Sick with it....

I don’t know how you do it.

And by “you,” I mean parents.

And by “it,” I mean raise children.

Especially when they’re sick.

The last two days, Grasshopper has brought over Franco, burning with fever and looking as helpless as anything. And it kills me, because we can only do so much.

I can run out, sweep him up and carry him into the house.

And Kim and I can run through the familiar, frantic gears of fighting the fever.

And we can use what medicine we have.

But all the while we’re made to watch the little guy being all miserable and weak. It takes such a toll on me just to look at him, retching up everything we give him and shivering with the fever. His pathetic round face…

Honestly, how do you do it?

I mean, don’t get me wrong—someday I do hope I have my own kids. In fact, that’s often what gets me through being thrown up all over or cleaning up puke or cleaning wound after festering wound. I just repeat in my head over and over about how this will somehow make me a better mother someday. ;)

But having to nurse my own kids through stuff like malaria and not wanting to wrench control out of God’s hands—that must take a special endowment of grace, given the moment you leave the maternity ward.

So, good on you for that.

I’m going to have to ask for some sort of honorary endowment, just to survive these last few weeks, with malaria season upon us.

Oh, and maybe a little something extra, to behave in love toward the kids’ mothers, who leave their sick toddlers with their slightly older siblings. Whew…

Happy Birthday?

This week has been a long one, with my favorite kids being sick, the unwelcome reappearance of dry/hot season and one really wretched team day.

But, I came home Friday to a house full of all my favorite team members, balloons and delicious treats.

A surprise birthday party.

For me!

In June?

I definitely played my part on the “being surprised” side of things, as my birthday is actually in February.

Not to slight my very clever and conniving roommates, obviously. But… huh?

I was certainly bewildered and I think I even said, as I stood there in the doorway under the barrage of balloons, “But… it’s not my birthday…”

You see, I’ve never got to have a TIMO birthday. With our schedule, we’ve always been out and scattered, so I’m lucky if anyone remembers, let alone if anyone is around to celebrate.

Hence, a surprise birthday party, in June.

It really was a wonderful evening, with plenty to eat and lots to laugh at.

I dare say, one of my best birthdays ever…

Defeat.

So I’ve got this neighbor Ibiong. She’s a hoot.

 

Lately, every time I go down for my bike ride, she’s there, sitting on her rocks as I go by. And, as is the Lopit way, she asks me where I’m going. And, as is the Lopit way, I always tell her—I’m going to ride my bike.

 

The other day she got on me about it, “Every day, every day—‘I’m going to ride my bike.’ Every day.” It seems she is disappointed in my lack of variety. I didn’t know exactly how to apologize.

 

She’s normally still sitting there when I come back later, or being busy on her compound, which is basically an eagle’s nest looking over the path. And she likes to comment on how tired I am. Or how sweaty I am. Or how pathetic I look.

 

And I agree with her, I generally do look really pathetic.

 

Yesterday was such a time. Clothes soaked, sweat dripping off my nose, weak and dirty. You know when you’re so tired your legs start to feel funny? And you take a step up onto a rock and find yourself teetering there a bit, not quite steady under your latest progress? And you wonder if your destination could get any further away or the sun any hotter? That’s what was going on.

 

I came up on Ibiong on the path this time, teetering on her own rock (believe it or not), a 20L water jug wavering on her head. She looked back at me, wiped her brow, and said, “Ibeja, I’m tired.”

 

I wobbled to a standing position in that blazing sun, blinked sweat out of my eye, looked at her… and breathlessly agreed.

 

And there we were, sharing a moment.

 

Right?

 

No, not right.

 

Because this is Ibiong.

 

We both trudged on a few more steps, my eyes on the path, contemplating every rock.

 

Then I heard a giggle. And I raised my head to see the light soles of her black feet, mocking me, as she scampered up the path, her neck adjusting to every sway of the water jug. Just giggling. At me.

 

I think I actually whimpered.

 

I grinned and yelled at her, “Ette! (You!) Enough, enough! You’re better than I am, I know!”

 

She bounced a bit further up the path, then seemed satisfied with herself and my misery enough to slow back to a trudge.

 

But the giggling lasted a bit longer.

 

She’s such a jerk… ;)

Whistling Dixie...

I was walking home with Mark today. He’s generally a hoot to be around.

For example, earlier in the day, he told us of some woman giving birth to triplets in a nearby village. He expressed his relief that she wasn’t in America, because that kind of thing would be illegal. Illegal?(This is the same guy who is convinced all Americans are trained as soldiers starting at age 5, so…) I told him I didn’t know of any US law prohibiting multiple-baby births, and that sometimes women even had six at a time. He was amazed. I told him about China, though, where they can only have one child. (Which, I dunno, is that a myth?) He was irate, and decided to build an orphanage for all those Chinese babies, here in LH. Imagine, people shipping Chinese babies to South Sudan…

Anyway, we’re walking along. And he keeps randomly crouching down suddenly, to sharpen his machete on any nice-looking rocks, smiling like a fool.

But then he stops mid-sentence and perks his ears like a dear.

And he begins whistling.

Someone whistles back.

More whistling.

And next thing I know, I’m standing there between the two men, flabbergasted because they’re having a whole conversation made entirely out of whistles.

Who knew?

Or, well, I guess we did know. I’ve just never seen it done before.

Confirms Kim’s thinking that this is a tonal language, though. So… good deal.

But, still, a little weird. Right?

Bob Loblaw

I happened upon a slaughter this morning when I was coming back from my bike ride.

 

Jubilee.

 

So, tonight… we dine. On meat.

 

Extra salty meet, unfortunately.

 

I distinctly remember watching Kim stand over the giant pot boiling on the coals and dump unreasonable amounts of season salt into the mix. This may or may not have something to do with the saltiness. But I didn’t say a word. So neither should you.

 

It was still delicious enough to cause Kim to burst into song. Great old hymns. Top of her lungs. Not exactly hitting every note. (I do believe a dog started to howl…)

 

Our dear neighbor Laudina yelled over and asked if Kim was drunk on balu. Many a night I’ve spent enduring the unpleasant musical stylings of drunken Lopit women, so her question made sense.

 

Hilarious.

 

Our little village is packed so tightly on this mountainside that I could hear other people chuckling at our conversation.

 

I’m off to convince them all that Kim isn’t, in fact, wasted. Wish me luck…

Satan comes to Sunday school...

Cath had an extraordinary Sunday school class this morning.

 

While she was leading the kids in a song and dance, Cath saw a snake slither up the wall and into the rafters. Now, Cath’s a pure South African lady. So—as is appropriate for a woman—she freaked out. :)

 

As did the children, who were said to have declared, “Satan came to Sunday school!” Hahaha. Kids say the darnedest things.

 

In the words of Kim, “That’s what you get when you teach from God’s word.” ;)

 

Anyway, Cath came to the regular church service to retrieve some monyemiji to slay the sly distracter. They eventually did, well after church was over—Cath insisted it be rooted out and killed, because she teaches nursery school in that building every day. I guess it was a good thing she did, because it turns out it was of the super poisonous variety. Good on you, Cath.

 

And good on you, Satan snake, for giving me my day’s entertainment…

The Napping House... and other Lazy Sunday activities...

We’ve totally caught on to Ellen.

She’s using us.

For our napping house.

She comes almost every afternoon, gives us about five minutes of cute, then gets a little cranky and gives Kim or I the “pick me up” eyes/arms.

No sooner is her naked, dirty little body settled in our laps, than her head hits our chests and she’s out.

Making it impossible to get things done.

And impossible to stop finding her absolutely precious.

Darn you, Ellen.

 

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention a few sad things I came back to. Our neighbor, M, had a miscarriage while I was gone. So she’s down and recovering. Ellen is still sick. And Grasshopper has a icky case of pinkeye or something.

I’m not certain which is worse, having to put the stubborn, gross goop in his eyes and watch him suffer, or having to put the stubborn, gross goop in his eyes, watch him suffer *and* hear Kim making these pathetic noises which narrate the torture that I’m so reluctantly inflicting on my favorite child. It’s like, could you NOT? Please?

So, this lazy Sunday finds us all here. Ellen, sprawled in Kim’s lap, drooling on her dress. Grasshopper, stretched out in my chair with tears in his red eyes, his lap strewn with candy wrappers—evidence of Kim’s attempt to counteract my torture. Franco, looking on pensively. Cath, napping along with Pattie, recovering from Sunday School.

And me, bringing the whole pathetic scene to you from my the perch of my desk…

Prayer letter problems...

My father has brought to my attention—ahem, three times—that my prayer letter doesn’t, in fact, get bigger when you click on it.

 

My many apologies; I haven’t a clue why not.

 

But, atm, I’m in Sudan and can’t do a thing about it. So, I’m going to try to get one of my trusty stateside helpers to get on that. Until then, look for it in your inboxes, if you get it through email regularly.

 

Also, my computer seems to have repented (at least for the moment, anyway) of its intent to ruin my emailing/blogging life. The hard disk is yet to fail, as it warned me it was about do to. Not such a shabby deal.

Computer Catastrophe

Interestingly, my computer told me just now that it’s going to crash.

Curious, isn’t it, that it warned me?

I’ve never known a computer to be so considerate before it ruins your day.

I only wish it would have told me earlier, so I could back up everything—like it kindly asked me to do—while there was sunlight, and not racing against my quickly depleting battery after nightfall.

But, I figured I’d go ahead and bust out a post and try to get it sent before the ol’ girl potentially goes to rest. Maybe it’s some kind of bluff? Who knows? It is a relatively new computer and already my second in Sudan…

Anyway, we’ll take it as another curveball from God. Particularly because just as said crisis was brought to my attention, Mary came up from the fields, for discipleship. So I had to simply leave the thing sitting on my desk, drawing battery and about to (possibly) die while we dove into the Word. God’s a funny God.

But, like I said, we’ll see. Maybe it will reconsider and decide to live.

If not, well… I guess we’ll also see. :)

Breaking the boredom...

It’s come to my attention that I’m boring.

It’s come to my attention several times, in fact.

Chanda, while I was in Nairobi, referred to me as the very picture of boring. It went like this, “[Someone] is [some exciting, wonderful characteristic]… not serious like you.” Of course, when I pressed him on what exactly that meant, he maneuvered out of it artfully. (He has a wife and daughters, so I imagine he’s learned from a few “Do I look fat in this dress?” situations.)

Then I went to dinner with Christian, who I know from my previous, non-boring African life (apparently), and who told also told me I’d gotten very serious, like I was thinking too much.

And the English translation of a German telling you you’re serious? “You’re boring. Very, very boring.” And if you know anything about the dissonance between German and American culture, the commentary takes on new, even more bleak dimensions. Whimper.

Anyway, I suffered under this label for a while, but found freedom when I came back to Lopit yesterday—just in time for team meeting—because I realized the root of my boringness.

And that’s my team.

I know, how can I say that?! Right? But we’re so battle-weary, so tense. There’s this aura of heaviness that hangs over our team meetings. And I guess we’re just downright boring. Shrug.

So as I sat in our meeting, which was dragging on endlessly and painfully, I tried to think of a strategy for breaking out of the boredom.

And I decided Kim and I would simply have to streak the fuera (the village center).

Surely that will work, right? It’s tried and true by university students America-wide!

And my idea’s effects manifested themselves immediately. The very *thought* of the response to a whitey’s naked dash through the village center kept me grinning through the rest of the meeting, while everyone else suffered silently through in their own, less crazy thoughts.

:)

And, yes, I’m writing a bit tongue-in-cheek. But, still… I’m committed to being less boring. Or serious. However you want to put it.

Sweet'ums...

I know I've probably posted this in the past...

Whirlwind day...

Today has been crazy. Absolutely crazy.

About 8 this morning, I found out there were no flights going into Sudan after tomorrow morning. If I didn't jump on the itty-bitty 206 going into LH tomorrow, I'd be stuck in Kenya until sometime next week. Shiver.

But that meant leaving Nairobi for Loki at one in the afternoon TODAY, so I could catch that first-light flight.

And I wasn't done with the video yet.
And there wasn't any power where I was.
And the laundry I'd turned in yesterday at Mayfield was still sopping wet (because the power had been out since the previous afternoon, and it's wet/cold here).
And I had a million little loose ends I needed to tie up before leaving back for home.
And I needed a shower.
And, again, I wasn't done with the stinkin' video yet.

So, hence, a day of running and craziness and passionately (but silently) pleading with Kenyan taxi drivers to catch my urgency. And a day of being thankful for Chanda and Christian, for making it possible to get in the air when I was meant to. And a day that just finished with a flury, as I pounded out a prayer letter and down a cold soda--my last for a while!--at 748 in Loki.

And now it's back into Sudan, bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm anxious to be back where I belong, with my team and my village, and focus on finishing well there.

(Oh, and I finished the video. So, mission accomplished.)

June prayer letter...

I finally wrote my prayer letter just now. And let me tell you, it freaked me out a bit.

Five weeks, people. I leave here in five weeks.

I got all shaky and mushy and stuff. Oh dear. Not good...

If you click on it, it'll get big. Or you can try to read it as-is. Go-go-Gadget eyes or whatnot...

School Daze...

So, the nursery school is up and running! Hooray! Here's a few pictures, but there's lots more on my Picasa site--there's a link there on the right.

Sorry I didn't get these up sooner and that I haven't written more about it. It'll be in my next newsletter, which--yes--is overdue. But, soon!

The classic before and after shots...

Cath's friend Jeni, the preschool fundi, training the three Lopit teachers.

Jeni tried to incorporate mostly things that were renewable in the culture--like this, "paint" made of different kinds of soil, so they weren't dependent on someone bringing in Crayola from somewhere else. I really respect this woman; she did an amazing job.

Thank you, everyone who pitched in and helped make this school a reality. :)

Miss Big Star...

It's been said that most of my pictures are of Ellen.

I cannot deny it.


Big shoes.

Big britches.

Getting big...

Look how handsome our boy is! :) Even the village kids call him Grasshopper now. 'Cept it's more like, "Gas-oppa."

Edir/Franco. When we first came, he was really shy, didn't talk and always afraid. Now... a whole different boy.

You can't tell, but she's about to break into her grin...

Ellen sass.

Believers!

We had six LoPeeps go through baptism classes with Joshua and then get baptized in a very special Sunday service. :) Though most of them weren't new believers, it was still neat to see. I hope that each one made a genuine committment to Christ and will go on to walk the walk, even in the rough culture in the mountains.

Funny, AIC is of the baptism-by-emersion persuasion, but it was dry season and the pumps keep breaking, so water was scarce and Joshua just dumped pitchers of water on them. You can take my word for it, though, that Joshua was very deliberate in getting every inch with that precious water. Haha. :)

Book-It...

I can't put to words how much dates on otherwise good photos annoy me. We all have our pet peeves, right? ;) These are from Pattie's camera, but they're still of our kids, and so I'll keep 'em.



That's Grasshopper (Francis) in the blue, Edir (Franco) in the stripes and Ellen in the... well, nothing. They still love to pour over the pictures in the children's Bible. The poor thing is so torn and tattered these days.

A pathetic picture...

Tonight I talked to my mom on the phone. She kept trying to get rid of me, shake me off.

She finally made fun of me, said it wasn't her fault I was all alone in Kenya, said she wasn't going to pay 70 cents a minute just to keep me company, said she loved me... then hung up.

You know you're pretty pathetic when your own mother is itching to get off the phone with you. :)

Today's been a bit of a blah day. I hit a roadblock in my movie-making and have to wait until I can pin down the OFM guys on Monday to move forward, so I've just been idle.

Being idle and alone in Nairobi just makes me think of how much I'd rather be in the village, with Kim and my team, or back in the States, facing this semi-terrifying next step in my life.

And so I've turned to Kim's and my favorite Nairobi pastime--looking at pictures from Lopit.

Which led me to realize I still haven't put pictures up here. Which led me to do just that.

So I hope you enjoy.

Men in Lopit...

My Mom asked me a while back what the men were like in Lopit, because I never write about them on here.

The truth is, we deal very little with the men in the village—it’s cultural, and we don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.

But, we do get the pleasure of interacting with some of the school teachers and pastors, who speak decent English. The men on our team don’t know how blessed they are, to be constantly communicating with the male population, because a lot of the guys speak at least some English from their time out in the camps, and that adds about a thousand new dimensions to a conversation.

Anyway, some school bigwigs came up to have tea the other day, and I quite enjoyed our conversation.

We learned our skin color is a topic of conversation among the Lopit. The headmaster informed me that we’d all gotten very, very white. And this, he said, was because it was getting cold. Yes, purely a matter of temperature. When it’s hot, we turn red (not tan—red). When it’s cold, we turn white. Very, very interesting.

The truth is, when we came back from Nbi—which happened to be in dry/hot season—almost all of us had enjoyed some time at the Coast, where we’d happily taken in the sun. But I can’t blame them for their reasoning. And they’re firmly decided in it, so I doubt we’ll be convincing them otherwise any time soon.

Also, our hair sparks conversation. Jen has the most beautiful hair of all. Kim was telling me about a time when she was talking with M. about Jen, and he was having trouble recalling who she was. Then he remembered—“Oh, the one with the beautiful hair!” Interestingly, M. is actually blind. Or nearly so. Thus, even more stunning that he remembers Jen by her long dark locks. My hair, meanwhile, is very curly and very strange. And Mark says if it’s not kept, “Oh, oh—that one is very bad.” Thank you, Mark.

They took the opportunity to scold me about my name, which is generally thought to a man’s name, which makes them very upset. And I don’t mean Andi, which would be understandable. I mean Andrea. I can only imagine that some French NGO worker named Andre sealed my fate in this. Whoever he is, I don’t like him.

I didn’t feel so bad, however, when they stopped all conversation, got pretty serious and turned to us with a question that has obviously been bothering them for a long time—was “Hillary” a man or a woman’s name? They’d long been wondering about this Hillary Clinton character they hear about on BBC.

See, so much fun, in just one tea meeting with some Lopit men. The guys are so lucky.

Angry chameleon...

So, like I said, I’ve been pouring over footage from Lopitland for the past three days.

And in doing that, I realized something: The Lopit people are really angry and bossy folk.

Now, this isn’t something that escaped my notice before—they’re notoriously confrontational, yellering folks. But it just became more prominent in my notice, because I was mindful that the guys were in the office and they’d come in every now and then to look at what I’d got.

And then, a worse realization, as I was also mindful that I was leaving the footage with them and they might go through it later. This realization: Our team has adapted and in some ways adopted that rough, short way of interacting.

Things that are perfectly OK in Lopit culture would be seen as terrible rude in others. Others like, my own. So, yikes. Gonna have to make sure I don’t come back a crazy old yelling lady.

Plane ol' childish...

I think there’s a bit of little-kid-ness that life and old age is yet to beat out of me.

For example, I flew out of Sudan this weekend on a Caravan plane, and I got to sit co-pilot. And there were so many little buttons and bells and whistles and magical-looking things. And since the pilot guy hooked me up with a super-cool headset, he allowed me to use one of said knobs—the volume. (I’ll pause, while you exclaim your awe.)

You can picture me in my little-kid-ness, silently wanting to push all the buttons.

Instead, I just asked a plethora of questions. Lucky for me, the pilot was a cool guy and humored me.

Oh, I should connect this to a more important bit of information—I’m in Nairobi to put together a video for our TIMO team and the AIM Australia office. I figure one of the things I’ve learned on TIMO is that God has gifted me to do indirect ministry—practical stuff, etc.—and so I should seize the opportunity to do just that as I finish up in Lopit.

So, I tried to hit the ground running and have spent many an hour already behind Andy’s Mac, trying to bust something out. Pray that I’ll suddenly be blessed with video-specific skills and creativity—both of which I’m sorely lacking.

Socks and sandals...

Some guy tried to sell me drugs today.

Apparently, I look like the kind of gal who would buy drugs from a matatu (crazy public transportation mini-bus) money-man.

I can only assume he thought I was already impaired. And I can understand that, I suppose. I was out in Nairobi (aka: public) wearing nappy scrub pants, thick green athletic socks with flip-flop sandals, a technicolored scarf and my AIM fleece. Only a person on drugs would wear that.

Anyway, he was adamantly offering me this plant that Kenyan men like to chew and when I said no, he would only press me as to why.

I told him to ask my D.A.R.E. officer.

He didn’t get it.

(Sorry, Sgt. K.)

He proceeded with the argument that all Kenyans like the drug, and, why—golly!—even the driver here, he was chewing it. Somehow, I found that neither compelling nor comforting. (The secret to crazy Nairobi driving, revealed.) Thankfully, my stop was pretty close.

So, today’s lesson? Don’t wear socks with sandals, ‘cause people will assume you’re a druggie and try to sell you illegal substances.

Oh, and don’t do drugs.

The ball, rolling...

I know, I’ve been a bad blogger lately.

By way of apology, I’m going to sit down and scratch out some posts for ya’ll. So, hold on tight… This could get long and slightly incoherent.

Baby Edith...

Sometimes here in the village, we get the opportunity to name a child or have a child named after us.

 

Little Ifeja—Cecelia’s daughter—must be about a year old now. She’s fat as ever. I’m always surprised when she’s able to maneuver her pillar-legs about on the rocky paths. You wouldn’t imagine, if you were to look at her, that she could do anything but roll from place to place. Sometimes they call her “Andi,” because I told them that’s what my mother calls me. (Hardly anyone knows me as Andrea, let alone Andi.)

 

During the medical campaign, Elizabeth had her baby, and they asked me to name it. They were wondering what the doctors’ names were, and so I named the little guy Peter Bob, after the two male doctors.

 

There’s Baby Kim. Then, more recently and in a different village, Baby Kimberly. And Baby Cheri, named after Kim’s mom. She’s really popular—even has a song about her. Baby Pattie lives up at the top of Husa. Cute as ever. Little Linda (named after Pattie’s mom) was born not all that long ago. Across the way, there’s an Iccengi (Jen) and a Toriana (Cath). The list goes on.

 

And today I was able to name a teensy, adorable little girl who was born Saturday. (They wait until the leftover umbilical cord falls off to name the baby, so the delay isn’t strange.)

 

I named her Edith, after my great-grandmother, who passed away the same day.

 

And, somehow, that makes me happy. :)

 

Echoes...

Our mountain range is still echoing a bit with the effects of the medical campaign.

 

During the campaign, as I said before, we went to a neighboring village two days and served a whole slew of people. When Heinrich, Joshua and I went to check the place out beforehand, some of the men we talked to told us there wasn’t a church there because—and I quote—the people don’t like to pray.

 

So it’s rather encouraging that now, after the medical and evangelism outreach, some of the people were keen on having someone come and tell them more about God, and that they wanted some place to come and pray.

 

A visiting Bible student from Kenya (who was here during the campaign and will be here for a while) has committed to teaching there on Sundays, and he’s bringing some of the local Bible students with him, so he can eventually pass it on.

 

You can surely be lifting that up—that God would bless their efforts and multiply his people there, call out his sheep. And continue to pray for our team and our church, that we’d have wisdom in how to reach out to the other people who heard the Good News during the clinic.

 

Baby Sarah…

I saw Sarah—the emaciated baby of the mentally handicapped woman that I mentioned before—today, and she seemed to be doing alright. She was looking a bit stronger.

I’ve seen one of the nurses from the clinic giving Aquam food a few times and imploring her to feed the baby. And someone even said they think she’s got a chance.

So keep praying!

Also, I realized I haven’t posted a picture up here in ages. Sorry for all the words, words, words. Here’s a picture of Sarah, so you know which little girl you’re praying for.

(And I’ll work on getting some more pictures up here, just as soon as I get out to Kenya…. Though I’m not sure when that will be!)

Keep praying...

I’ve said before that I’m a terrible prayer. Just really bad at being consistent about it.

 

So I was happy with myself, that I’ve been able to sit down each night for the last two-plus months and pray for my two very specific prayer requests. I thought, finally, I’m tapping into the strength that God gives me, and I’m praying. Good.

 

And then I was reading a little something from George Mueller, and I was both intimidated and encouraged. And so I’ll share it with you.

 

“I am now, in 1864, waiting upon God for certain blessings, for which I have daily besought Him for 19 years and 6 months, without one day’s intermission. Still the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals. In the meantime, I have received many thousands of answers to prayer. I have also prayed daily, without intermission, for the conversion of other individuals about ten years, for others six or seven years, for others four, three, and two years, for others about eighteen months; and still the answer is not yet granted, concerning these persons [whom I have prayed for nineteen-and-a-half years]. … Yet, I am daily continuing in prayer and expecting the answer. … Be encouraged, dear Christian reader, with fresh earnestness to give yourself to prayer, if you can only be sure that you ask for things which are for the glory of God.”

 

Fresh earnestness. Got it.

 

Blessings abound...

We all have those moments when we have it out with God, right?

 

Well, I think KP had one of those the other day, and listed off a few ardent prayer requests, one of which was, Could you PLEASE put something new on our table?

 

And, to our amazement, God answered.

 

First, we got dropped chocolate from the sky. That is, our friend from the other side of Sudan got wind that a plane that landed there was also landing here, and she sent along some precious semi-sweet chocolate chips. You can only get those from outside Africa. Wow.

 

Second, Kim’s language helper sought out someone who was slaughtering a cow—a rare occurrence—and not only hand-selected the nicest, bone shard-free piece for us, but searched high and low for a plastic bag to send it up in. He said Kim wouldn’t be happy if he wrapped it in leaves like they normally do. Haha.

 

Third, Monty from TIMO En Gedi came this week, and today gave us a big chunk of delicious cheese! (Cheese!!!) At this very moment, Pattie is using said cheese to make a quasi-pizza. Oh, happy day.

 

I’d say God’s outdone himself on this one… but I do wonder what tomorrow will bring!

 

Village clinic...

The medical campaign has revived the community’s misconception that we’re all doctors, so we’ve had a lot of folks coming to the house this week in search of medicine. Haha. Poor folks. If only they knew that most everything I know about tropical diseases and illnesses I’ve learned out here. But, we help where we can when we can. And we try to encourage them to go to the clinic, though sometimes I myself doubt the clinic workers’ competence.

 

Take, for example, earlier this week, when I sent Elizabeth and her week-old child down there, and she came back up with a bottle of adult Tylenol cough medicine for the teensy child. I took it away from her. Might as well give the child a chance to wait until adulthood to ruin his liver with balu beer, instead of damaging it now, right?

 

Anyway, we’re trying to help while at the same time resisting a full conversion into a village clinic. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Most of the week, we’ve been nursing little Miss Ellen back to health. Yesterday and for the past few days, she’s been pretty sick. Yesterday she was so hot we threw her in a bucket of water and tried to fight the fever. She spent the rest of the day alternating between Kim’s and my lap, dozing on and off. Today she’s smiling a bit more and beating her brother Francis on the head, so I feel like that’s a good sign.

 

I’m relieved.

 

The problem of living in a place like this is that your head gets all screwed up. It seems a mathematical truth that when kids get sick, they die. And so you panic or resign yourself accordingly. Alternately, you think that when kids outside tiny villages in Africa get sick, they go to the hospital and they get well. They don’t die. I realized that addendum when they flew Steve’s boy out and I automatically sighed a sign of relief, that he’d be just fine, since he was going to the hospital. And though Christian did pull through, though it sounds like it was scary at some points, kids—even kids in America—do die. Hmm.