Brandon Berglund

Dear friends and family,

Two of the members of our community, Brianna and Sean Friend and her family have received devastating news this morning. Brianna's brother, Brandon, a cancer survivor, was found unconscious in his bed following breakfast and his morning shower last Wednesday. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, and has remained unconscious since. After numerous tests over the last five days and an MRI this morning, his neurosurgeon informed their family that Brandon has suffered a catastrophic stroke in his mid-brain near the sight of his original tumor and surgeries. Due to the level of injuries, the doctor has informed their family that Brandon will not be capable of coming out of this coma.

Please keep the Berglund family in your thoughts and prayers, especially today as they gather around Brandon in prayer and then tomorrow as they meet with the palliative care doctor to learn about their options around medical care for Brandon from this point forward.

The Berguld family has become very dear to us, and Brandon has been a huge imspiration in his struggle to survive cancer, treatment and mulitple disabilities. In the breif moments we have spent time with him, his joy and love for life and others has shown brighly.

A quick update for everyone. I (Mark) have started working at a Starbucks in Littleton, CO. Things are a little crazy there, but I'm doing my best to adjust. Beth is still searching for a job. We are completely settled into our new apartment, and are doing our best to stay optimistic through all the uncertainties that come with moving to a new place. Keep us in your prayers.

Pictures of our room at Hazelnut

Welp, there we have it everyone. Beth and I are excited about our new place...we spent a lot of time putting it all together. We finally have internet access...so we are slowly trying our best to get back into contact with everyone. Please comment or even better send us mail! Let me know if you want our new address!

Well, Beth and I have begun our Westward journey. We left Lancaster yesterday (Thursday) around 8am and arrived in Pittsburgh around 12pm. We are visiting Beth's family and friends for a couple days before leaving officially for Denver on Saturday. Curt (Beth's dad) and I are driving our 22ft moving truck both Saturday and Sunday, hopefully arriving in Denver on Sunday night. Beth and her mom are flying on Saturday.

It was tough saying goodbye. Its interesting how this all worked out...we made a tough decision to hang back in PA for another year, instead of making the initial move last May. At the time, the prospect of living in PA when we could be starting our married lives together in CO was saddening and frustrating. Yet, for some reason, we felt like it was the most responsible decision to make.

Looking back on this year we are proud of the decision we made. We spent this last year preparing for our move, making sure our finances were in order. We also found and formed some of the greatest friendships we have ever had. Despite all of our moral convictions about the corporate world, we looked beyond those convictions to see the people who live and work in that world day in and day out. We quickly found in all of them beauty, joy, support and trust. And so saying goodbye during those last few days was very very difficult.

We are also saying goodbye to family. Moving away from families who have loved and supported us so much throughout our years together is obviously tough. We can only hope that we can be
as present as possible in their lives, even though we are 1700 miles away.

So please check back to stay posted on our journey, I will be posting photos of our new home as soon as I get them!

Oh yea, why not go ahead and plan a trip to Denver? We would love to have you stay over with us!

















caption: Mark's family (left to right) sister Aly, brother Brandon, Beth, Mark, brother Dustin, and sister Amanda!