"Be Still and Know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

December 2012 Dear Friends and Family, Seems a good theme for the year is Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God…” This has been confirmed all year long, as this verse has come up a multitude of times in a variety of ways. It is, however, much easier to say than to do. This has indeed been a year of waiting, of being still even in our troubles, and knowing that He is God. We have not always been good at this waiting, but I believe we are learning. I hope we are learning. We witnessed devastation that a wildfire can bring when it comes into the city limits. The Waldo Canyon Fire spread into the west side of Colorado Springs in late June. Nearly 30,000 people evacuated their homes, and 346 homes were destroyed on the west side. Our pastor and Aiden’s teacher were a couple of the families that had to leave their homes. They are lucky; their homes were not destroyed but they had major smoke damage from the fire. We live on the NE side of town. We did not have to evacuate, but we did have to deal with smoke for several days. Dean is continuing to work at the security company. He recently accepted a new position and will begin work with Jackson Hewitt in January 2013. His job will start as seasonal, but has the opportunity to move to a year round position. He received the decision of his VA disability this year; he has 90% disability and experiences intense pain from various ailments on a daily basis. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. We were able to travel to Virginia and see Dean’s daughter, Myriam, graduate from high school in June. She is an honor student, graduating fifth in her class. She came out to live with us in July. She is studying at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Her long term goal is to become a naturopathic medical doctor. Dean’s parents came out to see us in July. They brought our 10-year-old nephew, Landon, with them. Dean’s brother, David, and Russell also came to see us in August. It is fun to have friends and family see us and I enjoy showing folks the sights in and near the Springs. I made a hard decision to leave my job at Community Partnership for Childhood Development-Head Start. The realization that my son needs intense therapy led to my decision to leave the company. Aiden has been diagnosed with provisional pervasive developmental disability and sensory processing disorder. He displays, some, but not all, symptoms of autism. This includes lack of eye contact, arm flapping, daily “scripts” during his tasks, being overwhelmed with noises that don’t seem to annoy others and lack of understanding what others say to him. Last year I took him to be evaluated and was told that he is immature and displays some ADHD tendencies. A couple of months ago I had a full evaluation done and findings were on the autism spectrum, sensory processing disorder often occurs with autism spectrum. We have also started the allergy testing process. He had a reaction to everything on the environmental back scratch test. His doctor wants us to start a mold elimination diet. The hardest items to eliminate are going to be cheese, yogurt and gummy bears. He loves all those things so very much. Aiden will be five years old in February. He is attending half day pre-K in our neighborhood school and he loves his teacher. So far he does not qualify for services through the school district. It is possible that he might receive services through the school for OT and PT. He scored lowest in those areas and his preschool teacher agrees with me that his visual processing disorder will make learning to read very difficult. She is in the process of relaying information to special services in the district. Our district is very large, cash strapped and his school building is bursting at the seams with enrollment numbers, so I am skeptical if anything will happen this school year. He is receiving speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy at a pediatric rehabilitation center. So far, Tricare is covering the cost of therapy. We only have copays to worry about. Life brings challenges that test you but as long as we love each other and are together we will endure. Merry Christmas and we wish you happiness in the New Year. Thank you all for last year’s cards, letters and photographs. As always, we look forward to hearing from you in the coming year. Merry Christmas from the Warren Family