Single Stick Seminar to support our Nepal Trip

 Mission Trip Update: 

We have $4,890 of our $10,000 we need for the Nepal Trip in June! 

COME THIS WEEKEND! All Proceeds go to our Mission Trip!

March 21-22, 2025:

Nepal Mission Trip!

We have raised $4,890 out of the $10,000 needed by May 1st!

Please share with your friends and church family! We can’t do this without your help!!

Click Here to Give to our Nepal Mission Trip!

Hello,

I have some exciting news to share with you! Sam, Thomas, Grace, and I have an opportunity to go on a Mission Trip together this summer to Nepal!

In 2021, Sam visited Nepal, where our friend, David James, is serving as a long term Missionary. Then in June of 2024, Grace was blessed to go serve in Poland, at a summer camp. This summer, June 1-12, 2025, Thomas will get his chance to go on his first overseas mission trip as well. In fact, we are all four going together!

While we are in Nepal, we will be leading a convention for Children's Ministers all across Nepal, hosting several different short Vacation Bible Schools, and we will even be going on a 2 ½ hour hike up a mountain where we will visit the new church that David James helped plant, and we will be spending the night at the top of the mountain!

There are two main challenges, between now and next June, that we have to overcome. First, is that we have to raise $1,875 each for the flight to the other side of the world! In addition to this, there will be an estimated $3,500 in expenses once we are in Nepal, for things like hotels, food, visas, jeep rental, and supplies for the work with the kids and churches.

The second challenge will be getting lots of vaccinations to keep us safe while we are away. This probably wouldn't be much of a concern for some people, but we aren't really "shots" people. So, this will need a little extra prayer. There is also a cost associated with the vaccines.

If you have ever wanted to participate in Missions, but haven’t been able to, here is your chance! We need help with raising the funds, and we need lots of people praying for us. Please pray for the Lord’s help, as we make plans, book flights, and raise money for the trip, as well as during the adventure itself. We want a successful, safe trip, following God’s Will.

You can donate by going to our church website,www.forestparkcommunitychurch.com and click on the green "Give" button. Be sure to tap on "Nepal Mission Trip for the Conver’s”

You can also send us a check directly if you would prefer. If you would like to be added to our prayer requests text or email group, please let me know! Thank you so much for reading all of this and for your support. We literally cannot do it without you.

With Love,

Mary, Sam, Thomas & Grace

Mary Conver

Haven't I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or 
discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."
Joshua 1:9 (HCSB)

Nepal Mission Update!

 We have raised $3,680 out of the $10,000 needed by May 1st!

Please share with your friends and church family! We can’t do this without your help!!

Click Here to Give to our Nepal Mission Trip!

Biography Scavenger Hunt

I went looking for a worksheet that was a free download of a Scavenger Hunt for my Biography class. I couldn’t find what I wanted. So, I created one. Here it is, if anyone else can use it. Btw, my son Thomas Conver did the drawing I used here.

Grace, Disney, XRays, Mono, Pneumonia, and now Camp!

Hello, 

I hope your summer has gone well. 

Believe it or not, the coughing Grace was starting on the day of her dance recital, was the beginning of a very long month for us. 

She ended up in the hospital for a couple days by the end of June! 

That coughing started up late the night of June 10th, and she was coughing quite a bit the day of her dance recital, so she was on cough suppressants, and seemed to be OK. I figured she was having an allergy thing. 

This is her posing at the recital with some friends,
Singing: "Rotten Smelly Life..." from "Hard Knock Life," Annie.

We took her to the doctor that Monday, (dance audition day, so much for that...) and they put her on an antibiotic. We left for Disney on the following Saturday. 

It got worse daily while we were gone, and by the 20th she was waking up each morning coughing- which would make her sick, but then she would be mostly fine the rest of the day, other than a few coughing fits. She was taking cough suppressant and Zofran, a nausea medicine in pill form, daily along with her allergy medicine.

Tuesday June 21st at Epcot.

Tuesday night, not feeling as great in the evenings.

Wednesday afternoon, June 22nd. (Very hot out.)

By Thursday, she was very quiet, and coughing a lot, which made her vomit, even several times at Hollywood Studios. We left about 5pm. We swung by the Lego store, which was the only thing Thomas had been asking to do all week. They had fun there building and shopping.

Luckily we were listening to Harry Potter in the car, so we were all excited to head home. 

Thursday June 23rd, right before we hit the road, and after playing at the Lego store.
She was feeling pretty good right then.

As the night went on, and the kids slept on, (Sam and I drove straight through- other than a 3-hour nap around Chattanooga, thanks to a very serious storm,) Grace would sleep, wake up coughing/vomiting, and pass out again, more and more frequently.

Things seemed a bit better that day, she even went to lunch with my family, to tell them all about the trip, (although she had a coughing fit in McAlister's and scared everyone. She told the manager when he came to check on her, "I do this all the time.")

Sam had left as soon as we got to Louisville to take Thomas on a youth trip for church, and by the time we knew there was serious trouble, they were long gone. We had to stay in touch by text. He said they would come home if we needed them to. 

On Saturday, I got her back in at the doctor. Dr. Cowley sent her for a chest X-ray. They called to say she had pneumonia.

The doctor put her on a different cough medicine, expectorant, and they changed the antibiotic she had been on all week, which was sort of pointless, since she couldn't keep almost anything down at that point. Sam's parents and my Mom came over for the day. 

Grace woke, late Saturday afternoon, when everyone else was gone (of course) with a major coughing fit, and she had a fever of 103.9! 

I called the doctor back and she told us that if Grace couldn't keep the antibiotic or cough medicine down, she had to go to the ER. They called in a orally dissolving Zofran, (the nausea stuff) to be sure that it stayed down, but warned that it probably wouldn't help with this kind of vomiting. It didn't.

We started having her take the medicine, and then be perfectly still for an hour. If she kept it down for an hour, we said it counted. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't. But over all, she seemed better, probably because being very still prevent the coughing and vomiting, but that wasn't going to get the gunk out of her system.

Sam and Thomas got home Sunday night, and oddly, Grace seemed ok for a bit, maybe because, "Daddy and Thomas are home." But she was really sleeping a lot. 

Monday morning she woke up coughing, as usual, but then it went on and on. She would stop for an hour and do it again. Then she ate jello, and it made her sick. Then she had a Powerade, and it made her sick.

She's just too tiny to be getting sick every hour for several days. And of course, throwing up is scary, and it was happening almost every hour to hour and a half, for around 3 days, (and that was after throwing up at least once a day for 2 weeks now!) Twice she stopping getting sick and said, "Help me." and "Make this stop." I was heart broken. She was dizzy, and had a terrible headache most of the time now.

At 3am on Tuesday the 28th, she woke up coughing, vomiting and crying. 

I told her I would keep fighting through this with her as long as she wanted to, but when she was ready to just go on down and let the doctors deal with this at the hospital, I would go with her. She nodded and said, "I want to go." Honestly, I was relieved.

I texted Mom, saying I was leaving, told Sam, who agreed to stay with Thomas, and then Mom texted back and said she wanted to go to. Grace and I walked across to her house, and Mom and I took Grace to the ER at Kosair Brownsboro.

Getting ready to go in ambulance from Kosair Brownsboro to Downtown, about 10am.

They repeated the chest X-Ray, started an IV. 

She seemed totally fine, as they always do when you take them to the doctor. After an hour, they were going to send us home. The nurse even removed the O2 sensor, and disconnected the IV from the fluids.

The doctor sent in a Powerade. Grace looked at me like, "Are they crazy?" I just said, "It's ok, just drink a little bit." I haven't ever prayed that someone would get sick before, but I did then. Mom admitted later she had too.

I just knew she wouldn't and we would have to go home. But, God is good, and she pretty intensely spit every bit of it up. And the nurse came in right at the end of it.

The Pulmonologist looked shocked. He said, "Well, with all those fluids, (indicating the IV) she should have been able to keep that down. She can't even keep liquids down." Um....that's what we said.....

He was back in a minute to say they were transferring her via ambulance to the Downtown Hospital. They put her on IV Zofran, IV antibiotics (both a 1 time thing,) and back on constant IV fluids. She finally fell asleep.

She slept through them transferring her to the ambulance bed, and riding in the ambulance and admission downtown and a check up, other than when they forced her to stand up to be weighed, then she passed out again. She slept through everything else too, from 8am to 2:30pm. Although when we asked her later if she remembered the ambulance, she said, "It was bumpy."

She was so deeply asleep by the time we got downtown, that she didn't wake up at all, not even when they drew blood!

Sleeping Tuesday Morning at Kosair after IV Zofran, Fluids, and  IV Antibiotics.

And do you know what finally woke her? I leaned down and whispered, "Look who has come to see you." She fluttered her eyes open and smiled and said, "Daddy! And Thomas!!" Yep. Just like the last time! She was so pleased when they got there to see her.

Tuesday morning right before they moved the O2 Sensor to her toe, she's showing it to the camera on her finger.

We stayed for 2 days, mostly for fluids. But you could visibly see her improving hour by hour. She had a lot of fun when she got to talk to her cousins on facetime and later to her friends Conner and Caleb on speaker phone. I had forgotten that basically she hadn't seen or talked to anyone since about June 8th before her recital!

Wednesday morning after getting up and walking around the room some.

After some testing, they told us that she had had mono, at some point recently, which had gone away by June, although we had no idea she had even it, and that had left her immune system very weak, thus the pneumonia. Also, that she might have caught some additional virus that started all the vomiting when we were in Disney, with pneumonia, and unaware of it, but her main doctor didn't seem to buy that at all.

She felt much better by the time we left the hospital. Although she was still vomiting almost every time she coughed, but was at least able to eat and drink again. 

We stayed in the house for 2 more weeks almost totally. If we left, she had to take a little garbage can with her...cause, you know...she could be sick at any moment.

She had to go back to the doctor to get checked 2 more times. The latest was this past Friday, because she was supposed to leave for camp yesterday! 

Dr. Cowley said she was 100% over the pneumonia, but that yes, she would still cough for awhile. In my opinion, from June 10th-July 26th is actually a while, and it should stop now. But whatever. My current prayer is that she will have a day again soon when she can't exactly remember how awful it is to throw up, like most of the rest of us feel usually. And that she will get to the point that she isn't pulling a garbage can nearby her all the time, just in case.

She is still coughing some but it seems the worst is over. Thankfully.

She is actually at camp this week, can you imagine? Now I'm trying not to be stressed... Hard to walk away from her after all of that!!!

Blessed to be past it!

MJ

A little News to share

So, we have had a very crazy month.

Oct. 20th, Thomas had a seizure in the car (1st time ever) while he and Grace were on the way to school with their Dad.

They had to take him to the ER at Baptist East, and he got an IV and blood work and CT. All was normal. They said a lot of times it is a 1 time thing. So, we never really told many people. (Grace was there for the whole thing, except the CT. Scary.) 

Then, last Wednesday, Thomas had another seizure in class at Co-Op, with his cousin Tyler. Tyler said he asked Thomas a question about his backpack, and he answered, and then fell out of his chair. He wasn't hurt luckily.

Bill and Sam took him back to the ER, this time to Kosair Brownsboro. 

The dr there ran an EKG, also normal. They let us go home again, but scheduled an EEG this past Monday Morning. Then a follow up Tuesday at a neurologist, which Grace attended with us. 

The EEG was abnormal, showing signs of seizure...um..gee really? Anyway...

The Neurologist said that basically, Thomas has seizures now, and will likely have more. He has put him on Keppra, which should help prevent or at least reduce the frequency of the seizures.

There will also be an MRI done next Thursday the 19th, just to be safe.

Needless to say, we have all been very off track this last month. In the middle, we paused to have my birthday and Fall Festival and Halloween... Thomas seems fine otherwise. So, Praising God for that!!

I found the cutest site for Saying and Phrases to use for Embroidery and Personalization!

http://allthingsthirtyone.blogspot.com/p/embroidery-ideas.html?showComment=1385136250344

It's a site run by a Thirty One Consultant and I think she is brilliant!!!