Update on Jose Luis

I know that many of you have either heard from us directly, or you read Sara's blog and have an idea of how things are going, but I wanted to let you know how things have progressed.
Jose Luis had surgery on Sunday night and all went well. He had a laceration to his liver that was repaired, and no other organ damage. We praise God for that! He had a difficult time coming out of the anesthesia with vomiting and nausea and was in quite a bit of pain for the first 24 hours. He is now doing much better and able to sit up at least. I would suppose that he will be going home in the next day or two.
What has happened is a terrible thing and reminds us that we live in a fallen world. With the many questions and uncertainties, Victoria asked why something so terrible happened to Jose Luis since he loves God...a reminder of the battles we fight. And yet, this has already been such an amazing testimony and praise of God's greatness and love! Now that Jose Luis has been feeling well enough to tell more details of the story, it is only by the grace of God that he is alive. He was stabbed three times in the chest and abdomen and only his liver was nicked. He was able to get away from his assailants and get help very quickly (although it seemed like an eternity to him). The guys that assaulted him were planning to kidnap him for ransom money (this does not usually have a good outcome) and they had guns which they didn't use -- maybe God silenced the mouths of the guns! There is no doubt that Jose Luis' testimony about all this will be to glorify God.
The other beautiful part of this is to see how the community of Christ here has truly become family and truly reflects the love of God. Sunday night we called everyone so that they could be praying for him. Little did we know that most of them would show up at the hospital that very night to encourage and pray for Jose Luis and his family. Everyone is pouring out their love and service to them, and we rejoice to see that!
There is still a long road to recovery for Jose Luis and he and Adriana's big concern are finances, since he will not be able to work for a while, but we serve a mighty God and know that He will provide for them abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. Thank you for praying and keep praying with us for this family. The out pour we have felt from each of you has been equally overwhelming for us.