This is Jude as a 4 month old baby...according to the time stamp on the jump drive.
This is him at almost two and a half.
Here he is at four and a half.
Five
Guessing this was right before we came to China.
And the day we got him....
First week home....
Home a few months....
.......learning to trust
.............finding a use for the other kid in the house
........playing a team sport for the first time
.....playing dress-up for the first time ( the resemblance to Cheech Marin is purely coincidental.)
......companionship
And so we find ourselves at almost a year home. With a date set in May, for Jude's surgery. Heading into uncharted waters (for all of us) again.
Jude will under-go bilateral disarticulation of both legs, at the knee,followed by prosthetics, this summer.
Those of you that have met Jude know that he is amazingly mobile, down on his knees, despite all of his joint issues. But the doctors we have consulted don't project him to stay that way, as he physically matures, but to become wheelchair bound. So, after consulting multiple physicians, and after a lot of prayer, we feel that the best quality of life possible, over the length of his life, will be achieved through this surgery and the subsequent use of prosthetics.
I am asking for prayers, any time you think of us, because this is an enormous undertaking, on many levels. Trying to prepare anyone for this surgery would be difficult. Trying to prepare a child, even more so. And this child has known his parents for roughly a year, missing a lot of those trust-building moments that occur in a parent-child relationship that exists from birth. Now add in the fact that the child has only been exposed to this language for a year. With a hearing impairment thrown in on top, slowing down his comprehension as well as his ability to express himself.
Prayer changes things.
We believe that.
And we ask that you lift us up in prayer....constantly if you can. :)
