Single Digits!!

 Y’all!!! We are in the single digits!!!! 

It’s been a couple of weeks since we have updated and it’s mainly because we have been on auto-pilot. Our girls were out of school for a week and we worked seven sixteen hour days with one day off. Along with Nick doing his treatments we are exhausted!!! When people ask how we are.. the only thing that I know to say is, “tired.” The absolute only way that we are getting through this is the Lord. He has been our strength, comfort and guide through it all. 

I had the opportunity to take Nick to a couple of radiation treatments and it’s so encouraging to hear how they talk about him. They love him! He has remained so positive during this time… he has even helped me push through some hard days… when I feel like I should be the one helping him push through. 

Nick’s fatigue is what he is fighting through on a daily basis…Sunday and Monday after chemo are his hardest days. I don’t know how he is still working, honestly. He is living off of chicken noodle soup and any soft foods he can tolerate. Nick’s neck under his chin is starting to bruise and his throat remains incredibly sore. He can’t taste anything and he is looking forward to the day where he can taste again.. he said pizza sounds so good! 

We are getting closer to being done! He has 8 more radiation treatments and 1 more chemo treatments! We can’t wait to ring that bell!!! 

We are so thankful for our army who is praying for us! Thank you to those of you who have sent money, gifts and helped with meals. We are so so thankful!! 

Below is the radiation machine! It’s incredible to me how this thing works! It’s also incredible how Nick can be strapped to this thing 5 days a week! He is a fighter!! 

We’re half way there!

 We are 1/2 way through! Nick has 17 radiation treatments behind him and 18 more to go! He has 4 chemo treatments behind him and 3 more to go!!! Y’all we can’t wait and are just ready to be done! 

We had a series of really good days but each week we have faced something new. This week it was the joys of constipation! This is not only the side effects of the meds he is on but is also a side effect of the chemo. In the beginning of all of this he could drink apple juice and it would help him. His mouth and throat have been so affected by the radiation he can no longer stand the acid. To save you all the details we will just say I saw him in a whole new light! One thing is for sure when you go through things like this it makes you closer than what you were! LOL With the help of his doctors and nurse navigator we have a plan going forward to help with this symptom. 

 He was pretty nervous going into Chemo the night before because he hadn’t felt any release. He finally throughout the night was able to get movement and by morning he was feeling great. Nicks mom came to see us for her birthday and she was able to go with him to his treatments. I was so thankful for this! I took a day to myself and enjoyed a sushi lunch! I am sure sitting through her son’s chemo treatments was not what she wanted to do on her birthday but we are so thankful she was there!

When Nick saw his Hematologist, Dr. Milton, He was SO encouraged! Nick told him he was still working and he literally couldn’t believe it! He told him that normally at this point his patients are home bound and don’t do anything besides go to treatments. Nick told him he ran to Walgreens the other day and he was shocked! We ALL know why… the Lord has sustained him! The Lord has been getting him through. I stand amazed at Nicks strength and his “I won’t give up attitude.” He pushes through the hard days, the hard moments and takes it a second at a time. 

Nick has dropped 33 lbs…and has dropped it quickly. Goals for getting through the rest of his treatments are to up his protein and calorie intake. Many days he just doesn’t feel like eating. He can have no spice (salt is still ok) and softer foods. 

We are so thankful for our army of people praying for us! We have had a complete stranger with a testimony of her own give to us financially… and others who remain anonymous. We have had people send us things that Nick needs. Thank you a million times! 

Ways to pray:                                                                                                                                                         That Nick can continue to navigate his symptoms/side effects                                                                            We both can get good rest (with our stressful job)                                                                                           Extra strength and energy throughout our work days                                                                                       For our friends and family who are away from us and want to be closer (they too are dealing with the emotions of all of this)                                                                                                                                            For total and COMPLETE healing after all of his treatments! 

We thank you for loving us and Keeping Up with Us!!!                 

                                                                                        

It’s Cancer…Part 2

 …7 weeks…7 long weeks…

This is when things started to get really hard…stressful and we questioned how we were going to do it all. You see our job alone is trying as we work with 8 teenage girls who are in the foster care system. We work 16 hr days. Yes, they are in school…but we are oncall during the day. Just the thought of keeping up with everything was incredibly overwhelming. 

To even prepare for the radiation and chemo Nick had a series of appointments. All his dental work had to be up to date and now he found out he would have to do home fluoride treatments every day for the rest of his life. This is due to the radiation and it effecting the enamel on your teeth. He had to be fitted for his mask for radiation *Picture attached* and he also had to see a speech therapist for throat exercises as swallowing would become difficult for him. Nick also had a port placed in his chest for the administering of the chemo. In just that one week he had 8 appointments, 1 of them being his port placement, 2 radiation appointments and chemo. Needless to say he was EXHAUSTED at the end of the week! Not to mention we continued to work. 

We are now 12 radiation appointments in and 3 chemo treatments down! 23 more radiation appointments and 4 more chemo treatments! There is nothing to prepare you for this. There is nothing to prepare you for the rollercoaster of emotions, the pain, the fear of the unknown all while holding on to hope. 

Nick has handled all of it like a champ and I feel that this is a true testament of his faith in God. Months before we got the news Nick started diving deeper into the word, he started to make it a priority for us to pray together every day and has been intentional to have people in his life to keep him accountable. He has been incredibly positive, incredibly strong and extremely brave. The radiation has already given him some really hard side effects: changed his taste, pain in his teeth but the worst has to be how his throat feels. Imagine a really bad sunburn but on the back of his throat/roof of his mouth. He is to the point where he can’t eat many things. There were a few days this week where he was in tears because of the pain. We are heading into the 3 week mark of radiation and doctors have said it’s going to progressively get worse (we pray against many of the hard symptoms). Chemo makes him feel super tired and the first couple of weeks he had really bad nausea. The doctors/nurses on his team have been amazing and we now have many meds that have helped him have less pain. 

As for me… I have struggled so much… I am a fixer… when Nick has his moments of pain, in tears because of the pain…I can do nothing. Some things that help one day, don’t help the next day. I have questioned so many things, asked God why this had to happen and honestly I have been so incredibly mad. I am tired and yet I know God is faithful. He has never ever failed us…never let us down. Why would he do this now? We have been given a promise… God isn’t done with us yet. 

Please pray for us… pray for strength throughout our days. Pray that we know how to navigate this one day at a time. We covet the prayers so much. 

Thank you for keeping up with us… we hope you continue to do so. 

The mask that he wears for radiation. 

It’s Cancer…Part 1

 Since you have made your way to our blog we are going to assume that by now you know, Nick has Cancer. So many times we have thought, how did we end up here? 

In March Nick was shaving his neck when he noticed a lump in his neck. The lump wasn’t hard but rather squishy. We had just started a new job and didn’t have insurance so we went to a clinic to have it checked out. The said that it could be a number of things but was 98% sure it wasn’t cancerous. There was no pain in his neck at all so the both of us weren’t too worried about it. 

Nick found a care provider and set up an appointment for May 1st, which was the first day we would have insurance. Once we had the appointment she recommended an ENT. The ENT referred him to have an ultrasound done. After the ultrasound he had a biopsy, CT scan and another biopsy. We received the dreaded news on a Tuesday that the biopsy showed positive for Squamous Cell Carcinoma. My heart literally fell into my stomach when we got the phone call. My family has such a history with cancer so of course my mind just raced. Even though our ENT said that it was treatable and curable I feared for the worst. Our main concern is if it had spread into his body. The ENT also said that it had to have a place that it was coming from since it was in his neck. We were immediately scheduled for a PT Scan. Nick and I have a friend who is an oncologist and we got his results really quickly so I sent them to her immediately. She said exactly what we needed to hear, “it hasn’t spread.” We were so thankful! The Lord had protected us! 

When we showed up at the ENT office there were about 10 people there to work on his case. Each of them played a role in how we were going to proceed with his treatments. It’s there that we found that Nick had a grape size lump on the back of his tongue in his lingual tonsil on the right side. The lump that we found is on the left side of his neck. The ENT told us that it was stage 2 because it was in his neck and the host was in his tongue.  The doctors all agreed that we would go the radiation/chemo route and not do surgery. We knew we had a long road ahead of us. 

We next met with the radiologist. This day was so hard for us as he had to tell us all of the worst that could happen, all the symptoms, possibly feeding tube and the possibility of a surgery even after all of this. Nick’s oncologist is Dr. Dugan and Nick jokingly calls him Dr. Doom because of all of the news we got that day. We later saw his hematologist for the chemo portion. 

It was decided…7 weeks of radiation and 7 rounds of chemo…

Everything's BIGGER in TEXAS

So...we're gonna be TEXANS! At this point I guess you could call us world travelers.
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Here is a bit of transparency for you...California has been terrible to us. It's crazy to think that we have basically lived here our entire marriage...all but one year. California isn't the easiest state to live in that's for sure...especially when you are from the Midwest. In the almost 4 years that Nick and I have lived here we have lived in 5 different homes and 5 different towns. We have both had 4 different jobs...this doesn't include the woodworking and VIPKID that we would do on the side. The both of us had to do what we had to do to make ends meet. In our last blog posts we have shared some struggles and have kept you guys in the loop through social media, texts and phone calls BUT California has brought heartache, non-genuine friendships, a struggling bank account, family health issues, spiritual battles, emotional struggles, mental and physical breakdowns..the list goes on.

Now don't get us wrong it hasn't been all bad. The connections we have been able to make with friends has been amazing. This place has opened our eyes into what genuine people really look like. Nick has discovered many things about himself like, his love for woodworking, love for smoking/grilling...he has been able to discover hisself more. It has helped us both realize what freedom feels like...freedom from religion and truly understand what a relationship looks like rather than what religion looks like. Nick and I are less judgmental, more open minded, more receptive of all cultures and individualities.

So I guess I should say California has been 70% terrible.
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The past year and a half...

We have been working for an Academy for youth in the foster system...at first things were AMAZING. It was a breath of fresh air for Nick and myself. We love what we do! Nick and I work with 6-8 students in a home as houseparents... kind of like our last place..but this place is so much better. Nick and I felt a shift at the home...no need to go into too much detail here...but it was getting worse. As many know our brother in law battled many health problems this past year. We are so thankful that we were here for him and Kendra's sister. Thankfully we all work for the same academy and could be there for them when needed. Those months were difficult! Not only was that hard to go through but there were many things taking place at the academy. The lack of vision really started to play into Nick and I looking for another place to serve. So we started looking other places...at the same time our brother-in-law (Al) and Kendra's sister Brittany started looking for other places to serve. All four of us knew that this decision could take us away from each other. This was scary to us but we all knew that we needed to pursue it for ourself. We needed something more...we all felt stuck. Things weren't changing for the better at the academy. In Kendra's words...we are fighting a battle that can't be won and the sad thing is there shouldn't even be a battle because we should all be on the same team.

We all decided that we would put in our resume at a children's home in TX. Well through a number of phone calls they discovered that the four of us were related. The decision was made by the children's home that they wanted to bring all four of us out for an interview. This interview took place in February. It was AMAZING...we ALL felt valued, needed, loved...the children's home was so great...the staff, the kids...everything about it! I wish I had time to share everything here about it...or that you could hear it first hand from me how amazing this place is. The best part...its a faith based home...something we have missed. We have missed community, a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose. We aren't even there yet and we feel all of these!

During the interview there we were all nervous...because Al still needed to have one more surgery done...and it was probably going to happen in May or June...that was 4 months away from when we interviewed. We all thought there would be no way that they would wait for us. Amazingly enough...they were willing to wait...whats even better... they offered us the job while we were there. God is so good..he loves us so much and is gifting us with this amazing opportunity... all FOUR of us. The four of us aren't ones that HAVE to be together...like I said...we pursued other places...knowing that it could take us a part... Obviously God thinks that we are better together.

So on June 5th the four of us...along with Kendra's mom and her new husband Bill (they are helping us move) will head out for our next chapter in Amarillo, TX. The children's home is called Cal Farley's Boys Ranch.

Nick and I are going to desperately miss our girls and the students on our campus. We ask that you please pray for us...and for them during this time of transition.

As always thanks for keeping up with us!

When It All Comes Crashing Down...

If you know Nick and me at all you know that we are a pretty open book. We will share just about anything with any body...one on one. We aren't much of a spill your guts over a social media platform. I guess you could say we are pretty transparent people. Sometimes this is too much for people...and we are okay with that.

I have received text messages, phone calls, emails, messages on Facebook and Instagram asking what in the world is going on with us. Some have seen that we have been selling stuff and have asked if we need money... or if we are moving again. So to better explain what is going on...I decided a new blog post was in order. It's going to be a long one.

First let me say that anxiety is a real thing. It can make you fear things you never knew you could fear. It is debilitating and can keep you from enjoying all of life's exciting moments. Some people live their whole life with anxiety while other people's anxiety comes with circumstances or because of life events. Many will say, "oh snap out of it," "get over it," "it's not that big of a deal." Until you have really lived with it...you don't understand it and have no place to offer this type of advice. Know that my heart is with you if you struggle, have struggled or will struggle with anxiety. There is hope.
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Many of you know that Nick and I have a call upon our life to be in ministry together...this desire only grows stronger each day. Many of you also know that I was a Children's Pastor here in California. Back in January/February I started to feel like my time was coming to an end at the church. Nick had already been feeling this but I put it off to the fact that he just so badly wanted to be doing ministry and not working for Apple like we was. He and I both decided that we would apply to a children's home here in California where we would be houseparents together...doing some sort of ministry...TOGETHER. We went through the interview process and was offered the job. The same day that we were offered the job just hours later I was let go from my pastoral job at the church. In the church of the Nazarene the board/pastor has the opportunity to renew or not renew their pastors...in the meeting I was told that the board chose not to renew. There was no reason given. I am not going into great detail about this because its not a necessity and would do more harm than good. There are amazing people at that church...and God is on the move (that is exciting). Sometimes in order for a vision to take place people have to move out of the way and allow it to happen...it was my time to do just that. The amazing thing that we must focus on in this situation is God's timing...the day we accepted the job...was the day I was let go. God PROVIDES PEOPLE! (ok rant over).

Nick and I were excited to start this new adventure together...we couldn't wait to get started. We wanted to show the girls that were living in our home what a family looked like and most importantly we wanted to share the love of Jesus Christ. We knew we would be rejected, cussed at every day and had the possibility of getting hurt (physically). Nick and I were trained on restraints because the behaviors of these kids were so bad. Their trauma was so deep...sometimes the triggers of this trauma would happen at night. Nick would sit outside of the room of one of our girls until she would fall asleep so that she would feel safe. Safety was key in our house and Nick made them all feel safe. He was so good with the girls...they loved him and bought into him almost immediately. I loved to watch him interact with them. It brought me so much joy...and my love for him grew deeper. We had some really terrible days and we have so many stories that we could tell. Then we had amazing days where the girls would laugh and dance...our house was a house of dancing. Everything revolved around their trauma and if I told you some things that these poor girls have had to go through you would be terrified. It was hands down the hardest job either one of us had ever had.

Nick started to feel extremely overwhelmed and anxious due to so many circumstances that were happening in our home and the group home as a whole. I then started to have these same feelings and then I got sick...terribly sick. I had a horrible stomach virus and even after my IV and the doctor telling me to drink pedialyte (I couldn't keep even that down). I didn't eat for 7 days and was sick for 10 days. To top it off...Nick also got the stomach virus. This is when everything started to spiral downhill. We both became super anxious and could not bounce back from being sick. Our minds were racing and were all over the place. I was stuck in a cycle. I wasn't afraid of the girls but I was afraid to go into work. We tried to escape it on our off days but even then we couldn't fully because we lived in the home. There was a night when we had just gone off of our week long shift to have a week off and we had to come back on shift because one of our new employees got upset and walked off the job. We tried so hard to get away that relief...we went to San Diego...yet our minds were racing and we still couldn't shake the anxiety. The night before we quit our job I was threatened with a piece of glass. Even though I wasn't scared...my anxiety got worse.

The next day I was scheduled to go into work at 5:30 am.. I didn't sleep but maybe 2 hours that night...I was up every hour with anxiety and when 5:00 am hit I was a mess. I couldn't pull myself to go into work. Nick and I made the EXTREMELY hard decision to quit our job that day. We questioned where we would go, what we would do and how we would make money. We immediately thought about our friends from our old church and we called them up. Without hesitation they told us to come on and that they were ready for us. So thankful that God put them in our life for so many reasons...we have been blessed by them more than they will ever know or begin to understand. Thankfully before we started our job at the home we purchased an 18 foot travel trailer from some friends...this is now what we call home. We have been able to have full hook up on our friends beautiful property. Some days corners are tight...we have had to adjust in so many ways but I made a killer dinner last night! We will be doing a video (MTV Cribs addition soon).
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So why did we sell so much stuff.. yes we needed money...but it also forced us to become minimalists over night! We had the opportunity to go through all of our stuff and either keep it, sell it or throw it away. It was actually freeing!!! There is this Netflix documentary called Minimalists and while that is to the extreme we took one thing away from it...If it doesn't add value to your life do you really need it. It hit us... we had SO much stuff...and now we had no where to put it. It has made us so grateful for the things that we do have. Nick and I made money...and we can pay our bills and eat another day.

So what about jobs?! Nick sent so many resumes...50+ and made phone calls. I sent resumes and filled out applications. We were frantic and every day we would ask each other "are we going to make it," "are we going to be okay?" It was scary but we knew that for our health we HAD to walk away from the job and FULLY have faith in Jesus. He provides in ways that we can't see. Nick got a job! AND that same week that he got the job offer...I got a job offer (actually the very next day). In less than 3 weeks time we both were employed. Nick started his job this past Monday and works for Penske Auto Group. I start my job August 15th but will start training July 25th. I will be a 1st and 2nd grade teacher for a Christian Academy.

So what about us working in ministry together??...well that is another blog post.

Thanks for keeping up with us!
The Joneses

Curve Balls!

So what's new?...I am going to tell you what is new. About two weeks ago our Sr. Pastor resigned as the Sr. Pastor. Crazy right?!

This was taken straight from his FB status:
To all of our family and friends we wanted to let you know that we are in for a big change in our lives. We have been considering serving in some way in missions. We thought we might volunteer and teach but that has transformed into something only God could have orchestrated. We have been appointed to serve as special assignment missionaries on the South Asia Field. We will be assisting the countries of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and eventually Bangladesh. We are so blessed to have served as the pastor of five great churches over the years and especially our most recent pastorate here at the Murrieta Gateway Church of the Nazarene. What a loving and supportive congregation they are. We know God has amazing plans for them and great blessings are in their future. Please pray for us as we transition into global missions

WOW! Big news right?! Let me first state that I am excited for them and this opportunity. I know that God is leading them, guiding them and is going to use them. So what does this mean for Nick and me? In the Nazarene church (where I pastor) the staff is required to resign and it is up to the church board to decide to accept the resignation or not. Well the board is super supportive of all the staff and the resignations are not going to be approved. Once we get a new pastor he will then have 90 days to decide to keep the staff as is, to bring his own staff or to higher different people for the current positions. Nick and I aren't concerned and we know that ultimately God is guiding our lives and will provide just as he is now.

The church that I pastor at has only had two pastors...the founding pastor and Bill.. When the last pastor resigned it took this church a year to hire Pastor Bill. It could take that long or longer. In the meantime we will continue to do what we do. God has great things in store for Gateway. Nick and I remain excited to serve and minister to this amazing church family.

We ask that you pray for this transition. Please pray for our board, for unity and for the decisions that are being made.

Thank you for Keeping Up with the Joneses