One of the Photo Hunt participants blogged about Hugs & Hope last Saturday, and I’ve been combing through the site since then. The Hugs & Hope Club for Sick Kids was created by Marsha Jordan in October 2000, as a ministry of encouragement for children battling critical illness. Every month they feature new stories and photos of sick children on the Hugs & Hope website. Visitors and volunteers pray for, encourage, and send these children cheery postal mail (a.k.a.”happy mail”). Volunteers also sponsor many special projects to brighten the lives of the children on a regular basis!

Now, Jonathan was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was two years old. And since then, he had undergone three brain surgeries within six years to try to reduce his seizure activity, but unfortunately without much success.

Jon is allergic to most anti-seizure medications and suffers from many side effects, so his options are limited. Because of neurological impairment due to the seizures, he has trouble with his speech, coordination, and academics. And as of April 20th, he was still experiencing seizures though lately, it appears that they have decreased some.

And since he has a great love for animals, especially insects and amphibians (his pets include his dog, a parrot, a turtle and his fish), I’m going to send him some turtle postcards, and I hope he will like them :)

And since I’m at it, I might well send everybody whose birthday falls in June a birthday card (June is such a nice month, right??) :)