Reutter Life in Japan

Ruth’s home!!! We got her test results back, and even though she’s not nearly completely recovered, she was good enough to be released. It was a bittersweet trip (mostly sweet) as we pulled out of the hospital and tears came to our eyes as we remembered the happy return trip from the hospital we had planned – a trip with Anna Rebecca. But praise God, we’re moving on and this is a big step forward in the overall healing process.

As Ruth continues to recover at home, we’ll now be confronting little reminders of all the plans we had. It’s hard but necessary, sad but we have hope. We are so thankful to be home and know that God will be healing our hearts, bodies and lives – and what’s more is there is a wonderful future ahead of us. We’ll continue to keep you posted on our progress, as we so covet your continually prayers. Praise God for this most excellent day!

Good news- we got Ruth’s test results back and her white blood cell count went down from almost 25,000 to around 15,000. Praise God! The plasma treatment and change of antibiotics seems to have made a tremendous difference, and now we will continue in the same line of treatment until everything is normal again. The doctor said this could mean staying in the hospital until Saturday. Even though that’s a lot longer than we would like, we are very thankful that not only are the test results looking better, but Ruth is feeling much better as well. We thank you for all of your prayers, they are making a powerful difference.

Emotionally, we’re hanging in there. As life goes on, there are more and more things that remind us that Anna is gone – and it’s good to deal with them as they come up, but it also hurts a lot. Today Becky’s sister-in-law Christine Huber arrived in Santarém to spend some time with us. It was a real healing time to cry and laugh together, telling stories of good memories. I shared with them that I prefer the way things happened than for Ruth to have never become pregnant and for us to never have known Anna Rebecca. I must agree with Alfred Lord Tennyson who said “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Because not only was she our precious daughter (reason enough in itself), but she has made my life better – I’m a more broken, humble, dependent man on God and others, and a good portion of my heart already lies in heaven. What a great motivation to make the most of my life here on earth while I still can! Let’s remain faithful to the calling and never, ever doubt the goodness of God.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, Ruth has felt pretty lousy. She’s swollen and a bloodtest done Saturday showed that her white blood cells were extremely high (signifying that there’s an infection, possibly from the same miconium stool that took Anna’s life). Fortunately last night Ruth was less sick and this morning she was a lot less swollen, but still nauseous (probably from all the meds). So this morning we had an additional blood work done to see if the infections getting better. The results were the same, so our doctor called a specialist in the area of infections, and he will come tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to check Ruth. He prescribed a new antibiotic for Ruth and we are going to have an ultrasound done to see if we can’t further locate the source of the problem, helping us treat it and get Ruth out of there!

We are truly feeling all yours prayers and your love. We are humbled by the amount of people interceding on our behalf and as you can see, it’s making a tremendous difference. Over the past 4 days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) almost 1,700 have visited and read our story!! What an amazing encouragement that is to me- to have so many praying. About twice a day I drive from the hospital to the PAZ office to download our emails, approve comments on the website, check our facebook and do the updates. I then take it all on back to Ruth and read them to her. So even though you may not have heard back from us (just yet), we are receiving and reading all of your comments, and they mean so much. Even though Ruth doesn’t always feel well, she’s in really good spirits and it encourages me so much to see her spirits high, joking around.

I couldn’t imagine going through this without a wonderful family of believers like you who are interceding for us. What does the world do in these kind of situations? Where is their hope? Where is their community of support? Oh, it’s so important for us to be involved in a good church and be involved in ministering to others, because when the day of trial arrives, the man with many good friends stands firm in the Lord. I have a new purpose in my life and passion in my heart to share the great love of the Father to all of those without hope, that they may know the everlasting joy awaiting us. What great promises are in God!

Last night, our cell group took place – always at 7 PM on Saturday evenings. I had left the cell group in the capable hands of our disciples and fellow missionaries, Edson & Kelly Lee, so I didn’t have to go and in fact I’m sure everyone would have understood me not being there. But a word of hope was burning in me like I’ve never experienced. I wanted to share about the Love of the Father that cries “Live!” It was a very emotional night as I was able, by God’s grace and all your prayers, to declare God’s goodness and victory to meet our every need in any situation. People were really impacted.

At the end of my testimony, I gave an invitation to receive the Father’s love through Jesus Christ and led a prayer of faith in Jesus. Afterwards I asked if anyone had prayed that prayer along with me for the first time, and with tears in their eyes, Marlison & Luana raised their hands. HALLELUJAH!! It was only their second visit to our cell group, but Marlison told me that he was at that moment passing through the valley of the shadow of death, with the passing of his father. He told me he felt at home in our cell group, a group of believers that are genuine and real. He told me how much our testimony had impacted him.

This is a result of all your prayers for us! You’ve taken part of this first fruit picking from our testimony. God was so good to give us something so sweet to hang onto during this week- true eternal impact.