Praise the Lord:
—Erik and I are over our colds.
—We got to see the doctor Tuesday.
—Benjamin did the exams he needed.
—Cullen Rast has been so kind to drive us to places and to PATIENTLY wait for us there.  (Tuesday Cullen drove us to the hospital in the morning—a 2 hour drive—only to find out we couldn’t do anything.  So, we came home only to turn around later in the afternoon and go back to the hospital.  Then, he waited from 5-11pm while we did exams and talked with the doctor!) What a blessing it has been to stay here with them—we have been well fed (!!) and have our own room and bathroom in the back of their house. 

Update:
It was too good to be true:  We had been told that Benjamin’s treatment and exams were going to be for free here, but Tuesday morning the “Atendente social” talked to us and said that that is only for really needy people who have no other way to get treatment.  That made perfect sense to us and we sure didn’t want to abuse the system!  We found out that the hospital is top of the line and we are paying for it—the exams are about 3 times as expensive as in Cuiabá...but we are very well treated and taken care of (hopefully our health insurance will cover it).  We have been attended by such nice doctors and nurses, and the hospital is beautiful!  After doing exams, they give you a “coupon” for a snack which includes: a sandwich, juice, your choice of a hot drink, cookies, and crackers.  (That is a little different from the 4 crackers and tea that we got in Cuiabá).  And the nurses were so nice, we ended up with 4 of those coupons—one for each of us and two for Cullen, our patient chauffeur!! 

So, we went back to the hospital in the afternoon and did an ultrasound to check out the nodules again.  The doctor who did it did a very thorough job.  She even called Doctor Irene (our doctor here) during the ultrasound and asked her something and then came back to check on something else.  The ultrasound was not enough to indicate what the consistency of the nodules was, so Benjamin needed to have a tomography done.
They had to sedate him so he would keep still in order to inject a dye (contrast).  The exam didn’t take long...just about 15 min.  Then we had to wait in an observation room for about 2 hours where they came and checked up on him often to make sure he didn’t have any side effects from the anesthesia. 

Doctor Irene was in the room for the tomografia and came and talked to us afterwards.  She said that she thinks that the nodules are benign and can be taken care of with medication.  In order to find out a biopsy of liver tissue is planned for Monday at 2PM.  The biopsy will involve sedating him again and then inserting a needle inside one of the nodules (they will use ultrasound to see where the nodules are) and extracting a bit of the tissue.  Afterwards they will keep him in observation for 24 hours, since he’s so small.  What a comfort to know that God is faithful.  Fortunately, He is in control!

We should be able to change our return tickets with a statement from the doctor.  Hopefully we can travel back to Cuiabá end of next week.

Prayer requests:
—Benjamin has a cold now and if it doesn’t get better, we won’t be able to do the biopsy on Monday.  He seems to be doing a little better today.  Pray that his cold is completely better soon! 
—Please pray that indeed the nodules will be benign and treatable by medication.

Thank you so very much for your prayers and for passing this request on to so many others.  It has been such a comfort to us to know that so many are behind us lifting us up to the throne of God.  God has given us peace and has blessed us so much.  We couldn’t do it without you!!! 

With love,
Erik, Cristy, and little Benjamin