Christ is risen; He’s risen indeed! The weather was beautiful in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, for Ariela, Daniel, and Kirsten to enjoy an Easter egg hunt with Pam (pictured above). Matthew and I enjoyed worship at home in Kansas City with Elizabeth and Stephen.

Thank you for praying for us. Matthew has had good appointments here in Kansas City with his primary care physician, chiropractor, and a physical therapist, as well as a video conference call with a surgeon at UCSF in San Francisco.

The surgeon in San Francisco has requested that Matthew have a magnetic resonance neurography (MRN), which is expensive and difficult to find. The MRN is crucial since it will give her the most up-to-date and detailed picture of his nerve damage, which she needs to know the best surgical course of action to take. We have scheduled to have the MRN done in San Francisco on Monday, April 20.

The neurosurgeon at Stanford has an opening to examine Matthew in person on April 22, so Matthew and I plan to fly to the Bay Area April 19-23 for these two appointments.

Last week we toured the townhouse in KC MO that we were approved for, and it will be available April 30 for Matthew and me to move in. Friends from our home church are gathering a list of available furniture that many are donating to furnish the townhouse. We are so humbled and blessed by how everyone is coming together to help us.

Pam continues to heroically be a single parent back in Croatia and pack up the house there to move our belongings back to KC. Please pray for God to give her incredible strength, wisdom, and joy as she undertakes this overwhelming task.

This week I’ve been working on checking the Bible translation drafts of the parable of the wicked tenants in Luke 20 in each of the 5 Roma languages. In 20:16, after Jesus finishes the parable describing the atrocities of the vine keepers and the owner’s retaliation, the chief priests and scribes respond to Jesus with “May it not be!” (in Greek). The ESV renders the idea as “Surely not!” Interestingly, in the Roma dialects, the idiom is “That God not give/allow!”, the same way it is expressed in Croatian and Serbian. Another tidbit is that where in v. 17 it says that Jesus “looked directly at them,” one of the Roma languages uses, literally “looked well/good at them,” which has an idiomatic meaning of “cutting them apart” with the look. Yes, Jesus was serious and did not mince words.

So, the Bible translations continue to move forward, our move from Croatia to KC moves forward, and praise God, progress is being made with Matthew’s medical treatments. Thank you for your prayers!

Todd