Help for Baby Joel’s Family

As most of you know, Luivan and Malerie Scheidegger welcomed a beautiful baby boy, their 3rd child, on New Years Day. There was no indication that he had any health problems, and her pregnancy and labor had been perfectly normal. A few weeks later, they realized his head had grown significantly since birth, so they took him to the hospital. After some testing, they discovered that Joel had a large tumor in his brain. He was admitted
immediately and the news continued to get worse. A biopsy showed that the tumor was a rare, aggressive brain cancer and he was ultimately sent home on hospice care. He did a lot better than expected at home, and they ended up getting a second opinion from another local doctor. He agreed to attempt surgery to remove the tumor, though the chance of success was low. The surgery was cut short because sweet Joel was losing too much blood. He has spent the past few days recovering from that surgery and should be going home with hospice care sometime very soon.

As you can imagine, all of this is going to cost a lot of money. There will be bills that aren’t covered by insurance, wages lost from Luivan missing work, rent and grocery bills that still need to be paid, gas from all the driving, etc. We can not fix the heartache and grief they are experiencing, but we can help raise money so that finances won’t be another thing for them to worry about. I have set the goal at $15,000 for now, but I would love to be able to raise more than that.

Please give as you are able, and pray for them whenever you think about them. (And don’t forget to pray for Joel’s older siblings, João (3) and Esther (1). They have been troopers through all of this but they have been through a lot, too.)

Thank you all,
Olivia Nelson
(Malerie’s sister-in-law)