April 2006 Update

April 2006
Hi to everyone!

We pray this e-mail finds you all well and rejoicing in God's complete goodness to us! Time sure does fly and looking back at the last time I sent out an update about our little man, it certainly is time to share what the Lord has been doing in his precious life and ours.

The girls have been enjoying the warm weather in our backyard. They took part in a project with daddy a few weeks ago; they helped him plant some grass seed. They helped him water it daily and were anxiously awaiting the grass to appear. They have had fun seeing it finally start to grow.

Speaking of growth.....we are excited to announce that our Borbe Bunch is now growing too! We will joyously welcome our new little Borbe to our Bunch mid- November! The girls are excited and are already picking out names! Mommy has been feeling great and we praise God for His sufficient strength during this pregnancy thus far. We praise Him for the blessing of a new little one. We're still not sure what our little "prince" of the palace will think of his little sibling! We will have to see his reaction!

Speaking of reaction, Ezra certainly has plenty of them! He is full of personality and the more he develops, the more we see the sweet little guy that God created him to be! He has certain things that he likes such as sweet things to eat and being held, the more snuggles the better! Then there are things he is certain to "tell" and communicate that he does not like, such as being chilly after a bath or not being held when he knows you are in the room! Lately he has been communicating by whimpering and actually letting out crys when he is "scared" or startled! This was of course music to our ears! He is not using any other vocal sounds as of right now. We are continuing in teaching him sign language. He usually will sign "eat" and "more". He LOVES music and having his hands involved with clapping. One of his favorites is Monkeys Jumping on the Bed :)

Now for the official Neurologist's report about Ezra's brain. Last month Ezra had an MRI of his brain. This test was a whole year after Ezra's brain injury. We had obviously been seeing HUGE improvements, but we still wanted the scientific results to back up what we all knew! :) Last Monday we went to St. Louis to meet with his Neurologist and we discussed the MRI. It shows that there is definitely more brain activity (yes!) and overall, not any real actual seizures taking place! Thank you LORD! We are now weening Ezzy off one of his seizure meds. that he has been on since birth! We have noticed that he is a lot more calm and as many have pointed out, focusing more and alert to what is going on around him. Dr. Noetzel, who has only once before seen Ezzy 5 months ago, remarked that Ezra seemed more content. We agreed completely and loved the word, CONTENT. It is a great way to describe his overall presence and crystal clear, vibrant eyes looking all around at life. Dr. Noetzel had also said that because of the great improvement we have seen in Ezra's development, we will most likely continue in this forward motion of improvement! Words we treasure and attribute to our GREAT GOD! We often say, "the sky is the limit" and with our little guy, we truly KNOW that God is working and Ezzy is where he is today, because of God and the POWER of prayer!

His two big sisters are his biggest prayer warriors! They remind us to pray for Ezzy if we did not mention him during family prayer time. Gabby continues to pray for him weekly at her AWANA Cubbies at church. She has such a heart for her little brother. Ellie loves to pray for her Bubby and won't start our family Bible time until he is with us, so even if he is peacefully sleeping...Bubby MUST come :) She has such compassion towards him and wants him very included, as do we, it is just nice to see her so aware of him and his needs!

Working with the youth is still a fast paced life, full of challenging kids to walk with God and to study His Word and of course crazy games that bring out the silliness in them! Edwin is an amazing teacher of God's Word and God is blessing his heart felt desire to reach out to the the kids of Camdenton. God is using him here in our tiny part of the world and it is fun and a blessing to see fruit of the work he so faithfully pours his life into. Youth are searching and sometimes it just takes a willing vessel to listen to their strife's of the day and the broken hearts that most of them have to bring them to the goodness of God and His complete love for them. It has been exciting to see that taking place in the lives of the youth we work with!

God is GOOD and we praise HIM for the blessing every one of you reading this update is in our lives! Thank you for being part of our lives and for the tremendous LOVE we continue to feel from you all! Thank you for your prayers for our little Ezzy man. Please continue to lift him up before our great God. We have some major concerns about the development of his back and spine. We are seeing a lot of twisting, therefore the outcome we are heading towards is scoliosis, which is a road God is not surprised by, so please pray for wisdom for Ezzy's therapists and mommy and daddy as we care for him.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting."
Psalm 136:1

In the GOODNESS of God,
LOVE,
The Borbe Bunch