Nov Update

I can see that it has been embarrassingly too long since my last post. Sorry!

Everyone is doing well. Meg is in her 4th year at Phila. Biblical University. She is on track to graduate in Dec '09. Tim is also doing well at Fort Hays State University. This semester he took a 5 credit Chinese course to which we said, "WHAT?!?!" He has surprised everyone and is presently carrying an 'A' average for the course. WOW! Ryan made the basketball team again this year, we love his perseverance, not being one of the most talented players, he goes out and plays with lots of heart. Way to go, Ry.

Karen and I celebrated out 25th wedding anniversary in August of this year. It was especially meaningful in light of Karen's bout with cancer earlier this year. Notes of congratulations should be sent to Karen for putting up with me all these years. We were able to visit with Karen's mom who lives in Florida while we were travelling this fall. I always wanted to see a live wild alligator in person. So one day I took a walk to check out the ponds by Karen's Mom's house. Sure enough at the second pond was a 6-7 foot alligator sunning itself. I was so excited but I didn't have the camera, only the cell phone. So I closed to within 8 feet to take a picture but I spooked it and it went into the water. So the resulting picture is only of its eyes and nostrils sticking out of the water. But hey, I finally got to see my first up close wild alligator. Ryan was upset with me when he found out what I did.

We are looking forward to having everyone home for Christmas this year. We had planned to go to Klemtu this Christmas but Meg and Tim both have to work and earn money for school bills in January. So we will be staying home this year. Meg has already lined up work at the Day Care she worked at this fall. We are so thankful for this.

We hope you enjoy the family picture from August.

If anyone is interested, I have a blog page for a study in Ephesians that I am doing with a local group. It can be found at http://www.scott-on-ephesians.blogspot.com/.

Karen's Clean Bill of Health and Visiting Friends.

Horseshoe Bay Terminal

Last Monday we went to Karen's final appointment with the cancer doctor. He gave her a clean bill of health and has turned her over to our family doctor for future checkups. We are eternally grateful to God for this positive outcome and thankful to everyone who showered us with expressions of love and covered us in prayer.

Mary Lou, Emma and Karen working on a scrapbook for friends from Klemtu

We were also glad that our friend, Mary Lou, who was visiting from PA at the time with her daughter, Emma, was able to be there and share the moment. We are in the midst of one of those uniquely rich times of visits from a number of friends. The day before Mary Lou and Emma came, friends from NY, Chuck, Deb and Mary, arrived for a 5 day visit before their cruise to Alaska. A good friend from Klemtu, Melody, is visiting this week. Before the week is out, Chuck, Deb and Mary will return for two days before flying home. Then this weekend a family we know through Tim and Ryan's Track club on Vancouver Island are coming.

It has been fun and profitable week of enjoyable activities and ministry opportunities mixed together. Please click on the 'comment' button below and leave a note or just your name and date so we know someone is reading these blogs. Thanks!

See our ministry blog for updates about the ministry opportunities from this past week at http://scott-at-naim.blogspot.com/

Chuck, Deb and Mary leaving on Cruise to Alaska (you can tell by the big smiles)

Tea Time with Melody, Emma and Mary Lou (taking picture)

View from Mt. Seymour just outside of Vancouver, BC

Karen Update and Father's Day Weekend

Karen finished her radiation treatments last Monday although the side effects have not yet peaked (normally 10-14 days after treatment, involving pain and discomfort). We continue to be thankful for good reports and look forward to complete recovery (including side effects) soon.

The family was all together for Father's Day weekend as Tim returned from Vancouver Island to compete with Ryan in a local Track and Field competition. The weather was generally good. Ryan had two personal best throws in shot and javelin.

The highlight for us was on Sunday when we left one competition to go to another where Tim was competing against two other athletes, one who was trying to qualify for World Junior Championships and the other was Scott Russell, the Canadian record holder in javelin, who was trying to qualify for the Canadian Olympic team. Scott is tall, about 6' 8'' and very friendly. All the kids and competitors love him. He did qualify for the Canadian Olympic Team with a throw of over 83 meters. For those of you not as familiar with metric, that's most of the length of a football field. It was quite impressive to see. Watch the vidoe below.

Scott Russell Throwing Javelin

This week we have Dakota and Vasille staying with us. They are the foster boys we have done foster relief care for the past 9 years. It should be a fun week. Karen has lots planned for them. Today we are going to watch the BC Lions football team practice, they are holding their pre-season camp here in Abbotsford.

Megan has landed a job at a Christian Day Care center here in Abbotsford. It is a full-time job which we are most grateful for. I told her that by the end of the summer she will either never want to have kids of her own or we'll know she wants some of her own.

This is Meg enjoying the track meet!

Family Update June 1

Karen is past the half-way point in her radiation treatments. They have left her feeling quite nauseated and tired at times. Six more treatments to go, five this week and one more the following Monday. The side effects may last for a few weeks after treatments end. Please keep praying for Karen.

Our time together as a whole family is over quickly. It only lasted two weeks and was full of life, action and commotion. It's nice to know that even with two of the three in their 20's, they still love to wrestle and argue. Tim has moved over to Vancouver Island to live and train with his javelin coach of many years. He will be looking for work, taking a summer class online from Fort Hayes State University and competing at various track meets. Tim hopes to make TeamBC to compete at the Canadian National Championships this summer. We miss having the extra driver around as well as miss our car which Tim drove to the island.

Megan has started her new job at American Eagle. It is a trendy clothes store and we are sure Megan will love it. (Actually, 'trendy' is my word, you know my high fashion sense:) She was determined not to get a job in the 'food industry' and succeeded. Its nice to have her home.

Ryan just competed at the BC High School Championships for Grade8/9. He qualified in shot put and discus. It was a great experience for Ryan to compete against the best that BC has to offer. We look forward to Ryan building on this experience in the years to come. He was quite nervous but we were proud of him and it was a joy to see him compete at that level. The picture above is Ryan throwing discus at an earlier competition.

Karen's Radiation

Karen Helping Ryan With Math

On Friday, May 16, Karen begins her first radiation treatment. Please pray that all might go well. Last week the Cancer Center did a catscan to prepare for the radiation treatments. It was very painful for Karen because of the position she had to hold her right arm (over her head for a half hour). She has to have her arm in the same position for each radiation treatment. Pray that the pain will not be too much. She begins treatment Friday and they are Monday to Friday for the next three weeks.

On a lighter note, that is a picture of Karen helping Ryan with his math. She went to school ??? years ago and now she gets to do it again. Not all the moments are lighter, as you can imagine.

Family Update- May 5

Busy Week at the Markloff Household

Meg holding our friends' baby the day after returning from PBU

Meg''s home from University for the summer!!! After a very busy end of the semester, Megan flew to Seattle on Friday night and spent the night there with Karen. She arrived okay but said she had to run from her one plane to the other. She wonders why connecting flights never seem to be in the same area of an airport? On Saturday they spent the day together travelling home and shopping as they went. They had a wonderful time together and I was so glad to finally see her Saturday night!

Tim just competed in the Conference finals for Fort Hays State University. He tied for 7th. Its hard to believe that two people can throw a javelin over half a football field and throw the exact distance. Its even more unbelievable that their two next best throws were only 3 centimeters apart (about 1 inch or about ............... long). Tim comes home in less than two weeks. We are so excited. That means in about 2-1/2 weeks we will be wondering why we wanted them home all at the same time :) The three children certainly add a lot to the energy and commotion level when they are home together. Tim probably has a job with the city of Courtenay as a summer youth worker. This is great because it allows Tim to live with his Javelin coach for the summer and work out and compete with him.

Ryan throwing Discus (look just above his head)

Ryan just finished a busy week of Track and Field competitions on Wednesday and Saturday. Even though the weather here was not nice on Saturday, Ryan had a very good day throwing hammer, shot and discus. Ryan leads a busy life between track practice and competition, off season basketball practice, working at a pizza place, youth group and a little thing called school and homework.

Karen should begin her radiation soon. Thank you for your prayers and expressions of love and concern and please keep praying!

That's all for now.

Family Update- April 11

Thank you again to all who pray for us, we appreciate it. We are waiting for the next step in Karen's cancer treatment. Next Tuesday we have our first visit with the Oncologist who should give us a final biopsy report and lay out Karen's Radiation Schedule. Karen is doing well but still tires out since the surgery.

Scott is doing well but has a bit of the sniffles (I know, boo hoo). Its a small thing compared to Karen's challenges.

Meg is doing well and trying to catch up with all her end of the year school work while trying to keep her grades up in order to retain her academic scholarships. Meg is very excited because she got her first bit of paper work declaring her a senior next year. Where does the time go? I just graduated the other day myself.

Tim is feeling well. We had a bit of a scare just before Spring Break when Karen had to direct some fellow students to call 911 because of a low blood-sugar incident. Many have asked how he is feeling after that. The reality of diabetes is that once the blood-sugar comes back up, they don't feel lingering affects. So it was as if nothing had happened the following day. Tim is in the midst of his outdoor track program at Fort Hayes State University and coming down to the last month of his 2nd year. Again, time flies by.

Ryan's health has been good in spite of the challenges of diabetes, migraines, etc. Ryan has begun Spring Track at his High School and hopes to finish 2nd in the Province in hammer. If he does, it will cost us a lot of money because Karen kinda challenged him with a bribe if he succeeds :)

So to wrap up, next week is a big week for us as we look forward to the next steps in Karen's treatments. Again, thank you for your continued prayers. We are grateful to God for His faithfulness to us through this whole process.

Karen- Surgeon's Update- Tuesday, April 1

Today we met with Karen's surgeon for the 'final' report on the mass that the doctor removed. The news was mostly good.

The good news is that there was no invasive cancer found in the mass. All the cancer was "in situ" (contained & non-aggressive) and appears to be completely removed. That's great news.

The surgeon again said that "in situ" cancer is not normally found in a lump or mass and that she had never seen that before Karen's case. Also, the cancerous part of the lump was larger than expected and she was not able to take as much "margin" around the mass as she normally would have. Because of this there is the possibility of more surgery. The Surgeon said that the Cancer Center would be doing a final workup on the removed lump and would tell us if more surgery is needed. So we are waiting for final word, but right now it appears that all the cancer was removed.

Karen is expecting to begin radiation in about 4 weeks, we are waiting to hear when. This will involve driving to Surrey (about 1 hour's drive away) 5 days a week for 4 weeks of radiation therapy.

Thank you for praying and please keep praying.

Karen's Health- March 26, 2008

Last Monday Karen had surgery to remove a cancerous lump. The initial report by the surgeon was positive. She believed that all the cancer was contained in the removed lump. We were to receive confirmation today when the lab results came back but they have been delayed until Tuesday of next week.

Karen had a recovery week last week. She returned to work on Monday and everyday seems to be getting stronger.

Thank you to all who have prayed and expressed your care and concern in various ways. We have felt God's presence helping us throughout this process!