Cancer Balloons and Flooding

We couldn't find gold balloons, so instead we put up yellow balloons yesterday in honor of our buddy Josh, who fought cancer last year at the age of two. And now he's officially NED - No Evidence of Disease. We praise God so much for this victory and for this amazing kid. The family inspired us and awed us and blessed us in so very many ways. It was remarkable to watch them, learn from them, and see them grow so much in the Lord during that very tough, painful, agonizing, and scary trial. They are such a blessing to so many and I just wanted to take a moment to thank them for how much they taught us and allowed God to use them in so many lives. Thanks Andrew, Julie, Emma, Josh, and Rebecca!!!! We admire you so much and have a great amount of respect for you! God bless you.



We are praying for all those affected by Hurricane Ike (as well as the recent Hurricane Gustav that many are still cleaning up from) in the south. But right now, closer to home, the Chicagoland area is fighting its own bad flooding. We have anywhere from 5-12 inches on the ground, depending on your exact location in the area, just from the past 2 days. Yesterday alone in our city we had 8 inches, then Hurricane Ike's remnants came through today and dumped 2-4 more inches or so on us.

We feel so blessed to live at the top of a hill (so we are dry and safe). But unfortunately that means the people at the bottom are very wet, under a lot of water, and not necessarily safe. Below are some pictures Tim took this afternoon at the bottom of the hill. A couple of hours ago we saw a fire truck and a "Water Rescue" truck head down the street to this intersection (through the water). The street up on the right in the below picture is a dead-end street in which the bottom is completely flooded out. We saw one person earlier driving out the back part of that street into the park, covering the vehicle in mud, but at least they were able to get out. Others must have tried to get out through the water to no avail and had to call for rescue. Even now we've heard helicopters going overhead... and have read reports of several road closings mostly on the southeast side of our city which is right where we live. We are praying for everyone affected.