
weeks our husbands get to reach out to the non Christian husbands socially as we
meet for dinner, with the husbands and wives together. We take turns finding a
new restaurant to meet and eat dinner together. We make it fun and inexpensive
by setting a goal of finding a restaurant offering a special deal like a "2 for
1."

The 50's group decided to call themselves the "50's Chicks" and you have be over
50 to be a part of the group. It's amazing how many open women we are now
meeting in that age group. Tomorrow night we are starting the book, "What would
Jesus Do?" (recommended by our newest sister), and all 8 of us who have been
attending over the past few months have made a commitment to help one another by
being lovingly open and honest with each other as we strive to live out our
theme, "What Would Jesus Do?" It's already creating more open dialogue with
those regulars who've been coming each week.

God is doing wonderful things and I feel so personally helped by him, especially
with the very difficult challenges we've face. He has provided free brain
surgery for our son which has changed his life (and ours) and caused our Women's
(and Men's) ministry to be fruitful despite the time we've needed to give to
Jesse as he works extremely hard to catch up on several years he missed out on
due to his debilitating nervous system disorder. According to the doctors at
Mayo his testing and behavior show him having matured at least 5 years over the
past 10 months. I want to mention that the LA Church also sent two women who are
now interning for me and I am sooooo incredibly grateful for their help. We've
also been blessed with the invaluable support and discipling of Al and Gloria
Baird (who for some reason decided to adopt Jake and I, our family, and the
church here in Montana! Yay!) as we learn to navigate through the challenges of
leading a church as well as our very new and different life we are beginning to
experience as Jesse heals. The Baird's and Jake and I have had the most
interesting experiences in witnessing double rainbows ever since they've begun
helping us. We all think it's been a loving sign from God himself!

My last bit of good news is that though ideally, a parent should stay separate
from their own child's campus ministry in order for them to grow up and mature
apart from their parents, the only mature woman I had to help me in the campus
ministry for our first three years in Missoula was our daughter Jessica. She
transferred here from University of Washington at the end of her freshman year.
Since moving here we have studied and baptized 6 women together! It's been a
dream come true for me and a special gift from God.

Sorry to have written so much, but life hasn't allowed me much time to do things
like this. I have so appreciated the many prayers and supportive and
encouraging comments on Jesse's Caringbridge as well as my Facebook and E-mail.
These have come from many, many brothers and sisters during the past two years
and the prayers and encouragements have inspired our family on many previous
dark and anxious days.