Dear Friends and Family,

Where has the summer gone? I can’t believe August is almost over!  We started out our summer by going on a wonderful beach vacation with all 3 of our children, their spouses and our 1 granddaughter – perfect would be the best way to describe the week we had enjoying God’s creation and each other. It was without a doubt the best vacation I’ve ever been on and will never forget it. Below is a picture of the whole group.

Besides vacation Mark has had many opportunities to speak and we have truly met some amazing people! God has been so good to provide these opportunities and to allow Mark to share his story – it is great to sit back and watch God turn something “bad” into good for His kingdom. It is truly our blessing every time we get to go out and share. FCA coaches camp at St. Simons was a highlight this summer – we always look forward to it and it never disappoints – great place and great friendships!

Mark was also able to attend a seminar called “For My Life” in Thomaston, GA that was highly recommended to us – it is about healing but more from a spiritual side – he learned a lot but mainly just gave him more a desire to dig deep into scriptures and to focus on a more personal relationship with our heavenly Father.

Overall Mark has been feeling pretty good – besides his hernia which bothers him most days and hinders a lot of physical activity which can be discouraging to him. He has been having some symptoms that we are having checked out. He had a scan done a couple of weeks ago and will have a colonoscopy in the morning (Thursday, 8/22/13) to determine what is going on. We will meet with our oncologist Friday morning to go over everything.

We are praying for healing and believing God can do anything. We truly have peace that it is all in His hands and trust Him for the outcome. Please pray with us for continued healing in Mark’s body and for the cancer to completely leave his body.

We have another blessing coming our way in a couple of weeks.  We look forward to welcoming Camden’s little sister into the world!

As always, I want to thank you for the many prayers – we believe in the power of prayer and have seen great things as a result of it! So keep it up!!

Much love,

Mark and Lee

Malachi 3:6
“For I am the Lord, I do not change;
Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.

Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Psalm 90:1-2
Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

Psalm 121:2
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

Dear Friends and Family,

Blessed is the best way to describe how I’m feeling today! God has given us a PERFECT weather day – I’m sitting here with the window open and a wonderful breeze coming in. I can hear the sound of a mower and that is a very sweet sound – you see Mark is the one pushing the mower! He has come so far from where he was the beginning of this year and we are so grateful!

We had a lot of decisions to pray and make concerning his treatments. The last time I wrote we had decided to try the regular Chemotherapy. Well, after one round we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not do that. It made him very sick – had a reaction in his arm and his fingers were bent to a degree that we thought it might be permanent. We just decided that we could not do that to his body – we know God doesn’t need the chemo to heal him anyway. We’ve always tried to have a balanced approach. The first thing we do is trust God for the healing and then we ask Him to guide us into what type of treatments and therapies we should be doing.

So we landed on low dose chemo and it is working out very well. Very little side effects and he is doing that in conjunction with a lot of the natural therapies he was already on.

He has been very blessed with speaking to many groups and churches recently. This where his heart is and God is using the message in a mighty way. We’ve met some great people along the way – it has been a great encouragement to us. If you haven’t heard about what Mark is doing you can ready his testimony at www.leaveamarknow.com – God has put him in so places to reach someone just when they needed to hear the message – I love how God works everything out in His timing!

In June we will take a family vacation which we haven’t done in years and looking forward to it very much!

We are so thankful for all of our prayer warriors out there – I truly believe that prayer is the reason Mark is still with us – now we’ve been able to meet people who are in similar situations as us and have been able to add them to our prayer list (which is growing) and it just blesses us again and again!

So, I continue to ask you to pray for Mark and for the cancer to be completely healed and for him to be able to continue speaking and doing what God has called him to.

We love you and appreciate you very much!!

Mark and Lee

Philippians 4:19 – But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Luke 6:38 – Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

3 John 1:2 – Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

Isaiah 41:10 – Fear thou not; for I [am] with thee: be not dismayed; for I [am] thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Dear Friends and Family,

After much prayer, thoughts and research we decided to start out with the stronger chemo therapy which he will be starting today. The reason being is that if you start with low-dose your body builds up a resistance and then you can’t go back to the stronger chemo.

Here is what the plan looks like. He will go into the infusion center for the infusion of the chemo once every 3 weeks. He will probably be there half a day. They will prescribe oral chemo pills for him to take 14 days on 7 days off. So this will be his protocol from the oncologist for the next few months.

We are praying that side effects be minimal and he will be able to maintain his weight and keep up with his daily activities.

Along with the chemo protocol he will be strongly pursuing all the natural/alternative treatments he is currently on. Along with diet/juicing/supplements he will stay with the protein and other things he is doing to build up his immune system and to shrink the cancer tumors.

We are still just praising the Lord for the great scan results and seeing all 3 area reducing! That is ONLY from our healer – we are sure of that! To look at Mark now compared to about 6 weeks ago it is a total transformation!! A real miracle in my book! He is back to driving and all his FCA activities as well as speaking and even getting some work outs in here and there. He is able to drive himself and he is back to normal sleeping and has gained all his weight back that he lost during radiation.

Thanks ahead of time for your love and concern and prayers – we firmly believe that we are where we are today due to prayer and we can’t thank you enough!

With Much Gratitude,

Mark and Lee

Psalm 146: 1-2

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as i live.

I Thess. 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 118:24

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Phil. 3:13-14

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Dear Friends and Family,

It’s hard to believe that four years ago today was when Mark was first diagnosed with colon cancer. It has been quite a journey but we are thankful that we are still on it!

We had great news this week from Mark’s scans – all 3 areas of cancer show reduced tumors!! The nodule in the lung is smaller and has no new growth. The tumor in the liver went from 3.2cm to 1.7cm with no other growth and the tumor in the colon has reduced and is only in the colon and not in any other organs as they were concerned about.

Mark is practically back to normal after the radiation. He is back driving himself and back to normal FCA duties and going full force! The difference is remarkable and for that we are very thankful!!

We had appointments with two different doctors this week to discuss our protocol going forward. There are a couple of different ways that we could approach this.

Our oncologist would like to have him on oral chemo pills for 21 days on 7 days off and during the 7 days off go in to the infusion center for an IV of chemo drugs. If this route is where God wants us we could still do the alternative treatments and supplements.

The other option is to do an IPT low dose chemotherapy once a week along with our alternative treatments and supplements.

We shared with our oncologist that we are looking at different treatments but we aren’t looking for the treatments to cure Mark but have faith that God is in control and He is the one who can heal but that we seek Him as to what path He wants to lead us down.

That is our prayer request for you – that as we seek His face as to what direction to go in that He will make the way clear just as He has for the past four years! The other request is for wisdom and healing as far as Mark’s hernia is concerned. It is really the main reason for pain every day – he deals with it almost constantly and it has certainly gotten worse. We can’t do surgery in do any type of chemo and not even sure the surgeon would dare open him up again as any type of surgery leaves him vulnerable to cancer cells spreading and even if they fix the hernia it could end up right back where he is now.

We are so thankful that God is in control and He goes ahead of us – all we have to do is trust Him and follow Him.

Thank you for your prayers and all your love and support – we are very grateful!

Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

Numbers 6:25-26 The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

Psalm 146: 1-2 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live!

It’s been almost 4 years since Mark was first diagnosed and I can’t begin to tell you the amount of times that people tell us that they don’t know how we do it or that they couldn’t do it, etc.

I was sharing was someone recently that truly it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God providing a way for us to walk thru the storm with Him as our guide. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because we’ve had our share of storms these past couple of months.

I can testify that God knows exactly when to send a blessing that reaches to our core and tells us that He is still right here with us and loves us and seeks the very best for us. Our blessings have come in SO many forms that is would be hard to list. I can nearly always share a fresh blessing – I don’t have to do back to 09 or to six months ago – it amazes me how the blessings continue to come and even more when the storms get rough.

Our blessings come in a text from an old friend who felt led to pray and asked what we needed prayer for (and what he didn’t know when he texted was how utterly full of despair we felt at that moment), an email with a word of encouragement, dinner with friends, a phone call from someone just checking up on us, a verse from the Bible that jumped off the page specifically for us on that very day we needed it, a message from one of our kids encouraging us, a picture of our precious granddaughter sent just at the right time. Blessings have come in way of checks that have blown us away and brought us to tears not understanding why someone would do that for us. Help around our house from friends and family and many, many offers of more help from people we know we be there and all we have to do is pick up the phone. A testimony of prayer specifically for us. So many prayers for us it makes our head spin! So many times we’ve had people surround us and pray over us. Flowers showing up randomly to brighten our day. ( I even received flowers from a lady I’ve only met once). As I’m sitting here writing this Mark got a text message with a verse of encouragement and shared it with me – how awesome is that? Another huge blessing is my company changing my position somewhat and making it possible for me to work from home most of the time – this has been a huge help to us!

What we’ve learned is that these blessings don’t make the storm go away but they help us to get thru it.

I don’t understand why God has allowed Mark to suffer nightly without much relief – we get sick and tired of it all and it isn’t fun but God didn’t promise that we wouldn’t have storms in our life but He did provide a way to get thru them – we just have to keep our eyes on Him because just like Peter walking to Him in the storm the second we take our eyes off him we get submerged in the storm.

Mark finished up his 28 rounds of radiation and oral chemo on Monday. He will feel sick with the effects of it for the next few weeks. Our oncologist recommends chemo again but we are praying as to what path we should take. Our natural doctor continues to treat him with supplements to build his system back up and has been doing research for us as he is recommending that we stay on the protocol Mark is currently on and go with another form of chemo that they will administer at his office call IPT low dose chemotherapy – he said they are having some really great results with it and thinks it would be very good for Mark. He wants to start this next week – Mark would only have to go in once a week for about a 3 hour session. We are checking with our insurance to see if they would cover this type of chemo – my gut says they won’t which would mean it would all be out of pocket.

Prayer requests:
1. Mark to feel better and get rest at night –
2. To know which route to go
3. If we go with low dose chemo that insurance will cover it
4. God to remove all cancer cells from Mark’s body – we know He can do it if He wills!

Thank you for being our blessings and for being the hands and feet of Jesus to us!

Mark and Lee

Psalm 73:25-26
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon the earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Dear Friends and Family,

Last week was a long one – lots going on! Mark started radiation on Thursday and had his second session on Friday. He shouldn’t have any side effects at first.

He was never able to get the MRI because the insurance denied coverage. The radiologist was fine with this though as he felt he had a good enough read from the CT scan to plan the radiation accordingly.

After his radiation treatment on Friday we went to see the oncologist. The big surprise there was that they want Mark to start on oral chemotherapy pills for the time he is on radiation. They said that doing both gives him the best possibility of shrinking the tumor. He will take the pills twice a day Monday – Friday. There could be side effects – nothing too drastic but he could have really dry hands and feet and possilbe mouth sores.

The biggest problem right now is just the constant pain and no sleep to speak of. He gets 20 minutes sleep at the most before the pain wakes him up. He is exhausted and sore because of all of this.

His appetite is good which we are thankful for.

The above are the facts for which I need to report because so many people care and are praying. When I look back on my words it sounds pretty negative which I don’t intend to be. I am being honest. The other part of my honesty is this.

Mark gets up every morning and thanks the Lord that he is vertical. He has a terrific attitude and has been able to do a lot of reading and praying. Yes, he is in pain but he doesn’t feel sorry for himself or isn’t down. He is still speaking and doing FCA things – not as much as he was but he still loves getting out when he can.

We are so thankful that he can still stay with his natural therapies which help him to feel better. We are so thankful for our medical fund that has been a huge help to us financially helping him to stick with these alternative treatments and therapies.

We are thankful for friends and family who have surrounded us with love, prayers and support. I could brag on our kids every time I get on here – they have been amazing – they are there anytime we need anything and have been such a huge support to us! We praise the Lord for givng us such awesome kids!

Our prayer continues to be for healing and specifically for the tumor to be reduced so that he can have relief from the pain.

Thank you for praying!

Much love and gratitude,

Mark and Lee

Psalm 27:8

When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek.

Philippians 4:7

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep your harts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Jeremiah 29:13

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

On the way to the cancer cancer center on Friday Mark read as I drove from Jesus Calling….

” I am leading you along the high road, but ther are descents as well as ascents. In the distance you see snow-covered peaks glistening in brilliant sunlight. Your longing to reach those peaks is good, but you must not take shortcuts. Your assignment is to follow Me, allowing Me to direct your path. Let the heights beckon you onwward, but stay close to Me.

Learn to trust Me when things go “wrong”. Disruptions to your routine highlight your dependence on Me. Trusting acceptance of trials brings blessings that far outweigh them all. Walk hand in hand with Me through this day. I have lovingly planned every inch of the way. Trust does not falter when the path becomes rocky and steep. Breathe deep draughts of My Presence, and hold tightly to My hand. Together we can make it!”

Dear Friends and Family,

Well a lot has happened since my last update so I’ll get right to it.

We got a call last Thursday from our oncologist – she has met with surgeon and others to discuss Mark’s case. After carefully looking at the scans the surgeon felt like the tumor might be encroaching into other areas outside the colon and felt like the tumor needs to shrink some before he can consider surgery.

The way to do this is thru radiation. So last Friday we met with the radiologist who felt he could start radiation on Thursday the 17th. The hope is that the radiation will shrink the tumor and will hopefully start giving him some relief from the pain.

He was scheduled to have an MRI yesterday and we were to meet with oncologist today. Our insurance however is trying to deny coverage of the MRI so that had to get cancelled thereby moving our appointment with oncologist to end of the week.

We had felt all along that if we went with radiation or more traditional methods that we couldn’t stay on the protocol that he is currently on with our natural doctor.

A true praise is that we found out that he can still stay on his current program and they will keep him in the study he is in even if he does radiation or surgery. Our doctor said they are on our side and want to do everything they can for him – so Mark will continue to the natural treatments and supplements he is currently on along with the new course of radiation prescribed.

We will meet with our oncologist on Friday and I will update more then especially if she has anything new or different to let us in on.

The prayer is that the tumor will shrink quickly and that in about 5 weeks he will be a candidate for surgery.

Thank you for your continued prayers – we need them now more than ever. Pray for relief from the pain and for a good night sleep. He is pretty much in discomfort most of the time.

We had a nice birthday dinner here at the house tonight with kids that are in town and grandbaby Camden. Praising the Lord for his many blessing to us!

Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Ephesians 3:20
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 10:3-4
To Him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His voice; and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. And when He brings out His own sheep, He goes before them; and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice

Phil. 4:19
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Dear Friends and Family,

Update on what has been going on – after we got back from Seattle we settled back into our normal routine and we continued with everything they told us to do.

We also started a new protocol that goes along in conjuction with what we started in Seattle – it has a 3 pronged approach – we started on it the week of Thanksgiving.

Around the same time Mark started having some pains and difficulty sleeping. We weren’t sure if the pains had anything to do with any of the treatments we were doing or if it had anything to do with the cancer.

The pain was getting worse and Mark wasn’t getting much sleep so we got a colonoscopy scheduled to see what was going on – we were worried there may be a blockage. The colonoscopy showed what the MD Anderson scans had showed which was a tumor in the colon. It wasn’t blocking anything and it wasn’t too big and there was only one so we considered this to be good news.

We made an appointment with our surgeon to see what he suggested and he wanted us to have scans and to see what was going on. Also wanted us to meet with our oncologist.

The scans were scheduled for December 31 but our appointment with our oncologist wasn’t until January 15 which happens to be Mark’s birthday.

When I took Mark in for his scans I stopped by the oncology office to see if I could get a prescription for a stronger pain reliever – our doctor “just happened” to be in – she wasn’t scheduled to be there but when she heard I was in the lobby she asked me to get Mark from the scans and meet with her – this was so exciting to me as I just wanted to get him some relief. Anyway, she ended up meeting with us for about 30 minutes and called to find the results of the scan. Of the 3 different areas they only had one done so she said she would call us.

She called today and I knew right away it was good news! The scans showed no new cancer and what is there has not grown – also the cancer on the lung may not be related to the colon cancer and may be something else – we are going to do more tests to see what it may be. Also, they may be able to do surgery to remove the cancer in the colon and the liver.

We have much praying to do about what we feel God wants us to do. We will still be meeting with doctor on the 15th to talk about options so until then we will be in prayer.

We still don’t have the pain regulated – the patch they put him on definitely took the pain away but it was too strong as it made him really sick and dizzy – we are going to reduce the amount and try again tomorrow.

Prayer requests would be to know what direction to go and that we could get the pain regulated.

All in all we are just praising the Lord for this good news. The doctor was shocked – she thought they were going to find that the cancer has spread.

Everything has been going well with the book and Mark has has some opportunities to speak. We have really been able to see God work and are thankful for every opportunity.

Thanks for the prayers!

With much gratitude,

Mark and Lee

Matthew 6:33-34
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteiousness and ll these things shall be added to you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Psalm 19: 14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

Dear Friends and Family,

You’ve heard the expression “I wish I had a dime (penny,quarter,dollar or whatever) for everytime you’ve said that!” Well I could say that of myself and what I’ve said over and over the past few weeks is “I need to update the blog!!”.

I could give you many excuses and they would be valid but that really doesn’t matter – I just need to update the blog so here goes…

The remainder of our trip out west went very well – everything at the clinic was good – they sent us home with more vaccine for me to administer here at the house. We had a great experience at the clinic and enjoyed meeting everyone there.

We decided to take advantage of being out west for our first time and drove down the coast and flew home from San Francisco – the whole trip was wonderful – from seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time to the California Redwoods to the Golden Gate Bridge – we loved it all!! Here is a picture of Mark in the Redwoods…

Since we’ve been home we’ve been super busy! Mark has been blessed to be able to speak and share his testimony – his book is out and he has been able to share it with many already – we praise the Lord for the response to the book and for everytime we can use our testimony to bring glory to Him!

We are having a book launch on December 2nd at the Marietta Square at Brumby Rocker Company from 2:00 – 5:00 on a Sunday afternoon if you’d like to come by and see us!

Mark continues to feel good and is back to working out and even was able to go up to the tennis courts and hit some balls with a friend – it was good to see him running around the court and of course I’m there to make sure he doesn’t overdo it! If you know Mark you know I have my work cut out for me.

As far as what the inside of his body looks like we won’t know until his next scan which will most likely be December. So we just continue to pray for healing for the all the cancer cells to be erradicated from his body. We trust that God is our healer and we seek Him for healing from the cancer.

We are excited about some new therapy that will begin the next couple of weeks that will complement what we are doing with the vaccine from Seattle. It is a new study group and we aren’t at liberty to discuss the details but it will last 90 days and we are excited to add it to his regime.

We ran into a friend a couple weeks ago that we hadn’t seen in a while. She was shocked to see Mark looking so good – it was actually comical – she could hardly find her words – it was very evident that she didn’t think he would be out and about much less looking so good – she had heard his prognosis and figured as much. It was great to praise the Lord that night for His many blessings but one huge one being how healthy Mark has remained thru this whole journey.

Thank you for your continued prayers – we go into this Thanksgiving season full of thankfulness and gratitude for all that He has done for us – praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Many Thanks and Much Love,

Mark and Lee

Luke 1:37

For with god nothing will be impossible.

Deuteronomy 6:5

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

Psalm 16:11

You will show me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; At Your rihgt hand are pleasures forevermore.

We are at the clinic and everything is going great! Mark hasn’t had any adverse reactions and he has felt very good.

We’ve been able to do some sightseeing in the afternoons – the picture above is on a harbor cruise with the city of Seattle in the background.

We went the original Starbucks which is kind of wasted on us since neither of drink coffee. I will tell you that if you are a coffee lover then you would love to live here. There are little espresso drive-thru stands everywhere! It is crazy how many we’ve seen.

God has been so good to us this whole trip – when we arrived the weather forecast was basically rain all week and so we just decided we would make the most of it but we’ve had very little rain. I had really wanted to see Mt. Rainier but when we were on our harbor cruise it was a clear day and you still couldn’t see it – the guide said that they really only see it 90 days out of the whole year. Well, this morning we woke up and saw this incredibly pretty sky and looming in the distance was Mt. Rainier! I just thanked God as I felt this was an extra gift He gave us! We feel so blessed!

We continue to pray for healing and that the vaccine would do what it is intended to do and irradicate all cancer cells in Mark’s body! We know He is our true Healer and our trust is in Him!

Thank you for your continued prayers!

With much gratitude,

Mark and Lee

Psalm 100

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.