A few days away

 Last week I had a wonderful (brief!) get-away to celebrate a good friend's 40th's birthday. We had some time to kick back and relax and eat some good food and laugh and enjoy a beautiful place.

 
 Oh, yeah. And we saw hundred's of amazing animals. I could post too many pictures and I know they just aren't as cool as the real thing. Up close and personal.

When we get to tell the stories of this trip in the coming years we will talk of being charged by a bull elephant, almost hitting a hipo, tracking down an invisible leopard and then finding a whole family of lions. 

I was reminded how necessary the support and encouragement of friends is. Here on the mission field they are family and co-workers and companions and confidants all rolled into one. Ladies, is it too early to start planning our next trip?!

I need to give credit to Rachel Graham for these awesome animal pictures!

July 2016

Wonderful friends....

Why is everything so hard here?!

After attempting for two long days to get back to Soroti, even that was very complicated and I actually shed real tears in the process, I'm back home and trying to get caught back up. And it all seems overwhelming.
- I had some repair work done on my truck before all the craziness with my nephew started. I discovered after racing to Kampala that the "repair" actually made the problem worse. Some missionary friends took the truck when we flew to Kampala and limped it back to Soroti for me but now I need to deal with it. The missionary who confirmed that I needed the repair in the first place told me yesterday "tell him he made it worse. Now all the seals on that side and also the gasket need replacing." So I'm in the midst of deal with that.
- I used up every cent of cash that I had in the craziness of last week so I really need to get some and here the only way to do that is from the ATM. However, the ATM is out of money and won't be filled again until Monday after 9am.  So no groceries (or anything else) for me until that happens.
- I still don't have my work permit.... but by the God's ability I was able to get my passport back from immigration to use it this week (as it has a three month special pass in it which was supposed to get me through until I have the new permit) but that pass expires today. Which means, because they still have not issued me a work permit I have to pay to get a new pass and keep waiting for immigration to do their thing. But the issue is I have my passport with me in Soroti but it needs to be in Kampala.....so I packed up the most important document I own and put it in the hands of Uganda's incredibly reliable public transit system. I really hope I'm not writing about my missing passport in a few days......

More about this past week

I know you have all seen lots of pictures of Izaac lately. But we are just so happy he is well. Here are some few glimpses of our last week.  This is while we were still in Kampala. Nurses, how do you like these oxygen tanks?  And that monitor? Just thinking about this hospital stresses me out again. They didn't know normal ranges for pediatric vitals. Until we got the monitor, they they didn't even check vitals very often.  We spent hours (days?!) stressing about how to get him out of the country.

 This is Izaac's favorite memory. I think he had never been introduced to vending machines before. He loved putting money in, pushing the buttons and getting out something new. I'm glad that it is so easy to keep a 6 year old happy. (look at how much better his color is in this picture!)

 He also was very happy when his sister arrived. Aren't they cute? 

After Benj and Ellie arrived in Kenya my accommodations took a huge step up.  I don't really want to talk much about the two places I stayed near to the hospital but they can be well summed up with words like terrible and frightening.  This was the Amani Guest House, very nice and family friendly. Ellie made friends within two minutes. 

Then there was my trip back to Soroti.... it was supposed to be a twelve hour bus ride from capital to capital. (Nairobi to Kampala) But the bus got in an accident and it became a 15 hour ride only as far as the border. At 10:45 at night I baled to look for a place to sleep to attempt the border crossing after a few hours of sleep rather than after 15 hours on a bus. You know the place you are staying is classy when they offer free condoms with your registration. (If you look closely at the picture you can see the boxes of condoms over the receptionist's right shoulder.)