This is a continuation of a short bio of my life and how God was with me.
My husband
and I wanted to send our children to church school so we moved to a city
called, Kelowna, which was a small city then. My husband got a job at the gas
company and we have lived here ever since, except for 5 years when we lived in
Vancouver because of his work.
We joined a
church and I would say my 30's were full of a lot of happiness with some
problems. My husband was active in the church in many roles. I taught the
little children. Our daughters loved living in Kelowna because it has a large
lake to swim in and mountains all around
for hiking and camping.
We did have
some problems in our marriage off and on, like most people, I would guess. My
husband had been physically abused by his father and step-father as a child. He
had not been raised in a loving family. But a wonderful thing happened after he
became a Christian. He went home and told everyone what God had done for him
and almost all his family became Christians as well. His mother embraced Christ and found great joy, and they are all still walking with God.
We had many
Christian friends from our church. We really enjoyed their fellowship. We would
have a meeting every Friday night at our house and would talk about God and
sing songs. We did a lot with our girls. We took them to Disneyland twice. We
had just enough money to drive down there, stay two or three nights and drive
straight back home, but it was so much fun. Mostly, we took them camping, which
they still love doing in their 40s.
At 37, my
husband became sick. It took a year for the doctors to find out what was wrong.
He had a carcinoid tumor on his bile duct. They operated, but there was hardly
any of the bile duct left and they said he may have 10 years to live at most. After
the operation, he never got his original strength back. They found he had
Carcinoid Symdrome, which is chemicals coming out of the tumors and making one
tired, nauseous and debilitated. He decided to try to keep working in spite of
feeling sick and he has done that for 30 years.
His bile
duct did give out, but there was a new invention to replace it with a stent.
That is why he is still alive and I am grateful to God and also to those who
invented it. He has had two other stents put in, I think in his intestines.
When my
husband became sick, he stopped going to church and going camping etc. He didn’t
want to see our friends any longer. It
took all his energy to go to work. On his vacations, he wasn’t as tired as when he was working, so we
would drive to the U.S. to visit my sisters and see the sights. He would still feel tired and pain, but he
took pills and we didn’t walk far.
I am so
thankful to God for helping my husband all these years. He loved his job, and
he has been happy working there. For myself, I loved raising our daughters. I’m
so thankful God gave them to us. They are such a blessing and joy. Of course,
we did have trouble when they were teens. I want to thank God for helping us
through all that. Neither of them wanted to be a Christian, which was a
heartache, but we kept hoping and praying and they are both Christians now.
