Happy 1st Birthday Aliyah!

I'd like to introduce you to a little girl from our congregation, Aliyah. Some of you reading, from my church, already know this story, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share it with my family and new friends that don't know about her. Her parents started a carepage for her, updating it often for us to pray for specific requests and to rejoice in all the things the Lord is doing in her life. I have pulled this post together from those entries and Michelle's, Aliyah's mom, writings will be in quotes.

I trust you will be encouraged and have a stronger sense of God's healing power after reading about her life. If you feel led, you can pray for her and her family.

Aliyah was born April 10, 2006 and on the 11th, Aliyah had surgery on her bowel. "They had to remove most of it because it did not develop properly and was not functional."

Aliyah came home on May 23, 2006. At birth she weighed 3lb, 8oz and on June 23, "She has hit the 6 pound mark! 6 pounds, 2 ounces to be exact!"

This is a picture of Aliyah and her big sister, Mariah.

With many more bumps in the road to follow, I now want to bring you closer to the present.

February 13 we read this from Michelle's sister, "By the looks of everything, all felt sure Aliyah would not pull through and we started the process of saying goodbye. God and Aliyah had different ideas!"

Aliyah came home from the hospital and her parents took her to a hospital in Boston where there is an experimental IV nutrition. They left before an impending snow storm and arrived in the middle of the night.

A prayer request: "The insurance has not approved Aliyah's hospitalization here yet. And they have not approved her to be listed for transplant here."

Prayer answered: "Praise the Lord! We just received word that the final appeal to have insurance to approve Aliyah to be admitted and listed for a transplant at Boston was a success! The conference call (which involved quite a few people) went well, with presentation of facts and no berating or arguing, but positive interaction between all participants. God was obviously one of those present!"

March 24: "PRAISE GOD! The Drs. have called us at 4 am to let us know that there is an offer for organs for Aliyah. Also pray for the family that is donating their child's organs. We are given hope for Aliyah's life and they are grieving the lose of their child's life. We are feeling so excited for this chance of life for Aliyah and yet so scared. God is our peace and strength."

March 25: "What an exhausting day! Praise God for this chance at life for Aliyah! The surgeon talked to us about 9:30 pm. Things went fairly well overall but not necessarily as planned. They transplanted the stomach, liver, pancreas, and sm. bowel. The spleen they put in but it was bleeding some and they were not able to repair it so they took it out. Not a huge deal, you can live without a spleen, but it may put her at a slightly higher risk for some infections. They also did not transplant kidneys. They decided that her kidneys were functioning OK and that hopefully with new and improved other organs they will get happier too."

April 9: "Aliyah continues to do well. Her kidney function is improving and her lungs are improving too! They did a biopsy of her bowel this morning and it continues to look good - no rejection! The drain they put in to drain the fluid pocket were her spleen is absent was taken out today, because there was no fluid there now. Pray that the fluid will not reaccumulate. No more smiles after the ones caught on camera this morning, but she is having more awake times where she looks around and seems comfortable."

"These smiles made mommy soooo happy! the nurses were excited too!"

Happy Birthday Aliyah! We are praying for you to heal and be home again soon. We are praying for strength for you Mom and Dad and for the Lord's presence to completely surround them, you and Mariah.

Mariah will be celebrating her 2nd birthday this coming Sunday!

If you'd like to continue to follow Aliyah's progress, go here. You can register and use "aliyahdiffenbach" to visit her carepage. If you visit, please leave them a message!