September/October News

This last month and half has gone by so fast with big changes, challenges, and adventures for us.

The biggest change for us was the birth of our third girl. On October 1st at 4:50 pm we were blessed with Naomi Ella Gamradt. She weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and was 19.9 inches long. She has a nice black tuft of hair on the back of her head and gorgeous dark blue eyes. We were blessed with our quickest and easiest delivery. It had challenges, but nothing compared to our other experiences.

The real challenge came five hours after taking her home. Friday the 3rd at 6pm she passed two real big blood clots into her diaper. After some more blood and playing phone tag with an on-call doctor we decided we needed to get her back to the hospital. Our hospital is not set up for infant emergencies, so after 3 rather intense hours in a busy ER, she was transferred to an NICU in a neighboring hospital. Attempting to draw a couple of ounces of blood from her little body only to watch the veins shrink from dehydration, they had to put an IV in her head. She was separated into isolation as they didn't know the cause and didn't want to put the preemies at risk. We watched her pass blood every 20 minutes for the next day and get fed sugar water from a tube for the next three days, as they wanted to make sure it wasn't caused by a food allergy. On Sunday evening she finally stopped bleeding. By no coincidence several churches and friends had been praying very intensely for her healing that morning. On Thursday of the following week she was released after the neonatologist could find nothing wrong with her, and was not even sure of what had caused the bleeding in the first place. There were guesses from infection, to swallowing blood, to milk sensitivity-none of which they could prove for sure. We do know that God did something amazing that Sunday. Naomi is doing well now and is continuing to gain weight, acting like a normal newborn, and is being adored by her sisters. It has been quite an adventure.

The other part of the adventure was earlier in the month. Kevin had the opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Belfast, Northern Ireland participating in some YFC youth-worker training. The session included members of the Methodist Church, Church of Ireland Church, and YFC year out team. There were 30 young people, most around 19 years old, and 'Big Brother Kevin' learned a lot, including from his younger classmates. Youth club, schools work, presentation, and theological studies training were all a part of the school. As well, he met some amazing future contacts both from those participating in the training and the actual instructors. Kevin also had the privilege of assisting with an YFC monthly youth even in Belfast called Mannafest. There were roughly 300 young people from various denominations meeting together to worship God and learn more about Him. It was a great vision starter as there is always a chance that we will get to help start something similar in Galway.

Whatever the plans look like in Galway, we excitingly look forward to seeing what God brings. He has brought so many amazing opportunities and people into our lives already. We know that we wouldn't be where we are at without your prayerful participation in this ministry.

Prayer Praise

: Kevin has almost fully recovered from his 25 ft fall. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.

: Naomi was born a week and a half after Kevin returned from N Ireland.

Prayer Requests

: Please pray for the new YFC youth center in Bray, Ireland that is nearing completion: For financial partners who would join the ministry and for youth workers and volunteers to keep it running so that youth from the local housing estates' would have a safe place to hang out and experience God's love first hand.

: Please pray for the Galway Steering committee as they continue to prepare for us to move to Galway. Seven area pastors and youth workers have helped to form our leadership committee. Many of these work full time on top of their pastoral responsibilities. They have an important role in helping us understand the culture as well giving wisdom as to the direction YFC Galway should go.

: We would appreciate your praying with us for monthly partners. As an example, we need 47 more sponsors at $50 a month to help us meet our December 08 deadline to move to Ireland this year.