I addded some photos of the girls and Bruce playing around at the PA State Farm Show. We had fun watching the chariot obstical races and seeing all the cool displays. I also added some pictures of the children at church, we seem to have a growing number of little ones and it is such a blessing!

Sabbath Blessings!

Sabbath went well. I tremble worse and have more sensations of numbness and tingling in the extremities . Most activities that are continuous cause numbness. So I asked for help with running the power point during worship. There was little responds, perhaps next week we will have more sign up. The ladies were very kind and cleaned up the pot luck mess with out me. Helen took Anna for a couple of days. So I will take advantage of the rest. I hope you all are staying warm in this frigid weather! Oh, how much more it will make us appreciate the spring. ( ;

Bruce arrived home safely from Toledo, thank the Lord! We are hoping for a quiet weekend.
Many have asked about my health and I hesitate to say because it still is very confusing to me and I don't want to mislead anyone.
The MRI brain scan showed no problem with my brain, although my kids would like a vote on that. ( :
Neurology tests showed ataxia and hyper reflexes, so the neurologist is still digging for answers, she told me she suspects MS, but I know there are almost as many neuro-muscular disorders out there as there are stars (well maybe that's an exaggeration, but there are many and they are hard to diagnose). She sent me for another MRI, this time concentrating on the cervical spine. I won't know those results till next week. The shakiness and weakness become worse the more I do. I tried twice this week to do the stationary bike (on a level 1-2) only to find I could hardly walk afterwards due to shaking, numbness and tingling in my feet and legs. So I will stick to swimming for now for exercise. I am able to clean my house or do laundry but then I am to weak to do anything more and need to rest. I am finding the tingling in my feet and hands becoming more frequent as well as the tremors. I know I am in God's hands and I am sure that He knows every bit of what is going on in our lives.
Please pray for our friends from India, Sabita and Vanita, they are experiencing a lot of distress, some physical and some emotional. We are trying to help, but sometimes it hard to know how best to serve them, please pray for guidance on our part. They have become very dear to me and I hope to see them happy again.

Sabbath blessings!

Sabbath went well. I tremble worse and more sensations of numbness and tingling in the extremities . Most activities that are continuous cause numbness. So I asked for help with running the power point during worship. There was little responds, perhaps next week we will have more sign up. The ladies were very kind and cleaned pot luck mess with out me. Helen took Anna for a couple of days. So I will take advantage of the rest. I hope you all are staying warm in this frigid weather! Oh, how much more it will make us appreciate the spring.

Today I was very excited to see a headline about an ancient text, which was found in Israel, dating back to King David's time. A slab of pottery was found near Israel's Elah valley by an archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
My excitement grew as I saw that this piece of ancient writings has been proven authentic and I wondered what words were included in this piece and had God purposed for these men to find it. And if He had, are the words written on it extremely important for us. Why are they so important that they should be shared around the world?
Here is the text (grab a tissue) -

1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

The content, which has some missing letters, is similar to some Biblical scriptures, such as Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, and Exodus 23:3, but does not appear to be copied from any Biblical text.
(Copied from LiveScience.com)

How often in scripture do we see how important the weak and helpless are to our Father!
Just some food for thought as you go about your week!
Love in Christ, Mary

Now for a little more serious side of our family life.
Bruce is scheduled to have more polyps removed on the 18th, please pray all goes well. They did not remove them all before because he bled quite a bit and the doctor performing the procedure was not comfortable with removing anymore.

Abby is doing ok. She had some trouble with blood loss at the hospital so they kept her a little longer and told her not to go back to work for 6 weeks. She is insisting on returning in a week. She is also having a lot of pain and discomfort, she seems to have a little bit of mastitis with a small fever. Thank you very much for your prayers on our behalf I know the Lord helped me through a very trying time.

Abby's water broke(she was a week over due) on Sabbath morning, just as I had finished the children's class, it was 11AM. She didn't have labor pains so they started to induce her slowly. She did not have any serious pains until about 4PM. She was extremely uncomfortable by 6 and so they gave her an epidural. Anthony came and stayed with her throughout except when things got close. We were able to play cards and enjoyed some time just talking. Dani, Abby's next best friend came and so I took the opportunity to go down stairs to a waiting room, seeking some quiet time. By this time (around 8PM) I was so exhausted and shaking I could not see how I was going to make it through the night, I felt like I could barely stand. The doctors told us it would probably not be till daylight before Abby would have the baby. I took some time to pray and specifically ask for strength to do well and make it through the night. I returned to the room after about an hour and dozed as the young people played their card game. At about 11:30PM they all were getting very tired and by midnight Dani and Anthony were fast asleep. I suddenly felt renewed strength come over me. So I changed out of my church clothes, washed up a little and went over to Abby to see how she was doing. She said her upper back was really hurting and asked if I would massage it. We did this for a while, but I started to notice, from the monitor, she was having one contraction on top of another. Having been very familiar with labor I new she was in transition. So I or Abby asked the nurse if someone could check her. Sure enough she was 100 percent and the baby was on it's way out. She had gone from 5cm at midnight to 10cm by 2AM. Anthony hearing this woke with a great surprise on his face, rushed to find his shoes so he could exit, it was very funny! Abby pushed maybe 10 times and that little baby girl came out with ease at 2:10AM. I am sure God had woke me up and gave me the presence of a clear, calm mind just at the moments when I needed it the most! Thank you all for your prayers again on our behalf, it made all the difference!

The rest of the kids are doing ok, except Sam who is feverish, with a bad headache, so he is home today. (Hope I remember to send in the absentee note in time)

The doctor has found a few reasons for my fatigue. First being of course the chronic mono, second my thyroid test came back with a TSH of an 11 when it should be ideally 1 or 2, and at worst 3-4. (The numbers go up as the thyroid function goes down). Thirdly, the sleep study showed frequent awakening and continual awareness while in a light sleep state most of the night, I had even taken Ambien( a strong sleep med.) for the study, so I thought I had slept well. Thankfully they found no breathing problems! Yaaa! The forth reason, stress, which is hard not to have! I suppose we all just need to deal with it in better ways. ( : I am to see the doctor about all this in the coming days. I did already step up the thyroid medicine, and feel it has helped some.
I would like to encourage you to continue praying for those going through trials. Your prayers mean a lot to them and God hears His faithful children. And please be aware that others are praying for you, so please do not hesitate to ask for prayer, your sisters and brothers love you and are ready to lift you up to the Father, who loves you even more!

Window into our little part of the world...

Today I would like to share just a little of the chaos that goes on in our little world. ( :
This morning when we awoke Bruce asked if I would make some eggs. But as I began the day it slipped from my mind - as I was helping Anna with her hair, straightening the bedroom and such. It was as I was going through the kitchen that I noticed Bruce sitting there with his coffee, but no empty bowl of oatmeal sitting beside him, which is the usual scene on these cold and frosty mornings. It then hit me that he was patiently waiting for his request to materialize. I went to get the frying pan from the cupboard, as I apologized for the length of time I had made him wait for his breakfast. Just then Sarah chimed in that she would love to make the eggs and that everyone loves her secret recipe. I was doubting this a little and my mind was rolling back the curtains of memory to a not to long ago egg cooking event that turned into a huge mess, which I ended up spending quite a bit of time cleaning up. But then Anna spoke up on Sarah's behalf saying how she also loved Sarah's eggs! And then my conscience chimed in saying " Mary they must learn.....".

So I took advantage of the time to run downstairs to write out an excuse note for Sam, which was almost over due and he will probably get an unexcused any ways because his father and I thought the other one was going to get prior authorization for his trip to the winter tournament in KY and so neither of us obtained authorization. So after careful thought I tried to write an appealing and humble letter to the attendance secretary explaining just that.

In the mean time Anna came down and asked if there was anything she could do to help make breakfast and again my conscience (a troublesome thing at times) said, "She needs to learn...." after all her father is sitting right there in the kitchen what could go wrong.
So I told her she could probably handle sticking in some toast and buttering it. So... with sparkles in her eyes she ran upstairs to tackle this most mature task.

In the mean time I faxed in the excuse ( if I give them to Sam he always forgets to turn them in). And then I tried to quickly call the administration office of the school district to learn how to go about registering Sarah for school (she is not doing well with the cyber school and has been pleading with me to put her back in school with "real live teachers"!). I called only to find that the phone book listed the wrong number for the administration bldg., but the person I reached was very kind and gave me the correct number, which she had handy since she gets so many calls for the administration bldg. I finally dial the correct number as I hear the kids shouting that breakfast is ready. But the message at the other end of the line goes on endlessly and when I get to the extension that I need, it simply rings and rings. I try again several times and the same thing happens, to make a long story a little shorter I finally dialed 0 and was able to talk to a live person who patched through to another line that just rang forever.

As I finished my morning's futile dialing escapade, Bruce came down the stairs in a fluster telling me angrily that I missed breakfast. I thought that perhaps his anger was because he cared so deeply that I eat a good hot breakfast, but I soon found the reason behind the rage.

Apparently Anna had done a fine job of making toast until the last two pieces, which were not quite done well enough. So Bruce asked her to stick them back in the toaster. Anna, in her enthusiasm to please her daddy, turned the dial on the toaster all the way up. Before they realized what was happening smoke was pouring out of the toaster and setting off all the alarms. Now the one important alarm, which dials the security company and then the fire department has been placed in the church office so that small stove top accidents don't get the sirens blazing toward our embarrassed household ( which has happened more then once). But I suppose the toast had burned just a little to much and set off even that alarm, so Bruce was frantically putting out the smoking toast, racing to call the security company and turning off alarms before he could sit down and eat Sarah's now somewhat cold eggs. I was oblivious to all the commotion, sheltered away in the study downstairs.
So I suppose He had a right to be a bit ticked, and we both apologized after a small cooling off period and then the day went much smoother.
I hope that when life throws you those little curve balls, sometimes one right on top of another, which it is bound to do, you can find some humor afterwards, and always know God has everything under His control.

Just a little note of info: momchesney is Mary I Chesney from Harrisburg, PA. Maiden name Mary Stine. Martha was doing some reuniting with old class mates who couldn't find me because I always list myself as momchesney.

Abby gave birth to a health baby girl at 2am this morning. Abby is doing ok, i will write more later, am very tired.