Blue Skies!

As you can see from the title today was a good day! The reason not everyone hates roller coasters is because some parts of the ride are really good! Today was one of those days that make the ride bearable. The scan showed that the area of concern was indeed shrinking. We were so encouraged by what we saw. We know brain cancer is a vicious and powerful enemy, but we know that God is at work and can destroy this enemy if He so desires. Don't get me wrong, there is still an area of concern, it is just shrinking! So, we are thankful that the meds he is on seem to be working. We continue to count each and every one of our blessings. We serve an amazing God and even through this cancer journey, God has continually showered us with His blessings.

So, how can you pray for us?
Greg continues to work part-time as our Missions director at our church and he is loving it. He has a lot of weakness in his left hand, and we would ask you to pray that he could regain some strength in this hand and pray it doesn't get any worse. This weakness could be due to many different factors.



Jerod and Alex have had a very busy summer.  Jerod has been busy with his videography business and doing a community service project and Alex has been interning at our church. They are both getting ready to head to Liberty University  in August. Jerod will be starting his junior year and Alex will be starting his freshman year. They are both excited. Please pray Alex's transition from homeschool to college will go well and that Jerod will continue to do well as he enters the Cinematic Arts program.

Yes, that is a tattoo, and no it's not permanent! PTL! 

Alex volunteering at one of the non-profit organizations our church has partnered with. 

Honestly Jerod has worked quite a bit, but here we were having some R and R with the grandparents! 

Jerod working at his desk. We are so proud of him!

Annie has been super busy this summer as well as she has been enjoying her time at Camp Cheerio and has gone on her first World Changers mission trip. Please pray for her as she enters the 8th grade as she and I will both have some adjusting to do with the boys being gone. It will be a big transition for us!

On her World Changers trip

At Camp Cheerio

Serving the community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

We appreciate all of you and your continual prayers for our family. We love you all and are so very thankful that God has blessed us with such an amazing support group!

Me and Greg at Lake Wylie. 

Roller Coasters

 Hi friends! Another MRI is now in our history books. Last month we were blessed by the Dream Foundation with a 4 day trip to Disney and Universal Studios. We had a great time and made a lot of memories. One of the parks we went to had lots of roller coasters. Our family loves roller coasters, all of us but Greg!

As we were preparing for today's MRI I had the same feeling that I had as we would get on a roller coaster. You sit down, make sure everything is locked in the right way, and then as you go up you anticipate what is going to happen. You wait as you hear each tick, tick, tick as you climb a hill, then you go down and your stomach drops. Then there are times you go upside down and feel like you are going to throw up.  When I went on one with the kids, I was actually thinking as we were flipping upside down how crazy it is that all of the people on the ride and in line, put all of their faith in a machine and buckle. We get on, without much thought about it and expect we will be fine. I was thinking how strange it is that when faced with huge life difficulties we don't always have that same faith in God as we do in a manmade machine.  Why is it that we sometimes forget that the maker of Heaven and earth can take care of all of our problems? I know, I know, I know... get to the point! ;o)

Well, today was one of those roller coaster feelings that was just going up and coming down, no turns, or twists, or upside down flips. So, we didn't feel the need to throw up. Greg's MRI was basically the same as it was last month with maybe a bit more of what we think is inflammation. We knew that was probably what it would show. Greg has felt pretty good except he has more weakness in his left hand which causes him frustration. That comes and goes and isn't a big deal at this point.

Our doctor has decided to put him on a little different infusion schedule. He will continue to get his regular "Godivo" which is what he calls it. Plus he will be getting Avastin which is another drug he has gotten off and on, but now he will get it every other week. We had prayed the Lord would give our oncologist a plan and He made it clear to her that this is what she should do. Greg is fine with being a "lab rat" (which is what he is) if it could help them find a combination of drugs that may help find a  cure for brain cancer.

We appreciate all of your prayers for our family as we continue on riding this crazy roller coaster of life and enjoying the ups, downs and even the loops! We don't know what the future holds, but it is so comforting to know who holds the future! Please pray that when we have discouraging days and may feel as if we are slipping out of our seat a bit and loosing grip, that we will remember we put out faith in the Creator of the universe and not the creator of a silly roller coaster!

One of our great nurses in her blue "hazmat" suit getting ready to give Greg his infusion. This shows how serious these drugs are. Double gloved, covered up and nursing or pregnant women cannot administer it. 

Before something tragic affects your family, or someone you love, you generally don't take too much interest in those areas. We knew nothing about brain cancer before we were given that horrible diagnosis. Below is a video that Jerod put together with help from his brother about the Brain Tumor Race.


Charlotte Brain Tumor Race from GoldenHourVisuals on Vimeo.

                                    Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks as well.

Alex graduated! 

Greg and the boys enjoying the Coca-cola 600!

Our fun Florida trip!

Love my sweet hubby! I am blessed more than I deserve! Thank you all for praying! 

Fluffy mass!

Hi everyone!
Thanks so much for your continued prayers for Greg! We went into today knowing that God is so in control of every part of our life and we had a complete peace.

I was trying to think of something comparable to how we felt today. I thought that it was kinda like how Greg probably felt about his tennis matches in college. Before he ever played the match, he probably had a pretty good idea how it would turn out. However, then there was always those shocking matches where one player would play better than normal and change the anticipated outcome.  So... today we went into our appointment feeling as if we knew what was going to happen based on how he is feeling and the way his body is responding to the last treatment.

Fortunately, the outcome was what we were expecting! His MRI in February was great, then this last one in April was so-so, and then today's was better than the one in April and not as good as February. Our oncologist called it a fluffy mass! ;o) So... the "fluffy mass" has gotten a bit smaller and it is trending in the right direction. There is still no true way (without cutting into his sweet grey matter) to find out exactly what the "fluffy mass" is. On an MRI a dead tumor looks about the same as live tumor. However, the best way of knowing how he is doing is to look at how he is doing physically. Physically he is doing well and leading a fairly normal life. He gets tired easier, but other than that, right now, he is doing well. We truly covet your prayers over the next few months. We hope that each "match" from here on out we can win without any problems. Our prayer is for the fluffy mass to shrink to nothing and that Greg can continue to do the job we feel God has called him to do.

We have been blessed with an amazing trip to Disney in a few weeks. We are so excited and can't wait to make some great memories. Please pray for us as we make this trip, that Greg will feel good while we are there! We love you all and are so thankful to God for all of you!

Disney, here we come! Thanks Dream Foundation! 

Grey Matter

Hi friends!

Well, they don't call it clear matter, it is grey for a reason, because for us, you can never be sure what is going on. Our doctor loves to say it is as clear as mud! So, here is the deal.... the MRI showed that it wasn't clear he was getting better but it is not really clear he is getting worse. It is hard to tell from the MRI exactly what is going on. Dr Sumrall says that when trying to understand this new treatment and what it is actually doing, you really need to use the 1980's method of looking at how the patient is doing physically and not rely as much on the MRI. Which in Greg's case, he is actually doing well. He continues to work part-time at the church, do yard work, and pretty much lead a normal life.

New tumor and dead tumor present the same on an MRI so, we won't really know what we are looking at until our next MRI in 2 weeks. We are praying we are looking at dead tumor and the treatments are working and God is healing Greg. Please pray that the treatment he received today, which was his normal treatment (plus another drug added to it) will shrink the suspicious stuff and we can be sure it is indeed dying. We really need this to work.

We are not at all discouraged and count every day a blessing from the Lord. It has become more evident to us in the past months just how precious life is and we are not about to waste one moment worrying about.... ANYTHING! It won't help, so, we won't bother doing it!

Matthew 6:27 Who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to his life? All of our married lives, Greg has always used the motto, in the big scheme of things... it just doesn't matter. Trust me, if you are letting little things get to you, don't! It won't matter in the end!

I thought since I haven't updated in awhile, I would give you some pics to see and

get caught up on what we have been doing! We truly appreciate your prayers and we are grateful for each one of you and how you have followed us on this journey.

Moved into a new home, that we LOVE!

Spent spring break together! 

Even Max came! 

We walked in the Brain tumor walk to raise money for the National Brain Tumor Society. 

This was at the walk with our oncologist, Dr. Sumrall and our good friend, Ben. Ben has brain cancer as well. 

Greg and Ben have been great for each other! 

We celebrated Alex's 18th birthday!

Alex's buddies eating cobbler with him for his birthday. 

 We have made some new friends at the infusion center. This is Juan, he doesn't speak much English so it is always fun when we can be there to help him communicate. Please pray for him!

Greg and our friend, David have befriended a man named, John Henry. Sweet, sweet man who is trying to support himself and his ill brother by holding up a sign on a corner. They are trying to share with him about the hope we have in Christ. 

We had a picnic with Ben's family and truly enjoy all of our time with them! 

Annie with their kids and Charlie. 

Ben's wife, Anna Greta. We have become very close and I love this friendship that God has blessed us with! 

Thanks so much for all of your support of our family during this difficult road. 

A Crack in the Wall!

I prayed that today the Lord would show us a crack in the wall. (You have to read to last post to understand this.) The Lord continues to bless us and we saw the crack today!

Let me be clear, we still have a very long battle to fight and may not see "the wall fall" for a very long time. However... what we saw today, was God at work. The last scan showed a lot of swelling on Greg's brain. We were told that there was tumor there but we didn't know how big it was and we didn't know if the immuno-therapy was working or not. We didn't know this, but on our last visit, our oncologist saw what she felt was new tumor in a completely different spot of his brain.

So, today's scan showed a considerable amount of reduction in the swelling and the tumor was shrinking! So we knew that the treatment was working. But... there is more. The spot that was on the brain that was new tumor, was completely gone. Our sweet Dr said, " I can't explain this, but it's just gone!" I love it when things are unexplainable! God knows why it is gone! Now we have a brain that has much less swelling and seems to get better each day and a tumor that is shrinking and another tumor that has disappeared.

We are so very grateful to God, our doctor and all of you for guiding us through these very difficult months. Last month was our worst month ever and we pray we never have to have another one like it. We know that at any moment the swelling could come back, the tumor could grow and Greg could take a turn for the worse. However, today we are praising God for answered prayer and know that He is able to completely restore Greg's health. Thank you all for your continual prayers.

We truly love you! Greg, Missy, Jerod, Alex and Annie

Walking in Faith!

Psalm 28:7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

The past few weeks Greg hasn’t felt very well. We have wondered if it was a reaction to his treatment, or if it was new tumor growth. Today he had the first MRI since his surgery in October and his new treatment started. 

God has been leading me to this story over this past few weeks, and I have read it, over and over and over. It has truly spoken to me in a way no story really has. Bear with me! 

The complete story is found in Joshua 5:13- 6:21

 In Joshua there is a story where the Israelites had just been wandering in the desert for 40 years and they had come to the eastern banks of the Jordan and in order to enter into the Promised Land, they first had to conquer the walled city of Jericho. This was no easy task seeing as the wall was 11 feet high and 14 feet wide. (it had other specifications, but I don’t think they are important for this example) God gave instructions to Joshua on how he could conquer this wall. He told him to have his people march silently around the wall for 6 days and then 7 times on the 7^th day and then, shout. So, this may have seemed like a stupid plan to Joshua, but he followed the plan to the letter and on the 7^th day after the people marched around the wall 7 times, Joshua commanded them to shout, and they did. The entire wall crumbled and they overtook the city. (With exception of one woman and her family, read the story!)

So, I love this story for many reasons. First, it took a lot of faith on the part of all of the people to just do what was told of them without knowing much of the plan. I looked into it a bit and found that it is believed that the people were only given part of the plan. They were told to march in silence every day, I don’t believe they knew how many times they had to march before this plan would hopefully unfold. They just got up each day and marched. The marched without knowing if or when this wall would fall. But they were obedient and marched in silence, no less. I have to think that they were beginning to wonder on the 7^th time on the 7^th day, “What are we doing?

” I would think they were saying, “What on earth makes us think by walking around this wall, it will just fall down?” Well, that is called FAITH! They did it even when it made no sense and they seemingly saw nothing happen.

Now, to Greg’s big ole noggin. We were told from the beginning of this new treatment that the first MRI wouldn’t look good. However, our oncologist, who we dearly love, saw his MRI and felt it looked a bit worse than what she was hoping to see. Not uncommon for Greg. He really reacts differently to most things. He isn’t “The norm!” I say it is because his brain is so big and it just doesn’t know how to cope with all this extra stuff inside it. So, I will try and explain as best as I can.

 Greg has swelling on the brain. This is somewhat normal due to his therapy attacking the cancer cells in his brain. It is not normal for it to be swelling as much as it is. Again…. Not the norm. SO.. Dr. Sumrall gave him a different drug today, (she had to suspend his normal treatment for this week) that will hopefully, prayerfully, shrink all brain swelling and stop any new tumor growth. She suspects there is new tumor but we aren't sure due to all the swelling. So… our prayer request for all of you is for you to PLEASE ask God to shrink all swelling, that there be NO tumor once shrinking is gone, and that he can continue on with his treatment next week.

So, going with the story above, we are going to look at this as if we are going through these days of treatment not knowing which treatment will heal Greg’s cancer, but knowing that one day, HE will cure Greg from this awful disease. We will obey, walk in faith and trust God has a plan! We know our God is able and can crumble 11 feet walls with a shout and He can cure Greg's cancer with a simple touch. We are praying He will do that!  We thank each one of you for your prayers, encouraging words, and support as we walk this very long road.

We love you! Greg, Missy, Jerod, Alex and Annie 

Our Year in Photos

Happy New Year! We have had a lot of ups and downs this year, here they are in pictures! Make sure you go to the end to see what is in store for us for 2017!

Started the year praying for a great one!

Radiation started

Had to say good-bye to our little dream girl. 

The praise was she was adopted by a family in Italy. 

Enjoyed the snow.

Greg turned 47!

Max was reunited with us!

Our friend Doug brought him to us and we got to visit with him! 

Chick-fil-A has been a blessing this year!

Greg finished his radiation!

We visited friends in Wake Forest/Raleigh

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sharon from Mexico visited us! 

We spent some time with the Dysons! But... not enough! ;o(

We walked in the walk against brain cancer.

Enjoyed time with precious friends!

More snow!

Then  came spring and some fun beach time thanks to Uncle Billy and Aunt Ann!

Greg got his keys back!

Enjoyed time together! 

Celebrated our niece and nephew's graduation. (one from college, and one from high school)

Annie had a blast at Camp Cheerio

Jerod worked there all summer and learned a great deal! 

I was allowed to work for a week too with my college roomie. Great times! 

Our sweet friend and adopted grandma, Dottie entered the gates of Heaven. 

Our sweet friend Jenny entered into Heaven a few months later. These were difficult days for us. 

Alex and I had to return to Mexico and sell our belongings and say good-bye to some of our dearest friends. 

Some of the hardest parts of this year. 

We had more sad news as our friend, Mark also entered into Heaven after fighting brain cancer with Greg. 

Greg's Uncle Rod also entered into Heaven. It has been a difficult year. 

Alex got a job at CFA and followed in his brother's footsteps!

We got back in touch with some old friends, God blessed

 us with their sweet friendship!

Spent a tiny bit of time with Jerod before he went back to LU. 

Greg enjoyed mowing our large yard at our mission house. 

We visited Jerod at LU. He continues to do well. 

Greg had to have another brain surgery after chemo and radiation didn't seem to be working. 

He did great after surgery and he started his new form of treatment. (immunotherapy) 

We got to spend Thanksgiving with our Indiana family!

Annie turned 13!

Greg and I were blessed by free tickets to the Colts and were hosted by the 

coach. We got to meet Peyton Manning which was really neat! 

Even better was meeting Coach Chuck Pagano. He was a class act and spent a long time encouraging us. It was a true blessing!

Enjoyed Christmas events with our family. 

Spent Christmas with my family in the mountains of NC.

Enjoyed our family every day!

Grew closer to Christ and learned so much from Him! He has continued to take care of us! 

So.... 2016 was definitely a year of ups and downs and we lost a lot of friends along the way. We had to move out of our home, lost the daughter we never got to meet, lost the job we loved, left the friends and people group we loved, laughed a lot, were blessed by 100s of you, had many prayers answered, and continue to trust God. It hasn't always been easy this year, but man our faith has been strengthened and we have really learned what it means to rely fully on God. 

2017...We are so optimistic about what this year is going to bring! We have been praying for quite some time that God would give Greg a ministry he could do here in the US. However, nothing was happening. God has blessed our family in ways that truly HE could only do. I will explain all the details in an upcoming post, however the BIG news is that Greg has been offered a part-time job as Missions Pastor at our home church, Arlington Baptist, that we have attended for the last 6 months. We could not be more excited about this position and look forward to great things happening in the future. 

We are currently looking to buy a house and settle down here in the Mint Hill area. We feel like God blesses us each and every day and  are continually amazed at how big He is! 

Thank you for all of your prayers! They are working!! 

We pray God blesses all of you in ways you can only imagine!