Please pray for Juan Alvarez and
his family. Today I went with Juan to
his doctor’s appointment. The doctor
confirmed the worse case scenario – that he has CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia). What
this means is that he has to take a single pill every day for the rest of his
life. That one pill a day costs $6,000 a
month. The prognosis for CML with the
one pill a day is a normal long life.
The prognosis for CML without the one pill a day is 3-4 years of life
expectancy.
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| Juan baptizing his daughter in 2007 |
Now for the good
news: there is an organization that
helps with the purchase of this medicine. Juan talked with a representative two weeks
ago and tomorrow we need to call them again. Apparently this is a process that takes a
while as the doctor said that if he didn’t get the medicine by the first week
of January to call him.
Can you guess
what the main prayer request is? Pray
that he gets the financial aid he needs! Such a cost is almost unfathomable to me. If Juan lives to the age his father is now he
will go through a million dollars worth of medicine.
Juan, through
this whole process (two weeks so far) has been the picture of peace and
joy. As we left the doctor’s office I
said, “I am sorry, Juan.” Juan answered
with a smile, “God knows what he is doing. We just have to trust in him.”
“Perfect love
casts out fear.” It is fully resting in God’s
perfect love for us that results in peace and a lack of fear.
