Prayer Pager and Trust Funds

**UPDATE: A matching grant of $5000 has been offered for the educational charitable trust fund. For every donation that is made, a generous donor will double the amount up to $5000.

Thank you all so much for your comments and prayers. Heather has been given a prayer pager that alerts her every time someone is praying for her and the children, and it has really blessed her. If you would like to let her know that you are praying on her behalf, you may call the pager at the following number:

209-236-2063

Two trusts have been established for the Davis Family. You may donate to an educational charitable trust in their name by sending checks made out to Central Valley Presbyterian Church to:

The Davis Family Trust
c/o Central Valley Presbyterian Church
P.O. Box 628
Ceres, CA 95307-0628

If you would like to contribute to a non-charitable fund for the expenses of the family, you may write checks made out to Heather Davis and donated to a fund in her name at any US Bank in the country. The account is set up at the US Bank in Turlock, CA.

Thank you all again for your kindness and care.

Memorial Service

We will be having a memorial service for Eric at

Zion Reformed Church in Ripon, CA

on Saturday, February 2nd at 10:00am

We would love to have you join us if you are in the area.

Also, thank you so much for your prayers and sweet comments. I have read them all and am encouraged greatly by your love.

~Heather for the Davis family

Eric

And he said:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Job 1:21


Eric went home to be with the Lord today. Please pray for his grieving family and our church family.

God is good, all the time. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Update on Prayer Requests...

Cardio~ There has been some damage to Eric's heart. They do not know the extent of this damage yet. Please pray that the damage is only minor and/or fixable.

Renal (kidneys)~ The ultrasound of his kidneys came back normal. They are still concerned about his water retention. Please pray that this problem would fix itself on its own.

Liver~ They will be doing an ultrasound today to check his liver. It has been producing enzymes. Please pray that they are able to figure out why his liver is producing enzymes so that they can take the steps needed to fix it.

Pulmonary~ Eric's oxygen levels have improved! Praise the Lord! His wheezing continues to go back and forth on improvement. Pray that his lungs would continue to heal and grow stronger as they have been.

Neuro~ Eric will have an EEG tomorrow. This will hopefully tell us more about his brain activity. Especially pray for Heather. She is really having a hard time with this and could really use an abundance of God's peace over her as she hears the results of the tests.

Please pray for ALL of the Doctors that are working on Eric, he has at least 10 doctors on his case right now! Pray for clarity and for answers.

We will continue to keep you updated and appreciate all that everyone is doing for the family right now.

~Caroline (a friend of the Davis family)

Please Continue to Pray

Thank you all for praying on behalf of the Davis family. I spoke with Heather this morning and Eric's white cell count is down. She was gowned and masked and said she felt like she was living an episode of ER. Heather's upbeat attitude and faith is always an encouragement to everyone around her.

The doctor told her two things that I think are worthwhile to relay here:

1. He will inevitably take steps backwards as he moves forward toward recovery
2. His pupils were not "shot", which is apparently a good sign. Had they been, they would have been an indication that there is no brain activity. Praise the Lord!

Heather is doing well and is being well-cared for. She so appreciates your prayers. The children are being looked after by Heather's folks, and Eric's mom arrived safely into town as well.

~Kendra, for Lisa, who is due to have a baby girl in the next day!

No real new information

I know many of you are looking for updates but there isn't much to report at this point. Eric did have a fever this morning of about 101 which has been brought down; the cause of the fever is unknown. He's on paralyzing medications so beyond the blood work that was drawn last night, no additional tests can be run for a 48 hour period.

The supervising doctor is working hard to bring in lots of specialists to examine Eric and review his lab results. Eric's been seen by a neurologist already, a kidney specialist and an infectious disease specialist have been contacted and along with others. The neurologist was pleased with his examination of Eric and offered a positive report at this time, though many more test results need to be examined in all areas.

Heather's parents are here. Great friends are caring for the children. Eric's mom is on her way. Praise God for family and friends!

Heather doesn't have access to a computer right now. If you'd like to post a message, we'll print them and get them to Heather on Sunday.

Please pray that Eric's body will continue to stabilize and that the cause of these events will be found!

-Lisa

The Davis family needs your prayers!

Eric collapsed while in a nearby town this evening. One of his children was with him and was able to help get the necessary emergency assistance he needed so he could quickly arrive at the nearest hospital. After multiple cardiac arrest episodes, Eric seems to have somewhat stabilized tonight but his condition remains very serious. He is on a respirator and sedated in the Critical Care Unit. The doctors seem determined to help find the root cause of Eric's issues and this remains a top prayer priority.

Heather is absolutely exhausted after weeks of Eric having breathing difficulty at night which meant little sleep for her. She has an incredible peace about her though and a great knowledge of our Lord's sovereign plan for her husband and family.

The children, with the exception of the littlest who has a bad cold, were all able to see their dad tonight. Heather's parents are in route from Oregon and should be arriving at the hospital by 1am Saturday morning.

I'll update you as information becomes available but until then, please continue to lift this family before our Lord!

-Lisa

When I Have Time...

(or should I say when I make time!) I really like to read. lately I have been sneaking a few minutes in before I fall asleep. I can even be found reading a few pages in the middle of the night. Insomnia seems to be a persist ant enemy right now. The book above has been interesting and proven to me again that God still uses the extraordinary gifts today ( I am not talking about Benny Hinn style here!). It is a true story of a Muslim woman who is drawn to Jesus Christ through visions.

Thanks go to Lis' for letting me borrow this one.

She has a deep love for missions as much as I do.

I am reading this book with a group of friends at church. Sacred Influence is written by one of my favorite authors. Gary Thomas has a clean writing style that is very addicting. His writing is like a smooth cup of hot cocoa. In this book he talks about the influence we have on our husbands. I am only a couple of chapters in so I can't give a detailed account of this one but if it is anything like his other books I will walk away changed.

Nourishing Traditions is my new life (sigh). I am so glad that I read the good stuff long ago so that I can concentrate on creating new culinary delights. I love to cook and bake but I had no idea that there were some necessary steps to take to make the food we eat benefit us. So, here's to sauerkraut, homemade yogurt, and sourdough bread. Who knows....I might even try my hand at Kombucha (an ancient fermented drink).

~Lazyd

Our Adoption is Complete

"What?" you might say...I thought that you adopted Lil' Cowboy and Brown Sugar over a year ago? Well, we did as far as Liberia and the United States were concerned. But, in the U.S. this only gave them a permanant residence status.

We wanted our children to be U.S. citizens and to do this we had to fill out more paperwork and pay more money. The State of California wants their due! So, we jumped through all the legal hoops and our court day finally arrived.

We had no idea what to expect as we sat down in the front row of the courtroom. The Baliff smiled at us and told us to follow him into the judge's chambers. All of us were a bit taken back by this. The kids were in awe!

Let me tell you this was the most anti-climatic part of the whole adoption process. We signed on the "dotted" line and the judge signed his name. He asked if we wanted a picture with him and of course, we said yes. Then we were wisked off to the county clerk's desk to get all the paperwork officially stamped.

In six months we will get a United States birth certificate for both of our adopted children. This gives them all the priviledges of citizenship except the right to become President. They can get a U.S. passport also. This was important to us because if we ever leave the country we want all of our children to be able to get back into the country if something were to happen.

So, welcome to America Lil' Cowboy and Brown Sugar.

Passionate About Being a Housewife

Have you read this book? You should! Not just because Stacy is a friend of mine but because it is a wonderful encouragement for those of us who are passionate about our calling and helpful for those who might not realize that they have a calling.

So, you can go to www.visionforum.com to get your copy. You will not be disappointed.

Update on Eric's health

I realized that I have not really updated you on my husband's health and our recent visit to the doctor.

Eric is still having a hard time breathing but we have hope now. Our doctor up in the foothills gave us that hope. He listened to Eric's story for about an hour, looked over his drugs, and then sat back and told us that this was a text book case. We were stunned. All the doctors and nurses at the hospital were saying that his case was such a mystery.

Dr. Jaggy concured with Eric's own self-prognosis that this was not asthma. He said that it was appearing as asthma because of a core issue. He believes that this core issue is a food allergy (most likely dairy) that has gone unnoticed for years. Eric has had numerous allergy tests done but all have come back negative. Come to find out they have routinely done only a histimine allergy test for molds, grasses, pollens, etc. Food allergies do not produce histimines.

What was Eric's body reacting to? We are not sure about that but we know how it was reacting. Whenever he would eat the problem food it would cause his mucos membranes to overreact. Since these membranes are all connected it would cause a problem in the gut as well as in the nasal passage. He would get a post nasal drip that would cause a cough and infections. Everytime he would get an infection he would be given an antibiotic and a steroid. These did a grand job killing off infections and drying him up but it did a lousy job of keeping his gut in shape. Basically after twelve years of antibiotics and steroids his gut was depleted of any good bacteria leaving him suseptable to other allergies and what they call leaky gut syndrome. This is where your intestinal lining starts leaking food and nutrients into your blood stream leaving you with very little nutrition. The other side to this coin is that the cough kept getting stronger encouraging the muscles to restrict more. This is how come his oxygen levels looked great and yet his CO2 levels were so high. He was breathing in but the coughing was not allowing the bad air out leaving his body to fight off the toxins. You body can only handle so much before the brain starts shutting down.

The cure? A very slow, hard process of changing the diet, taking Nystatin to kill off candida, and promoting good bacteria with huge amounts of pro-biotics. He is also taking high doses of vitamin C and magnesium to relax his muscles. His diet is a no sugar, no wheat, no yeast, no fruit diet. Added to that is an elimination diet where he can't eat dairy or corn.

We are learning how to ferment our foods and how to eat more efficiently. How is it going? Well, a friend and I are working through the Nourishing Traditions book and learning all kinds of interesting things that point back to the days when people ate foods that were not packaged and were dependant on their own gardens. It's a fascinating read if you are ever interested.

In the meantime, Eric has good days and bad. Today was a good day...he could smell things and felt he had some energy. The day before was bad.

The last piece of news the doctor gave us was the hope that Eric would be off of all drugs within six months to a year. He is hopeful that Eric will never have to worry about breathing issues again if he stays away from the food he is allergic to. This was so encouraging to us.

If you think about it please pray for Eric. It is very hard to keep yourself calm when you can't breathe. There once was a public awareness ad that asked a normal breathing person to try breathing through a straw and continue even though you are feeling you aren't getting enough air. That would make anyone panic. He usually has an episode in the morning as he is waking up and at dinner time.

~LazyD