Snags

Celebrating Tom's birthday!

Living in Africa you quickly realize that the culture and pace of life is different here. You have to get used to snags, small or big problems/delays/inconveniences that force you to change your plans.

Last week the logistics man (we'll call him Mr. P) came to help us with the final set-up for our team (who arrive on the islands Nov 2nd). We had a long to-do list, but were wondering whether Mr. P would really find many projects to keep him busy. Snag one--water. Water is something we always ask about when getting a house. Now by island standards we were looking for regular enough water to consistently fill water barrels so that this stored water could be used when the water is off. Back in our old house on Volcano Island, we only had water for an hour or so each morning, but that was ample to keep our water reserves full. The snag is that two houses (in the same town) don’t get consistent water and seldom enough water pressure to push the water to the second stories (where the homes are). This issue was not explained to us ahead of time, so now we have Mr. P working hard putting together cisterns and pumps to get water to these homes.

Snag two--rain. Rainy season isn’t supposed to be here for months, but this week we have had a lot of rain. Yesterday (the day Mr. P was supposed to be working on the roof of a home all day) it poured. It poured ALL DAY LONG-- we only usually get that kind of rain in the heart of rainy season. Mr. P didn’t work on the roof yesterday and several other errand have taken longer or been impossible because of rain.

Paul heading to the roof of one of the houses

Snag three- sickness. Our two older kids are in school in the mornings now, freeing us up to run errands with just our youngest (much more reasonable than with three kids), but Our middle son threw up Wednesday and Thursday, meaning Megan stayed at home and meaning less of our to-do list got done.

Snag four- conference room. Our team is staying at a local motel for the first week (orientation week). We had scoped out several places months ago but decided on this one because of the price and location. The only downside was they didn’t have a conference room for our meetings, but they had an easy solution, a room in a house just across the street. A month ago, we went back to actually make a reservation--but suddenly that conference room was no longer available, but they found another one further away. We discussed with the owner of that room and made a reservation with the motel. This past week we went back to go over the details and pay an advance. “Oh, but that conference room is not available. It isn’t my room, I made no guarantees. They changed their mind.”

Thankfully we can work around snags. We change our plans, we find solutions, we trust that we will have the time to get everything done in this final week!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our youngest has continued to improve! His appetite is back, his energy is back and his tummy troubles are gone. Today was sunny and Mr. P got most of the plumbing hooked up.  Our middle son has been praying to be brave every morning and has started going to school without crying. We found another conference room and this one is more conveniently located! Tom turned 35! We are so thankful to have such a great husband and father.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our middle son has continued to vomit every once and awhile, we wonder if mangoes might be the cause (it is mango season right now, they are everywhere!). Pray that his tummy troubles would resolve and that we would have wisdom in helping him. We still have a lot of little things to buy for the houses, pray that we would have productive mornings this week to take care of our whole shopping list. Pray that we would have wisdom about how we spend our time and that Mr. P's projects would go smoothly. Pray for our teammates-- most leave their home countries this coming week, arriving on the islands next Sat. Nov 2nd. Pray that all their goodbyes, packing and travels go really smoothly!!

Scare with our Youngest

(Many of you got the email asking for urgent prayer for our youngest, if you would like to be on our email list (quarterly newsletter & urgent requests) then email us and let us know.)

Our youngest feeling better!

Little kids are always changing-- but there are a few important things to know about our youngest at the moment: he is fast, he has learned to climb, he has grown taller, he now likes to reach up high for things, and he is always trying to get into stuff that he shouldn’t. Classic 14-month old.

Coming back from vacation we have been very busy. I was running through the house between two tasks when I see David with something in his mouth. I take it away from him and he gives me a complaining whine. It’s an almost empty baby tylenol bottle. “Where did he get THAT? How did he get the baby proof lid off?! How much did he drink?”

I knew it was an older bottle and I couldn’t imagine that he had had it very long. So I convinced myself that it was already basically empty. I’d watch him that day to see if he acted strangely, but he seemed fine that day and so I put it out of my mind.

The next day was a big holiday! The neighbors came and took all three kids to walk around the neighborhood to greet everyone. They came back with our youngest around 10:30am, already fast asleep. It was unusual for him to fall asleep when out and about with people but he often took a morning nap, so it wasn’t that bizarre. Later, he didn’t eat well and had some diarrhea, but we suspected that he had been fed things by the neighbors.

Our oldest and youngest out with neighbors on holiday

But the next morning he didn’t wake up. He slept through breakfast.  When I went in later to wake him up, he opened his eyes and looked at me but didn’t get up. Usually he jumps up at the sight of anyone and loudly whines until someone takes him out of his bed. He just turned his head back toward his pillow and looked like he was going back to sleep.  I decided I should try to feed him something. He ate a little but didn’t talk or whine at all. By the time I was going to clean him up he was already falling asleep in his chair. I put him back down and even when he didn’t sleep he just lay there watching, not moving or talking at all. This was not normal!

Suddenly I remembered the tylenol-- what if he had more than I thought? I racked my brain for a memory of how full the bottle had been before vacation, while learning online that tylenol overdoses can cause liver failure and be asymptomatic for the first day or more.   Tom was gone, we don’t have poison control on the islands. It was a holiday which means doctor’s offices are closed. I called my dad to get his advice about how to proceed. Within the first 24 hours there is an antidote for tylenol overdose, but we were past that window (we later learned the government pharmacies don’t carry it and they were the only ones open on the holiday anyway). We needed to see how his liver was doing, so armed with the name of different tests I took our baby, got in a taxi and headed for the main hospital on the island. I found a lab tech, she looked at my paper and shook her head. “We don’t have the supplies to do those tests here, but go to the private clinic in the other town- I know they will be able to do it… but today is a holiday. So you will have to go tomorrow.” I went home and we tried to call another lab we knew of-- it was closed too. We had to wait for the morning. If the test results were bad we would need to evacuate our youngest off the island, but it was already the afternoon. All the flights and boats off the island had already left for the day. No, whatever we were going to do, it would have to wait until the next day.

But there was one thing we could do-- we could get people praying. If only he would perk up and show some signs of energy, letting us know that he wasn’t  just getting worse and worse while we waited. We sent a text message to our colleagues on the other islands. We wrote an email and sent it out to lots of people all over the world. In a little while we started to get the responses- people had gotten our message and they were praying. That’s when we heard our baby boy.  He had woken up on his own for the first time that day. He stood up on his own and seemed to want to eat a little. Over the late afternoon and evening, the change was dramatic-- he was still sick but he wasn’t scarily lethargic like the morning. A much needed answer to prayer.

Back to School- our son's 1st day ever!

The next day, even though our youngest seemed to be steadily improving, we had to wait an agonizing 8 hours to get test results, and then spend another half hour figuring out what they meant. Finally we got a doctor’s take: The results were encouraging, only mildly abnormal. The results coupled with his increasing energy was a sign that he should be okay.  We were much relieved.  The notes of encouragement continued to flow in to our email inbox that day and the next.  Our hearts are so full of thanks and we have been greatly encouraged by all of you.  Thank you for your prayers.  It means so much to us.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our youngest is doing much better and he has stopped vomiting too. Our daughter was very excited and happy to start back at school on the islands! Our 3 year old son (while less excited) said that he likes school too and that he now has three new friends! The organization's logistics man has arrived to help with the final details for all the houses.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for our youngest's continued recovery and for our other son who has been feeling sick too. It has been a strange week with the holiday and our youngest's illness and we didn’t make much progress in our big to-do list. Pray that we would be productive and not stressed the next two weeks while we work to get everything done. Our son cried when he gets to school in the morning (though he is fine when we pick him up), pray that he would continue to like school and go into the class more willingly. Pray for our teammates as they prepare, they arrive in just two weeks!

Getting to Clove Island: Plan E?

Back for the beginning of mango season!

Sometimes our best-laid plans come to naught. We were passing through Volcano Island on our way home to Clove Island. We were going to take one day to make the arrangements for our team to travel from Volcano to Clove in a month’s time. We were going to buy out an afternoon flight so that they could arrive on Clove Island the very same day. We had a contact at one of the airlines, it was going to be easy and work well!

First snag--that airline doesn’t have any Saturday afternoon flights. No problem, there are three inter-island airlines. We checked the other one with afternoon flights-- no flight. Okay, I guess we may have to charter an unscheduled flight-- our team fills a plane already, how much more expensive could it be? Answer--lots more expensive, almost 3x the price per person AND they still wouldn’t be able to take everyone’s luggage.

Well let’s go back to the first airline with our contact-- maybe we can figure something out with them. “The problem is...we’re not flying right now,” the airline employee tells us, “We hope to be flying again next month.”

Well plans A, B and C aren’t panning out-- maybe we’ll just have to fly the team to Clove  Island the next morning (Sunday). We secure a motel reservation for the team for that Saturday night. It’s too late in the day to get the Sunday morning flight reservation. Our “one day” to make arrangements has flown by, but we have a little time tomorrow morning before our own boat leaves.

A phone call from Tom the next morning, “The two airlines don’t have flights on Sundays!” The only airline that does is the same airline that isn’t flying at the moment.

Our son plays his harp

Okay, new plan! Every time we’ve tried the plane route, we’re getting shot down. What about boat? Is it possible that the new “fast” boat goes from Volcano to Clove Island on  Sundays?!? It does! Now the boat doesn’t take reservations until the week before, but we can make those when we're back on Clove Island. Speaking of which, it’s time to head to the port to try the “fast” boat out for ourselves!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our team is set! Three couples, two singles and two children are coming to the Islands on November 2nd to become our team! We are very excited for the way that God has provided for each one of them and for the chance to have them all here. Thanks for praying for them! We made it back to Clove Island safely. The kids and Megan’s back did well-- thank you again for praying.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our first couple days back home have felt productive-- pray that it keeps up. We have lots to do before our team arrives on November 2nd-- finish up the house preparations, finish teaching our three English classes and give exams, finalize all the preparations for housing, feeding and convening the team for the orientation week, plus more… Pray that things go smoothly and that we have wisdom about how to spend each day. Our two older kids start island school on Monday! This will be our son's first day of school and he will not share a common language with his teacher-- please pray that he has a positive experience and that he will be excited about going to school.

All in Good Time

Going on a nature walk w/ Gram

Things don’t always happen as we expect.  Sometimes you feel very in control and on top of all the things happening.  Other times things get out of hand and you feel overwhelmed.  But then there are the completely unexpected things that we have no control over.  That’s when we find ourselves relying on our Father for help and His amazing timing.   This week, we’ve been struck by the timing of recent events have given us reason to be very thankful for a Father who looks after us.

Finding houses:  We’ve already written a blog about this, but we’re still thankful:  4 houses to find before we left for vacation.  The last house found in the final days of the last week before vacation!

Our daughter with her fixed teeth

Our daughter's toothache:  At the very beginning of vacation our daughter started complaining of a toothache.  A strange thing to be thankful for, you say?  But because we were on vacation we were able to get a dentist appointment and then the follow-up to fix her teeth (which turned out to need a lot of fixing--the fillings from France weren’t done well) and get it done in a place where they could do a top quality job.  We keep thinking about what would have happened if our daughter's toothache started after we got back to the islands where there is little to no quality dental care (let alone pediatric dentists).  It could have been a real mess.

Teammates’ support:  When we left for vacation three of our teammates were still working hard to find the support teams they need in order to join in the work on the islands.  All of them had a ways to go.  A month ago the two single ladies were at 75% and 50% respectively of their needed monthly support.  The American family were at 34% of their needed support (not surprisingly necessarily since the support for a family is more than twice that of a single person).  When we went on vacation none of them had reached their goal.  So even though we were far away, and on vacation, we’ve been checking blogs and emails excitedly every day to follow their progress and asking our Father to give them a hand.  We were so happy to see our single teammates reach their goal on the very day of the deadline that had been set for them.  But we were especially excited to see our American family teammates jump to 95% of their needed support, and to see them given an extension of a couple more weeks to raise up the final support team members.

Awhile back when we started thinking about our teammates coming to join us, we started asking our Dad to have things happen in such a way that our teammates and we would know that He was guiding our steps--that all of us would know He wanted us to be here on the islands.  He has answered that request in a dramatic fashion.  When the days are tough (and there are always tough days on the island) we will be able to look back on the way things have come about and know that we are where we’re supposed to be. He picked this team and provided for it. All in good time.

Our son w/ his Gram & Grandad

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our daughter's dental work went well and we are so thankful for the great work of the dentist who delayed going on vacation to fix our daughter's teeth.  We got to meet up with an old friend from camp while on vacation.   We’ve had a wonderful, relaxing time for vacation, enjoyed some of our favorite foods (cheese, chocolate, ice cream, bacon) and the weather has been very cooperative.  It’s been great to see Megan’s parents.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Tomorrow we head back to the islands, which means a lot of travel and some long plane rides.  The kids did great on the way over,  but we realize this was another big answer to pray not to be taken lightly. Please pray the kids would do equally well on the way back and that again Megan’s back would do well with all the extra stress/sitting of travel.   Also pray for good travel in general, transfers, bags, etc. Pray for us as we hit the ground running back on the islands in preparation for our team. We come back to a long to-do list! We’re really excited that God is providing for all 3 couples and 2 singles joining our team, pray for the rest of their preparations for life on the islands. Pray for our daughter's teeth-- apparently her teeth are pre-disposed to cavities so we need to be diligent.