2011 is a year we’ll always remember. It was filled with the many joys and struggles of this life. We laughed, went to ER, cried, went to ER, travelled, went to ER, and through it all grew “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18)!
Here are some of this year’s highlights… 

Abigail. Our third child, Abigail Adelle Jones, was born on February 10, 2011. She is cuddly and playful and such a sweetheart. She cut her first two teeth at 3 1/2 months, and now at ten months she has 14 teeth! Just like her Grandpa.

 Abby was born right on time, after teasing us with 16 weeks of false labor. The delivery went quite smoothly. But unbeknownst to us, a small piece of placenta was not expelled from Natalie’s uterus. Which leads us to our next memory…

Hospitals. After delivery, Natalie endured severe cramping and heavy bleeding for five hours. It took a D&C, four units of blood, four days in the hospital, and a lot of prayer to nurse her back to health. She had intermittent cramping and bleeding for another five weeks until a second D&C that removed more embedded placental tissue.

Before she was born, doctors noticed that Abigail had a kidney condition called hydronephrosis (fluid on the kidney). At first we weren’t sure if she would lose her right kidney altogether, but further testing revealed only a small defect where the ureter and kidney attach. A repair surgery took place in September at Loma Linda (where Dylan had his heart surgery in 2007). It went very well…until that night when Abby had internal bleeding.

What should have been an overnight stay turned into almost a weeklong stay with time in ICU. But again, God was kind to give us excellent doctors and nurses who knew just how to help. And He gave Mommy and Daddy the strength to endure. Once over that hump, she’s been doing great! We’ll get an ultrasound done in January, and follow-ups as she grows older, but it appears at this point that she is doing just fine and should have two perfectly healthy kidneys. Praise God!

In August, Natalie began to experience chest pains. It felt like a heart attack but, thankfully, turned out to be a gall stone attack. She had emergency surgery to remove the gall bladder, but then did not recover well. Her blood pressure dropped and she had internal bleeding. (Which, by the way, the Lord healed. When the doctor took her back into surgery the next day, he saw the old blood, but found no new bleeding. It stopped even before the doctor got inside!) Natalie’s mom stayed for a full month to help with kids and chores while Natalie regained her strength. Stephen’s mom also came to help after Abby’s surgery. Thank you, family, for your sacrifice this year!

From September 2010 through October 2011 we counted ten ER visits for our family, four operations for Natalie, one operation for Abigail, and constant doctor visits and intense moments. We’re very thankful for a window of rest the past couple months! But we’re also thankful for the trials God brought us through and the lessons He taught us. We’ve never felt so helpless, so dependent on God, so thankful for His love, and so mindful of the power of prayer. Thank you all who served us and prayed for us this year.

Arizona. 2011 was not all drama. We enjoyed some fun moments too. In June, we rented a house along with Stephen’s parents in Flagstaff, AZ for a week. This was such a great way to meet up with them. We spent a full day at the Grand Canyon, visited some caverns, and got to look at the sun and Saturn through special telescopes at the Lowell Observatory.

On departure, our family headed south to Phoenix and the Southern Baptist Convention. The kids had a blast riding the light rail train each day to the Convention Center!

Family. On July 15th, we celebrated 11 years of marriage by heading up the Palm Springs Tram for dinner and a hike in the gorgeous mountain scenery. Thank you, Lord, for best friends in each other!

Heidi turned three on February 20th. (She still talks about her princess birthday cake!) Dylan turned six on November 17 and started first grade this fall. He is reading well and really enjoys science. Natalie is teaching the kids at home and does a great job. Dylan recently lost his fourth tooth, just in time to sing All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

Camping. In August, Stephen took the older kids camping for two nights in Idyllwild. Heidi was so excited to go this year! They arrived late, so they had to scramble to find a good site and set up camp in the dark. When they awoke in the morning, they discovered a rock nearby that the kids loved climbing on. With a little imagination, that rock became a pirate ship, a castle, and a hideout for bad guys.

Ministry. This was an encouraging year as we saw the Lord work in many lives. More and more families are coming to the church and getting involved. We had good attendance at VBS with two girls accepting Christ. We also did outreach at a local parade, a fair booth, a car show, at Halloween, and by donating money to our local high school to help renovate their faculty lounge.

We shared the gospel with many visitors at our Christmas service, and Stephen had the opportunity to lead a man to Christ just a few weeks ago. We also enjoyed many guest missionaries this year including Mikko Sivonen, Tim Kunkel, Philippe Viguier, and Jeff Thomas.

Stephen had the opportunity to serve on the California Southern Baptist Focus 21 Task Force. He also enjoyed teaching as a Course Administrator for The Master’s College Online program and as an Adjunct Professor at California Baptist University.

We were blessed by the group Majesty from The Master’s College who came out to sing in October. Plus they were able to stay a few extra days and help paint our sanctuary, hallway, remodel Stephen’s church office, organize the library, and help with outreach. They were a tremendous encouragement!

God provided for us to re-roof our sanctuary before the winter rains arrive. This was an enormous amount of money for our little church. Several times, money came from people we didn’t even know and once from over a hundred miles away. Praise God!

Yes, it’s been quite a year. But we serve quite a God –One who promises never to give us more than we can handle with His Spirit, His Word, and loving friends like all of you. We love and pray for you. Happy New Year!

Love,
Stephen, Natalie, Dylan, Heidi, & Abigail Jones

As I write this article, my wife and I are getting ready to take our seven-month old daughter Abigail down to Loma Linda for surgery on her right kidney. We’re thankful that little Abby will get excellent care and has a high probability of success. But even more importantly, we’re thankful she is in God’s loving hands.

Life is not easy. We often have to live by faith, and not by sight. One of the ancient prophets who learned this was Habakkuk. His name in Hebrew means “the clinger,” and that is precisely what God taught Him — to cling to the Lord every day.

Habakkuk lived in turbulent times. There was famine in Israel, and the army of Babylon was approaching. Hungry and outnumbered, the Israelites trembled. After all, Babylon did not have a reputation for showing mercy to their prisoners of war.

But as the chariots thundered closer and the infantry kicked dust high into the air, Habakkuk gathered his composure and wrote a beautiful poem of trust in God:

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food; the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

The prophet’s forecast looked bleak. Tasty treats like figs and grapes would soon dry up. Then staple crops like olives and wheat would fail. Finally, all the animals would die from starvation or enemy slaughter. But in spite of this, Habakkuk put his joy in the Lord and kept clinging to him.

Can the same be said of us? Thankfully, we aren’t defending against an enemy attack or in a life-threatening drought. But many of us are in an uphill battle every day. Financial trouble. Sickness. Loneliness. Addiction.

Don’t despair! God is still our strength. He will care for us, if we will turn to him. He already proved his love by giving his son to die for our sins. And in the end, he will make all things new for those who trust in Jesus (Revelation 21:5).

By the time you read this, Abigail’s surgery should be over. Hopefully, she will already be on the road to recovery. But no matter what, we know we can cling to God and rejoice in Him, for He is our strength.

This article was written last week for publication in today’s edition of our local newspaper, the Hi Desert Star.

Thanks to all who have been asking about Abigail’s surgery. It’s been a long two days, but we’re thankful to report things seem to be improving.

Abigail’s surgery was at 9 am on Monday morning. The operation was done around noon and then we were called back to meet with the surgeon. He said the procedure went very well, and that we would likely go home the next day. However, the Lord had other plans.

Yesterday evening, Abby’s pain grew worse, and her tummy became quite distended. Even morphine was not calming her down. There was a chance she was having constipation or even internal bleeding, so they moved her over to the pediatric ICU unit this morning.

No one could get a needle into her to check her blood, so they had to do a pick line IV, which is a special kind of IV that runs up through her vein and into her main vein near her heart. They had to give her a sedative and then finished that early this afternoon.

Thankfully, Abby’s vitals look good, and today’s blood test showed hemoglobin still in healthy range. Her stomach distention also has gone down, leading doctors to believe she may have just had some chemical gas in her tummy. She is still fussy and uncomfortable, but can go a few hours between morphine doses.

Tomorrow, they will do another blood draw, and if she stays stable, they will remove her catheter and the NG tube in her nose and start her on some solids. There are still several milestones she needs to reach before she can be released, but we are very thankful for the answered prayers and the progress she seems to have made today.

Thanks for your continued prayers for Natalie. I brought her home from the hospital on Saturday, and since then she has been showing slow but steady progress.

The doctor did a blood transfusion and a second surgery on Thursday afternoon, using the same incisions to drain the fluid, remove clotting, and stop internal bleeding. But interestingly, once inside, they never found a source of the bleeding. The surgeon carefully looked all around, even using an ultrasound down into the ovaries to see if there was a cyst. But there was no sign of an open wound anywhere. It seems the Lord healed this up on His own, without the doctor’s help!

They did insert a small drain tube to collect any new fluid, but this is not showing any signs of fresh blood either. So, we are very thankful to God for His protection and healing mercy.

Natalie’s pain became much more tolerable on Friday. She was able to take deeper breaths. Her blood pressure and oxygen looked better, and hemoglobin began to climb back up. She had a slight fever the first night, but is doing better and is slowly getting her strength back. We are hopeful that she’s on the road to full recovery.

We’re especially thankful to everyone at church who helped in the past week with food, babysitting, and through your prayers. God has truly been good.

Please continue to pray for Natalie as she recovers from yesterday’s gallbladder surgery. Her blood pressure has remained pretty stable, but her hemoglobin has gone down a tad, and she’s in an inordinate amount of pain.

The doctor has ordered another sonogram to see what’s going on. They’ve also withdrawn food and liquids just in case she needs another surgery. I wonder if there might be some internal bleeding going on?

I stayed at home with the kids overnight, but will head back out to the hospital this morning as soon as Liz Tyree gets here to babysit the kids. Thank you for all your prayers. We serve a great and mighty God. He is a Loving Father, and He hears our prayers.

Here’s a quote I read from Paul Enns’ book Heaven Revealed yesterday. What comfort for the soul:

“On this sinful, fallen earth, life will remain difficult, fraught with suffering and sadness. But we are looking forward to heaven – and heaven is always better in every realm than the earth. We should never question, doubt, or worry whether we will ‘enjoy’ heaven. We will enjoy heaven to the utmost; every moment in heaven will be better than the best moments we ever have on this fallen earth. The suffering on this earth will be a thing of the past – forever … Isaiah says believers will ‘come with joyful shouting to Zion, and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away’ (Isa. 51:11).”

Hoping in Christ,
Stephen