God has been so gracious...

Hi friends,

God has been so gracious through so many of you. In my last update I shared that I was released from my Pastoral position at New Harvest. Right after that the Leukemia kicked up and set me back physically. Then Gabriela had a flu that lasted two weeks. I then caught it and it turned into Bronchitis. The three of these aliments kept me down until March. Yes March. It was very touch and go for me dropping my weight from 200 lbs to 165 lbs. Gabriela was a great nurse, school teacher, and mother during all this. It was God's strength that kept her going. I won't even mention the kid's illness during this 4 months. Thankfully, we are all out of the woods and doing well.

The amazing thing is that through this time of not being able to work, God saw to it that we were cared for through many of our friends. Out of nowhere we started receiving cards and monetary gifts from people we ministered with over 10 years ago. A neighbor's brother who I have only talked to 3 times over the fence, walked up to Gabriela handing her 20 $100 bills saying God told him to give this to us (how often does that happen?) Well it's been happening. Many of you were prompted to send gifts. At first is was very difficult and humbling. People have done my yards, cleaned our house while sending the family on a date, dropped off food items, and loved us in many ways. We praise God for all of you.

The amazing and exciting thing is our expenses have been covered for the last 5 months. I added up all the gifts and...get ready for this...it totaled what I would have earned if I was still working at the church. Gabriela and I just sat on the couch crying and praising God. We sense God is tell us, "It's time for a sabbatical to rest and heal. I have your needs covered." I had no choice through the sickness, I couldn't work, but now being well, we hear God saying wait and rest.


So that's what I'm doing. We have found a church to invest ourselves called Mountain View Community Church. The kids love it and are making friends and being challenged spiritually. They are asking a lot of good questions. Sarah had her first "word from the Lord" last week. She was upset and angry at her siblings, so she sat on her bed and opened her Bible. It opened to Psalms 4. Her eye focused on verse 4 - 5, "Be angry, and do not sin, ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Offer right sacifices, and put your trust in the Lord." This was her first time to experience God's personal word to her situation through the Bible. She shared it with a new sense of interest in God and the Bible. This excites me being concerned that my kids will see Christianity as something we do instead of a relationship we live. This is an answered prayer - "Thank You, Father!"

Finally, I will leave you with a ministry idea I am praying about developing. I would like to serve God using my shepherding gift as a Pastoral Care provider. I am not a licensed counselor, but I have worked years with married couples, those engaged, and families that have loss loved ones. I sense God's smile and my cup is full in these ministry situation. Pray with me about creating a ministry that provides Pastoral Care and Guidance to couples and families. Many smaller churches don't have the staff to meet these needs and Funeral Homes often have families without a church affiliation that I could offer this ministry. I would also market the ministry in the community and through people that know me. I would be a 50C3 that would offer tax deductions for support and services. I'm still in the "dreaming" state, but have written up a proposal that I am submitting to a ministry board that would act as my 50C3 umbrella. I am praying as I go - listening for the Lord to release me to further develop this ministry or however His leads. I would appreciate your prayers as well.

Again, a long update. From the Rosenthal's to all of you - thank you for standing in the gap for us in prayer. Thank you to many that have graciously sacrificed and shared financially with us. We are touched deeply and our faith is growing. God smiles at His church being the His hands and feet.

We love you,

Kelly
krosenthal62@att.net - Kelly
kngplus4@sbcglobal.net - family

Transitions: Jan 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

Much has and is going on with the Rosenthal family and I thought it time to update our friends. We would welcome and ask for your prayers. Here’s a brief bullet point update:

• In October of 2010 I was released from employment from New Harvest Church. It was a surprise for us and was sudden. I clearly see God’s hand in releasing me from NHC. Gabriela and I prayed for God to do something over a year ago and we see this as God opening the door to a new assignment. We just don’t have that direction yet and feel a need for healing.


• In November 2010, Gabriela and I joined Kingdom Ministries for a teaching seminar in Honolulu, Hawaii at the YWAM training center. We assisted Kingdom Ministries in their prayer seminars and worked with student missionaries as they prepared for one of 3 missions. It was a great time to get away and minister in a beautiful setting.

• Medically I thought I received a physical healing from the Lord. In faith I felt prompted to discontinue my chemo and depression meds and all was well. While in Hawaii, my health declined and once returned to the mainland, blood work showed that the Leukemia was (not original ALL, but a different type of Leukemia – CMML) had elevated my white counts to an alarming 168,000 (normal 10,000). Confused by the healing I understood, I started my chemo meds and now back into safe levels and feeling well. We are trusting the Lord though we don’t understand the healing received and the return of the Leukemia. This too has been a painful reality.


The family is well. Kids all continuing being home schooled by their fantastic mother and doing well. We all just returned from a vacation planned last year to the Tahoe area. We joined our friends the Johnson’s from Yucaipa, Ca and the Delisle’s from Ripon, CA. There were 14 kids from 3 to 15 and 6 adults in a large mountain cabin in Strawberry, CA. The snow was great and we built a toboggan run where the kids sled for hours. We had a great week in community including great meals, worship/devotions and a lot of fun and play. These families are family to us and the kids are best of friends. This was another wonderful time for healing and reflection.


• Spiritually, we are growing, looking for a church home and planning to meet again with our small group. The kids have discovered a devotional tool called SHAPE as a way to read through the Bible in a year with daily journaling. I am very encouraged by the spiritual interest of Andrew, Sarah , Brianna and even Anneliese. I am praying for the day that their faith moves from following mom and dad to becoming their personal walk with Jesus. We all are waiting on the Lord to see what my next assignment will be and it’s developing our prayer life and faith as God faithfully provides and directs.

• Job wise, there is nothing on the horizon. I really don’t know how God is leading and have little desire to pastor at this time. I still am doing premarital counseling with couples, but need some time to heal before jumping back into ministry. I would like to move towards a counseling profession, but will need further education. Presently I have started two home businesses to pull in a little money to extend our saving as I look for full-time employment. I am making crosses for Disciple’s Cross, selling them either locally or selling them to the company to fill their orders. You can learn more about the story behind the business at www.disciplescross.com. If you would like to order any crosses from me, they make great gifts and I sell them wholesale at $5 each. In stores the cost is $10 to $15 dollars. Contact me at krosenthal62@att.net if interest. The company can’t make enough of them.

Secondly, I have just become a representative for Fortune Hi Tech Marketing advertizing companies and products through the web through a personal webpage where friends and family can purchase products from major companies and pay for services like Dish Network or their cell phone/internet monthly services. By using my website these Companies give Fortunes a piece of their advertizing budget and Fortunes pays me. This type of relational advertizing is making big money and Fortune is a reputable company. Several key Christian leaders and many pastors in Fresno are involved in this venture and have built a great support team to broaden the scope of this business helping many people earn additional income in this economically difficult time. Fortune paid incentives to introduce others to join the network and create this “web kiosks” to sell products and services that most people are using every day. I would love it if you would consider purchasing or paying for existing services through our website. It will help the Rosenthal family financially keep our home as I look for full-time employment. If you would like to know more about helping us or becoming a Fortune representative please email me at krosenthal62@att.net. It would be a great blessing to me and my family if you would inquire. It’s simple and would provide you a kick-back on your regular expenses and make you some additional money.

God is very good, actually the greatest good and we daily are finding grace and hope in His Word, through prayer and a few wonderful friends. Please pray for our hearts to heal, a local job to allow us to keep our home, and continued healing from Leukemia. Pray for my children’s continued emotional and spiritual growth and a sincere faith in Jesus. I am thankful that Gabriela and I grow closer and stronger through trial, but pray for wisdom and endurance as we seek the Lord, lead our family and continue to minister as the Lord directs.

That’s my lengthy update…thanks for your interest and prayers,
Kelly

In case you were wondering...
Kelly is feeling well but his blood is not well. He is working full days and if you saw him you wouldn't know that he is ill. His face and eyes are bright and he is as handsome as ever hubba hubba :) He has been diagnosed with one or both of the following, Mylofibrosis (bone marrow disorder where it produces scar tissue rather than healthy cells)
Chronic Leukemia (Our Oncologist has never seen someone go from an Acute Leukemia to a Chronic Leukemia)
the diagnosis is based on how his body is behaving, there are no cancer markers in his blood. His white blood cell count has been elevated as high as 65,000 and normal is around 10,000 and his spleen has been enlarged. At that point he was in a lot of pain and needed Vicodine.

We went to our Naturalpathic doc and he did a magnet treatment along with a laser treatment and the spleen got smaller and the pain went away. The Oncologist also has Kelly on a maintenance therapy for Chronic Leukemia which includes daily chemo pills. The Naturalpathic doc also has him on a redgiment of products to help heal his blood. His blood counts have come down but still fluctuate. He is monitored monthly by the Oncologist and sees the Naturalpathic Doc about twice a month. There are no cures for these diagnosis and both have about a 5 yr. life expectancy. (by faith we are not accepting these diagnosis) His blood shows no cancer markers. It is all based on how the blood is behaving.

We believe that God has spoken life over Kelly and certainly has provided for us to see our naturalpathic doc and has lead us to scriptures that talk about soul healing and taking off yolks and that healing will follow, (really just the process of sanctification).

Kelly suffered a deep depression after we left CDA and has been on anti depression meds ever since. I believe that this depression and what precipitated it broke down his body and made him susceptible to cancer. The wounds he experienced when we left were profound and were mounted on some very old wounds within his soul and I believe it was a breaking point for him spiritually, physically and mentally.

Recently, I have been listening to a CD series that a friend gave me called. "Your Body, His Temple" (God's plan for achieving emotional wholeness) put out by Life Outreach International
I have been amazed to learn more about how the brain works and how thoughts, belief, emotion all have a physical effect on our bodies and how 85% of diseases begin with our metal health. I love how God keeps confirming what He has shown me with regards to Kelly and his health and healing.

Recently the Lord has been calling me out to deal with my food addiction and weight issues and I am finally beginning to walk in the victory that has been mine for a while but was too stubborn to appropriate. I am challenged to a greater degree to die to myself while not loosing myself and being fully submitted to Kelly and his leadership in our home. I thought I was submissive but there were some subtleties that the Lord has revealed recently and I am working on. God has also shown me how these issues are directly connected to Kelly and his health. I praise God for his work in our lives!!!
Anyway... just a brief update. I hope that this makes sense. I also hope that you all are well with each other, God and work/school. I know that you pray for us, thank you sweet friends. Blessings to you, Gabriela
P.S. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING... THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PICTURE IS MY NIECE JULIE WHO CAME TO CAMP WITH US!!!

So long since we have updated this...

It is hard to know how to update. Kelly has been given several new diagnosis over the last year. Most recently our Oncologist diagnosed Kelly as having CMML. This is a chronic form of Leukemia with no cure and a two year life expectancy. For some time now Kelly's white blood cells have been elevated from between 9 - 10 thousand to as high as 32 thousand. For this reason we decided take some maintenance chemo. with the hope that this will bring down his counts and it has. Thank you Jesus.

At this point we are not embracing the diagnosis and are continuing to have Kelly's blood monitored and regularly seeing our Natural Pathic Doc.
There is power in our words so I am still holding on to God's words of life over Kelly and at the same time we want to be responsible to do what we need to do for his body to heal.

Please pray for us as we seek the Lord about continuing chemo.
Please also pray for us as we look for a new Oncologist that would be more open to alternative forms of treatment.
Please also pray for Kelly's continued soul healing. (we are both going through a prayer ministry once a week to work on the soul issues.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Love, Gabriela

p.s. We recently welcomed a new member to our family. His name is Theodore Rosenthal and he is a one year old cackapoo! Theodore means "God's gift" and that he is! We thank the Orduno family for giving him to us!

New News?

Well, I can say for sure that life if never boring. Kelly went to his oncologist last Monday and was given some new news. He still is not showing any signs of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (thank you God!)but now there are a low number of immature white blood cells in his blood and they have markers that indicate that they are cloning themselves. Our oncologist has told Kelly that he now has Chronic Leukemia. The lab results say that the test are suggestive of this information. With regards to the other diagnoses that have been given this last year and a half... the tests no longer show the chromosome abnormality. As far as Myelophibrosis, there has been no change in the levels of scar tissue or inflammation of his liver. With Myelophibrosis, his test should be showing an increase and they are not. So what is what?
Here is where we have landed...

We are not embracing the diagnosis of CL.

We are not going to take any chemo (doc. wanted to start Kelly on "maintenance" treatment for Chronic Leukemia)

We have given our updated labs to our Naturalpathic doc and he is consulting with other doc. that he works with. (waiting to hear from them)

Kelly is reading up on how to strengthen his bone-marrow nutritionally.

Our trust in not in blood test, Doctors (natural or otherwise), nutrition etc... We have gone to God with our concerns and requests and trust that He will continue to lead us. We know that He has an opinion about Kelly's health and we want to know what that is. After a couple of days of dealing with fear and discouragement, the Lord has reminded me that He has spoken life over Kelly and that we are in a process of being stripped of things in our lives that Kelly and I used to find "life" in and now God wants us to find Life in Him alone. We thank Him and praise Him for his work in our lives.

Please pray that we would have willing hearts,(the stripping process is painful). Please also pray that we would be wise in the decisions we make and attentive to His leading.
Thank you ahead of time for praying and thank you for reading this.
LOL The Rosenthal's
p.s. Kelly is feeling great and is functioning at 100%!

Merry Christmas

Hello Dear Family and Friends

We apologize for not updating our blog regularly. The good news is that there isn't much on the health end of things to give an update on! We praise God that the results of the bone marrow biopsy came back Leukemia Free! (Thank you God!) There is still presence of scar tissue in Kelly's bone marrow and Kelly will have a scan of his liver and kidneys at the end of Dec. to check to see if they are enlarged. Our Oncologist believes that this might indicate Mylophybrosis (sp?) This is a bone marrow disorder that has a poor prognosis. The good news is that the blood counts did not show an increase in scar tissue. We are also sending our results to several other Doctors, via our Naturalpathic Doc., who also know oncology and they will give us their opinions. We are waiting to hear from them and then we will pray and ask the Lord what to do next.

We have strange feelings about this new development. We believe that Kelly is healed and he is feeling 100% physically! We continue to ask God for direction and confirmation. Our biggest requests have been that the Lord would heal Kelly of the ringing in his ears (a constant, loud, frustration) and that the Lord would deliver him from depression. He is functioning well but feels a regular heaviness and lack of freedom in his spirit.

He is such an amazing man and I respect him so much. He has been through so much and he continues to love, serve and long for more of Jesus. He is an incredible husband and father and a terrific pastor. I feel confident that God is at work in him in these areas and the all of this will pass in time. Please join us in praying for these things. Thank you so much!

The kids and I are doing well and counting down the days until winter break from school! Homeschooling is going well, (a lot more work then I anticipated) but well worth it. I love seeing the kids get time to just be kids and play with one another and be good friends. They are loving their labs on our school campus,(piano, science, language and art). And finally we are so blessed to be in our new home this Christmas! We love it!!!

Thank you to those of you who read this and pray for us. You are greatly loved and appreciated. Lastly, I want to share with you that the Lord blessed my with a very vivid dream recently. In this dream I was in our old house, upstairs. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying something. I looked out the window into our neighbors back yard and I saw Him standing in a cloud, surrounded by angels. In an instant every part of my wanted to run, so as to not be exposed and simultaneously all of me wanted to run into His arms! Both of these feelings hit me at once and I was paralyzed with great fear. I finally think I understand what it means to fear the Lord. I wasn't afraid of Him or for myself. It was definitely a feeling of awe. This dream has blessed me and motivated me to remember that He is coming back soon! Oh blessed day!!!! Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you are blessed at the remembrance that our Savior lives and is coming again!
Sincerely, Gabriela

More to the Journey?

Hello dear family and friends,
Kelly is having a bone marrow biopsy this morning. Our oncologist had agreed to continue monitoring him even though we have not continued with treatments. Recently Kelly's blood results have been questionable. The doctor has detected some scar tissue and Kelly's white blood cells are elevated. As I am sure you can imagine, this is a bit concerning. We are praying that we can keep our thoughts captive and fears before the Lord. I continue to sense that the Lord is asking me if I will trust Him. He is also gently reminding me daily of how He has spoken life over Kelly. Bottom line is that we don't know what is ahead in our journey and the task before us is to trust. We covet your prayers for just that and of course complete healing. One friend recently prayed that Kelly's results would baffle intelligent minds, I love that. I am encouraged that God knows what is ahead and I will wait on Him. Thank you dear ones.
Sincerely, Gabriela