Nelson’s journal entries are getting shorter, so we’re posting three today. He spends a moment looking back with longing but quickly returns to reality, wanting to continue fighting the cancer.

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 November 25, 2022

Been up for some time now. It’s 1:50 am. When sleep is gone, it’s rough, that’s all I can say.

I sit here and try to watch something. The whole of the internet is open before me, but there’s nothing on. I feel like I’ve been beaten by a baseball bat as I hobble around and try to get comfortable. Like I’m not really even human anymore.

Food doesn’t seem attractive. I’m so alone here while the rest of the world sleeps. Doing this occupies my time, so I do it, not that anyone would read it. I don’t care about that.

The Bible brings consolation to some extent, the promises of God, but I don’t know how to activate them to come down to an emotional level.

November 29, 2022

I’m back on the chicken-raising thing again. I wonder if we could pull that off around here. What about the basement and then the back yard once the weather gets nicer? I think it would work, no problem.

It would be so fun, with a little baby boy and a Mama who absolutely loves them. What about when they lay eggs after about a year? How great would that be? Just a few thoughts.

It’s a big fat pain in the butt on the one hand, but most things that are fun are a pain in the butt too—traveling, having kids, most things require some sort of sacrifice to get them going.

Besides, if it’s always “no” to things like raising chickens, then it’s “no” to inconvenience and risk, “no” to messy and crazy, and that’s what makes things fun… within reason.

November 30, 2022

Trying out another dose of those “water pills” so the water in my stomach and legs will drain out a bit. Bill and Brett just left after a long, grueling trip up and back [from Tennessee] with a bunch of flight delays and other issues tossed in.

Funny how I don’t have anything to write down. I read a past journal entry from 2014 when I first went back to Kona in 2014. I was so afraid of what people thought. People want power, but the less you care about it and the harder you work, the more of it you get.

We couldn’t go back there if we tried. I need to stick with this fight, and being close to this clinic is the only way that can happen. No way I could have conceived where I was then or anything. What was Kokua Crew? I didn’t even know back then.

Now I have run the program [right] and have grown to love it a lot. They are, of course, my favorite people on [the YWAM] campus.

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“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” (Isaiah 43:18)

This Thanksgiving is unlike any other. Some of us are gathered in Michigan, but many of us are elsewhere—especially Nelson, needing to stay close to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and to avoid too much have a minimum of excitement.

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November 24, 2022

Thanksgiving Day.

Spent the day at Pastor Kevin’s with his wife and their little family. So nice of them to have us. The Dietrich’s tagged along, and it was a pleasure to have them as well.

I’ve been struggling most days with the new treatment of double doses of the two drugs together. Glad we opted out of going down to Michigan. It would have been way too much for us, for me for sure.

I feel so weak and tired and sick. It’s mostly tightness in my chest, trouble getting enough air, constant threat of fevers. I don’t know if I’m coming or going, to be honest.

I’m fighting panic attacks all the time. I struggle not to take Lorazepam, most of the time wanting some relief, but they make me so tired, and I already feel dead tired.

I’m a mess, and when I was taking these drugs before, I told myself, “Next time just tell yourself, ‘It’s only the drugs. You don’t really feel all that bad.’” But at this moment, right now, the fear that is grabbing a hold of me is tough to overcome with those words.

I know they are only drugs, but I’m scared. I pray instead:

Lord, help me please. Please help me overcome these physiological ailments. Help me lean on you instead of these drugs that don’t really work anyway. Help me to stand up and hang onto you. I don’t even know what that means really, but please help me do it.

You are my Shepherd. You lead me beside still waters. You help me to lie down in peace in green pastures. You prepare a table before me in the presence of our enemies and got us this house. You do amazing things when I don’t even see it.

Help my lungs to clear out. Help me to see a real live miracle. I have the faith, Lord. You are the Great Physician. You can heal. You can take away this cancer. You can bring me out into a spacious place.

Please refresh my soul and do it for your name’s sake. Right now I feel I am in the darkest valley, but I will fear no evil. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. You have anointed my head with oil, over and over. I pray that your power would come on me only by your Spirit.

Thank you for my family, for our little house, for the love we have and especially for Annso. She is such a rock for me. So steady. I’m so thankful that she’s not super up and down.

Thank you that I’m not at the hospital and am healthy enough to be here with everyone.

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“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

From Margaret: The reason we’re posting Nelson’s journal entries on this web site is because we’re hoping all of us can be encouraged. Nelson was an example of how to keep faith strong while waging war against the struggles of this world. All of us have battles to fight, and all of us are tempted to lose hope when things look bad.

Many of the entries Nelson wrote in his journal were thoughts he didn’t share with us at the time. Now we’re learning the nitty-gritty of how he made it through.

Ann Sophie and I haven’t read ahead in the journal but are taking his writings one day at a time. Through these posts, we’re hoping to learn from Nelson’s example how we (and you, too), can continue trusting God, even on our darkest days.

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November 22, 2022

“A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth, to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26)

Trying to pull myself out of a hole this morning. The night was a doozy. I won’t go into details, but it was puking and trouble breathing, which has been normal for me lately. Will and Annso are in the bedroom, and I’m in the chair in the living room.

I just took a walk to the Caribou Coffee by the clinic to get an espresso to pick me up this afternoon. It’s the beginning of the winter, and it’s getting darker earlier and earlier.

I am fighting panic about breathing, pretty much all the time. I pray, Lord, that you would help me overcome these fears, so I don’t need to make Annso nervous, too.

We are this little family, and I feel like we’re a flickering light that’s about to be blown out…. every day. But somehow we last another day.

I don’t know why you allowed this to happen to us, Lord, but we trust you with the outcome at the end, and thank you for the evidence of things along the way. Amen.

I don’t know whether or not I’m relying on you, Lord. I rely on coffee, Annso, Morphine, and a handful of other things, but you give those things, so maybe I do rely on you. Who knows.

I see your hand all around us, getting things for us like this house that I never could have gotten without a miracle. The lines are grey, but I would give you the glory, if given the chance.

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“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart…” (Psalm 73:26)