Another Sunday to worship!

Another day of worship! Yea!! We are headed to church today. A large church in Houston made us feel so welcome last week, that we are headed back there again today. So many churches here in Texas have shown us an outpouring of love and we are very thankful to them all. Of course we have felt this outpouring from churches all over the world in many different languages. When we felt called to Mexico, I (Missy) was so scared and thought the safest place to be was in the center of God's will. I was quickly told that was wrong. Being in the center of God's will is maybe the most dangerous place to be because Satan doesn't like it. However, I was also quickly reminded it may not be the safest place, but it is the BEST place to be! Our whole family has experienced the blessing of being in the center of His will.

Annie is doing better each day, crying a little bit less. She is definitely trying hard to use her hand more as you can see from this picture! :o) She is a real fighter. She still hates bath time and that may not go away for some time. We praise him that she still has her personality and is our little "Sunshine." She wakes up with a smile on her face and then asks for medicine. Please keep us in your prayers on Tuesday. We are hoping that the Dr. will tell us we can go home. Annie keeps asking when we can go back to her Mexican home. As of now, our answer is someday soon. Please also keep us in your prayers about her seeing a psychologist on Tuesday. They are a little concerned about some of her fears and they will be doing an assessment of her on Tuesday as well. Keep my parents in your prayers as they travel back to SC today. They were a huge help to us and we enjoyed every bit of our grandparent time.

We are off to church, hope you all have an incredible Sunday! Love you all!

We don't like baths!

Hi everyone,

I (Missy)am trying to find things to write to you that will be of importance to each of you without boring you with the details of our daily life now. Our biggest struggle with Annie is bath time. Bless her heart, she screams at the first sound of the water running. She is petrified of this time of day. She cries during the entire bath saying, "I can't stop looking at my booboos." The bath itself is scary for her, and we now know that she doesn't want to see her booboos and she doesn't like anyone else to see them either. We tried using sunglasses but that didn't seem to help. She is very "hung up" on when her skin will look normal. Unfortunately we don't know when that will happen, if ever. At first I was a little bummed about her having to wear this body suit and now we are counting that as a blessing because it hides her burns. Please pray for a calmness during her bath time. Also pray that she will start going potty without fear. We know these are small issues to deal with and are so grateful to God that the worst is now over. (we hope)

We went to see the movie Kung Fu Panda today and I was struck by a very neat saying. They said, " Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift, that's why they call it the present." I really liked this saying and it spoke to my heart. I am glad her accident is over, and I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but today has been awesome and I am rejoicing in the now. We are amazed at how many people Annie is touching. One day she will understand just how big our God is!

This first picture was taken on Sunday at church as Annie worshiped and the second one is of Annie with Shriner.

We still are in the wait and see mode until Tuesday. At that point we will know more about our future. Until then we are focusing on walking better, using our right hand and dealing with fears. As soon as we know when we will be able to leave the Texas area, we will let you know. Love you!

Fun with grandparents!

Today has been a good day! Over the weekend we took Annie to Build A Bear and Annie enjoyed that! She bought a pink flamingo named, Shriner and today we went back so that "Mama Say" could buy Shriner some more clothes. This is actually really good therapy for Annie as she has to use her hands to dress Shriner. We have been so blessed each day as we watch as God heals her burns. The Dr. said that he thought it would take 3-4 more weeks before her waist would heal. However, I haven't told him that we have thousands upon thousands of prayers being lifted up for her. So, on Tuesday when we go back, I fully expect him to say, "WOW, she has healed faster than anyone I have ever seen!" So, when you pray, you can pray for that! :o)

This picture is of Mama Say and Annie playing with a bubble machine. The next one is of Annie looking at a prayer chain that some precious kids from a Church in Birmingham, Alabama. She wanted to thank each child for this, it meant a lot to her!

If you click on the bottom of this page where the number of hits are, it will take you to a page that shows many statistics about who, where, and when people have logged onto this site. This may just be numbers to you, however to all of us it shows how very big the family of God is! People all over the world (click on the world map link to see) are visiting this site and it has blessed us more than any of you could ever know. My (Missy) parents and Greg's parents have asked us to express their gratitude to each of you for lifting up their granddaughter. They have all read each comment left and we have all shed many tears from the outpouring of love you have shown us. I don't know if you have ever seen the movie, Pay It Forward, but if you have you will understand this comment, and if you haven't, rent it! I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to repay other people with the love all of you have already given us. I will do small favors and large ones, for people just to show them a portion of the love you have shown us. We are not out of the woods yet, however, with all of you behind us, it won't be long! Love to you all!

First bath at home

Hi everyone,

Our first bath at home went well. When I say "bath" now, I mean we actually put her in the tub. Annie was very nervous but was very brave. She is extremely scared of water. She has to touch it before she will even think about getting in it. Please pray she will get over this fear. Once she was in the tub, she just whimpered until we were done. That is a PRAISE!! She is sleeping a little better at night, however she still wakes up once or twice from bad dreams. The blessing is that she can't remember the bad dreams. She was so excited to see her "Mama Say and Honey."  They arrived last night and showered her with love. She is doing everything she can to impress them. She is walking more each day, however she still won't use her right hand very much. We are now trying to get used to the almost full body suit that she has to wear for the next 6 months. It is a little hot, but at the same time a blessing because she doesn't want anyone to see her booboos, and it covers them all up. We are trying to show her a good time during her week off from the doctor, however she is getting tired very easily and she still wants to sleep a lot. I guess our main prayer requests right now are for her to get over her mental anxiety, to use her right hand more, and for her big burn below her waist to heal. We love you so much and can't wait to see each one of you someday and personally thank you for praying for us!

No Dr. visit for a week!

Yea! Today after the nurses did their cleanings of her wounds, the Dr. came in and told us that he felt coming to the hospital was becoming too difficult for Annie mentally. He told us everything was healing well and if we continued to do the cleanings at home, we could take a break from the hospital for the next week. There is still one area below her waist that is concerning. The Dr. does not think she will need surgery, however he said it may take 3-4 weeks for that to heal. He will assess that next week when we return for her visit. That was a huge answer to prayer! Annie is definitely having some psychological difficulties due to the stress of her hospital visits. She has started to cry every time she has to go potty and she is favoring her left hand to avoid pain in her right hand. My ( Missy) parents arrive today and we are hoping to have a lot of grandparent time. Annie is really looking forward to this, so we hope to get her mind off of her burns and onto other things. Please continue to pray for us, we don't know how anyone can go through something like this without friends like all of you and a lot of prayer support! God has been so good to us with one blessing after another. One day I would love to share all of these blessings with each of you! Our Internet connection will not be very good for the next week, but I promise to try and post a blog once a day. Thanks for lifting us up to the Great Physician! Love you all!!

Pray for Mike and Keri!

Mike and Keri are leaving now and I just wanted to ask you to pray for a safe travel for them. They will be traveling by car until tomorrow night. We are so happy that God took care of their children so that they could be here and serve us. We are so thankful!

Another tough day behind us!

Hi everyone!

Today was one of those not so fun, days again. I (Missy) must say I am getting tired of expecting one thing and getting another. I am trying so hard to look at her cleanings positively, however some days that is harder than others. Today the nurses cleaned her wounds well. Imagine having a thick scab on top of a bad sunburn. Now imagine someone pulling the scab off piece by piece. That is pretty much what they did to her today. She screamed blood curdling screams for a long time. We are pretty sure a lot of her screaming comes from anxiety as well as it hurting her.

They are very pleased with how she is healing and continue to encourage us about her final outcome. At the same time they slowly give you news that you haven't yet heard. We were told today that the different pigment in her skin will slowly fade. They never say it will go away. Then they told us she has to wear this pink stocking on her arm, legs, torso and a glove on her right hand for the next 6 months to a year. EVERYDAY. That wasn't fun to hear. I am sooo grateful to God for healing her fast and for showing His face to us during this difficult time. At the same time I covet your prayers for our future. I think we still have a ways to go until we are done with the painful cleanings. We now have to try hard to keep these stockings on her in the heat and try to keep her from getting any sun. They have told us that if she gets any sun on the new skin it will stain her skin forever.


We are praising God for the good news that Annie is using her right hand more and she is beginning to walk more by herself. Her independent spirit is starting to come back as she is quite the fighter. Please pray for all of us. All of the emotional stress is starting to get to Greg and I. We hate seeing Annie in pain and know that is what must happen for her to heal.


We will never be able to express to you how much we appreciate your messages and more importantly, your prayers. We know we wouldn't be doing as well if it weren't for those prayers. We noticed that there have been 7543 hits to this blog and that shows us just how much people care about us and about our Annie. No words can express how that touches our hearts!