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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello again Family and Friends,
This week went well with Stuart passing the stress test with no problem which definately means a go ahead for the closing of the hole in the heart (PFO).  For now the nurse is trying to get a time when both of the doctors working with Stuart can do this.  We are looking at the second week in July.  He needs to start a blood thinner (Plavix) 5 days prior to this and continue taking it about 6 months after.  We know that God has been with us so far and will see us through this also.  We or maybe just I am a bit nervous.  There are always some risks involved but the doctors don’t anticipate any problems.  After this is done Stuart will be a bit restricted.  He cannot lift on heavy things.  He still isn’t real strong anyway so that shouldn’t present a problem.

Please pray that Stuart will not be so discouraged with the progress with his speech.  He doesn’t see much inprovement, but his speech therapist says she can see the difference.  Stuart just needs to put more effort into practice that will stimulate his brain to do what it did before the stroke.

This week we invited one of his friends from On With Life over for dinner with his wife (Walt and Kathleen).  He got out of rehab a couple of weeks after Stuart.  Walt had a right brain stroke and his left side is affected.  He cannot move his left arm and hand at all and walks with a 4 pronged cane.  Basically, he cannot be left alone.  Pray for him also as he struggles with discouragement.   He was a man who worked in building so he cannot work.  We enjoyed our evening together with them.

Pray also that Adrian, who is now with us, will be able to get a job.  Also, pray that Adrian will be able to decide what direction he wants to go with his life.

I am thankful that the lady who teaches our women’s Bible study Sunday morning asked me if I would like to teach a lesson a couple of times this summer.  That is something I will gladly do as I miss teaching the ladies very much.  Stuart has also been asked if he would like to teach, but he is not ready for that at this time.  Of course, he would love to.  He will do it again in time.

Any of you are welcome to come and visit us this summer.  We love to have company.  Stuart is not ready yet to go to camps and rallies.

We pray all of you will have a great summer.

Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie and family

Dear Family and Friends,
Well, the word is go for the procedure to close the hole in Stuart’s heart.  However, he does need to get his cholesterol checked and do a stress test.   Those must be done before the final, final word on the operation.  Stuart is scheduled to go in for the stress test on the 11th of June. They wanted to do it this week, but due to some changes in his health insurance we needed to wait.  We are now going to have to pay for his medical insurance through Medicaid.  That change occurred when Stuart starting getting Disability.  Praise God the amount we need to pay is not too high with the same coverage.

Stuart has been driving our van since Kyle brought it out a couple of weeks ago.  The doctor asked him not to drive at night until he gets checked out by this special rehab program.   He is driving more cautiously these days but is doing a good job.  One disadvantage to regaining this privilege is that he is not walking as much.  I am having trouble getting him motivated to do this.  He really needs to get in a regular exercise schedule.  Our bikes need some repair work before we can ride them.  Pray that we can get Stuart motivated.

This week also saw another accomplishment that was a biggie for Stuart.  He prepared all the things for us to get our taxes done for last year.  He had some trouble pulling out the records he had on the computer and had to do things another way.  Praise God he got pretty well done this week and should get the information sent off to Howard Herdon who will prepare our taxes.   It is just exciting to see Stuart be able to do things like this again.  It is a much slower process as his typing skills have not returned but at least it got done.

I am sorry that I have not been getting updates on more regularly.  It should have been done since we haven’t gotten a newsletter out.   We are still hoping that will get done soon.  So, I will try to do the updates even if nothing much is going on.  We still appreciate your prayers and financial help.  For now we are still in need of both.  Thanks again for being there for us.
Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie and family.

Dear friends and family,
We finally have some news to report since the last time I wrote.  Things had just been going as usual with continuing progress with Stuart’s speech.

Since then though he had a couple of tests.  One test was done to see if there was any clot left in his heart.  Praise God that is all gone.  At that time the doctor said that they might consider closing the hole in Stuart’s heart. This is a hole that everyone has before birth that generally closes up after birth.  Well, Stuart’s didn’t.  Normally this doesn’t cause any problems.  However, it appears a clot broke loose from his leg and traveled to the heart getting lodged in this opening.  Then part of it then went to the brain.  This is the thought of all the doctors.

Well, last week Stuart went to speak with the heart specialist who told Stuart it would be a good idea to close this hole, and he went into detail how this is done. Then Stuart saw his neurologist who agreed that this should be done if all looks favorable in his brain.

So, this week Stuart had an MRI.  The result was that it showed all the blood is reabsorbed, and Stuart will be able to go on a blood thinner to get ready for the procedure on his heart.  When all of this will take place we don’t know yet.   I know they would like to do it as soon as possible.

This week Adrian is coming home to us here in Iowa.  As I write this he and Kyle are traveling here in our van from Newark where Adrian flew in to.   He hasn’t seen his dad since we left the Ukraine.   It will be good to have him with us.

We will let you know when Stuart goes in for this procedure on his heart.  It is done using a catheter.  He will go in one day, stay overnight and go home the next day if all goes well.   With anything like this there are certain risks so keep Stuart in your prayers.
Love from us all,
Stuart, Valerie and family

Dear Family and Friends,

I know it has been a long time since I put an update on, but life just got a bit crazy around here. For a while there it was just a lot of the same old same old things. Last week was a crazy week with lots of doctor’s appointments. The same report from every one was that Stuart is doing great. They cut back on the heart medication by half and put Stuart on a mild blood pressure medicine. His blood work came back showing that things are pretty well back to normal. There is no toxification in the liver, and the coagulation factor is back to normal.

Last Saturday Travis our son, his daughter Naomi, and Stuart’s brother Richard with my sister Vanessa came with our van loaded with a bunch of our stuff. They were here until today. We didn’t expect to see Richard and Vanessa which was a pleasant surprise. Our week was filled with activity. We had a family dinners together juggling everyone’s busy schedules to do so which took about 3 different times. We took a trip to the zoo with our grandkids and Tiffany. Stuart rode bike for the first time on the bike trail (with Stuart wearing a helmet, of course) with Travis, Zachary and Richard. Vanessa and I unpacked most of the “stuff” that they brought. So you can see it was a very busy time.

I think that all the stimulation was good for Stuart as by the end of the time Travis noticed that he was speaking better. The most exciting thing event of the week was Stuart’s test that looked at the blood clot in his heart. They hadn’t looked at it since December 1st. Anyway, the doctor came to me with the results right after the test. The blood clot is entirely gone! Talk about the power of God. He never even had any blood thinners to get rid of it. It just reabsorded on its own with the help of our Almighty God. Talk about exciting!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for us. We are all settled in our new apartment and enjoying it very much. Now we will get settled into a regular routine and try to get back to normal. Stuart and Travis worked on a newsletter while he was here. Travis will finish that up this next week, and hopefully will get it out to everyone by this month.

Thank you so much for your patience in waiting to hear from us. We thank God so much for all of you.

Love from us all, Stuart, Valerie and family