The Letters

We received two letters in the mail yesterday. One was addressed to Matthew - the other to Matthew's parents. They arrived just in time for Matthew's eighteenth birthday.
It's really too soon to reveal the content of the letters publicly, but I will tell you that they were from a wonderful Christian lady named Laura. (see part one)

The Lessons Get Harder

The next Lesson I learned was just as clear as the first but much harder to accept.
It is also much harder to explain. So, please bare with me.

Some of you will understand the lesson immediately. Others, who don't know my background, or the heritage in which I was raised will not.

I find it very difficult to describe the feelings of gratitude, freedom, and relief that we felt in the first few months after Matthew's final surgery. We did not actually realize the stress we had lived through for those 3 years until it was all over. I say that just to try and explain the emotions that were still very raw at the time of lesson number 2.

It happened on a Sunday evening. Because Lynetta and the kids were out of town, I ended up going to my friend's church to visit with him. This church was right down the street from the one we were attending at the time. It was not the type of church I was used to. To be honest it was the type of church I had heard preached against and condemned all of my life.

I slipped in the back door. I was afraid that someone from my home church would see me walking in. I would have a lot of explaining to do if that happened. The service had already started so I hid in the back row. My good friend Tim was the piano player. He saw me hiding.
He later said that he had to laugh because I looked so uncomfortable and out of place.

I don't remember much about the service. I do however remember not approving of the things that I saw. These people did not act like the people I was used to. They obviously did not understand the Bible. They obviously did not know the accepted pattern for God approved worship that my church knew. I spent the first thirty minutes of the service taking mental notes of all the religious error that I was seeing. Then something jolted me awake.

The preacher was actually talking to me! "Oh great," I thought. I'm not hiding as well as I thought. "Do you believe that God answers prayer?" he bellowed. Well of course I did. If he only knew my story he would know how deeply and completely that I believed in the power of prayer.
I slightly nodded my approval.

"If you truly believe in the power of prayer I want you to stand up right where you are!"
I was caught! I could not deny my conviction - not after what God had just done for me and my family. So I stood up. I remember praying: "OK God - this is far enough - Get me out of here."

It got worse: "It is not by chance or accident that you are here tonight." (this guy had been reading my mail) "We need everyone here tonight - who believes in God's power to heal - to come down to the front of this auditorium and pray with us."

Ha! Nice try. It ain't happening! I stayed put.

Then something happened that shook me so deeply that I almost ran down the aisle. There was a young woman standing in the front of the church. She appeared to be in her late teens. She held a new born infant in her arms. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. I could see a very familiar desperation in her eyes. Her child was sick. He was born with a serious birth defect. The Doctors said that the prognosis was very poor. She was pleading with God to let him live.

To make a long painful story short, I went and I cried, and I prayed. I held hands with people who loved God - people who truly believed that God was listening and that he cared - People who were not of my religious heritage or my stripe - people who acted and worshiped a little differently than I was used to. That night we had a common purpose and a common Lord and Savior. That night we were brothers. That night it dawned on me that we had been brothers all along.

That last realisation ultimately cost me my church family. It ultimately cost me my parents and my earthly brother and sister. My earthly family has not spoken to me or my wife, or my children in over 5 years. In their eyes I have abandoned "The Church" - I have left "The Faith." But it's OK, I understand. They have very deep convictions too.

Oh, and just to finish the story, God did answer the prayers of the people assembled there that Sunday evening. The child lived.

Lessons I've Learned

Maybe I'm just a slow learner. There are still many things that happened during Matthew's experience that I am still trying to process. I knew that God was trying to teach me something, and most of it came through loud and clear. But there are still some things that remain a little fuzzy.
Let's start with the really clear things:

I no longer believe in luck, chance or coincidence. God is is control - even when we don't want him to be. Looking back, I can see several times when I tried real hard to mess this whole story up. But God just wouldn't let me.

Here is just one example that I skipped back in part 2:

Working for General Motors has it's perks, but it was not always easy. During my first 10 years with the company I was laid off more than I worked. During these down times I had several odd jobs - one of which was a part time Fireman. It was a great Job, and I loved it. The trouble was we could not live off the part time wages.
The small Township department had 9 full time positions. I knew that If I could ever land one of those positions, I would be set. So the first time a spot came open, I was ready!
I spent 6 months working out, studying, and praying that God would be with me and help me get this job. After all of the testing and the physical agility evaluation, out of over 300 applicants, I came in 2nd. The Township only hired one. Needless to say God and I were not on speaking terms for a while. The way I figured it, I had tried my best, so it must have been God's fault.
The next time they hired I didn't do as well. I came out 3rd. They hired two. I really felt like God was toying with me.
The next time I decided I was going to do it all myself - no praying - no asking God for any favors. I studied harder, and worked out more than I ever had in my short chubby life. I was determined to be first.
The first day was the written test. That was a breeze. I was number one! The next day was the physical agility test. Because I knew the Captain I had a slight advantage in this category. He let me go with him over to the police academy to pick up a 135lb sand dummy they were going to use for the agility test. I remember that the dummy was in the basement down three flights of stairs. I picked the dummy up with one hand, flung it over my shoulder and walked back up the stairs without breaking a sweat. I had it made! There was no way anyone was going to beat me.
The next day I was first in every category. At the end of the day all I had to do is pick up the same dummy and walk up two flights of stairs and the job was mine. My friend (the Captain) was smiling from ear to ear. He knew I could do it. But God had other plans for me.
I bent down and grabbed the dummy - just like the day before - and it didn't budge! At first I laughed thinking that my buddies were playing a trick on me. I thought that they had glued the dummy to the floor. The captains smile vanished. He said, "come on Anderson, quit goofing around." I wasn't goofing around! The dummy would not budge. The test was timed. I had three minutes to get this dummy up the stairs. For three desperate minutes I pulled with everything I had. Nothing.

Looking back I can now picture an angel sitting on the head of that dummy laughing at me.
You see if I had got the job, we would never have come to Columbia. We would have never heard of Matthew, or Jesi, or Krysi, or Tyler, or Emily Klair, or Kinsley, or Karlie, or Maury Hills for that matter. God really does know best.

Matthew Today

Well, here he is. He turns 18 July 28th. Then he is heading off to Lipscomb in the fall. His story is far from over.
Matthew's story is really a story about how God cares for us and works in all of our lives - not because of us - but in spite of us - not because of who we are - but because of who he is. Lynetta and I are just grateful to have had the chance to watch him in action.

Part Four

Thank you all for your interest and comments on Matthew's story. It is one we have been longing to tell for a long time. We just haven't had many chances to do so.

Part Four

The surgery was a success and Matthew became an instant celebrity.
He was only the 7th person in the United States to have this surgery. He was one of even less who survived it. He was in all the Medical Journals. His case is still talked about in the teaching curriculum at Vandy.

Everything was fine for a while. Matthew was finally starting to grow. You can only imagine how truly thankful and happy we were.

But everything was not fine. We noticed that Matthew didn’t seem to have much energy. This little fireball who never sat still was now having trouble even walking from the car to the house. So, it was back to the doctors.

When the blood work came back the results were not good. Matthew's Red Blood Count was dangerously low. Test revealed that his bone marrow had stopped producing Red blood cells.
As far as we knew this could only mean one thing.

In a perfect world, the words “Pediatric Oncologist” would never be needed. But this world is far from perfect.

I remember walking into the office. This time I was mad! I was mad at God. How could he allow such a thing? After all we had been through – why me?
Then I looked around the room at the faces and the bald heads of the kids waiting there to see the doctor. I looked into the tired desperate eyes of the parents. Then I started thinking, “Why not me?” Why do me and my family deserve God’s blessing and protection and these people do not?

It wasn’t cancer. It ended up being a simple thing that the doctors had simply over looked. The part of Matthew’s intestines that absorbed B12, (The nutrient needed for your bone marrow to make RBCs) was missing. He just had to have a few shot each month to fix it. I remember feeling so guilty walking back out of that office through the crowd of parents and kids that were not going to hear such good news.

Part 3

Part 2 is an interesting story about how God moved us to Tennessee. But while it may be interesting, it is not really relevent to the rest of the story. Other than to say that God made sure that we just happened to be in the right place - at the right time - talking to just the right people. So, skip to part three......

Part Three:

William survived the initial surgery but it was only the first of many. He was hooked up 24hrs per day to TPN (Total Peripheral Nutrition) and Lipids (intravenous Fats) to keep him alive. He was in tremendous pain. He should have been miserable but he didn’t know it. He smiled and laughed a lot. He won the hearts of his Nurses, who renamed him, Matthew (God’s Gift)

The director of the adoption agency did not forget his promise. He and his wife went and spent 2 months at Shand’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida learning how to care for the baby.

Shands had a revolutionary new program where children with Matthew’s condition (known as short gut syndrome) were given little transistorized IV pumps which they could carry in a little back pack. This allowed them to leave the hospital for short periods of time, and try to live as normal of a life as possible. 3 Months and several surgeries later Matthew was finally ready to leave the Hospital.

He went home with Larry & Nancy Carroll, the directors of Christian Family Services.
Larry and Nancy loved Matthew and they took tremendous care of him, but they knew that they were not the ones to adopt him. They began praying along with their church family (The Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville) for God to find a forever family for Matthew.

The Bible talks about Peter having the courage to step out of the boat and walk on the water. Well, as far as Lynetta and I were concerned, it wasn’t courage – we didn’t actually step out of the boat, we sort of fell out of the boat. Looking back now it was more like we were pushed out.

We just happened to be in the right State, the right Town, and the right Church, on just the right Sunday to hear from a couple who had just returned from Gainesville. They were there adopting their daughter. While there, they meet this beautiful little boy who needed a forever family – and the rest was history. Against all odds Matthew came to Tennessee.

The next 3 years were a blur. We spent more time in Vanderbilt then we spent at home. Matthew's 2 new older sisters, Kari and Andrea, were crazy about him and took tremendous care of him, but I know that it was very hard on them. We were never home.

We spent all of the holidays at the hospital. I remember one Thanksgivings in particular: We were all at the hospital, eating the same old cafeteria food. We should have been miserable. I would have usually complained and felt sorry for myself. But, I remember us all being happy and being truly thankful that we were all just able to be together.

The Nurses at Vandy learned to love Matthew as well. One of his favorite nurses lovingly nick named him POOP HEAD. She said he could fill up a wagon quicker than anyone she had ever seen. (He'll kill me for that one)


Matthew’s condition remained critical. He struggled with fevers and infections and life threatening sepsis. His hospital chart far out weighed him. Each time we ended up back in Vanderbilt we feared that this hospital stay would be his last.

Matthew lost several room mates and friends
There was Josh the little 6 year old who loved to share Matthew’s pop tarts. He died of a brain infection
There was Dalton, a beautiful happy little 9 mos old that died of the exact condition Matthew had.
There was Mandy an unbelievably sweet little 3 year old girl with the same problem as Matthew, who died on the way to the Mayo Clinic where she was going to have a life saving transplant.

Finally when Matthew was 3 years old his Doctors came to us and told us we had a very serious decision to make. It was obvious that Matthew could not live much longer in the condition he was in. His only chance for survival was a new yet untested procedure in which his short distended small bowel was cut into pieces and manipulated to form a more normal shaped intestine. The trouble was it was an all or nothing gamble, either it worked or it didn’t. Failure meant certain death. So we prayed like we had never prayed before

As we were waiting in the Matthew's room on the day of the surgery, Matthew started laughing and talking with someone who wasn’t there. He told us there were beautiful butterflies flying around the ceiling by his bed. The Nurses said it was hallucinations caused by the sedation medication they had just given him. Perhaps it was. Lynetta and I knew that they were not butterflies. We knew they were angels. But we didn’t know if they were there to protect him or take him home.

The hardest thing we have ever had to do in our lives was hand that baby over to the surgeons not knowing if we would ever see him alive again. So we wept, and we prayed, and we left him in the hands of God.

Part One

The following story is true - or at least it is as far as we know and believe. It happened eighteen years ago, and Lynetta and I were not there for part one.


Part One:
Her name was Laura. She was seventeen years old, soon to be eighteen. She was tall with a slender build. She was a very beautiful girl. She had done some modeling. She loved sports and music. She was very talented and very popular.

Perhaps she grew up to fast or not fast enough. She made a mistake – a terrible mistake – one that would change her life forever.

The advice she received was overwhelming. She was too young, too pretty, too talented. She had too much promise to be side tracked by a simple mistake. An abortion was the only solution. Everyone thought so, that is everyone but Laura. Call it conscious, call it guilt, or better yet call it a “still small voice” that said “no Laura,” “trust me,” “have the baby.” Everyone thought she was making an even bigger mistake, but she was determined this time to try to do what was right.

She contacted Christian Family Service, a Church of Christ group out of Gainesville Florida that takes in unwed mothers. They take them into their homes, take them to their doctor visits, pay their medical expenses, and teach them about the love of Jesus. All in exchange for allowing them to place the babies into Christian homes for adoption.

They welcomed Laura, and everything was fine - fine that is until the fourth month doctor visit.
The ultra sound showed a serious birth defect. The doctors detected a hole in the abdominal wall that allowed the small intestine to herniate or protrude and develop outside the abdomen. They called this congenital defect gastroschisis and the prognosis was very poor.

Again the advice was overwhelming. An abortion was the only answer. Laura was scared and uncertain, but she remained determined. But this time Laura was not alone. The Christian family that had taken her into their home assured her that God was listening, and if anyone had the power to make it right, it was him. So they prayed.

Perhaps it was because she was so young, perhaps it was because the baby was too sick, and didn’t have a chance anyway, but the doctors choose to allow the baby to be born naturally. A vaginal delivery for this baby was to say the least devastating.

Most of us are born with at least 12 feet of small intestines. The trauma of the delivery destroyed the unprotected intestines. The baby was rushed to the OR and after extensive surgery only 18 cm were salvaged. Not enough to sustain him nutritionally. He would never leave the hospital. He would be condemned to live out his painful short existence hooked to wires, tubes and IV’s lying in a hospital bed.

She named him William. She stayed for a while. But the tubes and wires and the pain finally got to be too much. She wondered if she had done the right thing. She prayed, she wept, and then she left him in the hands of God.

The Circle

One of my "defining moments" during our Belize trip was "The Circle."
Each morning before we began the clinic, we would all form a circle, sing a song, and say a prayer for the people of Belize.
Sounds pretty ordinary and boring I know. But given the fact that 100 people were already there waiting in line, listening and watching, made it very powerful and moving. I could'nt help but wonder what these people were thinking as they watched us strange Americans - most of us with tears in our eyes and big smiles on our faces. It was absolutly the pretiest music I have ever heard.

Wes Relaxing

Here is Wes Duncan (He was the life of the whole party) Relaxing on Ambergris Cay.

Wes was our Eye Doctor this year. You can't see it in this picture but Wes has a heart the size of Texas.

Lynetta & Gary

Here is a picture of me and Lynetta from our last night in Belize. We were at a mexican restaurant on Ambergris Cay. So our trip wasn't all work and no play.

Where is God?

This is a reprint of a comment i made on Russ' blog last week. I wanted to show you the pictures of the little boy we found.

When Lynetta and I first went back into the village, I was pretty upset. I was actually a little mad - at God. I thought: "how could the same God who blesses me so much simply forget these precious people? " When I finally got brave enough to get out of the van I noticed a little girl about 6 years old peeking out from behind what looked like a broken down chicken coope. I went back through the weeds to talk to her. Her teenage sister appeared from behind the same chicken coope (which was really their house)She told me that her brother needed a doctor but could not come out of the house because he had sores all over him. As I looked around the back of the house, I saw the little boy throught the door. It took my breath away. Over 50% of this little boy's body was covered with open sores. My first thought was leprosy. We all waited while his sister put some pants on him, then we rushed him to Martin Chaney. It turns out that it was a very servere case of Impetigo. Left untreated he probably would not have lived through the year.the odds of us finding this little boy hiding in his house was a million to one.

So, where was God? He was busy leading this Belize team from half way across the continent right to this little boy's house. God really is good.

What do Heros Look Like?

I meet some interesting people last week. They looked like ordinary people. They were hot, sweaty, tired, and hungry. They looked out of place in the little make-shift medical clinic. They looked like rich, spoiled Americans. But, I know what they really were - they were heros.

Since there was no where to buy lunch, these rich spoiled Americans had stuffed their backpacks full of snacks to get them through the day. But when they found themselves surrounded by children, who's only food consisted of a few small fish they had cought in a polluted creek, and a handfull of rice, they quickly lost their appitites. Soon all of the children were all walking around with cupcakes, candy bars, and peanut butter crackers. The heros were still hot, sweaty, tired and hungry. Their backpacks were empty. But, their hearts seemed somehow fuller than they had ever been.

I am convinced that given the oppertunity everyone I know would have reacted the exact same way. There is really a hero living in all of us.

II Corinthians 9:11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Home Safe & Sound - But Somehow Different

We are finally home! We arrived in Nashville last night about 8:30. It was quite an adventure - a life changing adventure. Thank you to all of our family and friends who missed us, and prayed for us. I can't wait to share with you all of the pictures and the stories. As soon as we catch our breath I will start writing. I really hope you kept up with us through Russ' Blog . If not please go check it out.