Malaria Again...

Savannah has malaria. Fortunately, we caught it early (she looked really sick yesterday and spiked a fever of 104, under her arm, so we tested her). She didn't have any convulsions (whew!) and is responded well to treatment. Thankfully this is not nearly as severe as Louisa's case from this past summer. Still, this time is sobering because Savannah HAS been taking her weekly mefloquine dose and should have been more protected. Please continue to keep the health of our children especially in your prayers.

Scorpion bites are no fun, really.

I do think that most parents lie about one thing especially...

Are your kids sleeping through the night?

At least in my experience, we all shade the truth a bit or neglect to leave out crucial details. Okay, and whose big joke is it anyway to count five straight hours as "through the night??" I am ever hopeful that Nate and Savannah will sleep through the night, (defined by me as from bedtime until 7am) alone, without crying, without a midnight drink, in their own beds. The chance that all of those things will be true on even given night for both of them however is quite small. So small as to be fairly non-existent. I think in the last several months I can count on one hand the number of nights that I have slept straight through. So maybe that is a better question... Are YOU sleeping through the night?

Anyway, last night was no exception. I woke up about 2 am to hear Savannah screaming. What sounds fairly quiet to me can really echo in the little room that all four kids share so I am usually hussling to get there and make sure everything is okay before I have not one but four awake children. As usual, no visible problems, probably just a nightmare. I rub her back a bit and hear Nate start to stir. As I quietly back out of the room, she wakes up again and begins to cry. With a sigh, I pull the mosquito net back and bend down to crawl in with her. She settles down and snuggles in while I go through that random mixture of emotions (this is the sweetest thing in the world to bring such comfort to my child/I am soooo tired) and softly chant to myself, "this is just a stage, it too will pass." Hearing Joe and Louisa's heavy breathing and deep sleep does help to reassure me that in time Nate and Savannah will do likewise one day.

OUCH! Holy cow, what was that?? Did I roll onto a tack? We have a corkboard with pictures right outside the kid's room and lately the twins like to pull off the tacks. I am always a bit groggy and not always the fastest mentally in the middle of the night, so it takes awhile for me to realize that I should move as the pain continues to radiate up my arm. A stinging, electrical like throb that is growing quickly in intensity. I grab the flashlight and sit up to see a very tworked off scorpion about the length of my pointer finger, waving his tail and pinchers in the air right in the space where my arm had been. Wow, now what to do? I must have spent several seconds just staring in disbelief that this little creature had made its way under the mosquito net and into the bed with us. I though about crushing him with the flashlight, but what if I miss? As I look closely, he does look a bit worse the wear for being nearly squashed by my arm so I take the risk and dash out of bed to get the bug spray in the next room. We spend the next five minutes in a tango like dance. I spray him with DOOM, he waves his tail and comes forward. I shove him away from a now quietly sleeping Savannah towards the edge of her bed and under the guard rail. After several rounds he is on the floor and able to be thoroughly squashed and thrown in the trash. My arm is still throbbing and starting to form a good size whelp. Thank goodness for Benedryl Gel. I am still a bit shaky as I head back down to my room to sleep, when I hear Nate call out, "Mommy! Where you at? I neeeeeed you!" Sigh. "This too will pass, this too will pass...."

Back home...

You gotta hate bedbugs.

Coming home after a week or more away usually means a total recovery assault of our house. Other creatures note its beauty and desired ammenties and move in many times, in great numbers. This time was no different. Several weeks ago we moved Nate and Savannah into Joe and Louisa's room. We had another set of bunk beds made at the local workshop and everyone was delighted. Sure it looks a bit like a sleeping compartment on a train, there is only 2 feet of open space running the length of the bunk beds with a large window at the end. The room is SMALL, about the size of an average American bathroom. The kids love it, however and feel very cozy and safe, all in the same room but each in their own bed. The problem has been that while at the workshop the newest bed's wooden frame was infested with bedbugs, which we then moved right into our house. Strangely enough the bugs are drawn to the bottom bunk only. Poor Savannah! She has been covered with tiny bites as we tried to figure out what was going on. Finally, using a flashlight in the middle of the night we found them. I won't go into it, it is pretty gross, but we used several cans of Doom and have been airing out and washing bedding for awhile now. We thought we had solved the problem, but alas, our little vacation allowed multiple eggs to hatch and the night we came back she was attacked again. So we're back to spraying and washing. Benedryl gel is amazing stuff for itchy bites.
A large sized rat decided to move into our stove. Sigh. I can only imagine how nasty that sounds, but our stove seems to be like the Ramada Inn for rodents. We are constantly playing rat hockey, and our first morning back was no different. Kev made a spectactular move and well, no more rat. Of course, last night I heard another one chewing on the wood in the playroom... a favorite location since the kids have all kinds of little plastic glittery bits and pieces that attract. So a full scale search will have to happen after breakfast. Our frig has all the usual artwork and pictures that you might expect with four kids. Unfortunately, these beautiful fun foam magnetic picture frames were taken over by cockroach "squatters." I kept squashing these tiny cockroaches, okay in the course of a morning probably 20 or so, which is odd since we normally have monster size roaches (as long as your little finger, at least they don't fly!) So the tiny version was both interesting and concerning. Big roaches mean they are coming in fully grown from the outside, while babies mean that your house has attracted a breeding clan and will shortly be totally infested. Urgh. Then I cleaned the outside of the frig and moved the foam frames to wipe behind them and out came 100 or so little roaches. AHHHHHHH! At least I found the nests. As always, Kev is ever vigilent on the ant front and seems to walk right back into the house already spraying from two cans of Doom at his hip. A good strategy since we had both big black ants hanging out en masse in the kitchen and tiny little black ants swarming over the sofa. Between dismantling multiple active spider webs (in the house), destroying tons of cotton candly like egg sacs, and crushing the random scorpion or two we are slowly reclaiming our living space. The food we bought for the next 6-8 weeks has all been put away in safe tupperware containers or parboiled and frozen. The kids are happily re-organizing their toys and playing with their friends. I'm taking a deep breath and diving back into the daily ins and outs of making our home a safe and inviting place.
We've been challenged to try to carve out some time each day for further reflection on our time here and our relationship with God. Is this possible within the chaos of life? Sigh. Pray for us.

Rest

CSB is out on break, RMS (our small missionary kid school) is out for the summer and we are just fresh from a week long retreat/seminar focused on Repentance and Rest. I love the drive over the mountains. If we leave early enough in the morning, the monkeys are still gathered along the road as we drive through the pass that seperates Bundibugyo from the rest of the country. The kids gaze out the window searching for the black and white colubus monkeys, or their cousins.. the red tails. This time we also passed a large troop of baboons crossing the road. Each of them has a pointy face/snout that reminds me of a german shepard. Usually the biggest male snarls in a similar protective fashion as I remind the kids to roll up the windows as we pass. The road twists and turns, the vegetation is lush, the drop off the road severe (no guard rails!) and the view out over Congo breathtaking. There is always a bit of decompression that happens for me personally as we leave our home here and head back out to places with running hot water, soft beds, and yummy food prepared by other people. We pack our nicest clothes, even bathing suits and look forward to some time away from the daily grind of life here.
This time we headed a full day's drive to the other side of the country. A place we enjoy in Jinja called the Kingfisher. Our time there was both wonderful and deeply challenging. A time to grieve as we look towards all types of transition for our team in the near future. A time to process the many different tramas of this summer. So much has happened on the heels of each other that the opportunity to sit down, be quiet and just think brough forth a deep wealth of pain, and overwhelming exhaustion. We needed a safe place to process and safe people to process with. Three folks from World Harvest led us in week long counseling sessions that allowed us to begin to explore our time here in BGO, our relationships with our team, and our love for and intimacy with God. Wonderful and yet brutal as we examine our lives and take stock of where deep change needs to filter in.