Psalm 121:1,2

I debated on posting this or not because it is so personal & hard for me to even talk about. BUT I know the more people praying, the better.

Kendall and Andi became extremely close friends of ours when we lived in Rochester. We were in small group together, John worked with Kendall and we hung out almost every weekend. For most of you, their names & faces are familiar to you since they have been on this blog before.

We received some scary news about his health this weekend. As many of you may know, Kendall was diagnosed with cancer in June 2006. He was first diagnosed with lung cancer, which was a strange diagnosis since he nor anyone in his family had ever smoked. It ended up being a germ cell tumor, a very treatable type of cancer (unlike lung cancer). The tumor grew to be the size of a softball in just over a month. To make a long story short, he went through chemo, was in a coma for a month & slowly weened himself off the ventilator. The clinic said he would never get off the ventilator and if he did he would always have to carry around oxygen. He beat the odds on all of it and knows it's only through the Lord that he did. He has had a long and hard road to recovery.

Just this weekend we found out that he has swollen lymph nodes in the area of his lung where the cancer was before & he's going to have to have surgery to remove them next Monday (Feb. 1). This is a worrisome sign to the docs. of a possible recurrence of the cancer. After surgery he'll do more chemo. As I touched on before, he went into respiratory failure during one of his surgeries that put him on a ventilator and then in a coma for about a month. This will be the first time he will be under general anesthesia since the day the tumor came out. They are very concerned about the oxygen toxicity, which lead to the respiratory failure the first time.

Andi & Kendall have some of the strongest faith I have ever seen. They give God all the credit for his miraculous healing 3 years ago and continue to praise his name through this hiccup. They are amazing godly examples in my life.

Please pray for them. They need the Lords strength, peace & healing more than ever. Please pray for John and I as we try to be the best friends we can from such a long distance. :(

To get updates or hear more about his story visit here

Please add the Koens family to your prayer list. I really appreciate it!

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1,2