Some Sad News

Well Sunday morning during church my mother passed away. ( EDIT: I should have said that we got news during our Sunday morning service that my mothr had passed away. She was in hospital in Hamilton.) Being a housechurch, it put an end to the planned agenda for the day and everyone dispersed into small groups and prayed and talked while I went to make some phone calls to my siblings to inform and to find information.

My mother, Christel Krause passed away somewhat unexpectedly on Sunday morning and we got the news during our morning service at Hills. She was 73. Although her passing was unexpected, she had been having a number of health problems and was in a significant amount of pain. About six years ago she began having serious kidney problems and needed to begin a special type of dialysis (which could be done at home). This caused some circulation problems and a cut on her foot refused to heal to the point where her leg needed to be amputated below the knee. Dialysis was increased to three times a week at the dialysis clinic in Guelph - and then more recently four times a week.

She had gone into St. Joseph's Hospital this past Friday (September 22) for thyroid surgery. This was undertaken to try to reduce the calcium buildups in the stump area of her leg which caused her a great deal of pain and made wearing a prosthesis next to impossible. Although the surgery went well and she was quite chipper on Saturday, her blood pressure increased rapidly early Sunday morning and caused severe breathing difficulties. We believe her heart failed and she passed away at around 7:30am.

We have finalized the details for the funeral. The visitation will be on Wednesday, September 27th from 2-4pm and 7-9pm at the Wall-Custance Funeral Home, 206 Norfolk Street, Guelph, Ontario N1H 4K3. The funeral itself will be held on Thursday, September 28th at 1:30pm at Crestwicke Baptist Church.

My father has asked me to conduct the funeral service - which I consider an honour - but I will need lots of prayer and a kleenex box or two. Brigitte will be playing piano and Kirstyn is going to sing and Jared will be one of the pallbearers. This is especially tough on my dad so please pray for him.