Update

Joel’s surgery was successful!  Amen!  He was in surgery for about 2 hours but everything went smoothly and as planned.  He had quite a bit of nausea from the anesthesia after the surgery in the hospital and threw up numerous times but that eventually passed.  He was released from the hospital and came home around 3 in the afternoon on Tuesday.  After the pain medicine wore off that he had been taking in the hospital, quite a bit of pain came and also additional swelling.  The pain medicine and medicine for the swelling that he has at home isn’t as strong as what they were giving in the hospital.  So, now he is mainly dealing with pain and swelling in his knee (as one might expect after knee surgery) as well as an over all feeling lousy from all the medications.  But, with that said, he is doing incredibly well with his recovery, especially in comparison to where he was at at this point after surgery when he had this same surgery last time. Last time, he wasn’t able to put any kind of weight on his leg that was operated on for over a week and half to two weeks.  He was able to put a little bit of weight on his operated leg one day after surgery this time.  It’s obvious to see the increase in technology (the first surgery was over 18 years ago) and what a good job the surgeon and his team did.  Joel begins physical therapy this afternoon and will have it every day now.

We also want to let you know that we had the opportunity to Skype today with Bluewater Covenant Camp in Grand Rapids, MN.  They are one of the Covenant Camps that are collecting offerings to send to our camp here in Ecuador.  It was fun to talk with them and answer their questions about Ecuador and the camp.