Please pray for Chris Klicka

Chris and Tracy Klicka

Friends,

You may know Chris Klicka has been the HSLDA attorney for Illinois and Texas, as well as many other states, serving us and so many others for years. We have been blessed to know Chris, his wife Tracy, and their children for years. They are dear friends.

And right now, Chris could really use our prayers. I am attaching the latest report from Chris’ Caring Bridge page that just came in. Chris has struggled with MS for years, and yet has continued to serve the homeschooling community. He has just stepped down from the fight. I received a personal call from Scott Woodruff this week saying he was taking over coverage for Illinois. Friends, my heart is breaking this evening for this stalwart crusader. I love my brother Chris. Please lift him up to the Father.

To follow Chris’ progress, visit his Caring Bridge site here…

Leaning Hard on Jesus…

Psalms 22 is really a prophecy about Jesus, but right now Chris feels very much like this the psalmist describes in this passage.

I was so hoping to give a good report about Chris’ hyperbaric oxygen treatment at Miracle Mountain. The folks there are some of the very kindest, most helpful and generous people ever. We are so grateful for their MANY kindnesses they showed Chris while he was there, accomodating his need to be cooler at in the chamber by giving him treatments in the evening, by giving him treatments on alternate days (other than regularly scheduled days). And several homeschool families brought meals and offered assistance for Chris’ ailing scooter while he was there. We are so grateful to the Lord for the body of Christ down in Creston and Boone, NC!

Since returning home two weeks ago from Miracle Mountain, however, Chris has not seen any improvement. A couple of days since coming home he has experienced greater mobility, and his skin seemed to clear up from the psoriasis while he was there at Miracle Mountain. Other than that, he has seen no lessening of the MS symptoms.

In fact, he has only gotten worse, and has been experiencing a whole new flood of symptoms, which are unsettling (very mildly put). I am grieved that he has to go through losing more ability to move, swim, walk, even stand.

The MS has caused lesion activity near the hypothalmus so much so that his thyroid levels are very low. Even though we’ve gotten him on thyroid medication, however, he still has a continually decreasing body temperature, his normal low is around 92 degrees (down a degree to a degree and a half from just a month ago). If his temperature gets just six degrees lower, it will kill him. The body cannot sustain a temperature of 86 degrees.

I’m not one to be an alarmist, but the MS symptoms have been coming so fast and furiously that I’m very concerned for him. He is losing some eyesight and some hearing, and now if his temperature gets up to 93 degrees, he starts to get mucous build-up in his eyes, can’t see long distances, can’t hear so well, and his voice starts getting raspy.

He is losing his sense of taste regularly now, plus is losing his appetite, and doesn’t care too much if he eats or not. Going to the bathroom is one of the biggest challenges he has to face. We’re using an external catheter at night now, to see if this helps him.
Another symptom of low thyroid activity is depression, and he is not immune to this side effect. Night times are the hardest times of all, when God seems farthest away.

We don’t know what the future holds, but we know God is holding Chris in His hands. We know God is good. His sovereignty and His love for His children are inseparable from who He is. To be anything less would mean He would cease to be God. He is everything to us!

Chris is taking a short-term sabbatical from HSLDA (using his comp. time) for the next 4 weeks or so. Then we’ll be reasessing whether or not he can go back to working. The national conference in Colorado Springs in a few weeks looks like it’s pretty much out of the picture for us–we would so love to go and see dear friends we only get to see once a year, but it looks like it just isn’t going to work out–it would be just too hard for Chris to make this long trip.

In the meantime, we’d appreciate your prayers for Chris…that God would continue to be his strength, that he would feel God’s nearness and that God would help him to be brave and not give in to fear of any kind. We need to hear the gospel everyday; please pray that Chris would fully avail himself of the liberating good news of the gospel everyday. I know that I need the gospel of Jesus Christ more than I need my eyes and ears, or the air that I’m breathing right now. May God help Chris to know this and drink deeply of the fountain of Living Water!

“My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.”
                                                       ~Psalm 62:1-2
I need wisdom from the Lord in how to get Chris the medical help he needs in the short-term for now, and possibly in the long-term down the road. Jesse is a great help to his dad (the only one in our home who CAN help his dad when he’s really physically weak), but we’re definitely looking into some kind of care at night time; that way Chris will get the help he needs and the rest of us can get the sleep we need!

I listened to this song tonight…love the words. God, You are our hiding place!

Hiding Place
Sara Groves

Early when the day is new
Before the stirring
I will come and talk to you
And confess the ways I am broken
To recall the words you’ve spoken
And to try to comprehend
The love you have for me

You are my hiding place
You fill my broken heart with songs
Songs of deliverance
You sing of how the weak are strong

You never meant for me to walk alone
You are always for me
As the truest lover of my soul
You hear my desperate calling
You have kept my feet from falling
And have set me on this rock on which I’m standing now

You are my hiding place
You fill my broken heart with songs
Songs of deliverance
You sing of how the weak are strong

May He be glorified!

Thank you for your prayers, friends,
Tracy, for Chris and the Klickaclan

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