Chris and Lynne Strange Serving the Lord in the Philippines 
The newest info on “the hand” surgery is: “delayed, for now”. We have decided to wait before starting surgeries and physical therapy that will result in a prolonged and expensive stay in Manila which equates to a long time away from our ministry here on Mindanao. The doctors have assured us that constant exercise will keep the corrective surgery an option in the future. We so appreciate your prayers for us! Please continue to pray for healing as it is not functioning at this time but we are trusting the Lord to keep us wise regarding these decisions.
Thank you for praying for our visits to the surgeon. While we expected him to schedule a surgery sometime this year, we did not expect the‘rest of the story.’
The surgeon examined the hand and confirmed the new surgery has to be done on his hand this year as the tendons are held fast by scar tissue. The hand will never function properly without the surgery. The big surprise was when he described the surgical procedure to us because he said something new this time – it takes TWO surgeries to get it all done.
He must do the first surgery with phsyical therapy following and three months later do the second surgery with an additional six weeks therapy. He also gave us great news – we are informed the double surgery should completely clear the scar issue that holds the tendons tight (and prevent it from recurring) and the finger should be fully functioning again after therapy.
We will get a second opinion before we travel back to our island and into our little village, but we wanted to quickly share that we have a tentative dates in the month of July for the first surgery and the next will be scheduled sometime in October… we can expect at least 6 weeks of therapy following each surgery.
This whole procedure involves leaving our village and island to stay on the island and big city where the hospital is located for the surgeries and the 12 weeks of physical therapy that follow. As you can imagine, this much time away from our home and ministry is difficult and the logistics of ‘living’ in two places is stressful. Lynne will travel back and forth after the surgeries and once the therapies begin.
We are so thankful to God for the ministry of the missionaries at the mission guest home. The stress of all those weeks in a hotel situation would be multiplied with higher expenses and reduced comfort. At the mission guest house, once the stay exceeds a month, the costs for room, board and meals are reduced to help those in medical situations. This was a blessing last year that we didn’t know about but makes this latest news much softer!
We were not expecting this news of double surgery and it is still sinking in. God is certainly giving lots of grace as the impact ripples through ‘our’ plans as the extended therapy times for two surgeries is difficult to factor into the year.
Thank you in advance for the prayers. We certainly appreciate you praying for us and the many emails letting us know!
