Update on Baby Caleb Rodriguez, part 2

By -
Marcus and Julia Rodriguez are experiencing every parent's worst nightmare. Three weeks ago, they celebrated the birth of their firstborn child in a Shanghai hospital. Within a short time, however, Caleb exhibited some major struggles, and they didn't know if he would survive. Praise be to God that the acute concerns now seem to be diminished, and they are more focused on the long-term developmental issues that may lie ahead.
Caleb had been in the NICU unit of Shanghai's leading pediatric hospital, Children's Hospital of Fudan University. God has provided for them. Parental contact is almost always limited in NICU units, and they were initially desperate for more contact. This was especially traumatic when Caleb was transported from the birth hospital to this advanced facility, even though his mother was still recuperating at the birth hospital. God has since opened the way for them to spend massive amounts of time with Caleb.
They are surrounded by our prayers and by their family. Julia's mom is there. Marcus' parents are there, along with Marcus' brother and his wife.

The Lord is answering prayers. Now that the seizures are apparently under control, they are able to have more contact. They have even tried to allow baby Caleb to transition from IV feeding to breast feeding, though this has not been a smooth switch. The family praises God for these hopeful developments. Although he is receiving good care and have been able to counsel with the best endocrinologists and neurologists available, some levels of advanced testing and treatment are unavailable at Chinese facilities.
The Rodriguezes are fortunate to have international health insurance, a type that many expatriates have to provide for medical evacuation in exactly these types of rare circumstances. Their insurance company has agreed to med-evac Caleb to California. Dr. Terry "Hutch" Hutchison, one of the elders here at the College Church, is a world respected pediatric neurologist at UC-San Francisco Children's Hospital. Julia and Marcus have spoken with Hutch, and they were hoping to have Caleb transported to San Francisco. The insurance company, however, has decided to take Caleb to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles.
Please pray that both Marcus & Julia will be able to fly with Caleb. At present, they have only promised room for one of them. We also praise God that Marcus & Julia have gotten Caleb's passport already. Our kids were both born overseas, and I can testify that this is a miracle to have a foreign-born baby's American passport so quickly -- especially in this situation where one parent in not an American citizen. This is a miracle, and we should praise God!
Currently they are waiting on news about the med-evac. If you want to read more about baby Caleb, you can visit their Caring Bridge account at http://www.caringbridge.org/. You will need to set up a free account to access their info. Then you can enter the name calebrodriguez to go to his specific page.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians 4:1-7 & The Confusing Apostle Paul

By -
Image
Does Galatians 4:1-7 confuse anyone as much as it does me? After studying this for some time, I am prone to agree with the words of 2 Peter 3:16. "There are some things in [Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures." I hope I'm not one of the ignorant and unstable people. But I'm in the camp of folks who can say that Paul's writings are occasionally hard to understand. Let me clarify what I'm having a hard time clarifying. I don't really think it's difficult to understand Paul's point in Gal 4:1-7. The broader context makes it clear. Paul says that the Law of Moses is inferior to the promise previously made to Abraham. Gentile Christians, he writes, are descendants of Abraham because they share the same faith in God (3:6-7) that Abraham had (Gen 15:6). They therefore don't need to obey Jewish rules and customs. That's his point. from Anthony...
Read more

Love It or List It: We Sold Our Church Building

By -
Image
On October 8, 2023, we held our last worship service in our home of 59 years. We're moving on to a temporary location while we wait for God to reveal where our more permanent home will be. It's been a journey for which there is no solid road map, but we feel blessed by what's happening. We formed a giant circle for the final song at our longtime, northeast Fresno home. In late January, our elders announced a shock decision. We would be selling our church building and moving on. Among the elders, it was an uncontentious and unambiguous decision. They 100% believed it was in the church's best interest to put our property on the market and find a new home. Many congregations have hard choices to make about aging properties that are oversized for today's churches. Selling seemed the most desirable option to our board in our circumstances. I wrote about that decision back in January. You can read about it here . I had an inside seat to their decision-making process. As a...
Read more

In Memoriam of Larry Locke, My Father

By -
Image
My dad Larry Locke took his final breath this afternoon. He was in the comfort of his own home in Lebanon, Tennessee. It was as beautiful a spring day as Middle Tennessee can provide. Lovely breeze. Chirping birds. Blooming flowers. But Dad had been unable for weeks to notice the glory of God's created world. He was ready to go and be with the Lord forever. Over the last 2+ years, Larry had struggled with dementia and previously undiagnosed depression. A lifelong runner, he had never spent a night in the hospital prior to this sickness. The loss of his vitality was a blow to all who knew and loved him. While his first hospitalization returned him to a level close to his old self, subsequent declines and hospital stays left him a shadow of the man we knew. His time for this life would number 76 years. Larry Locke was born in 1942 in Shelbyville, Tennessee. His father, W. H. Locke, owned a small diner. His mother, Pansy Worley Locke, had done office work but as a mother was mos...
Read more