I'm back!

I have been gone for over a month mainly because we exceeded our internet allowance for the month of June during the very first week of June.  Once we exceeded it our bill starts adding up daily, so I tried to do less on the computer.  Anyway, I'm back.  

My parents left today after a two week visit.  We had a super time.  My parents - who were on vacation - don't like to sit around and read books or sunbathe, they like to stay busy.  My mom loves to work in the yard and my dad loves to do wood working so that's what they did while they were here. 

Our yard has needed major work since we moved in.  My gifts and talents do not lie in this area so I was grateful for Mom's input, creativity and help.  My mom has been "green" before being green was in vogue.  We were able to use plants already growing in our yard (but were out of control or in the wrong place), use pots I already owned but hadn't been using, transplanted grass already growing in the yard,  bought chicken manure from our friend's chicken business (I now know the Portuguese word for manure!!!!) to fertilize everything and added a few new plants.  We all got in on the work, moving things, digging, planting.  It was a lot of fun, hard work and the yard is looking so much better.  My mom, by the way, has an unlimited supply of energy.  I cannot keep up with her!  Not only was she working in the yard but she was cooking and baking, fulfilling every food request her family asked of her.  AND she helped me cut out and make new kitchen curtains and covers for my mixer and toaster.  This was a major undertaking because I am "sewing impaired" but we did it!  Thanks Mom!

My dad and Charlie, when they weren't helping us in the yard, were busy with making things from wood.  We now have a new shelf in our kitchen, a new bench for a kitchen table, Abby has a new desk (made from small dresser), Abby's doll has a new closet, our dining room chairs are repaired, and I have new drawer dividers for my utensil drawer in the kitchen.  (And were able to use wood we already had.) Dad also fixed Abby's bike tire and determined two old lamps need to be junked.  

They should have been exhausted and begging to go home after 2 weeks but they looked refreshed and energized when I took them to the airport today.  Amazing.

Family News

No news about Charlie.

I just love this picture Coleson took of him.

He'll hate that I posted it.  heh heh

He's so handsome.

This picture is about 2 weeks old. 

Luke FINALLY finished his 9 month TB treatment.

Yes - TB as in tuberculosis.

Because he tested positive to a TB test last year (long story)

he had to take one massive pill every night for 9 loooong months.

We are SO glad that is over.

And Will is shaving now!

He's had a face full of blonde fur for awhile

and he finally shaved it off last week.  He was

SO excited.  So far it's hardly grown back. 

He'll be 15 in 4 months and is almost 6 ft. 1.

I can't believe I have 3 men shaving in my house!

The end.....I think

The girls of the team

Sessely, Lauren, Kelsey....and Kecia to the side.

Mike enjoying the elephants at Kruger.

I guess anyone who has read my last two posts will never want to ride in the car when I'm driving.  I'm not that bad, am I Katie??? :-)  Last week's accident was my first ever in Africa - and we've been here a long time.  In light of all the crazy traffic around here, I think that's pretty good. 

Oh, and I did forget to mention that last Friday (while Charlie and the team were at Kruger) I made an illegal u-turn and had an encounter with a polieman and ended up $40 poorer. *sigh*

I left off in the story with the remaining Arkansas team members preparing to leave.  One of the team members, Sessely, started feeling bad on Sunday night, the night before they were to leave.  Her stomach hurt and she was nauseous.  Monday a.m. she woke up feeling worse.  By Monday afternoon her stomach was not in good condition and she was feeling lousy.  The team boarded the plane here in Maputo and headed to Joburg to make their connecting flight to London.  Poor Sessely got sicker.  She was throwing up and feeling rotten by the time they boarded the plane to London.

When the flight attendant realized that Sessely was sick she notified the airline's medical personnel who then escorted Sessely OFF the plane, saying she could not fly again until she had a letter from a doctor saying she was fit to fly.  Now Sessely is only 18 and Kecia was the leader. Being a good leader, she jumped up and accompanied Sessely off the plane, telling the other 3 wide-eyed students to continue on the trip without them.  Kecia was not going to leave this girl sick and stranded in a foreign country.  

So at 10:30 that night we get a phone call from Kecia (she said she was crying but it didn't sound like it to me!) explaining what had happened. They were waiting for their luggage and she was able to use the cell phone of some nice man who also had to get off the plane.  She "just happened" to have written down our phone number, otherwise she would have been stuck in the Joburg airport not knowing who to call for help.  

We were able to call our colleagues at the Baptist guesthouse that's only 10 minutes away from the airport.  They picked Kecia and Sessely up and got them a room at the guesthouse and even got Gatorade for Sessely and bread and eggs for Kecia to have something for breakfast the next morning.  Then the next day, our IMB medical personnel were able to get a doctor's appointment for Sessely with a local doctor there.  He gave her medicine and a letter to fly the next day.  (He told her to rest that day.)  Then our wonderful colleagues took Kecia back to the airport to work out their flights for the next night.  Thankfully, there was no problem re-issuing the tickets for them to continue their journey home on Wednesday.

As it turned out, Kecia's husband, Mike, and Carter, the kid with the newly repaired knee-cap, flew into Joburg that same afternoon to catch a connecting flight to London.  Kecia was able to meet up with them at the airport and give Mike their van keys since he would be getting home before she would.  

As it stands now, Kecia and Sessely should be landing in Dallas in a few hours.  They have been traveling so we have not heard from them since yesterday afternoon.  We do know that all 5 of the other team members are safe and sound back in Arkansas!  Praise the Lord for that.

And that, my friends - unless something else whacky happens to Kecia and Sessely before they get home -  is the end of my story.  

 

The rest of the story, almost.

Warning:  You might want to grab a glass of tea.  This is a long story.

In the life of believers, many times we face hardships and difficulties and we know that it's the enemy trying his darndest to trip us up.  Many times I think it's because he sees us being obedient or beginning a new ministry or really starting to grow.  The enemy does not want us to grow in our faith, to persevere or be used of the Lord.  He wants us to fail, give up, quit, and be discouraged.  

In the last two weeks we have experienced hardships and difficulties that have made us want to give up, quit, or as my friend Susan put it yesterday, cry, "Uncle!".  

The day the Arkansas team arrived I fell walking into the airport.  I do not believe a little demon pushed me down.  I do know that  I'm clutzy and should not have tried to step over a very low hanging chain. My flip flop caught the chain and sent me flying on my hands and knees.  I was bleeding in a few small places and very bruised.  It wasn't a fun way to begin the week.

As I said in my last post,  the team and the activities they were involved in went extremely well.  They did what they set out to do, they were brave trying new things, going new places. The Lord really blessed.  Charlie challenged them to read a chapter a day from 2 Corinthians while they were here.  They took up the challenge and at the end of their time here they talked about how God used that in their lives.  We also enjoyed having them in our home - we played cards, they hung out with our kids and we laughed a lot.  They were a joy to have.

3 days after they arrived, I was driving down a busy street and passed very close to a "chapa".  These are the vans that people here use for public transportation.  As I passed the chapa, my side mirror hit his mirror and broke his mirror.  My mirror, which has a nifty hinge, simply flipped closed and was not damaged.  Without going into detail I will just say that I paid for a new mirror for his chapa.  And the driver was not happy with me. He yelled at me.  A lot.  That was Saturday.

The next day, Sunday, our electrcity went off about 6:30 a.m., right when everyone was beginning to get ready for church.  Now where we live in our city our electricity rarely ever goes off.  It is quite inconvenient when it goes off because when there is no electricity we also have no water in our house.  During the day we depend on an electric pump to pump all of our water into the house from a large outdoor tank.  So when there's no electricity we can't take baths, wash dishes or flush toilets.  There were 14 of us in our house and we NEEDED to be able to flush toilets! 

Thankfully, our outdoor tank was full of water so Charlie and some of the team members hauled containers of water inside to flush with.  Many of the team had taken showers the night before so they quickly were ready for  church.  This wasn't a serious problem, just a really annoying one. (The electricity/water did come back on about 1:00 that afternoon.)

The night before, Coleson had started feeling bad with chills and fever.  So after the team left for church Sunday morning, I took Coleson to the clinic for a malaria test and to see the dr.  By this time he was coughing a lot and very achy. Thankfully he had the flu not malaria and spent that day and the next two days in bed.

Monday, Kelsey, one of the team members got sick and couldn't accompany the team on their two night stay at a local orphanage.  

Tuesday was the day of the accident that I wrote about yesterday.  

The next two days were uneventful for our family and team.  Our house worker did break out in unexplainable hives which lasted for about 3 days.  The team finished up their week of work then took an excursion to South Africa to visit the Kruger National Park.  They LOVED being able to see African animals in their natural habitats.  

They returned from Kruger on Saturday evening.  To prepare for the Sunday morning rush the next day, Mike encouraged the team to get their showers that night.  One of the guys, Carter, went upstairs to take his shower.  After a while we began to hear horrible screaming coming from upstairs.  For a few seconds we could not figure our what it was, then realized it was Carter in the bathroom.  He had fallen getting out of the tub/shower, hitting his knee on the tile floor, shattering his knee cap, and was, as you can imagine, in extreme pain.  

Charlie and Mike tried to carry him downstairs to get him to the hospital but they could not do it.  Charlie decided to go to our local private clinic (which is about 4 blocks from our house) and ask them to bring the ambulance.  So at 10:00 that night the ambulance pulled into our carport.  The men were able to get Carter downstairs on a stretcher and onto the gurney and to the clinic for x-rays. The xrays revealed his knee cap was in pieces and would require surgery to fix.

Just a word of advice - if you EVER go on a trip overseas, ALWAYS get supplemental travelers insurance.  Our volunteer teams are required to have it and we are so grateful.  Charlie was able to contact the insurance company and they immediately began working on a plan to get Carter to South Africa for surgery.  They worked out transportation with an ambulance company, contacted the hospital in South Africa, found a surgeon who agreed to do the surgery and assured Mike that he would be provided for as he accompanied Carter to South Africa for the surgery.  

The ambulance picked them up about 4:30 on Sunday afternoon and transported them to Nelspruit, South Africa.  By 8:30 that night Carter was being prepped for surgery.  The surgeon was able to put the FOUR broken pieces of his knee cap back together and assured them that Carter would be able to return to the U.S. within a few days (we originally thought Carter and Mike would be in South Africa for 2 weeks!) 

I don't think I mentioned that this happened 48 hours before the team was due to fly back to the states!  As Mike was in South Africa now, this left Kecia in charge of the other 4 other students.  They all began packing up on Sunday to prepare for their trip home on Monday afternoon.  

I will stop there because I am not at the end of the story yet.  Yes, the hits just kept on coming.  

Here's a shot of the ambulance leaving with Carter.

The last two weeks

I have wanted to post about the happenings of the last few weeks but the last few days have been so insanely crazy that I have not had a chance.  

I'll start with the non-crazy, much-anticipated arrival of the volunteer team from Arkansas (Kecia and Mike Sandusky and 5 students from Southern Arkansas University) on May 13.  We were SO happy to see them when they got off the plane.  They had a wonderful trip over from the U.S., including a 12 hour lay-over in London, with lots of sight-seeing.  

The team did a variety of things while they were here (and did it all well!).  They led Bible studies, spoke to groups, went prayer-walking, shared Christ with folks they met on the street, prayed for people in their homes, sang, helped construct a building at an orphanage, played with kids, prepared food, washed dishes, visited the oncology ward at at local hospital and played with the kids there.   They were BUSY!   We were so proud of these 18-20 year olds! And Kecia and Mike were awesome leaders.

My time while they were here was spent keeping the home fires burning, transporting our children to and from school,  and cooking meals for everyone.  All of that was going well until last Tuesday when I did not look before I made a left turn, causing my vehicle to barely move (stress BARELY) into the path of an oncoming car. His door caught the bull-bar on the front of my car (we drive a 4 wheel drive vehicle similar to an SUV, called a Ford Everest).  Fortunately for me, having the bull bar protected my vehicle from being damaged at all, except for the bull- bar being bent outwards about 45 degrees.  Unfortunately for him the bull-bar punctured and scraped his door.  Fortunately for everyone, no one was injured.

Because of this I have learned many new Portuguese words!  And, as in all situations, you can find things to be thankful for - such as having a bull bar in the first place, which protected my car from being damaged, and for the fact that the man who hit me turned out to be a really nice person.  He did start out yelling at me (in English...something else to be thankful for!) that it was my fault.  When I took full responsibility for the accident he changed his tune and when we met up two days later at the insurance company to file the accident report he told me that his little boy went to school and told everyone that "an English lady hit my daddy's car and she's really nice!"

So here's my bent bull-bar:

And here is his punctured door:

There is much, much more craziness to tell you about...including about me running into ANOTHER vehicle (much more minor).......  But I'm out of time.  So tune in next time when you'll hear about an accident, an ambulance, a surgery and sick people!  (For those who may be worried, there were no near-death experiences and everyone is pretty much all fine now.)

10 on the Tenth

TEN ON THE TENTH!

Dang it!  I always do this when I'm in a hurry and don't have time to do the cute little button from Mer.  Maybe later today.  Anyway here are my ten things.......TEN things I love about being a Mom.

1.Hearing my kids call me Mama

2.Listening to their stories

3.When it's Sunday a.m. and we are supposed to leave in 15 minutes and my 14 year old asks where his jeans are and they are not ironed (and very wrinkled!).  Yes, this just happened.  He's old enough to iron his own jeans now.  Yes they are still in a laundry basket and I am on the computer not folding clothes.

4. Laying in bed talking to my girl

5. Seeing the creative things my 14 year old son makes from scraps of junk

6. Hearing my 10 and 16 year olds play guitar

7. Listening  to them all talking to each other when they are getting along and they don't know I'm listening.

8. When I see them help each other or help someone else

9. When my 10 year old came back from the park with his friend Jared and they told me about how they were telling some girls about Jesus and why He loves them and died for them.

10.  Just watching them!  I love them so much.

Happy Mother's Day

As usual, I won't be with my Mom on Mother's Day.  But, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to wish her a happy Mother's Day  (they'll be out camping with friends that day!) and to honor her with some of the many things about her that make me proud:

Her consistency

Her love for her family and for others

Her unlimited energy

Her intellect

Her sense of humor

Her musical abilities

Her honesty

Her transparency

Her heart for the hurting

Her ability to see the big picture

Her cooking and baking genius

Her creativity

Her decorating skills

Her green thumb

Her work ethic

Her strength of character

Her love of animals

Her communication skills

Her stubbornness

Her resiliency

Her perseverance

Mom, I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day!  I love you very much.