joelevangreen.com

I think most of you have seen Joel’s youtube video. In fact, a lot of the new visitors to Joel’s site are here now because of the youtube video. Today Joel’s video reached 100,000 views. (It is also on Godvine where it received around 90,000 views before the counts were combined, plus another 10,000 on Godtube, so we suspect this video has had around 200,000 views.
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A film crew from soul pancake came out and spent two days with us in November. It was a wonderful experience for our whole family, and I am so grateful that they gave us a platform to share our story and our faith. We got bad news the day they were filming, but even in the middle of receiving the terrible news, I couldn’t help but think, “Now when God turns everything around again the number of people who witness His faithfulness will be even greater.” Joel’s next MRI is on Monday morning (just five days away.) We’ll be sure to post results on Monday.
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If you have not seen the video yet, here it is!
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So…this happened tonight:
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I threw a hershey’s kiss Joel wanted pretty far away and set him on the ground and he walked to get it, quickly, with a lot of stability and no pain. We did it three times, and finally filmed it the third time.

Yesterday, after I wrote here that Joel had begun walking with his walker again, and that I felt almost certain he was ready to just take off.  We were out in the backyard, and this happened.

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I have talked a lot about Joel walking with his walker, and we are working on editing a nice video of it, but until then, here’s a quick video of Joel with his walker on his birthday in Target, so you can see how he gets around.  Pretty cute stuff.

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Also, today we met with Joel’s preschool teacher.  He starts preschool on Tuesday, there will be 7 kids in his class.  We are really excited and we think he’ll get lots of focused attention and help!

Joel went in for his MRI about 50 minutes ago, so it should be wrapping up within half an hour and we should be able to post results within a couple hours. In the meantime, if you want to read my thoughts going into the MRI this morning, read the post below this one. If you want to watch a video of Joel laughing a lot playing with Elijah, then click play!

As I wrote earlier, Joel took some pretty big steps today. We were very excited. As I was waiting for these new videos to upload I looked at videos from last year and I was just amazed by everything God has done for us! I am the mom of a very healthy big boy who has come so far from the sick little baby he was. Praise God who has been so faithful! These two videos from this afternoon are even more evidence of how big God has been in our lives!
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Here are two videos from this week that I am excited to share. The first is a video of Joel with Elijah. I have written many times here about how much he love Elijah, and now you can finally see what I mean. The second video shows Joel taking a couple little half-steps. We were so excited by his progress that we are working hard with him on walking now although it is long and tedious work to even get a couple little steps like this from him, but it is pretty rewarding. Enjoy.
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Joel says “uh oh” from Ryan Green on Vimeo.

Ryan and I marveled tonight at how little Children’s Hospital is a part of our life right now. I’m not sure which is more remarkable to us, that our life has become “normal” so quickly, or that Children’s Hospital used to be such a huge part of our daily routine.
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We got a babysitter tonight to go to an Oscar’s Party. As I was driving our babysitter home, she told me that most of the kids at her public/charter school knew about Joel, and that a lot of them wrote “Joel Green” on their hands to remind themselves to pray for him. This amazed me. I was once again humbled by the amazing support we have received for Joel, so much of it that we even still are not aware of. We’ve never held any big public events or fundraisers for Joel, and so it seems like every month I learn more and more how far Joel’s story has spread on its own. I’m sure we will never know all the people who have spent their time praying for our son. I can not properly convey the level of amazement I feel at the support we have had. We have felt everyone’s support all year: Ryan and I argued less this year than any other year of our marriage, our children are sweeter, more loving and patient than they ever were before, and we have ended the year feeling financially provided for and stable. We see all these things as the outcome of so many prayers for our whole family all year. Thank you.
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Last week I wrote about Joel getting to go and visit puppies and I posted a few photos. Tonight, I am posting video of Joel with the puppies, with music from our friend Daryl Holmlund of Sauni’s Big Jump.
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Joel plays with puppies! from Ryan Green on Vimeo.

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