Blessings of the ..... fleas?!?

This is crazy.  Absolutely crazy.

After waking up at Joel's mom & dad's house yesterday morning, Joel's dad sat him down & said, "I have to tell you about a couple things that happened while you were gone."  Joel immediately thought someone had died or another terrible thing had happened!  Fortunately it wasn't death, but it was bad.  Our house had been infested with fleas.

When we left for Africa in June, a great friend & neighbor, Jess, asked if she could help out with anything while we were gone.  She was so sweet, "I just don't want you guys to worry about anything while you're away!  We'll watch after your house."  So I asked her to feed our cat every day or so  while we were gone.  Little did she know.....

Also, while we were packing up in June, our AC went out.  And while we were lugging totes down the stairs & out to the van, one of them bumped the thermostat off the wall... never to be found.  Seriously.  Still no idea where it went.

About a week after we left, it got super hot here - like 90's - 100's.  Without AC, and with the cat inside the house, and the incredible humidity.... apparently this is more than perfect conditions for flea breeding.  Jess wrote me an email saying our house was infested with fleas.  I didn't panic because I imagined she was overreacting & that there were a few fleas on the carpet or on the cat.  She didn't say much more over the weeks except to tell me she retreated the cat with flea medicine.  Thank you Jess!

The fleas were bad - as I learned yesterday.  And I have the best friends in the whole entire world.  And God has a sense of humor.... and a plan.  Always a plan.

They were so bad, Jess called it "flea popcorn."  I guess they were literally jumping up & down out of the carpet & she could see them in the sun rays - and they attacked anyone who entered the house.  Over the past month & a half, my self-less, wonderful friends, Jess, Shanna & Heather, along with my too-good-to-be-true Mom (Joel's mom), packed up everything in our house that was on the floor, moved it out to the garage, moved the furniture to hard floors & prepared for an exterminator .... twice.  They also washed all our bedding, pillows, toys, clothes, & put special things that they couldn't wash fleas out of (like all the kids' stuffed animals) in the freezer & then in the sun, freezer, sun.... to kill the live ones & burn out the eggs...  Not to mention coming to my house for two months to vacuum twice (TWICE) a day!  And dump the vacuum canister into clear plastic zip locks to monitor the flea epidemic.

When I was first told, I just cried.  Cried & cried & cried into Joel's shoulder.  Why would this happen? How?  I was so embarrassed & felt so terrible that my friends had to spend their summer this way.  And I cried because I was so thankful for them.  Who has friends like this?  We are so blessed.  So stinkin' blessed.
When I texted Shanna before getting home - I told her that Joel's parents had given us the news about the fleas... her response was unexpected & so perfectly what I needed to hear (hope you don't mind me quoting it, Shan)
"Oh my goodness Paula!!!  You have no reason to be embarrassed or upset or cry.  You have no idea the GIANT BLESSING that has come from all of this mess & how God has taught me about beauty in ashes!!  God is in complete control of even this!!  I love you so much PLEASE don't be upset or embarrassed!!!  But I do know you are so wasted tired & maybe a good cry was good for you :) "

When we got home, I was able to talk all about it with Shanna & Jess.  The blessings that have come are many.  And they are great.  Jess had been reading Corrie Ten Boone earlier this year & remembered the part about Corrie's sister thanking God for the fleas in the concentration camp... Corrie was astonished & didn't see the good in fleas.  Her sister pointed out that the fleas are what were keeping the guards out.  Months later, when Jess walked into our flea infested house, she remembered this story & wondered if God would make something good from the fleas.

Previously, this spring, we shared the difficult news with Shanna that we will be moving ... just down the road 10 minutes, but moving nonetheless.  It was really tough - we are sisters.  Our kids play together like siblings.  Shanna has been asking God to make good in this too - to surround her with hope & meet her needs for a good friend... she's been praying for the new neighbors who will eventually move into our house next door to her.

The fleas brought Jess across the street. She has a bunch of little girls.  The friendships that have grown between Jess & Shanna, as well as the kids in both homes .... miraculous.  Both friends said they wouldn't trade the flea epidemic for anything.  Is anything too hard for the Lord?  Gen. 18:14

The end.

We are home.  The planes, airports, schedules, 30 hours of traveling... it's over!  Our kiddos were absolutely incredible - they slept lots on the flights & they were troopers!  Strangest immediate thing for me getting back into the US was waiting at the airport in New Jersey & being able to fill up the kids' water bottles with water from a drinking fountain.  It felt so wrong and so comforting at the same time.  No more "worm egg water" as we called it :)

Our final days at Kibogora were bittersweet - honestly more sad than we had expected to feel.  We left a box of clothes, scrubs, shoes, etc... there so we can begin planning our next adventure back :)

I know that I didn't write as much as I usually do this time around - it was partly because I was busier during the days & dropped into bed exhausted at night.  It was also partly because I ran out of "interesting" things to share.  Somewhere in the midst of the adventure, life simply became life.  I stopped taking my camera along everywhere we went, stopped trying to document each activity, and ended up enjoying each moment, for the moment.  We met so many people with their own stories - amazing stories.  Many special friends.  And we are thankful.  So so thankful.

In thinking about how to answer the guaranteed question, "how was your trip?"  Joel & I both feel that the best part of the trip was watching & experiencing God answer our prayers in ways we didn't expect, answer prayers we didn't think about praying, and living in the blessings that we couldn't have imagined or dreamed up.  Anyone can do this.  It's not as difficult as lots of people think.  We are just a simple family from a small town in America.  Yes, there's poverty in Rwanda - tons of it - more than you can imagine.  Yes, there's bugs, geckos, dirt & filth, dangerous drinking water & a new language.  And there's also plenty of pain & heartbreak - lots of kids who have fathers that abandon the family, domestic violence, blocked dreams due to financial hardship....  much like our inner-cities & many young families here.

My favorite blessing... before we left in June, I prayed for God to send me a friend in Rwanda.  I imagined our trip very lonely for me - much like 4 years ago.  So I asked my big God, my father, who cares more about me than the flowers in the field or the birds in the air - I asked Him to send me a friend.  After the first week or so, He did!  And Josiane spent every day with us - she has a giggly personality, she plays with my kids like a child herself, she would sit & talk with me for hours - telling me her life story, asking questions about America, sharing culture, teaching me new words & traditions... she reminded me so much of my dear, precious friend back home.  I cried when we said good-bye last week.  She giggled so she wouldn't cry.  She called me Mommy.  She told Joel & I that we are her Mommy & Daddy.  Her family.  She said we showed her the love of a family & treated her like a daughter.  Her past is stained with memories of the opposite of family love.   She told us to greet our families back home, even though they don't know her, she wanted us to greet all of them - all of you.  She blesses God for this summer with us.  We bless God for this summer with her.  Sometimes it's easy to love.  Always - I am surprised by God's answers to prayer.

Half-Way-Through

Saturday, July 27, 2013

To all who have faithfully been checking in on our blog – and repeatedly finding nothing new – so sorry!  I don’t even have the excuse of poor internet!  Each day is full & ends with exhaustion.  Now Joel & I are enjoying a quiet Saturday evening – the kids are in bed, so I’ll try to catch you all up on our adventures here in Rwanda.  We have certainly been keeping busy over the past several weeks.  Hard to believe that August is only a few days away!  Honestly, I don’t know where to begin.  The days go by quickly & the weeks even faster. 

What is a day like?  Each morning the crickets’ chirping turns into bird songs to wake us all up between 5:30-6am.  We eat breakfast together as a family – a novelty for us!  Joel goes off to work at the hospital just ¼ mile away at 7:20am.  The kids & I clean up the house, make beds, deliver our laundry to the laundry man (on Mondays & Thursdays), tie up the mosquito nets, feed the rabbits our banana peels from breakfast,  read the Bible & pray for Joel as he is always facing medical challenges that push him to his knowledge & skill limit.  At 9am our friend, Josiane, comes to our house.  She is a nursing student (24 years old) who was desperately seeking a job to earn money so she could return to school in the fall.  Our missionary friend, Julie, introduced her to us & suggested that we hire her as a babysitter.  Consequently, I have made a great friend & we all look forward to seeing her every day!  More on her later.  We play together, take walks, clean, do small jobs that Julie has given us, etc… until lunchtime.  Josiane then goes back to her house & we eat lunch with Joel around 12:30.  Naptime for Lauren, & quiet rest time for Anna & Levi – I let them read books on their beds or choose to play a game on my phone during this quiet time.  Joel returns to the hospital at 1:30 or 2pm.  Lauren wakes up around 3pm and Josiane comes back at 3:30.  We have a snack of cookies & bananas or bread & butter before heading to the pediatric unit at the hospital.  We take the eggs from the chickens that we have hard-boiled & give them to the nurses.  Then we get to play with the kids until about 5 or 5:30.  We play with whatever is around – sometimes a kid might have a balloon, so we hit it around.  Other times we play more organized games like tossing bean bags onto a mat for points or races, or duck duck goose.  You may have seen, or even own, a bead necklace made of magazines…. We make the beads with the kids & moms down in peds!  This week we played jump rope a lot.  Josiane had made jump ropes with my kids, so we brought them to the peds unit to play & they loved it!  The nurse in charge of “play therapy” brought out a couple other jump ropes & after everyone warmed up to the idea, not only the kids were jumping, but the moms too!  The moms would throw their babies into another mom’s arms so she could have a turn jumping.  Once I even saw a mother jump with the baby still tied on her back!  (maybe that’s how the baby with the broken femur that Joel treated got hurt!?!)  And not just the kids & moms, but the nurses as well!  Any time a nurse walked by she would jump right in & take a turn.  There was a lot of laughing this week!  Levi was quite brave & tried to practice jumping every day, but my Annie, who prefers to have something perfected before trying it out in public, would bury her face in my skirt anytime someone tried to coax her to have a turn…  until Thursday.  On Thursday, Anna made up her mind to give it a try.  In front of a whole bunch of moms, kids & nurses, she tried jumping rope with either Josiane or me twirling at one end.  She didn’t get it right away & kept missing the jumps.  Everyone smiled at her & laughed, but I think she knew they just thought she was cute & weren’t making fun of her because she kept trying.  Pretty soon, she jumped 3 jumps in a row without messing up!  Everyone cheered for her!  It was sweet!  Before long, she was jumping for minutes & doing so well!  It took a lot of courage for her to do that & I’m so proud of her!  She loved it & told me she couldn’t wait to go back to the peds unit next week!

Back to our schedule – after we are finished playing at peds, we walk Josiane part of the way back to her house and then come home to see if Joel is home yet.  When he arrives, we eat dinner, then give the kids baths.  They really need a bath every night – it is the dry season here so everything is incredibly dusty!  The tub water is so dirty after baths that we can’t see the bottom.  We usually have to put Band-Aids on knees after baths because everyone has so many scrapes from falling on the thousands of hills & ruts everywhere we go.  It is pitch dark by 6:30pm…. Every day… all year long.  So it always feels later than it is – good because remember how the birds wake everyone up at 5:30am?  After baths, we may have time to play a game like “Go Fish” or occasionally watch a movie using the computer & a projector (last night we watched a couple Leave it to Beaver episodes), then it’s bedtime.  We have been reading books we have found in the school house here on the mission.  Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins…. After they are in bed, Joel usually has to read for his cases for the next day, or we play a game like Ticket To Ride with Julie & some other new friends who are here for a short time with us (Niall & Victoria – both medical students from the UK), or we just collapse into bed – exhausted from a long day of being stretched mentally & emotionally. 

The weather is pretty much perfect (though I really love the rainy season & those awesome storms!).  It is chilly enough in the morning for sweatshirts & sweatpants, but quickly warms up.  By 10am it is blazing hot in the direct sun – so we are usually in the shade until it begins to cool around 3pm.  Because the sun is completely set by 6:30, the sunset begins early & the cooler evening air begins to feel refreshing by 3pm.  Then evenings are cool – we are still comfy in t-shirts, but we all sleep under a couple heavy blankets at night. 

What do we eat?  I’m embarrassed to tell how easy we have it here – there is a wonderful man named Simeon who is our cook.  He makes yummy food that almost tastes like home.  A couple times a week he comes to me with a grocery list & the cost – I give him money, someone goes to the market (they know how to get fair prices) & then Simeon makes all our meals.  I thought about doing the cooking here – I really enjoy cooking at home.  But Simeon is employed by the mission & if there is no one to cook for, he is out of a job.  So having him cook for us helps him feed his family of 6 kids and it lets me do other things.  There is no convenience food here.  He makes everything from scratch – for all of you who love organic foods – this is your place!  If we ask him to make us a salad, he goes to the garden & picks the lettuce & carrots, bleaches them to make sure we don’t get sick & prepares a salad.  If we ask for soup, he makes a better than Campbell’s vegetable soup & potato soup… all from scratch.  We eat bread a lot – toast in the morning, sometimes sandwiches for lunch & bread with soup for dinner….. all of it has to be made in our kitchen.  He makes us tacos!  They are my favorite!  He makes the soft tortilla shells on the stove.  He even makes us pizza!  He loves it when he finds out how much we enjoy something he makes – he sometimes makes Levi extra French toast and serves it to him with a twinkle in his eye J  Simeon speaks about as much English as I speak Kinyarwandan…. So we smile & say thank you a lot.

We drink water.   We fill up pitchers of water from a slowly dripping filter connected to the sink, then we filter it a second time in a water filter on our counter.  Then we fill up plastic bottles to keep by the bathroom sink for brushing teeth & in the fridge for cold water to drink.  It’s not difficult.  And the kids have been really great about remembering not to swallow the bath water or water off a wash cloth or drink from the sink.  Joel has a few pictures of surgeries where he has had to remove long white worms out of the bellies of kids – those pictures convinced our kids not to drink the unfiltered water!

We have a beautiful view of Lake Kivu right out our back door.  We watch the fishermen out on their boats early in the morning & sometimes with torches on the boats at night to give light.  The lake is gorgeous!  It is down the mountain from us – it is probably a mile or 2 to walk down to the water – and the hills are STEEP.  But the mission owns a piece of property a few miles down the road.  It is a narrow peninsula into the lake & the land is called “Kumbya”.  We have been there several times on the weekends.  We can walk – but that’s challenging with Lauren still being too small to walk the whole way by herself.  We usually hitch a ride with Julie driving a car.  Once we took a boat!  That was pretty fun!  Kumbya is all natural – no one has farmed it – so it looks like Rwanda used to look before all the hills were turned into gardens & crops.  It’s very “jungly” and we see monkeys in the trees & lots of amazing birds.  There is a diving board & a raft that you can swim out to.  We have spent a lot of time in the water!  The kids love it of course! The water is crystal clear – and there are no alligators, hippos or other dangerous animals in the lake.  The lake does have schistosomiasis (something from snails that is treated with a pill when we get home) and methane.  The methane is probably what keeps it so clean…. But also occasionally lets out a methane bubble that can kill anything at water level (it’s happened 4 times in the past 10 years)…. I just try not to think about that!  Each year the missionaries from nearby African countries (Brundi, Congo, Uganda, Tanzania & Rwanda) have a week long retreat at Kumbya.  There’s a VBS program for the kids, Bible studies for the adults, lots of relaxing time, chapel speakers, etc… like family camp for missionaries.  This year’s retreat begins today!  So we are looking forward to a week of fun meeting other kids & families who live & serve in Africa.  We are going to go out to Kumbya for church in the morning tomorrow, pack a picnic lunch & swim in the afternoon.  There are cabins for each denomination to stay in, some families pitch tents & some stay here at the mission. 

 

So who is Josiane & what do we do all day together?  I already mentioned that she needed a job to help pay for nursing school – so she is our “nanny” while we are here.

She helps me out with the kids & I pay her less than $2 per day, for which she is super excited!  She teaches them how to make all the fun Rwandan toys like jump ropes out of twine, brooms out of twigs, balls out of plastic bags & shows them how to have fun building towers with small stones & making letters out of dried beans!  Last week she did build a fire in our backyard (twice!) – that totally made Levi’s day!  (did I mention we don’t have a fire pit?)  And she let the kids bring the bunnies out of the cage & play with them in the “fort” – in the woods…. And 2 of them ran off… luckily we found them with the help of a couple guys who had to crawl their way through the briars & thorns!  Having a “nanny” is something that I have definitely had to get used to.  For one thing, I don’t have a job to go to here, so I don’t actually need her to help me with the kids every day – I am very comfortable taking care of my children.  And for another thing, I don’t love what it says to everyone around me when we walk about in the village:  that I am a rich white woman who has hired someone to do all the work while I live my lazy life.  But what I do like about it is being able to help her out financially, having a translator wherever we go, and most of all, enjoying the company of a wonderful new friend – one who I can ask all my silly questions to about the culture & know I’m getting an honest response!  She is very comfortable in her role – and refuses to let me do anything.  She takes my bag off my shoulder & insists on carrying it for me.  When I wash Lauren’s way too dirty blanky in a bucket of soapy water, she takes it out of my hands & washes it herself.  When Lauren wants me to carry her on our walks, Josiane tries so hard to coax Lauren into letting her carry her – so far that hasn’t worked.  Lauren still prefers me J  A couple weeks ago, I had begun the daunting task of cleaning out the school house.  It was filled with dirt, mold, trash, dried out markers, broken crayons, disorganized books & buckets of gecko poop… all over the walls & on every single book.  When Josiane joined our morning routine, I had assumed that she would play with the kids while I continued my school house project.  That lasted about 3 seconds.  She ended up in the school with me, taking the sponge out of my hands, mopping as only a Rwandan can mop – with a squeegee, and helping me clean up the place.  There was definitely enough work to keep us both busy –so we brought in my phone & turned on some Taylor Swift Love Song (she liked it so much we listened to that song 100 times!)…. And after a few days, it was sparkling J  It was great to have a friend to work alongside.  And we both felt accomplished. 

On the days when we aren’t cleaning or working together on a project, I occasionally will be able to do something that I haven’t done before.  With Josiane watching the kids, I went to work with Joel for a morning – got to watch surgery, meet the operating room staff, round on his patients with him & meet the nurses.  It was so good to see what he does every day & to see the reality of the hospital conditions.  In the post-surgery room, where Joel rounds on his 72+ patients, there are maybe 30 beds in the woman’s ward & 30 in the men’s ward.  These are not private rooms – they are in a room full of beds – and many times there are 2 patients to a bed!  When the doctor comes in to round on the patients, the room gets so quiet & all eyes are on Joel.  They are waiting for their turn when he will come & ask them questions, inspect their wounds & tell them what to do.  Most of them are there for weeks on end – sometimes months.  In the states, patients will be discharged with instructions on how to care for their surgical wound & how to take their medicine.  Here, the patients would return to a home miles and miles away, in a dirty environment where keeping the wound clean is nearly impossible…. And they may or may not understand how to take meds, or may sell them, or may stop taking them too early.  So they remain in the hospital until they are well.  Their families stay with them & sleep in the patients’ beds or on the floor.  The family is responsible for feeding the patient.  I was so excited to recognize several of the children who play with us at the pediatric unit – they were in the post-surgery room.  Some of them are recovering from surgery but remain in the hospital, though they are well enough to walk around & play.  Others are waiting for surgery.  Josiane, the kids & I brought some books to the nurses for them to give to those kids who have to be there for a long time and have nothing to do during the long days. 

There are a couple other things I have been able to do while having a babysitter for the kids.  Julie invited me to watch a C-section .  That was pretty amazing.  I haven’t ever witnessed a birth, outside of my own 3 kids – and that doesn’t really count.  Julie is a NICU nurse & so great at her job!  She let me help her out in the nursery/NICU.  I got to put on gloves & tie the umbilical cord tight with string & trim it up after delivery.  It was fun going with Julie to show the waiting Dad his new baby.  He had been too afraid to be in the delivery room of the c-section.  He was so excited!

Just yesterday, I was invited to go on a community visit with the palliative care team.  5 of us piled into a pick-up truck with a driver (he made 6).  We drove about 45 minutes away from the hospital (on rutty, incredibly bumpy roads)  to visit a man named John who had had an accident & been confined to a wheelchair.  He was in his 30’s & lived in a house that Kibogora had purchased for him – as it would be impossible for him to continue to live up in the mountains in a wheelchair.  The house was a cement room where he sold salt, sugar, spices, etc… with a small side room for him to sleep in – dirty, messy sheets, but at least a mattress.  His mother lived with him & she slept in a tiny closet room on the cement floor with a blanket.  They had a kitchen behind the “shop” which consisted of a tree & a hole in the ground with a grate to cook on.  There was a room with a toilet & another room with chickens & rabbits.  The mother had 10 children & John is the only one left alive.   So the social workers & physical therapists who had come to visit examined him, chatted with him about cleanliness & about his shop & prayed with him.  We spent the rest of the day having meetings with health center officials, the sheriff & his secretary…. All trying to figure out how to finance John’s care.  Oh, and did I mention that everywhere we went, a crowd of kids followed us & congregated around …. They were so excited to see a white person.  I guess we were out in the sticks far enough that many of them had not seen a white person before.  They wanted  to touch my skin & got so embarrassed & laughed when I smiled at them.  Every time we entered a new building for another meeting, they children would peer through the windows & stare at me.  And as we drove home, people called out “mazungu!!!” (white person) the whole way!  We have gotten pretty used to the term.  People shout it to us everywhere we go – and when we are driving, crowds congregate to watch the white people drive by.  It’s always like a 1 car parade.  They scream out for us to toss water bottles to them (we do if we have any). 

 

Sunday, August 04, 2013

 

So a week has past & I’m still trying to finish this…. We have been busy!  Each day this week Joel went to the hospital in the mornings & the kids & I went with Julie to Kumbya for the retreat activities.  The kids enjoyed a really super VBS that was put on by a youth group from the UK who did a short term mission trip to serve the missionaries J The adults spent time in praise & worship, listened to a teacher from the UK and then spent the rest of the morning in small groups.  It was probably one of the most inspiring weeks of my adult life.  There are so many humble, wonderful, ambitious, hard-working, dedicated…. And just kind… people who have lived in Africa for years & years. Most of the families were training pastors, some were starting schools, there was a midwife, someone from World Relief,  one woman worked in artisans & small buisnesses.  Joel was the only doc and he was able to join in the community occasionally in the evenings.  One night was “skit night” – and it was a blast to see all these missionaries let their hair down & be sooooo crazy & fun!  It was fun to watch them be so obviously comfortable & relaxed in a way that they most likely aren’t able to be at  home in their work among Rwandan folks.  That night Joel was still working when we left.  But he decided to come anyway.  After work, he walked out to Kumbya.  Alone.  In the pitch black dark night.  He used his phone as a flashlight part of the way!  Generally, it is very safe around here.  I wouldn’t be out walking alone after dark, but Joel was fine.  We were so happy to see him, even though there were only 3 skits left!

Josiane came each afternoon, after Lauren’s nap.  We still went down to peds this week.  A few days, we found the ladies & kids rolling beads out of magazine strips.  We learned how to do it & made a few beads.  It was pretty cool knowing that some of those necklaces are sold in Grand Rapids! 

 

We all walked Josiane home a couple days this week.  Joel was with us one night & we walked her all the way to her house.   She is renting a room in the home of a family.  There are a few other nursing students renting rooms in this house as well.  We have been to her house several times now.  You walk in through a skinny wooden door & down a very, very narrow hall made of mud brick walls.  The floor is dirt.  On the right is a doorway that you have to step down 2 steps to enter. There are often a couple little kids squished onto those steps playing with their teddy bear & his plastic bag dress.  Josiane shoos them away & lets us into her apartment.  It is a tiny cement room that we can all barely fit in.  Maybe 8 x 5 feet.  She has 4 chairs that we can sit around & our knees touch each other.  Her kitchen is in this same room.  It consists of a pile of dishes & pots on the floor in a corner, a cooker (electric, I think & the circular size of 1 pan) for her to cook rice & potatoes on (the floor), a bar of soap & a dish pan.  The family is fortunate to have a running water spigot that is located outside near the cows, goats & chickens. She has another room, same size, that is her bedroom.  It has a mattress on the floor with a blanket & mosquito net.  Her clothes are hung on the wall on nails & her shoes are piled in the corner.  She has hung up curtains on her tiny bedroom window & her door window.  It is a little shocking the first time seeing a home like this.  When we cleaned out the school house, she took a broken mirror I had thrown away out of the trash & asked if she could keep it.  This is actually better than the norm for most people in Rwanda.  They have running water & electricity – sometimes.  The “dad” of the house she is renting is actually employed by Kibogora mission as a cook.  Working on the mission or at the hospital is a coveted job.  It pays the best around here – even though most of the time the government hasn’t paid the hospital, so the hospital can’t pay the workers. 

This week, while sitting in Josiane’s house, playing with a small box of Legos that I gave her from the school house (again, going to just toss them!), she said, “I’ll be back in 3 minutes.”  And she ran out of the house.  When she came back 15 minutes later, she carried a long stick of sugar cane!  The kids had been asking her that day about sugar cane & how we could get it at the market.  She had told us we could go to the market tomorrow… and now she surprised us with it!  She had run down the road to the market to find this for us!  She got out a knife & showed us how to cut it & how to eat it… and how to grow it.  This woman is incredible.  She is one of the most generous people I have known, ever.  And she lives in poverty that I can’t understand.  She reads the Bible verses we have taped to our porch window that we are learning & reminds us everyday that “My help comes from the Lord!” (from Psalm 121:1-2).  She comes from a family where dad left or died a long time ago & mom is farming to put the kids through school.  She doesn’t want to get married yet because she wants to be able to become a nurse to help her mother using her nursing salary.  She says a Rwandan husband may not allow her to help her mother.  Selfless.  Appreciative.  Humble.  Beautiful. 

She has also acted as a missionary of sorts to our kids.  When we go to peds, it’s a difficult balance between understanding that this is totally out of Levi, Anna & Lauren’s comfort zone – while trying to include them in a “fun” time of interacting with sick kids & let them experience this reality.  The reality for them is quite a bit of fear.  They can’t speak with anyone there, the nurses are quite “grabby” & try to hold them or tease them, the mothers laugh at them, the kids stare at them.  Josiane has been a blessing time & again.  She is able to draw them in, play with them on the side until they are comfortable to play with the group…. She does with them what I do with the Rwandan kids.  It has been an amazing reverse in what you’d expect.  God has given us a small “team” so that it’s more enjoyable for everyone. 

I guess this has all been about the kids & I…. Joel’s job is intense & usually unbelievable.  Sometimes it’s not so different from Kentwood J  in Kentwood, he gets  called to treat shotgun wounds in the middle of the night.  Here he is called to treat machete fight wounds in the middle of the night.  There are too many infections caused by bad hygiene, blood infections, malnourishment….. too many broken bones that don’t have the option of an orthopedic surgeon…. too many nurses who don’t speak good enough English to understand his orders, but too afraid to ask for clarification; results: poor treatment.  But God knows all about it.  He knows.  He knows.  He knows.  “Know that the Lord your God is God. He is the Faithful God; keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations, to those who love him & keep His commands.”  Deut. 7:9

 

“My sheep listen to My voice.  I know them & they follow Me.  I give them eternal life & they shall never parish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.”  John 10:27-28

 

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”  2 Chron. 20:12

 

Every day that we are here, the easier it becomes to imagine living here.  We see the needs & it is apparent where our place is in them.  We are about to return home to Michigan in a little less than 3 weeks – to a place we love, friends & family we love.  A job that Joel loves & residents he enjoys teaching so much.  We are beginning to feel, more & more, the back & forth pull of both worlds.  In one moment we are dreaming up plans for our new house in Byron Center…. Reading emails from the kids’ new principal & planning for school.  The very next moment we are planning a nice spot for a flower garden out the back door of this house, planning on how we could make a welcome team to orient the many different visitors who enter the revolving door of Kibogora….how to make the operating room more efficient…   We love both.  So much.

We will not pray for clarification – but trust.  I can’t even begin to imagine the creative way God will work this out & we don’t need to know.  It will be a surprise anyway – that’s how it always is!

We love you all!!!

Blessings!

Paula

 

 

Our pantry... a branch of bananas, pineapples, cleaning buckets..... & Lauren's favorite room :)

 

 

 

 

Heading to the market.  We bought some fabric from this store & had some tailors make dresses for the girls & shorts for Levi. 

 The adorable girls who followed along with the white people on our adventure walk. 

 At Kumbya we often see this "Kite" bird.  It resembles a golden eagle... I'm not convinced it's not a golden eagle.

 The instant parade of children who follow us wherever we go!

 

 

A shot of the hospital from the back.

 

 

The beginning

Notice: this post is out of order, just found a way to get it from the laptop to online :)  Just a flashback to the first couple of days of the journey.   

 

July 1, 2013 - Monday

We have arrived in Rwanda safe & sound!!!  We arrived on time about 8 pm (that is 2pm Monday at home).  All of our 10 bags were waiting for us at the airport – not a small miracle!!!!  If you’re familiar with 3^rd world airports, you might remember the crowd of 100’s standing behind the barricade, peering at you just outside of customs.  Among those faces we spotted our friend, Silas, holding a sign that read “Kibogora Hospital” waiting for us.  We piled everything into his pick-up and drove to the Good News Guest House” where we spent our first African night.

 

The clean beds were such a welcome sight to us after flying all day, all night, all day.  To all of us except Annie, who experienced her first of many tears over the differences we will notice being away from home.  She was longing for her own bed.  We all slept great under mosquito nets – Levi pretended his was a sailboat, Lauren’s was a princess bed & Anna’s was a tent J

 

July 2, 2013 - Tuesday

Our flight was terrific – considering everything.  There were plenty of kid movies to keep ours happy & we all dozed a bit here & there.  When we arrived in Brussels, we were just the right balance of rested/tired to be effectively cranky & impatient – and apparently forgetful.  After walking half-way to our next gate we realized we had left a carry on bag on the plane!  Not just any old bag with stories & teddy bears, but the box containing the endoscope!

 

Joel took Lauren & ran back to the plane exit gate, leaving me with Anna & Levi in a giant chaos of lines & mobs of people speaking… not English.  20 minutes later he came running, left Lauren & grabbed his passport & said something like “this will be a miracle if it works!”  Then he ran off.

 

We waited & waited… I couldn’t look at a clock because it would have made me panic about missing our next flight.  Eventually he came back with the endoscope & a new security guard friend, Fabrice.  He had been on a goose chase through the bowels of the airport, bypassing several security check points, running through metal detectors, skipping to the front of lines miles long & racing back to us so we could just make it to the next flight.  Now you know Joel likes to point out that he is the only one in our family who has actually been to Belgium since he had to technically leave the airport & go through customs… they even gave him a stamp in his passport!

 

Many thanks to Fabrice (Fabreez) who made a stinky situation much fresher J  And all glory to our Big God who knew just where that box was the whole time!!!

 

 

July 4, 2013 - Thursday

Tuesday morning we piled back into Silas’ white pick-up (a Toyota…. Sorry Dad!).  Joel in front with Silas, the kids & I packed in the back with all the carry-on bags… no buckles, no carseats.  This began the 5 hour trek to Kibogora.  We stopped briefly at the bank in Kigali to exchange money.  As we drove out of the city, I pointed out to the kids all the different sights – there is a constant stream of people walking along the road (in the country & city).  We noticed banana trees, mud houses, gas stations, babies tied to their mothers’ backs, women carrying baskets of tomatoes on their heads, baskets of logs on their heads, baskets of pineapple on their heads … there were a few beggars – a man with 1 leg, dressed in rags with no teeth, and red dirt roads all over the hills.  The road to Kibogora is now paved the whole way – a huge relief from the old dirt, pot holed roads that used to be.  There are still many, many potholes, and crazy semi-truck drivers that cruse around the sharp mountain curves coming toward you at top speed.  Our driver, Silas, is fabulous & pulled off the road to stop nearly every time a semi was heading toward us.  He told us that sometimes those drivers have “too much beer.”

 

Highlights of that trip include a half-way stop at a restaurant for a chicken dinner & bathroom break, seeing a few monkeys in the trees or on the side of the road along the way & stopping several times to let Lauren get out & pee on the side of the road – that was a sweet mini-rest for those of us who felt car-sick from all of those hairpin curves!  The street signs literally were a picture of the capital letter N with an arrow pointing up at the end…. That’s exactly how it felt – most of the way.

 

The kids were awesome!  Lauren slept a lot of the way, by the grace of God!  But the best highlight of the trip was turning into the driveway of Kibogora!!!  We were warmly welcomed by all of the men from the garage with hugs, handshakes, smiles & loads of help to carry all those 10 boxes of heavy luggage.  They took us to our new home away from home – it’s the coolest one in our opinion J  It goes by these names:  Snyder house, white house, Ogden house.  It has a breath-taking view of Lake Kivu right out the back windows.  We have cement floors & brick walls, a large living room with a piano & fireplace, a den for toys & books, a kitchen with a stove, microwave, small fridge & sink, a dining room, 2 bathrooms & 3 bedrooms.  Lauren sleeps alone while Levi & Anna share a room with 2 twin beds.  We are spoiled!  By no means are we roughing it – especially with hot showers & yummy food prepared by the hired staff here.  I don’t even mind the highway of tiny ants that runs from beneath our dining room table to the door after each meal – they carry out all of the crumbs that Lauren drops.  I don’t love the giant carpenter ants that crack when I squish them with my flip flop or that show up unexpectedly under boxes in hoards…

 

When I asked Levi yesterday “do you like Africa so far?”  he said “No…… I LOVE it!”  That’s a great sign J  He’s been in his heaven climbing trees, staying up past dark (it’s dark at 6:30), exploring everywhere & basically running free around the mission.  Anna has loved it as well – there are chickens here that we get to collect eggs from and feed, pigs to watch & throw food to, 2 dogs to play with, lots & lots of colorful birds to watch & the best part – bunnies.  Anna loves spending time in the bunny pen.  She sits there & feeds them leaves piece by piece, talks to them, pets them, and is just quiet with them.  She was sure she was going to sleep out there with them last night but then it got dark…. And it gets really dark here.  There are few lights on around the mission & pretty much none all over the community.  You can see a few fires flickering in the darkness across the lake, but otherwise it’s just plain dark.  Lauren has also enjoyed the bunnies, but maybe her favorite thing is a chameleon that is about as long as my thumb (from head to tip of tail) she loves to hold it & let it walk all over her (I actually love the thing too!  Adorable… just like Pascal on Tangled).  She also loves to watch Levi catch geckos & swing on the swing.  I’ve been spending my days playing with the kids, learning how to live here, how to have food prepared, laundry done, where is safe & easy to go to shop for little essentials (ie toilet paper) and treats (ie Fanta pops or cookies).  I’ve been spending a lot of time with the missionary wife who has been here for a year.  Her name is Linda & her husband is Tim Berg.  He is a surgeon from Texas & Joel will be taking his place until they return in September.  They have 4 teenage kids & it has been a great year – they are a gold mine of tips & help for us as we prepare for the next several weeks.  A huge blessing!!!!!!!  I only wish they could stay here with us or we could stay when they return – it has been an easy, fast friendship.  They leave Friday morning.

 

Joel started his first full day on Wednesday – it was quite a day!  He began at 7:30am, came home for a bite to eat at 2, returned at 3 & came home at 8pm.  It was emotionally exhausting – so much to learn & so much he doesn’t normally do in the US -  & physically exhausting as well; we are still getting over a bit of jet lag.  He did 4 surgeries (1.  right colectomy 2.  ORIF of a humerus fracture 3. drained a liter of pus out of an upper arm abscess  4.  EGD)  Hopefully every day won’t be as long, though it’s difficult to walk away at the end of a day knowing some people will wait for days to see the doctor.

 

When it rains here, it rains.  I love LOVE the rain storms here & am so happy we are catching the tail end of a rainy season.  Things are still green & lush & flowery… and the storms rock the earth.  We have had a couple huge thunder storms – they are short, but intense.  I love them!

 

This afternoon, after Lauren woke up from her nap & Joel was home, we took a walk to the market down the street – about a 15-20 minute walk.  One of the Berg’s teenage kids (Ruthie) took us there.  It was overwhelming for Anna.  Levi did amazing considering…. And Lauren rode in a backpack on Joel’s back (to the many laughs of the Rwandans who think it’s hilarious to see a man carrying a baby…. It’s just not done here).  There are hundreds of little shops all selling basically the same stuff:  fabric, Fanta, butter, cooking oil, potatoes, fish, produce, phone cards, etc…  But we definitely drew the crowd in.  We were surrounded in no time by LOTS of people – many, many kids, but lots of everyone!  They were absolutely friendly & just plain curious – as if characters from a movie just stepped into their neighborhood.  I held Anna as she tried to be so brave.  Levi just popped his gum & tried to shake hands & smile.  All the women wanted to hold Lauren & Anna.  For a treat we got the kids Cokes to share – but they are served in glass bottles that generally aren’t allowed to leave the tiny store – so we had to suck them down fast & head back before it got too dark.  I don’t think I’ll be attempting the market without Joel & probably a Rwandan friend along for the walk.  But it was encouraging to see how easily it was to find the kids in the neighborhood – all we have to do is step out into the street & they flock.

 

 

 

From Anna

Dear Nana & Papa & Grandma & Grandpa,

Africa is nice. I like to visit the bunnies.  And they had 4 new babies yesterday!  Some things are different here. The church is different here because there are benches instead of seats, and no kid's room. And the roads are not with pavement. Instead they are with red dirt. And there's a few cars. Most people walk.  We can't drink the water from the sink but we can drink the filtered water from the jugs in the fridge. There's a jug in the bathroom with clean water & we put it in cups to brush our teeth. And we brought our own toothpaste. I have my own bed & I share a room with Levi. And the other thing that's different about my bed is I have a mosquito net. I like the net because it's cool.
I like watching the pigs & butterflies. I saw a blue & black butterfly. A bright blue & black one!  The birds have beautiful noises. I saw a turocco. A turocco is a very beautiful bird!  It has red wings and a purple body and a yellow face.
In the afternoons we go to the hospital. We play with the boys & girls. They are black and some girls even have short hair. And mostly all of them have almost bald hair. We can't talk to them very well because they speak another language.   We just say "hi" and color pictures & play games and one time we did a race too.
There are 2 dogs here and they are mostly nice but one ate my shoe last night. Their names are umoonyou (salt) and urucinda (pepper).
I miss Gheera & Meeko but I'm not ready to come home today - maybe tomorrow.

I love you!
Love,
Anna

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

In the States we find comfort that if something medical really has to be done, it will be done.  The Rwandan people don't have that luxury. If something medical has to be done & there isn't a qualified person to do it at the  nearest hospital, then options quickly dissolve. Most everyone is too poor to be transferred - that translates to paying for transportation, hospital stay, bringing along the family to feed & care for them, not to mention being 6-8+ hours away from home & being out of work for extended amounts of time.  So there are times when it is required that the doc here at Kibogora has to make the difficult call to transfer a patient, deny a patient, or just try. 

Today Joel chose to try. 

It was a case he has not been trained for .... He's read 15 chapters about it in the past couple days & today prayed hard knowing he is completely inadequate but that God's grace is completely sufficient.  And it was a success!  The operation was on a young man with a broken arm. Both ulna & radius were broken & misaligned.  It wouldn't be enough to just put a cast on it because it would have healed improperly & the man wouldn't have been able to rotate his arm - an important ability in a culture where everyone does  manual labor to feed the family.  Joel needed to place pins through the bones. He literally made a cut at the elbow & at the break, then used an awl to bore through the bone into the marrow.  I'm sure this is common for ortho surgeons, but joel reports it was tougher than he imagined it to be to get that awl through .... And several times he was afraid he had bored right through the other side of the bone, instead of into the marrow.   When they saw the rod poke through the marrow at the point of the break he did a celebration dance in his heart!  The final x ray showed the pins perfectly placed.  This will hopefully translate into a functional arm for the young man in the future.  Glory to God for His grace for our inadequacies! 

Also today was a baby who had an abscess on his eye that needed draining, a 7 year old with a horrible abscess on his hand to be drained, a man whose hand abscess had gone too far & Joel had to amputate his finger....  he's done over 20 cases in this first week. 

The kids & I had fun down in the pediatric unit this afternoon. Our new friend,  Yasmine, is from the UK & is a peds nurse volunteering nearly the exact length of time we are.  We joined her in going down to play with those kids who are stuck at the hospital for weeks on end - sometimes there just because their sibling is sick. So we sang silly songs with them, played ring around the rosey, duck duck goose & tried to learn a few names.  They had a lot of fun & so did we!  

Monday, July 8, 2013

Monday, July 8, 2013

Today was a little tougher. Joel is feeling a bit lost at the hospital. The procedures aren't like they are in Grand Rapids - he may not be notified of a new patient waiting to be seen until hours after they have arrived, the operating room light hasn't been working since last Wednesday, communication is difficult, there are nearly 50 patients to round on daily (he's the only surgeon), there are many orthopedic cases that he faces with very limited training in ortho - so he spends extra time reading up on what to do, and things just go more slowly in general.  But .... He is enjoying being here - there are so many ways he is able to bring relief!  The other day a 10 year old boy came in with a bowel obstruction ... After exploring his belly, Joel pulled out a whole bowl full of worms!  Disgusting. But it's the result of normal living & just drinking water that isn't clean.  There's a little baby at the hospital now with a bowel obstruction, a 50 year old lady who had a box dropped on her ankle while at work & the bones were sticking out of her skin, another lady fell while carrying her baby tied to her back - the baby's femur is broken. .... And on & on.  He actually just walked in the door ( at 9pm) - was called in during dinner to fix a 4 year of whose colon turned inside-out.  He's tired - still trying to get enough sleep, get up before the kids to have a moment to pray & prepare before the day begins, and then work a full day while being on call every night.  I don't know how the guy before us (Dr. Tim Berg) did it for a whole year by himself .... And he's returning for several more years!  God gives grace... And not a moment early. 

The kids & I have been passing the time playing with the bunnies (kept here as food for pediatric malnourished kiddos), playing with Greenie, the tiny chameleon (hopefully he makes it through the night after Lauren squeezed him all day with love!), watching the pigs who eat up the trash & feeding the chickens (whose eggs we hard boil and deliver to the peds center (again, for the malnourished kiddos). We have explored the old school house that is here & found a bunch of great books to read. We are reading the first Hardy Boys story together during the day & at bedtime. (Ultra spiritual, I know).  We take walks around the neighborhood - about once a day - it's a lot of stress on all of us to be stared at constantly. This morning we took a bag of beads & elastic string out to the entrance of the mission & made bracelets & necklaces with whoever walked by. We ran out of beads after about 1 hour - and we were too hot; Lauren's cheeks were flushed bright red from being in the  direct sun. It was fun - a whole spectrum of people found it fun to bead!  Little old ladies, teen boys, moms with babies on their backs, hospital workers, kids - everyone!  

The kids are a big hit :)  we get so many belly laughs whenever any of them speak, especially Lauren. 

Better get some sleep!  Keep praying for Joel's strength, grace & favor. And pray the kids & I find a good place to be useful. 

Love love!!!!

Internet Spotty

Sorry we haven't been able to keep up .... Just got this Internet yesterday.
To say Internet is spotty is understated. There really isn't any Internet at all at the mission & pretty much none at hospital either. We bought a great unlimited plan for an "unlocked phone" that the family before left for us to use - basically 3G so I might be able to keep up via phone.


We are doing well - the kids are loving it. Can't keep Levi out of trees or Anna out of the bunny pen.... Or peel the poor chameleon out of Lauren's hands :)

Joel worked a bit more than 12 hours Wednesday & again today. A bit tough for me. Crazy stuff he is not used to. He reads up on how to do the surgery before he heads in to actually do it!  Worms, broken bones, bad abscesses .... ick.

We are taking it slow .... Exposing the kids to the "village" (as Levi calls outside the mission) little by little. Anna is already done with the crowds & strangers pulling her out of my arms & calling her a baby. Our american friend & the one who runs the mission, Julie, returns on Wednesday so maybe we can go with her more often. I can't really carry Lauren & Anna at the same time. They do love to go to the nearest duka for cokes :)


Will keep you posted. Thanks sooooo much for all your prayers - I should be more stressed out or freaked out than I am ;)

I love you!!!!!
P

The Journey Begins

Off To Africa....

 

 

 

 

Hooray!  The day of departure has arrived!  Today we are heading across the ocean to Rwanda with our family.  Joel will be working at a rural hospital, serving the beautiful people at Kibogora Hospital.  The kids & I will be spending the days playing with kids, making crafts, cooking, cleaning & enjoying summer.

 

Between now & when we arrive at the hospital we face quite a journey ahead of us.  We will be on 3 different airplanes, arrive in the dark & make our way to a guesthouse for an overnight, then travel by car through the mountains for a 3-6 hour ride along the dirt, dusty, bumpy, hair-pin-curvey road.

 

We covet your prayers :)

 

The few weeks leading up to this trip have  already been filled with the blessings of our BIG God. 

 

Joel prayed a peace-giving prayer over our family this morning - May our Father be with us & ahead of us as we fly on the wings of the dawn & settle on the far side of the sea. 

 

We love you all!

Happy Easter Today!