There is a family at my parents’ church, Tim & Melissa Lorang and their toddler son Noah, for whom tomorrow—July 28, 2010—will be a day of great joy and greater sorrow. Their daughter Amelia Grace will be born via C-section, but Amelia has anencephaly. Anencephaly is a congenital defect in which the baby’s brain, skull, and scalp fail to develop properly, and it’s always fatal. When she is born, Amelia will be missing most of her brain, and likely the top of her skull and scalp. Amelia, like all babies born with this defect, will most likely die within a few hours of her birth.

Melissa is one of those people whose faith is so strong and who is so full of grace that it puts the rest of us to shame, if you know what I mean. She has been blogging about her pregnancy, her daughter, her grief, and her faith for the past few months. Tomorrow is the day they meet their sweet baby girl, and likely the day they will have to say good-bye to her.

Amelia Grace: her first name means “a work of the Lord.”

I don’t really know the Lorangs (Tim is about five years younger than I am, and his family didn’t start going to my parents’ church till I was almost graduated from high school) but I’ve been reading Melissa’s blog and praying for them. Tomorrow, I will be praying for them harder than ever as they grieve the loss of their daughter. If you are a person who prays, could you take a moment to say a prayer for them too?

UPDATE: Amelia Grace Lorang was born at 9:02am this morning, and passed away at 11:00am. RIP.

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Don’t get me wrong. We like DC, and we’re happy to be close to our Maryland friends for a while, but still…I miss San Diego, and all our California friends, something fierce. *sigh*

Brenda and Bug went home on Wednesday. I’m so glad they were able to extend their trip. We not only got the house almost completely done, we managed to do a bit more sightseeing. And of course we just enjoyed having them around a little bit longer! I’ll write a post about the house soon. And one about Dana & Leo’s weekend visit, and one about our college friends who happened to be in the area and came by for dinner, and one about the other fun stuff we did in the last week.

B, thanks again for flying all the way across the country, doing most of the unpacking and organizing, hanging all my pictures, pitching in with the chores and dinner-making, and just generally being such a good friend! I miss you already and am looking forward to many late-night IM chats.