Merry CHRISTmas to you and yours as we catapult into 2025!
Although it’s been awhile since we last posted, we’ll cut to the chase with this 2-point summary and then go into further detail:
- Manny’s cardiac follow-up at Duke in November revealed his best numbers yet; praise God for continuing to sustain his incredibly active heart!
- For 2025, our top prayer request is that God provides the right timing for a semi-urgent oral surgery for Manny, ie, the sooner the better as it impacts his heart.
Every year around the holidays, we try to bless as many of the staff at Duke Children’s Center as we can as they are such a help to hundreds of children and their families. This year, Manny and Tracy were able to hand out Paul Tripp’s Christmas Devotional, along with a box of some of our fave chocolates to his cardiologist and other special items to our fave nurses. PTL they were all delightfully surprised, especially as it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet when we saw them, haha!
We were also able to specifically pray with Manny’s original sonographer from his PCICU days who cried tears of ecstatic joy upon seeing Manny again, and we were blessed to pray over the pediatric phlebotomist who was adept and considerate of drawing Manny’s blood the way he prefers. Giving gifts and praying for others is such a tangible reminder of the Greatest Gift (Jesus Christ) and Interceder the world has ever received from the Greatest Giver and Answer to Prayer Himself (God)!

For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:17

Meanwhile, during a recent cleaning and evaluation, both the dentist and orthodontist observed that Manny’s impacted wisdom teeth are forming awfully close to his mandibular nerve and urged us to get them removed ASAP. This is because as the roots begin to grow ever closer to that nerve, there is an increased risk during extraction of bacteria traveling through that nerve straight to Manny’s heart which could be fatal, eek. We hadn’t really considered how serious this normal oral rite of passage is for Manny since most young people have their wisdom teeth removed without complications, but could you please be praying for the right time this procedure can be scheduled (requires a 2-week full recovery) and for a smooth extraction, which due to his heart failure, requires extra precautions during surgery, with no complications and that NO bacteria enters that mandibular nerve?!
We are eternally grateful for your continued support of Manny’s heart and our family; may God richly bless you in 2025 as you are such a blessing to us!
Much Love in Christ,


The Crawfords love you and prayers for you all!!!
We love the Crawfords! Thx so much for your prayers!