Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2009 8:39 PM
To: church.office@stag.org
Subject: Health Update June09
As quite a number of people have asked to be kept informed, I hope you won't mind me sending you this update on my health. In some ways it seems quite odd to be doing so, as I still feel no significant debility from this gallbladder cancer. After a third scan last month, my delightful Christian oncologist wrote, 'It does appear that there is minor change only, with no spread outside of the liver.'
She continued, 'The way I would suggest you view it is that, at this reassessment time point, you should reset the prognosis time frame to say 6-9 months from now…and we will review again 3 months from now. Not wishing to sound facetious nor at all that HE works in such time packages, but you could view it that God has given you a gift of three months' extra life…so continue about your work for Him and don't worry too much…'
I never expected the blessing of receiving spiritual as well as medical support from my oncologist! While I look forward to what lies ahead with a certain expectation and continue to be very grateful for God's timing—not least to have received the warning to get ready which most of us do not receive—nevertheless it is an awful adjustment for the family, and especially for Fiona. I have planned and prepared so poorly for them in such an eventuality.
With regard to the children, Jessie and Chris continue teacher-training and working for the Lymington Rushmore camps in Oxford; Clare and Tom are just moving from ordination training at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, to a first curacy at St Helen's, Bishopsgate in London (via Tom's brother's wedding in California), and are preparing themselves for a baby in November; Nick plans to marry Nicole Cunningham on August 31st, and he will also be working for Lymington Rushmore thereafter. (We are trying to raise his support for the coming academic year, which works out at about £12,000. If you wanted to contribute to that, please reply to this email, and I will send you his appeal letter).
I am just preparing a series of sermons on the early chapters of 2 Corinthians and Paul starts that letter with a wonderful thought: 'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.' He is a God Who does all things well.
With love,
Mark
From: Mark Ashton
Sent: Wednesday, 18 March 2009 12:45 AM
To: church.office@stag.org
Subject: Health update
Fiona and I have been humbled, encouraged and strengthened by the trouble so many have taken to write. It has been particularly humbling to hear what the ministry of the Round Church at St Andrew the Great has meant to some people over the years. The work Mark Ruston began in the 1950s was a precious heritage to receive and, by the grace of God, we long to pass it on intact.
Many have asked to be kept posted with any news about my health, and so I am writing now to say that a scan two months after the gallbladder cancer was first detected did not revealed any discernible growth. I continue to be fully active and at work, and there are no outward symptoms, beyond slightly less energy than I once had (but who over 60 does not know that?). I will be scanned again in a couple more months, and we will keep you posted of any further developments. So please don't feel the need to reply to, or acknowledge, this. It has been a struggle to keep up with correspondence in the last couple of months, and we are sorry we have not been able to respond positively to all the kind suggestions for calls and visits we have received. We are very grateful for all of them, and for ongoing restraint in not telephoning the Vicarage. Thank you so much for that.
I realise that there have been some very special moments in my life - on the 7th February 1968 in Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, I heard the wonderful news that I had been accepted by God, when Jonathan Fletcher explained the way of salvation to me. On the 13th February 1977, in Dryburgh Abbey on the banks of the River Tweed, I heard the wonderful news that I had been accepted by Fiona when I asked her to marry me. Then there have been the gift of the children, and numberless blessings in gospel ministry. Now I know something of the tension Paul spoke of when he wrote 'to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far' (Philippians 1:23). But it is good to know that my times are in God's hands (Psalm 31:15), and that He times all things perfectly. So every extra day is a gift from Him, unasked for and undeserved, to be lived to His glory with rejoicing!
With love,
Mark