Elijah Update (3)

Dear Friends

"Don't let people look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." I Timothy 4:12

"Wow". That is all our doctor could say when she called to check up on Elijah. No one really knows what to say. He is doing so well. He is eating well, sleeping well, playing well and just plain doing well. I don't think people believe us when we tell them how sick he was. How we had to print out photos to hang on his bed so the nurses would remember what he looked like before his head turned blue and swelled with fluid. When people came to see him we would point to the pictures and say, "This is Elijah" and then point to him and say "This is Elijah now". We did not want people to forget. Now, he is doing so well. He still has some edema in the head area and yesterday his eye swelled shut but once I laid him on the other side the fluid moved around and out of his eye area.

My family came to comfort us and help us with a funeral. Instead God turned that into a celebration. They were witnesses to the daily changes in our little man. My sisters, sister-in-law and niece stayed up all night with him to be sure he was eating and doing ok. This allowed Joel and I to sleep for the first time in a long while. Of course, they did not mind holding him all night at all. Everyone was concerned that something may happen during the night. After my family left Elijah settled into his crib just fine. He is a very well behaved little guy and after a month in NICU he seems to know what is worth crying over. We love the cry we hear now for it is not a cry of pain but just talking. He wants someone to hear him and chat with him.

We would like to share some things that we learned during the darkest moments with Elijah. Joel and I were praying that the Lord would take him quickly. We kept telling him that heaven was such a great place and much better then being here with his parents. Joel told him at one point "Don't stay here for us, run to Jesus if He is calling you!" Elijah never ran!

One night we were praying with all our hearts as we cried over our baby. Our hearts were broken when we tried to put an outfit on him and his head and chest were so swollen that it fit tightly and uncomfortably. We both wept and said "Lord, why are you letting him suffer like this? Are you not finished with him yet? Are you going to heal him? Do we need to change our prayers?" Joel's dad would come into the room every day and say "Has a miracle happened yet?" Joel and I would look at him and his childlike faith and say "No". We started to look at that childlike faith and pray that we would have that faith. There was and is a battle going on over this little boy and we pray that the Lord will win. We are glad that we finally got it! We now pray for the Lord's will and that He will reveal to us in his time what that is.

Elijah has touched so many lives. We continue to be overwhelmed by the people who contact us saying that they heard about him from someone else. We thought about getting a world map and to begin putting pins on it to show Elijah who is praying for him. We figured this would be impossible since we keep hearing about groups of over 50 praying and those 50 will tell more people and so on. The prayer chain of believers is incredible. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Remind the young how they can influence people by telling them Elijah's story. He is 44 days old and has influenced people on every continent. :) God is good.

We are still not sure what the future holds for Elijah. We pray daily that he will be with us for quite some time.

Please pray with us concerning the fluid in Elijah's head. It appears to be draining properly but the edema is still a problem. Pray for wisdom concerning Elijah's reservoir in his head. We would like to get this out if he no longer needs it due to the risk of infection. We will also have many things to face with this little guy. We are praying for complete healing of his factor IX deficiency but if God chooses not to, we will need to get the supplies needed to treat him. Before the doctors sent us home without hope they told us that Elijah would be a risk for another brain hemorrhage, just because he already had one... Please pray that the Lord protects him from this.

Pray for healing of any injury to Elijah's brain and protection from future harm. We were given options to give up on him due to his brain damage and we told our doctors that we would deal with the brain damage if that is what God wanted. At this time Elijah appears to have no damage. Praise the Lord! His eyes follow us well, they move together, there is no more "twitching"... My sisters have decided that they are now responsible for his developmental growth and we are all trying to find tools to help him developmentally. If you have any ideas or web sites let us know.

Pray for the salvation of those whom Elijah has touched. That they will know the hope and peace that comes from a relationship with Christ.

Pray for our Indian couple friends... Their daughter died on Friday, and we want to be there for them. Pray that one day they will know this peace and be able to see their little girl in heaven.

Sunday morning at church, with his grandparents Fitzgerald and grandparents Davis and Judy's sister-in-law and a niece present, Elijah was dedicated to the Lord. It was a wonderful ceremony with many tears of joy being shed in the congregation and Elijah's family.

Joel, Judy (Saca) and Elijah Fitzgerald