Hi there, we’re the Holwerdas. We are your pretty average family..nothing too fancy or important about us. However, we do have a story…and we feel it is one that needs to be shared. When Brad was diagnosed with brain cancer, our lives were turned upside down. We have since been on a journey…and God has been with us, guiding us, every step of the way.

Through this journey, our family theme has become “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:9) from the Jericho story in the Bible. It’s because of this story, that we knew that God wanted us to pursue a natural, alternative treatment plan for Brad. We knew this plan would sound “odd” to most people, just like God’s plan of attack for Joshua and his army. (If you aren’t familiar with Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, we encourage you to read Joshua 1-6 in the Bible.)

Shortly after Brad’s diagnosis, we realized we needed a platform to send out information to our loved ones as easily and quickly as possible (and so my phone wasn’t constantly blowing up!) So we started a Caring Bridge site with hopes of streamlining important information.

(You can check it our here.)

There, we just started updating and sharing the latest news, how we were doing, and prayer requests. During the few weeks we were doing this, an amazing thing happened. Word of our situation started spreading, and people started hearing our story. What started out as close family and friends keeping up to date on Brad, turned into complete strangers reading our story. As the “visits” number kept climbing on Brad’s page, with names we didn’t even know, it became clear to us that God was at work. He was using us, and our story for something. Something greater than us.

So, we kept writing, and shared with honesty the best we could as we were adjusting to a “new normal”. All the while, God continued to take care of every need we had, and dare I say even blessed us! Over the weeks, we started hearing about how our story was positively affecting people, and was being shared in ways we never expected. Being completely honest, it has been a little overwhelming to be in a spotlight we didn’t really ask for, but also overwhelmingly amazing that God has been using a seemingly bad situation for good. And if we can do good through this, we will. We have decided to let God have the control and do our best to follow what He wants us to do, which is how we landed here…a blog.

So we’re giving this blogging thing a go with no experience, and just going to keep doing what we’ve been doing…sharing openly and honestly about our life, about God, and what we learn along the way. We aren’t sure where this will lead, but are blindly taking a step in faith.

We’ve been reminded often over the last few months that God’s plan is always better than our own.

Over the next few days, we are going to do edited versions of our Caring Bridge posts, and start from the very beginning. You might even get to see a post surgery picture of Brad’s 26 staples in his head…

We hope our story reaches others. We hope we can make a difference, even if it’s just in one life. We hope we make God proud and do His will. We hope to give our best, even if it hurts. Feel free to follow along with us as we march through our very own, modern day Jericho story.

Being strong and courageous,
Brad & Lindsey