April 17th, 2010
Dear Brethren:
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging...” Often time we sang this hymn out of church tradition, got carried away emotionally only by its poetic prose and beautiful music, and hardly bothered to comprehend what it really meant
Today, the music rang strong in our ears and we hummed the song while tears welled up, then flowed down like a stream.
We couldn’t remember when was the last time we were at the receiving end while we had so much get used to be on the giving side. There again, we got carried away by indulging in the self admiration of our generosity and thinking just because we could afford and how noble our action were.
Today, we’re stripped of every piece of fabric called PRIDE. There was nothing left that we could boast now, rather in our nakedness we came before our Maker and screamed a primal and reflective cry like a hurting baby.
Eileen came to realize there was something funny about her left side of the body well within last few weeks.
First it was a minor drooling on the corner of her mouth, then she could not hold on a subject and dropped it about which before Chuck could get his hand. next her typing became gibberish, and this soon progressed into her left hand dropped from holding the steering wheel while driving before Reuben insisted that she checked into a local hospital in Hsinchu last Sunday. After a CT scan, she was told a 3 cm size tumor popped up deep inside her right brain and was thus recommended to seek treatment in better hospitals elsewhere in Taipei.
Through an acquaintance, Ms. Cheng, she was able to cut the line of a long queue about taking MRI and a visit with a much-sought-after physician at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, then was transferred to Dr. Hsu when the prognosis of her illness seemed critically grim. Dr. Hsu, who trained under Mahmut Gazi Yasargil, the pioneer and founder of modern microneurosurgery according to Wikipedia until four years ago and returned to Taiwan to help his people here, checked her into his neurosurgery department yesterday and prepared her to undergo a brain operation two Mondays from today - April 26th.
All these happened at a dizzy pace of last few days whereas, under normal circumstances, the whole process could take up as many as several weeks. Eileen and I couldn’t help but wonder His hands are working amidst this commotion.
While we slowly come to terms with this trial, we plead everyone of you to intercede and supplicate on our behalf for Eileen’s surgery preparation, brain operation, after-math treatment and rehabilitation. Also please pray for
Both of us remain strong while enduring this arduous journey and Michael’s mental and physical strength needed for both Eileen and the boys
The boys develop true Christian characters in this hardship and grow up away from a much sheltered life.
To advance the Gospel, let this event be a witness to our families and friends about the relevance of this faith of ours towards our very lives when facing ones’ own mortality.
“But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
and
“You’re my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”
Earnestly,
Michael and Eileen
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