Shepherd Center
2020 Peachtree Road, NW
Atlanta, GA 30309
January 3, 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

We wish you a happy new year, and we are expecting great things this year as well. John and I went to a New Year's Eve party at the Center and had a very nice time. The highlight of the evening was suppose to be "Wheel Chair Limbo," but we were to tired to stay for that event. We were very happy to call it an early evening.

On Sunday, January 1, we went back to the worship service at Center. We really enjoyed the music ministry again.

Our friends, Teri and Rene Couture, their daughter Tina, and their granddaughter Rebecca came to visit us on Monday! What a wonderful time that was! Teri sang a song she wrote for John many years ago, "Romans 8:28, All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are the called according to his purpose." Teri had that scripture quoted to her so many times by John that she wrote a song and dedicated it to him. There are three verses to the song also.

Rene prayed with John again as he did the first night of John's accident. Rene lives in Middletown, CT, but came up to Bangor within hours of hearing of John's accident back on September 15, 2005. He visited John several times while we were there, and Teri came up with him on one of his visits. Rene prayed with me in one of my darkest hours when I felt that God was not listening to me. Oh, how God did listen. He did answer prayers. He is still answering prayers. And we have many more prayers yet to pray as we continue on this path He is leading us.

John was so much better after Rene's visit. He stayed up in the wheelchair for a total of seven hours yesterday! This is so good.

John has been out driving his wheelchair today, and he is improving each time. John also took one hour of classes today to understand how caring for his skin has changed since the spinal cord injury. The pictures of pressure sores, burns, and injuries were horrible. It sure will make it easier to follow directions about doing a "weight shift." That is when John will have to lay back in his wheelchair so his butt will not receive a pressure sore. You and I might just wiggle in our chair when the pressure becomes uncomfortable. John cannot feel the discomfort, so he will have to change positions every half hour to relieve that pressure.

We have not heard when they are going to take John off the vent for the night. He is off the vent every day now, but they will take him into ICU some night and see if he can breathe on his own all night. If he can, they will leave him off the vent and just keep checking on him. He has done this once before, in fact, for four days before he had to be put back on the vent.



**Please pray that the doctors will be wise in choosing the time to take John off the vent, and that John's lungs will be strong enough to breathe on their own.

**Continue to pray about our future living sitution. I become overwhelmed when I don't know where we will be living in a month. That is the time that John may be ready to leave Shepherd Center. It doesn't look like we will be returning to our house at 25 Franklin Street in Caribou, Maine, because we won't be able to make it accessible for John and his wheelchair, hospital bed, roll in shower, and all the other things that we will need. We just had so much work done there. We had a new roof, siding, windows, doors, decks, insullation, bedroom floors, kitchen floor, kitchen cabinets, new closets, and rooms painted. God must have something better for us, and it won't be long before we know what that will be!

Love,
Carolyn W. Pelkey