Saturday, October 31, 2009



Dear Friends and Family,


Here we are at a street side cafe' in Paris next to the Place des Vosges. Susan and I spent a week in Europe recently, punctuating what has been an eventful six months. It was good for us to have some time away and enjoy a break.


We spent a few days in beautiful Paris, exploring the arts, the history, the architecture and of course the food. As Susan would say, "It was glorious"! It was her first time to Paris and she said that she may have found her "home away from home".


We stayed in the Latin Quarter and enjoyed walking everywhere, to Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musee' D' Orsay, the Eifel, Champs Elysees, the theatre, and shopping on the Rue de' Rivoli. The weather was nice at 15 c and sunny.


We also went to see our son, Drew, who is studying in Scotland at the University of Edinburgh. Scotland was beautiful and full of fascinating history. We walked the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, saw Edinburgh Castle, visited Stirling Castle and the William Wallace Monument and, of course, played golf at St. Andrews, where the sun actually shined down on us for several holes. . . it was glorious!

We even took in a bit of reformation history as we visited the John Knox house and St. Giles church and studied the Scots Confession of 1560, Mary Queen of Scots and other larger-than-life figures of that era.

We hope to go back to Scotland and take the "high road to Loch Lomond" and other sites in the highlands.

Sola Christus,

Newt




Thursday, October 8, 2009

Feeling Stronger Every Day

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been three weeks since I last updated my blog and nearly a month and a half since my last chemo therapy treatment. Today would have been the day of my eighth treatment if it had been required. Being cancer-free and putting some distance between me and my last treatment have allowed me to gain five pounds, start exercising seriously again, and even begin to grow my hair.

While I have not returned to 100%, I must be gaining at least one percent each day. I would like to think that I will be back to near normal in less than a month with no lingering side effects. Again, I am very grateful.

Several times over the past weeks, I have remembered the moment when Susan and I heard the initial diagnosis of pancreatic cancer from the head of surgery at IU Med Center. It is a moment frozen in time as I gazed over the edge of my earthly life. While I don't care to return to that place again in reality, I return there in my mind because it causes me to maintain perspective on what really matters in life. It is an aid in my heeding the the most repeated command in the Bible - "Fear not."

On that subject of "fear", I did upload a new picture of myself which turns out to be a bit scarier than I thought it would. Halloween is around the corner, and Woody Harrelson has a new movie about zombies. . . maybe there's room for an "extra".

It's good to be a live, even if I resemble a fuzzy ghost.

In Christ alone,

Newt