May 2007

Dear Friends,

Strange and sometimes exciting things have happened to us since we last wrote a general letter to you in mid-2006. Please overlook our silence, as we’ve had to deal with some drastic situations in the interim. Our purpose here is to bring all of you as up-to-date as we can about what’s going on in our lives.

We often return to the United States in the summertime, mainly for medical appointments, and that is what we did last summer. As part of her medical review, Susan’s regular doctor referred her to a kidney specialist, to get a better understanding of her kidney function, which has been deteriorating for some time now. That specialist told us that she had entered what is known as “end stage renal disease,” and that either dialysis or a kidney transplant would likely be necessary in the future. He agreed that we could return to our work in China, on the condition that Susan take some new medications with her, and that she visit a hospital in China for monitoring on a monthly basis. So, at the end of August, back to China we went.

The fall semester at our school in Wuhan started off uneventfully. Susan began her work with some postgraduate students who were preparing to study in the United Kingdom, and she also restarted her English language training at the local seminary. Jay was given his normal, large, class assignments, and set out to teach those classes, but after a couple of days he couldn’t walk at all due to back pain and internal swelling, whereupon he contacted the Western doctors in Beijing. Those doctors arranged for him to be evacuated directly to a hospital in Hong Kong, to be seen by a neurosurgeon. The reason for the swelling was found to be a staph infection which was “strangling” his spinal cord (there was also found to be a lot of excess bone “growth” that had built up on his spine), and so spinal surgery was performed on him there in Hong Kong. That surgery was successful, and after some follow-up treatment in Hong Kong, Jay returned to Wuhan toward the end of September. But there has been permanent damage to his spinal cord, with the result that walking is difficult without some kind of walking aid.

Now things were getting complicated: we each had developed serious medical conditions, and China isn’t the best place in the world to be in that case. We carried on for a while, but finally we and the university officials agreed that we should get back to the United States for complete evaluation and treatment. This happened in mid-January of this year, after we took time to re-visit some of the cities and people we’ve been involved with during our 15-plus years in China. A number of our former colleagues and students have become believers and are also good friends, and we wanted to spend time with some of them, especially since it began to look as if we might not have another chance to do that.

So in mid-January we returned to the United States and began a medical leave/short-term disability time with the PC(USA). Our medical evaluations are now complete, and in both our cases it has been determined that we are not able to return to China. Susan’s kidney doctor is hoping for a transplant to take place within the next month (it’s currently scheduled for the end of May). Our daughter Sarah has volunteered to donate one of her kidneys, and has cleared most of the screening hurdles that have been carried out, so we’d really appreciate all of your prayers that the transplant goes forward on a timely basis and is successful. As for Jay, the damage to his spinal cord is mostly permanent, but he has recently had some knee surgery to help deal with the fact that his knees have had to take over a lot of the shock-absorbing functions that would normally be performed by his spine. That knee surgery, together with some rehabilitation therapy that he is now going through, is already beginning to make walking movements less painful and less troublesome. Again, your prayers are needed and most appreciated. Other than those things, we’re in pretty good health. God has been very gracious to both of us.

Please remember China and those Chinese people we’ve come to be close to. Their lives in China go on whether we’re there to help support them or not. For example, our good friend and Wuhan seminary student Lucy just had a baby, and she and her young pastor husband are now starting out their ministry in a rural area of southern China. Their resources are meager, with many daunting challenges ahead of them. Any prayer or material support you can offer would be welcome. There are plenty of other worthy situations like Lucy’s in China. Most of the seminary students we know, for instance, don’t have any textbooks at all.

This letter hasn’t been short, and it may raise more questions for you than it answers, so please feel free to contact us anytime. We’ve already heard from or contacted many of you, and we would love to continue that.  As events develop we’ll be in further touch with most of you dear people.

Blessings,

Susan and Jay Boone

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 244