It's Great to be Back!

There's nothing better than coming home!  Especially when there's a wonderful man and an adorable curly-headed girl waiting at the fence at the airstrip for us to arrive!

 I got home to a clean house loaded with flowers!  Matt and the kids had gone to the market in the morning and brought home 8 bouquets of flowers to decorate the front room!  It was so pretty. =)

I'm so impressed with Matt and the wonderful job he did in the 11 days that Elijah and I were gone.  Not only did he have the normal craziness of life:  getting 4 kids off to school in the mornings, dealing with homework in the afternoons, trying to get work done between the added responsibilities of cooking and cleaning, but he also had a ton of additional craziness to deal with.  Kaitlyn came down with one of her migranes and was throwing up for two days.  Matt found lice in Kaitlyn's hair and had to deal with that.  Nathan had a cyst that had been inactive for like 6 years flare up and become infected.  So Matt spent days emptying puke buckets, taking kids to the clinic, soaking an ear and removing pus, and washing and combing for lice!    Funny how when one parent leaves that all craziness seems to happen.

I'm also so thankful for our community and for good friends, both here and in Cairns.  I had worked hard and stocked the fridge and freezer with meals, but I had thought when I left that I would only be gone for one week.  But friends were sooo helpful and came by with rolls and meals and invitations to dinner for Matt and the kids.  Other friends went out of their way to have my kids over for playdates or walk them to and from school.  And I was so well cared for in Cairns as well, by the Byl family.  God has blessed us incredibly with wonderful friends.

And thank you to those of you (you know who you are!) who blessed us more than we could ever have imagined by your prayers and the financial gifts that completely covered the costs of Elijah's dental treatment.  God bless you all!

It's so great to be home with all my precious kids!

A Quick Update

Tomorrow morning Elijah will be going in to the dentist for his treatment.  Because of his age, he'll be given general anesthesia so the dentist can do his work.  I'm a bit nervous as he'll have to completely fast for the 6 hours prior to his appointment.  And since coming to Cairns, Elijah has not been sleeping well.  He wakes up crying and wants to nurse multiple times a night.  So I'm worried that tonight is going to be rough for us (and for all our neighbors at the hotel as well!) as if he continues his pattern of sleeping poorly, as I won't be able to feed him and get him back to sleep like I usually do.

Back on the home front, Matt and the kids are surviving!  I'm so thankful for the many friends who have been a blessing there by bringing meals, walking kids to school or home, and having the kids over to play so Matt can do some other work.  You can keep him in your prayers though as this week has gotten crazy for him with discovering lice in Kaitlyn's hair, sickness, and dealing with a huge cyst in Nathan's ear that has become infected.  (Nathan has had issues with this cyst in the past, but it's been many, many years since the last occurrence.) 

Just two more days until I'll be home and able to give Matt some much-needed rest time!

Just a Quick Trip to the Dentist

I have to say, living here in PNG definitely helps me to appreciate many things I know I took for granted when I lived in the US.  Like grocery stores that were open at all hours, or medical care that was easy to access.

Tomorrow I start on my way to take Elijah to the dentist.  Gone are the days of hopping in the car and driving 5, or even 30 minutes to the dentist, like I could have back home.  For him to see a pediatric dentist and get the care he needs is quite an ordeal.  So tomorrow, the P2 bus will arrive outside our house at 6am to drive Elijah and I to the airstrip.  Then, we'll have an hour-ish flight to Port Moresby, where we'll get to sit around and wait for 5 or so hours until our international flight to Cairns.  Two hours after we take off from PNG we'll be in Australia.  Then, we'll finally be that short drive to the dentist!

This week I've been incredibly busy.  Since Matt will be remaining behind with the other four kiddos, I've been busy getting things organized for him.  I've been cooking and baking a ton, so that they will have easy meals at hand.  I've been making lists out the wazoo for Matt, and putting things he should remember on the calendar:  Julianne's ballet class, library day, etc.  I'm sure some thoughtful friends will step in and bring a meal or have my poor, motherless family over for a meal!

 I'm very blessed to be able to stay with a friend for over half my stay in Cairns.   It will be great to see her and her family.  And most importantly, I'm happy to be getting Elijah's teeth the care they need.  I'll probably update more once I find out exactly what the treatment is going to entail. 

It will be hard to leave my family for this long!  But I know I'm leaving them in Matt's capable hands, and hopefully I'll be back with them in a week!  (Yeah, I know... a week long trip just to go to the dentist!  Such is life here!)

A New Room

We now have enough beds in our house to sleep our whole family!  Up until about a week ago, we had just 5 beds.  But since I've been too lazy so far to kick Elijah out of our bed, we've been ok.  But we're rapidly nearing the point where he will be out of our bed and ready for his own 'big boy bed'.  And until last week, we had no bed to put him in!

So over the last couple of weeks, we've been having our storage room/4th bedroom painted and a loft bed, bookshelf/dresser combo and desk built to fit the room.  It's a tiny little room and if we just put a regular bed in there, so much of the floor space would have been taken up by just the bed and it would have felt really cramped and claustrophobic. 

I totally blew it and didn't get a picture of my storage room in it's full storage capacity.  Just imagine action packers stacked along the walls.  Piles of clothes my kids had outgrown and I was in the process of giving away toppling in the corners.  Boxes of non-perishable goods which I was stockpiling for the next trip out to the village.  Plus we kept Elijah's Pack-n-Play and dresser (really, just a 3-drawer bedside stand) in there.  Now (for a few weeks at least!) it's so nice and clean and.... empty!

Here are a few shots of what the room looks like now!  I love it!  (Btw... the photos make the walls look a bit... pinkish.  In reality, they're an off-white that has a hint of beige in them.

 Nathan loves his new room!  Our only problem is that we don't have a mattress yet!  And since the bridge to Kainantu is collapsing, it may be a while before we get one.

And while I love the new room now, I am pretty sure I'm going to be missing it terribly when the time comes to start packing for the village and my staging area is gone!

River Fun

During this 5 week school holiday we've just stayed home.  It's been relaxing and we've enjoyed the slower pace of the non-school days, but I have to confess that when most of my friends have gotten to take off on a holiday somewhere, there have been moments when I've been a tad jealous. 

But on Saturday we decided to go have a play time at the Bae river that borders a good portion of Ukarumpa.  The weather has been pretty glum lately, but for the past several days while it was grey, cold and drizzly in the mornings, the sun would finally break through in the afternoons.  Until Saturday of course!  Then, it was beautiful in the morning, but as noon drew near, the clouds rolled in!  But we had made plans and we just decided to go ahead and hope it wouldn't rain.

We headed down to the Bae river, through a small waist-high gate in the back of a friend's house.  It was a short hike down the trail past some gardens until we got to the river. 

Then it was time to play!  The kids didn't seem to care that the water was freezing cold!  They jumped in and had a blast.

They also found that on the opposite bank, there was a patch of ground (clay, really) that when wet was unbelievably slippery.  I know my kids at least spent a great part of the time sliding down it like a waterslide!  It was so slippery that it was hard to stay on one's feet on it. 

 Nathan, after an unintentional slip!

Kaitlyn and her friends got covered in mud and had a blast doing it!

My Love-Hate Relationship with Facebook

I love Facebook!  I mean, how else could I sit down in the morning, with my steaming cup of coffee and in ten minutes, get caught up on everyone's lives.  I can see how my friend's kids are growing like weeds.  I can keep tabs on my nephews and niece.  I can enjoy the pictures of vacations and family get-togethers that have been happening.  With Facebook, it's so nice to feel like I'm not entirely cut off from family and friends around the world, who, with my living over here, I basically AM cut off from. 

In my busy life as Mom of five, I just find it super hard to be good at communicating by emails.  On a good day, I can get maybe one or two personal emails written.  But more often than not, they are written in my head and I never get the needed 20 minutes to sit down and type them up.  So when I can send a friend a short message or keep in touch via Facebook, I go for it!

But I HATE Facebook.  Every time I get on (especially during this time of the year!) I am reminded over and over of what I can't do.  Of what I've given up.  I see pictures of family get-togethers to celebrate birthdays, holidays, life that I've not been able to be a part of.  I see pictures of nephews and nieces who will be 2, or closer to 3 years old before I get to meet them.  I see beautiful pictures of camping trips friends have gone on, or trips to Disneyland, or hikes in the mountains, or playdays at parks and beaches, or plans for big 4th of July barbecues and parties.

And to be completely honest, sometimes I get jealous.  And discontented.  I wish I could take my kids and show them the beauty of Yellowstone.  Or go on the family camping trip to Yosemite.  Or be at the family reunion with Aunts, Uncles and Cousins who I haven't seen in 6 years.  Or take my kids to the beach on a warm, sunny day.  Or just go out and buy an ice cream cone.  But I can't.

I actually once saw an article that was saying how people on Fb do tend to be more discontented.  They see all the vacations and new cars or houses or whatever that their friends have, and they feel unhappy. 

And it's true.  When we allow our focus to shift from the present, to the 'what if's' or the 'what I am missing out on' mentality, we will be miserable.  And truly, I'm NOT miserable.  But it's so easy to see that when I allow my focus to shift to the wrong place, I do start feeling jealous and..... sad, I guess.... and really, I'm sinning.  I'm coveting the things I don't have, and that's wrong.

I truly DO love my life here in PNG.  And I have so very much to be thankful for.  I have been abundantly blessed with dear friends here.  A loving and supportive family back home.  The most fantastic, amazing husband ever.  Five incredible kids.

So I'll continue to enjoy browsing Facebook and I will be happy for the vacations and activities that my friends and family back home are getting to enjoy.  And, honestly, from time to time, I'll wish that I could go to the beach too, or be at the birthday party or whatever.  But I will also strive to be content in my life and where God has put me for this time.

Whew... What a Week!

This past week has really been..... awful.  One of those weeks you know you never want to repeat.

Looking at it in perspective though, it is very clear to me that we are under attack.  From the one who does not want to see God's word in the Nukna language, and is sure trying every which way to discourage and hinder us!  And, I have to confess, sometimes it's working.

I know, coming from our Western background, we aren't all that comfortable talking about Spiritual battles and Satan's power.  In the western way of thinking, we just seem to tend to not put much credibility into 'the unseen' and we like to have tangible, obvious explanations for everything.  It's quite different living here in PNG where EVERYTHING has a spiritual meaning behind it.  Even for many professing Christians, no one gets sick, or dies or has any bad thing happen to them without sorcery being behind it.  Coming from my western upbringing, it's sometimes hard for me to understand.  I think someones lingering illness was probably from undiagnosed cancer or AIDS, rather than the fact that someone put a curse on them.  But I have to say that for the most part, the people of PNG are far more aware of the spiritual side of things than many of us are.

All that to say that this week, I have clearly felt the attacks on our family.  And it's no surprise to me that they coincide with the fact that we are consultant checking the books of Mark and Ruth right now.  (One of the major, final steps before the book will be ready to be typeset and printed.)

Last weekend we discovered that Elijah's teeth are disintegrating.  I mean literally.  While we were in the village, I noticed some brown areas along the tops of some of his teeth, and running down a deep groove on another tooth.  I thought that was not good, and maybe it was some weird plaque build-up.  So we brushed extra.  But by last weekend, part of the grooved tooth was missing, and along the brown areas of his other teeth, there were now a series of holes.  WHAT!?!?!?!  I mean, I've never been a brush my kid's teeth morning, noon and night and make sure they never-ever touch sugar sort of Mom, but I feel like we've always done a pretty decent job of taking care of our kid's teeth.  And now my baby's teeth are rotting out of his mouth!?!?!  It was a stressful few days as we had to wait over a long holiday weekend, and then when I thought we could get into the dentist for help, we discovered it was their day off.  So finally, on Wednesday of this last week, we got Elijah into our dentist here. 

Only to not be given any helpful help. 

Basically, it looks like he has an enamel deficiency and at least 4 of his baby teeth do not have the proper enamel to protect them.  So since last weekend, he has lost over half of one of his teeth.  It just very literally has been disintegrating away.   And the other three teeth all have holes or pits in them now.  And all we were told was that we should just try to brush his teeth constantly.  After every single time any food or drink enters his mouth.  So, yeah, pretty much constantly.  So we've spent the week, brushing his teeth like 10-15 times a day, and watching his one tooth get smaller and smaller.  Let's just say I'm feeling stressed and discouraged!

Thanks to a dental hygienist friend, and friends and family contacting dental friends of theirs for advice, it looks like this problem is not 'contagious'.  It won't spread to every tooth in his mouth, but is more of a tooth-by-tooth basis--- either his teeth have the proper enamel or they don't.  And it's not a given that his adult teeth will be affected.  They might, but there's just as much of a chance that they'll be fine.  We'll just have to wait and see.  But in the meantime, we're just playing a waiting game.... waiting to see how fast his teeth deteriorate.  Waiting to see if I'm going to need to get him to a pediatric dentist (the nearest one would be in Australia) to have teeth removed or whatever.  And waiting is hard for me.

Then, if that wasn't enough to deal with, Nathan has been having some issues this week as well.  He was screaming in pain one night from something that came on suddenly, and then I got to spend 2 hours at the clinic with him yesterday morning, trying to figure out what was causing the unusual symptoms he was having.  But even after 2 hours of testing and examining, the doctor was still befuddled.  We left the clinic with the doctor basically saying that we need to just watch and wait and if this issue continues to happen, we'll need to get Nathan to the nearest specialist which would be in Brisbane, Australia.  Again, not what this already-stressed Momma needed to hear.

So, with all that going on, plus the craziness of all the end-of-the-year school activities here (1 1/2 more school days left for this school year!) and having 3 Nukna guys here for a couple of weeks to feed and socialize with, well, I'm left feeling like I'm just way in over my head right now.  All the unknowns, coupled with all the busyness just has me discouraged.

And I believe that is EXACTLY where the enemy wants me to be!

So, please pray with me this week that God will be glorified in everything that happens (whether Elijah's teeth all fall out of his mouth, or we have to make an unplanned trip to Australia for Nathan, or whatever!) and that Matt and I will be able to truly cast all our cares on Him! 

So this picture has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I thought I'd end with a hilarious picture of my superhero daughter who dressed up E as Snow White!