Welcome Good News

Dad is now back home and doing well.  It turns out they think that he might have had a small seizure.  Initially it was thought that they wouldn’t let him drive.  Given that it was such a small seizure they are going to allow him to continue driving but he will be taking anti-seizure medication.  Praise the Lord it was nothing too serious.  The doctors say that it is not unusual to have seizures with the kind of stroke that he had and is actually a sign of healing in the brain.

Thanks so much for your continued support, prayers, and caring.  It really means a lot to all of us and we pray that one day soon Dad will be able to speak the Word as he loves to.  May God bless all of you for your Christian love.  Have a wonderful New Year!!

In Him,

The Stuart Merrill family

Update

Apparently Dad did not have a stroke but possibly had a seizure. Jer, just called and gave a quick update. Please continue to pray as he will be kept in the hospital over the weekend and then will have an MRI on Monday. He is talking and moving. I am assuming at this time it is probably OK if you have their number to call.
I have been meaning to put an update up to have people not just pray but to call and encourage Dad as he has been depressed lately. Dad loves hearing from everyone.
God Bless, we will keep you updated,
Travis

Urgent! Please pray!

It is the day after Christmas and apparently this morning Dad had another stroke.  I don’t know the details at this time but will keep this page updated.  Please pray hard and keep the phones clear for family.  I will put more information up as soon as I have it.  Please pray!!

In Christ, Travis

First Public Speech

Dear Family and Friends,
We have already been home now for about a week and a half from our trip out East. We had a wonderful time with our family and friends and got to enjoy the peak of the foliage season.  The trip back went almost without a hitch.  We did have a minor breakdown when our fan belt went on us.  Pulling off for that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The mechanic checked our transmission fluid only to find that it was very low.  A hose was leaking it seems. Had we not realized that we could have lost our transmission. God was with us as we pulled off not far from a garage, and we were back on the road in 1 1/2 hours. Thanks to a gift from a dear lady in Harlan, Indiana 2/3 of the repair bill was covered.  God had us covered all the way.

Stuart was able to read a short speech I helped him prepare for our so Kaleb’s marriage vow renewal.  That went well for his first time speaking like that in public.  Many of our family members noticed an improvement in his speech.  However, maybe it was the coming back to normal everyday life that left Stuart a bit discouraged.  The other day he said he was depressed which came as a surprise to me.  He said he needs to get back to work.  We will have to find some tasks for him to do so he can feel more useful.  There are certainly plenty of things for him to do.  So, please continue to lift him up in your prayers.

Thank you again for your calls, letters and cards that still come in on occasion.  We appreciate your continued help.

May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving surrounded by your families and friends.  It will be nice to be here in Des Moines with 6 of our nine children and their families for this season.  We have so much to be thankful for.

Merrill's at Kaleb and Renee's renewal

Love in Christ,
Stuart, Valerie and family

Almost 1 Year!!

Dear Family and Friends,
It’s hard to believe that almost a month has gone by since my last update.  I thought that I had better get one posted as soon we will be getting ready for a trip out East.  We will be going to Vermont for the month of October.  Our son Kaleb and his wife Renee will be renewing their marriage vows at the end of the month.  We will be seeing all our family who live on the East coast which we are really looking forward to.  Our visit will start with the October Retreat at the beginning of the month where we hope to see many of you our friends.

It is also difficult to believe that almost a year has gone by since Stuart’s stroke.   We are so thankful to God for bringing us through this time.   We also want to thank all of you for your prayers and generous financial support to help us through this.  We pray that God has been glorified as we saw the miracle of his healing and care for us.

We know that Stuart has come a long way which is so great to see.   He seems to be working a bit hard on his cognitive skills these days.   It’s that kind of work that will help him regain what he has lost.  This process is very slow so sometimes it can be discouraging to Stuart.  Hopefully, he can get involved in helping will church work soon working towards preaching again.   There is much work to be done here in the states, also.

Continue to pray for the church family we have been attending with at Rising Sun.  Since they got rid of the preacher many families have left. We would like to see what direction they are going before we would decide to go elsewhere.  The elders are going to meet with the congregation this Thursday evening to answer questions.  We pray that this will be done decently and in order.

I also want to post our phone number which I should have done long ago.  It is 515-276-4416.  Feel free to call us at any time.

Because of Christ,
Stuart, Valerie and family

All done with flying colors!

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, Stuart is all through his procedure with flying colors.  The doctor said it went smoothly and without a hitch.  They checked before they started to be sure there were no clots and found everything clear. There were only small restrictions put on Stuart.  He couldn’t drive for one day, and he cannot do any heavy lifting for one month.   He is a bit hesitant to get started up at the YMCA for some reason.  I am sure it is OK for him to do his walking and swimming.  We did go for a bike ride yesterday which he wasn’t sure he should have done.  We will call the doctor tomorrow to double check about his activities.

Hopefully, things will be pretty much back to normal so we can take a trip back East in October.

Please remember Kaylona in your prayers.  On Tuesday the 1st she has all four of her wisdom teeth extracted by the dental surgeon.  Two of the teeth are bone impacted so pray that this goes smoothly and that her recovery isn’t too painful.

Also remember the church we are attending in your prayers.  This past week they fired the preacher of 36 years.  They sent a letter out to explain the reason for this.  We are not sure they told everything. There are some of us who may be looking for another place to attend once we see what is planned. For many of the long timers there this seemed to be quite a shock. Please remember Doug Reymen in your prayers who is the one they fired.  He seemed like a man who stood for what was right, but we really didn’t know him that well.

Thanks again for being our prayer warriors in lifting us up before our God who is every faithful.

Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie, Adrian, Zachary and Kaylona

Keep praying…

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, the time is here for Stuart’s procedure the day after tomorrow(Teusday the 25th).  He only had to get on a blood thinner 5 days prior to the procedure, and he will stay on this for 6 months after.   Again it is just done on an out patient basis with Stuart staying overnight and going home the next day.  Stuart’s sister Linda will come down on Tuesday to be with us.  We anticipate that everything will go smoothly.  Keep us in your prayers.

We finally got out on our bikes for the past couple of days which was nice.  God blessed Zachary with a bike for free.  A local radio station put you name in a drawing if you put their logo on your car window.  Zachary did that on Friday and a couple of hours later they called him saying he won the bike.  We’d debated getting him a bike for his birthday but speakers for his drum set won out.  Now he will have both.  God is good.

It’s hard to believe kids are already back in school.  The summer went by so quickly.  We pray God blessed all of you with a great summer.
Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie, Adrian, Zachary and Kaylona

Pray for encouragement!

Dear Family and Friends,
Just checking in again though not much has been going on.  Before I forget, please lift Stuart up in your prayers.  He seems to be going through a time of discouragement.  His moods are rather low which could be helped by medication which he won’t take.   Pray that he will realize he needs to work harder to gain back what has been lost.  On the more positive side he tries to get involved in helping people out in the physical area. Last week he helped our son Justin do some work in his basement.  He also helped out one day at VBS.   Then he also went to the “On With Life” annual picnic.   He attended that without me as I was in Texas celebrating my Aunt’s 80th birthday. Doing all these activities is very good for Stuart in order to make him feel more useful.

We have a house guest for the next 3 months or so.  Kaylona’s very best friend from Belarus is visiting us.   Her name is Tanya.  Her mother is the one that has a congenital heart problem.  Please pray for Lena while her daughter is gone.  Tanya is a great help to her mother.   Lena’s son Sasha is also gone as he is with a family in California.   He is attending college there.   Kaylona is very happy to have Tanya here, and you can hear them chattering away in Russian day and night.

Stuart’s surgery is still scheduled for the 25th of August which will be here before you know it.   Pray that all goes well for that.   I will probably not put another update on until then.

We pray that all of you are having a great summer.  I wouldn’t mind hearing from some of you.  Our e-mail is merrillopenby@hotmail.com in case you don’t know it.   God bless!
Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie, Adrian, Zachary and Kaylona

Time flies…

Dear Family and Friends,
It is hard to believe that two more weeks have gone by.  I was sitting checking our e-mail (which contained all junk !) when I realized I hadn’t put an update on in a while.

Since I last wrote Stuart and I have made a trip to Vermont and back.  We decided to ride back with George and Sharon (Stuart’s dad and his wife) to Vermont where we planned to purchase a car from his dad. So off we went the day after we got back from Ottumwa.  We ended up being there longer than planned, but that gave us more time to visit with family.  It was a pleasure to stay with our son Travis.  Then on the way back we visited friends in Elmira, NY and then in Grabill, Indiana.  Stuart drove half of the way to Vermont and all the way home from there.

Just this week we do have news of his coming procedure to close the hole in his heart.  The nurse set a date today for the 25th of August.  That is the soonest she could get the two doctors together to do this.  He will have a checkup and lab work done the week before.   It is good it got put off until August as we were very busy in July.

We finally got started at the YMCA which is a good thing for all of us.  Now Stuart gets regular exercise which he seems to like.  We try to drag him there every day.  Actually, he goes willingly.  Kaylona about did me in today on the treadmill when I tried to keep up with her.  She jogged for 10 minutes, and I kept up panting and sweating.  Then I found out she had hers at level 5 and I had mine at 6.  Oh well, I made it and it was not bad for me.

We had a visit from Stuart’s brother Glenn today which was nice as we hadn’t seen him in years.  He was on a quick trip on his way to Florida to help their sister Judy.

Thanks so much for your continued support that supplements our income and helps us repay a loan and chip away at the Ireland bill.   Without all of you it would be much more difficult.  We appreciate your many prayers on our behalf and praise God for you.

God bless you!
Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie, Adrian, Zachary and Kaylona

Still Here

Dear family and friends,
I haven’t forgotten all of you.  We have just had a crazy couple of weeks.  We were in Ottumwa last week attending a reception for our niece Kandy and her husband Jeff.  Stuart’s dad and wife were there so we visited for a few days.  Then we drove back to Vermont with his dad (Stuart drove most of the way back).  We are buying a mini-van from his dad and trying to sell our big old van.  We just don’t need one that big anymore. Now Stuart will have to drive all the way back home which we will do in 2 1/2 days.  Please pray that our trip will go ok.

We still haven’t scheduled the procedure on Stuart’s heart.  Between our schedule and the doctor’s we haven’t agreed on anything yet.  It will probably be pushed into August now.   The nurse said there is no hurry.

Stuart is doing ok, but we realized that he needs more physical training.  We are trying to get him into a special program at the YMCA.  We hope to get started on that next week.  His muscles need to get built back up from his inactivity.   For some reason the self-motivation to exercise is just not there with Stuart.   He tires out quite easily which doesn’t help.   Pray that as he gets started he will be more motivated.

We praise God that our son Adrian finally got a part time job for now.   He is still in the process of trying to decide where to go for Bible college.  Please pray for him in this decision making process.

By now most of you should have gotten our newsletter that our son Travis worked on.  Hopefully, we will get a more detailed one out in the near future.  We will try to get in touch with the men in Minsk to know a little more.

Thanks for your interest in our welfare.  You are a great blessing to us.

Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie and family