tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82262286828106490652024-03-14T04:32:20.213-07:00Walking with the WashburnsLife in PeruUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger222125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-41616177125460330082016-04-11T14:55:00.000-07:002016-04-11T15:02:11.928-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Hannah's 4th Birthday</span></div>
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Time is going at an incredible pace these days. I feel like life is a blur. It was so hard to believe this past week was Hannah Lynn's 4th birthday. Our little ballerina enjoyed her dress up station made by mommy just so special for her. Far cry from last year's birthday. I still had that darn line in my arm. So grateful to celebrate her life a little differently this year. Just enjoying the moments. So blessed to have our sweet girl in our life. What a light she brings to the world. My dearest Hannah, may you love God with all your heart and share His love with everyone.<br />
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Thanks to everyone who called, gave gifts and sent cards. She loved every bit of it. Sorry to all who called on her birthday and did not get a hold of us. My phone crashed the night before so it took me a day or so to get a new one.<br />
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Funny fact. I made all four layers of that cake, gave Hannah a bite and she promptly told me that she did not like it - then asked for a chocolate one. Really? Well sure sweet heart I guess I will make cupcakes too :)</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-10901812675454298752016-03-11T21:30:00.000-08:002016-03-11T21:31:23.459-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Last Year In Speed Review</span></div>
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It was a year ago today that I was sitting in the hospital
here in West Plains and wondering if I would ever leave it. Everything had been
completely normal the days before going into the hospital, and as a matter of
fact I had spent the previous three days shoveling our very long drive way
which had gotten over a foot of snow – and yes, I was 27 weeks pregnant. I
KNOW, I KNOW what you’re thinking – that’s crazy – and it may have been but I
have actually done crazier things during pregnancy. I moved to Peru at 30 weeks
pregnant with Hudson, and moved back to the US when I was about 7 weeks
pregnant with Taylor. You would think the move back to the US would have made
things easier and actually it may have just saved my life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We left Peru in October of 2014 to come back to the States.
We came back early from our “to be” three year commitment which actually only
ended up being a year and half sadly. It
was an emotionally, physically and spiritually tough time on us. Our kids were
sick – but not just sick – really sick. Everyone has been asking and it has
taken me this long to answer, ridiculous, I know. We went through a battery of
tests to figure out why our youngest two kids seemed to be wasting away before
our eyes. From the minute we got back home we spent the next month off and on
at the Children’s hospital in Denver. For over two months our 16 month old completely
stopped eating solid foods. Our kids looked sickly and pale when we returned.
Hudson christened quite a few rooms in my in-laws house with vomit. He had been
throwing up for two months. I remember buying our tickets in August to leave
Peru in October and it just couldn’t have come any sooner. We were wrestling
with getting visa stuff through and just couldn’t leave any quicker even though
my heart wanted to for my children. What was even more frustrating was not
being able to find out what was wrong with them when we got back. The doctor we
were working with was great, and had been following our case closely. He
believed we were probably dealing with something environmental and he actually
recommended we come back from a medical stand point because our kids had fallen
so far under the growth curve that they were not on it anymore and he believed
it would take a year or more for them to start to return back to normal. Little
did we know how accurate he had been with that assessment. They found all kinds of inflammation in the
kids’ intestines. They did blood tests, genetics testing, endoscopies – you name
it- we probably did it. Only to find no direct cause and my youngest was still
throwing up everywhere, and not eating solids. Only time would tell. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We found out we were pregnant with Taylor about a month or
so before we left. I was excited – excited to be back where I could have access
to all kinds of yummy “craving” foods. Not once did it cross my mind that this
pregnancy would be my hardest – I mean I did deliver one baby in Peru, and how
could you top that story. Things started going awry though in the midst of
getting all the testing done on the kids. We were SO spent. So emotionally,
physically and spiritually just drained, and then I started bleeding. I cannot
describe what kind of crazy thoughts went through my mind at that point. We thought we were losing the baby. I could
not believe that we had moved countries, changed up our entire life to follow
what we clearly knew God wanted us to do and then this. This was probably an all-time
low for me. More cramping, more bleeding
and NONE of this had happened with any of my other pregnancies. The timing
could not have been worse. We were still living with family and on top of that
we had the director of the hospital from Peru actually visiting to do some
fundraising and everyone had to know what was going on (this is just not
something you feel like announcing to the world especially as it is happening).
All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sink down into a hole. True
story. That’s the closest we have ever
come to losing a child – and those emotions were raw, painful and terribly
real. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the middle of ALL that- trying to figure out what was
going on with our kids and possibly losing Taylor we were trying to figure out
just where God wanted us in the States – and again this was another emotionally
exhausting decision. Stay in CO with family or move back to MO? Tough. We were
driving back and forth from CO to MO to look at what they had to offer – which was
totally MISERABLE. I wish I would say I was one of those cute, bubbly, pregnant
women who never ever got morning sickness, but if I told you that I would be
doing an injustice to my husband who extends loads of grace to me during
pregnancy. I felt like I was going to lose my stomach every five minutes on
those 12 hour car rides to MO and absolutely nothing made it better. With all
the other pregnancies I had had trouble with UTIs and actually had one when we
returned, but of course that did not seem like a big deal then – BUT it would
be later. I was measuring really big, which isn’t totally abnormal for having
three going on four kids, but John was worried and I could see it in his face. I
was still sick which was a good sign, pregnancy-wise, and in-between trips we
got an ultrasound to find out what was going on with Taylor. It was such a relief to see that ultrasound
and that little baby bouncing around. No twins, and everything looked okay. So
strange. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On Thanksgiving Hudson ate three grapes – and we were going
around telling every family member how excited we were that he ate three grapes.
It was the first solid food he’d eaten in months! Poor guy was so
miserable. Hannah was feeling terrible
too and originally that is why we came back the first time in May of 2014, but
before we left Hudson’s health took a drastic turn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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December came. I was still pregnant, which was exciting and
nerve racking all at the same time. We felt we were being called to MO and not
CO which was incredibly difficult. We packed up our things at the end of
December and moved one snowy day to our home here in MO. We had no family
living here and just a couple of friends. John and I have never backed down to
adventure but this was going to get interesting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It was a year ago today that I woke up to a terrible pain on
my left side. I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. Never once
had anything like this happened with the other pregnancies and I tried not to
let my mind wonder to the possibilities – which wasn’t too hard because I was
in an incredible amount of pain. I literally could not get out of bed – I tried
and fell to the floor. Immediately I called John because I thought I would have
to get an ambulance. He raced home, got the kids in the car, and we raced to
the hospital. Tests confirmed I had a
kidney stone – no big deal right? –WRONG. Having had two kidney stones now I
can confirm I would rather go through childbirth ten more times. The good news
was that it was only a kidney stone and Taylor looked great on the monitor.
They gave me a bunch of pain medication, but I was running a really high fever
as well so they sent off some blood cultures and started antibiotics. As the
night wore on, still waiting for the stone to pass, I started to feel funny.
The pain medications had helped quite a bit but my whole body started going
numb, and of course this happened during the 20 minutes John had to leave my
side to drop off clothes for the kids. I started having trouble breathing and
even talking. My face looked like I had had a stroke. I was having an allergic
reaction to one of the many pain meds I was on. I can now say I have
experienced epinephrine via IV, not just the EPI pen, and let me tell you –
that is an experience I will never forget. Turns out I was having an allergic
reaction to a pain pill that continued to dilute in my body throughout the
night which led to more epinephrine throughout the night. It was super fun –
SUPER fun. I then started to have contractions, probably put on by just plain
stress, which complicated things. Over the next couple of days I ran a very
high fever with chills like I had never experienced, and we discovered that my
body was going septic - I had infection in my blood but from what? We had to
get a CT done to discover I had an abscess in my kidney. The UTI I had had in
October apparently was not taken care of by the antibiotics I had been given in
CO and eventually festered into an infection in my blood, developing into an
abscess on my kidney. I can remember
being in the hospital barely being able to move from sheer exhaustion. I
eventually left the hospital after a week, but had to be on IV antibiotics due
to having an infection that was resistant to nearly every antibiotic tested –
that part was so tough. I took IV antibiotics every 6 hours for 6 weeks before
I delivered Taylor and another 4 weeks after I delivered her. I returned home
but couldn’t do anything – I could not even change a diaper. I could not administer
my own antibiotics. I could not even walk to my own kitchen without feeling
like I had just run a 400m dash, huffing and puffing. We were so blessed to
have my sister-in-law and her mother come and take care of the kids for a few
weeks (who dropped everything to come and help when I went into the hospital)
and then my mom and my dad (who stayed for another 5 weeks). We could not have
made it without the friends and family who brought by food, took the kids for
the weekend, and offered to come by and run my antibiotics. We had only been
attending church for about a month and still so many people reached out to help
us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We spent the next days and weeks monitoring the abscess on
my kidney. We had to go to Springfield to consult an infectious disease doctor.
Some docs wanted to drain the abscess and some didn’t, but I was pregnant so
that complicated everything. In the end they decided to do IV antibiotics until
the abscess went away or until after I delivered Taylor for safety reasons. You
cannot really do IV antibiotics for very long before your veins just cannot
handle the poking so eventually I had to have a picc line put in my arm which
was easier to use but painful and it really freaked people out because it was
visible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The rest of my pregnancy was rough. I failed my glucose test
the first time and had to do the 3 hour test and barely passed that one. I started
to develop preeclampsia, with high blood pressure and I started seeing spots.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We had a healthy baby girl born May23rd, the day after Caleb’s
birthday. What an answer to so many prayers. Despite a septic blood infection,
an allergic reaction and a kidney stone and abscess, we had a healthy baby
girl. We are still so grateful. God is good.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Four days after I delivered Taylor, I went into the hospital
for another week with another septic blood infection and kidney stone #2. We spent our anniversary in the hospital
running a 104 degree fever. So this was
a part of our vows 7 years before “in sickness and in health”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am finally feeling normal again. No picc line in my arm. I
can do my own laundry, play with our kids and make my own dinner. I am so
incredibly grateful to have experienced another year. I did not deserve it but
God is good. His timing is perfect. We came home from Peru 18 months ago
because our kids were sick but little did we know what was in store for me and
for Taylor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Our kids are doing so much better. At about the one year
mark we noticed the kids have started growing again. With confidence we can say
they are actually gaining weight. If you have met either of us, you know our
kids will never be big people, but they are growing and for that we are
grateful. So what was the cause of the
kids’ illness? We still don’t know for sure, but months after we left we read
an article about dangerously high levels of arsenic and E. coli in the water in
Arequipa – the same city we had done language school in Peru for 9 months. We
will never know what happened or why, but we know that God always has us in his
hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We want to say a special thanks to everyone who has helped
us this past year. We are so grateful for your sacrifice and friendship. We also want to thank our Lord Jesus for
carrying us through all of the good times and all of the difficult times. We
can do nothing without Him and through every experience come to know that we
can trust Him, even if we may not understand it during the trials that come. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-73261955705793355032014-09-18T20:14:00.000-07:002014-09-18T20:14:41.917-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; text-underline: single;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">We Are Coming Home</span></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 5pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First, we’d like to thank everyone for your prayers and continued support of our family. We are so incredibly grateful to you all for everything that you’ve done for us and the Peruvian people. Here is an update. Please excuse the length and lack of pictures from this letter.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As many of you have read on our recent blog, we have had some medical issues in our family, especially with Hannah and Hudson over the last number of months. Hannah had started to gain weight, but now she is starting to “plateau” again and has started sweating, complaining about abdominal pain and does not want to eat again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have done a number of stool studies, but continue to have negative results.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hudson has also had some serious growth delay and even though neurologically he is meeting all milestones, he is severely underweight. We took him into the hospital a few weeks back and found that he has severe inflammation in his small intestines which explains why after just a couple of bites of food, he loses his appetite and starts to fuss. We tried to do stool cultures and an MRI, but have not come up with the cause for all of the inflammation. Due to the inflammation, he has little to no appetite and even though we give him anything that he’ll eat, he still has serious growth delay. In May, we noticed that he had dropped off the growth chart and now is even further behind the curve that he was on 4 months ago. In June, we got some limited testing done on him while we were in the US and found infections and figured that this was the cause. We treated him and he seemed to feel a little bit better…for awhile. At this point he was at the 1</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 6.06pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><sup>st</sup></span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"> % for weight (this means 99 out of 100 babies his age weighed more than him). But then starting in the beginning of July, he again was not acting right. With weekly weights, we have now found that he had gained only 3 ounces in the last 10 weeks. This put him somewhere around the 0.1 % range (999 out of 1000 children his age weigh more than him). The most concerning part about this all was that he didn’t get better with antibiotics and he tested negative for campylobacter and C. diff that he had previously had in the US and now over the last week he has lost nearly a pound. </span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This of course is all very concerning to us and so we contacted Hannah’s pediatric GI doctor in Denver. He had previously been in favor of us returning to Peru, but with this new information, he is now not so comfortable. In fact, he is giving the recommendation at this point to not only return for further testing, but also to return for long enough that the kids have time for “catch-up growth.” This is more of a long-term type of treatment. Crystal and I have been praying about these recommendations and discussing them with the kids’ doctors here because of the implications of the recommendation. After much prayer and many tears, we have decided that it is in the best interest of our children to return to the US indefinitely. This has been a very tough and trying decision to make, because we really enjoy living here in Peru and because God has been using us in the ministry that is being done here at Hospital Diospi Suyana. We also have really enjoyed all of the people that we work with and feel like we are letting them down, as well as the patients that are waiting in line, by leaving. All at the same time, we know that this is the right decision and our leadership has felt the same way. We can’t with a right conscience, stay here and ignore the needs of our children that God has given to us to personally care for and to protect. We have always said that God comes first, then family, then our ministry. With that order, our kids’ needs are what we need to take care of.</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Right as we were in the middle of deciding what needed to be done, we were at Bible study studying the book of James and came to James 4:13-17 that says: </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">“Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">We really felt convicted that even though God had called us to Peru, maybe the duration of time was our idea and not His. After praying about it, although we are very sad in our hearts for having to leave such wonderful people and such a great ministry, we know that God has other plans for us elsewhere and we just need to be ready and willing to leave behind our pride and listen to what He has asked us to do.”</span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have talked with our leadership and have been given the okay to return home in mid-October and we will get appointments set up for the kids shortly afterward. If it is the Lord’s will, we would love to connect with each and every one of you over the next few months to talk about the great things that God has done and the ministry that will be continuing here without us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So that being said, we just want to say thank you SO MUCH for all of you who have been such a tremendous support for us! We could really not have been able to make the impact here without each and every one of you. Since starting work at the hospital, John has been able to see over 2,000 people, of which every one of them has heard the gospel! We don’t know the eternal impact that was made during this time, but we are sure that many more people will be with Jesus in eternity because of all of your faithful support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Please continue to keep John in your prayers as he will be presenting an idea to the local community church leaders that will get them as well as other church members involved with talking to patients, listening to their stories, troubles and pains and also sharing the gospel with them as well. We feel that this will be an even better way for people to truly understand the gospel in their time of need, as well as to get local Christians involved in spreading the Good News of Jesus. Please pray that we will continue to stay focused over the next month so that we can finish the mission that was set out for us here in Peru. </span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thank you all for your incredible support of the work being done here in Peru as well as for our family. We have felt so loved through this entire process and wouldn’t have been able to be a part of God’s work here without you all! May God continue to bless you all in your own personal ministries as well!</span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; font-style: italic; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="color: #ff6600; font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">Prayer requests:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; language: x-none; unicode-bidi: embed;">·</span><span style="width: 13.5pt;"> </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">That Hudson’s weight doesn’t drop anymore and that he and Hannah will start to grow again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; language: x-none; unicode-bidi: embed;">·</span><span style="width: 13.5pt;"> </span><span lang="en-US" style="font-size: 9.1pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US;">For peace with our decision, that we can find work quickly and that God will continue to do great things in Peru!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="en-US" style="language: en-US;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-11172229481075791472014-09-01T12:54:00.001-07:002014-09-01T12:56:51.366-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A Difficult Decision</span><br />
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Well, we just wanted to post a quick update about how our family is doing health-wise and to ask for continued prayer. </div>
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First of all, Hannah, 2 years old, seems to be doing much better. Praise the Lord! Even though she has continued to test positive for C. diff and still has foul-smelling loose stools, she no longer has signs of inflammation in her intestines on ultrasound and she is gaining a significant amount of weight. She also has had a better appetite (although it still takes a fair amount of coaxing to get a full meal in). With these results, it seems less likely that she has Celiac disease like we had once suspected and the possibilities still exist for infectious causes (although less likely due to the extended period of problems) and inflammatory bowel disease that is currently out of a flare. Please pray that we will have wisdom in how to continue her diagnostic work-up from here and please also thank the Lord for healing her body if not permanently, at least for now and putting some weight on her.</div>
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Regarding Caleb, 4 years old, he seems to be growing well now and has also put on a fair amount of weight since being home. He is benefiting from the high calorie foods that we have been serving to Hannah and we are glad to see the weight gain. We haven't had any real concerns about him, but of course is getting the normal infections that would be expected from going to school with a bunch of other 4 year-olds. Thank the Lord that he is growing.</div>
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More recently, our concern has been for Hudson (almost 14 months old). Just as Hannah dropped off the curve before a year old, Hudson also took a dive with his weight at 8 months of age. With Celiac disease being in our extended family, we actually decided not to give him anything with gluten in it until he turned a year-old just to decrease his risk of developing a problem if he did carry a gene for it. That being said, he still dropped off of the charts at 8 months of age. We got some labs done in the US in June and found that he was iron deficient and had the same GI infections that Hannah did and so we treated him for them and he tested negative for all GI infections one month ago. That being said, he has not gained even 0.1 kg in over 7 weeks of weighing him. He has lost all of his appetite and after just a few bites, refuses to eat anything else. He is drinking fluids which is sustaining him, but a child that is barely one year old should be eating and gaining significant amounts of weight rapidly. So, about a week ago, we took him to the hospital and did an ultrasound and found that he had significant inflammation in his small intestines similar to what Hannah had but with negative stool cultures. We decided to get an MRI (Since it won't expose him to radiation like a CT would) in Cusco to see if the inflammation showed any patterns that could lead us to a diagnosis (like Crohn's disease for example which if left untreated can cause serious bowel death, fistulas and abscesses leading to multiple surgeries over a life-time). Unfortunately, the company that did the MRI was less than helpful, told us that they had no oral contrast (very useful in diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease) and when they gave us the reading, didn't make a single comment about the intestines. To top that off, the CD that they gave us of the MRI had images so small, that it was nearly impossible to see much larger organs like the liver, much less the intestines. We called and asked for a better image quality and they said it wouldn't be a problem. So, Crystal went back to Cusco (2.5 hours away on winding roads) to get them and they said that she would have to come back on Monday. After a series of blatant lies that I will not bore you with (6-8 in a row), they sent Crystal on a hunt for a very specific DVD to burn the images that apparently is not actually sold in Cusco, with directions to a street that has no stores that even sell DVD's. We assume it was just to get her to leave them alone. We are finding that the MRI has and probably will be completely useless to us in making a diagnosis and that our chances of figuring out what is going on with Hudson and/or Hannah here in Peru is getting quite slim. </div>
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That being said, we want to exhaust our options for diagnostics here before considering coming back to the US. But, we also don't want to cause permanent harm to any of our children by wasting time/money/emotional stress on things that aren't going to help either. </div>
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So this is the question of the hour. We know that God has called us to be here in Peru and we have seen great things happen already. We know that God can use us here, or anywhere for that matter as long as we are willing to follow His calling. In our Bible study we were reading James 4:13-15 that says: "<sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></sup>Now listen,<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-30351Z" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30351Z" title="See cross-reference Z">Z</a>)"></sup> you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-30351AA" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30351AA" title="See cross-reference AA">AA</a>)"></sup> <span class="text Jas-4-14" id="en-NIV-30352"><sup class="versenum">14 </sup>Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-30352AB" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30352AB" title="See cross-reference AB">AB</a>)"></sup></span> <span class="text Jas-4-15" id="en-NIV-30353"><sup class="versenum">15 </sup>Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will,<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-30353AC" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-30353AC" title="See cross-reference AC">AC</a>)"></sup> we will live and do this or that.”</span> " We want to be sure of two things. First, that the Lord is still calling us to be here. We know that He has given us three wonderful children and that they are our priority above outside ministry, and therefore we need to take care of their needs. If we can't do it here in Peru, than that means in the US. But second, we also want to be strong and courageous just like God commanded Joshua as he was telling him about the Promised Land. We know that God is doing great things here and that Satan will attack us in anyway that he can to try and take away our strength. So with that, we know that our God is greater and stronger and higher than any other and that if that is all this is about, we will be fine. </div>
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In summary, we would love to have prayer from all of you about the following things: </div>
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1. How do we need to proceed in making a diagnosis for Hannah and Hudson</div>
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2. How can we best take care of them and make sure that they have no long-term affects from these illnesses</div>
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3. Do we need to return to the US for further diagnostics, try other routes here in Peru (Lima) or wait it out?</div>
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4. Is this God's way of calling us to come home to the US or are we supposed to endure so that God can be given the glory?</div>
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5. Give thanks that Caleb and Hannah are growing</div>
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6. Pray that Hudson will start gaining weight </div>
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7. Please pray for Crystal and I as the unknown is weighing heavily on our hearts and seeing Hudson waste away is tough to watch.</div>
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Thank you all for your continued support of our family and the ministry that God has called us to here! I apologize that I haven't posted about all of the wonderful things that have gone on, but I hope to do so some day soon. </div>
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God bless!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-86320155447763010052014-08-20T18:35:00.001-07:002014-08-20T18:35:18.573-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Huds turns OnE!</span></div>
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What?!? Where did time go? Hard to believe our little guy is one. He is such a tough little man with a compassionate heart for others. His smile and roar always brighten up the room. We were so surprised when he came into our lives and now we could not imagine our life with out him. We feel so blessed to have our little Huds. Here are few pics from his birthday party which was a month and half late. After I recovered from the pneumonia and the kids got healthy we finally had a party. There was no way I was not going to make him a cake for his first birthday. I think most people came for the donuts though, and not the cake. I mean who can resist a party with donuts? NO ONE.<br />
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I love having kids for many reasons that I am sure would bore you but I truly enjoy celebrating their life. I LOVE birthdays. This gives me a "one time a year" - times three- opportunity to bust out the cake tips. This was my first time trying this type of cake and I was loving it. Crafting seems to be the only thing that stays perfect in my life and for a recovering perfectionist that is important. I will never forget all the awesome cakes my mom made me every year. Thanks for teaching me how to decorate cakes Mom. I appreciate your cakes even more, now that I am making them for my own kiddos.
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0001_zps55cf00d6.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0001_zps55cf00d6.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0001_zps55cf00d6.jpg" /></a>
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0018_zpsb5cd85c4.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0018_zpsb5cd85c4.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0018_zpsb5cd85c4.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0177_zpsee7420da.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0177_zpsee7420da.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0177_zpsee7420da.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0140_zps0b33618c.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0140_zps0b33618c.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0140_zps0b33618c.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0198_zpscbc0e980.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0198_zpscbc0e980.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0198_zpscbc0e980.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0172_zpsbce090ca.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0172_zpsbce090ca.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0172_zpsbce090ca.jpg" /></a>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-85043147607288754592014-07-28T15:02:00.003-07:002014-07-28T15:02:53.783-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"><strong>An Interesting Sunday Call</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">So a couple of Sunday’s ago, I (John) had a fairly eventful
day on call. I saw 6 patients throughout the day/evening/morning and here are
their stories – the most interesting one is the last: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Patient #1: She was riding in the back of a dump truck, like
many people here do including us at times, and across the top in the middle is
a large log that had been tied on in order to keep your balance or tie a tarp
onto. Many people were holding onto this log and when it suddenly broke, coming
down and hitting her forcefully on the head. She said that after about 20
minutes of being unconscious, she woke up and after five hours of continued
headache came to our hospital for evaluation. Thankfully, our CT scanner just
arrived and has been operational for about 2 weeks. After a negative CT scan of
her head with no signs of bleeding, I sent her home with meds for her headache.
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Patient #2: He was an 8 year-old who came in with his
parents with pain in his arm. He apparently fell with his hand behind his back.
An x-ray showed that he had fractured both his ulna and radius and would likely
need surgery to have it repaired. We don’t have an orthopedic surgeon, so he
was referred onto Abancay after a splint was placed. My primary concern was
that the story didn’t seem consistent with the fracture. I’m not an expert of
fractures, but I didn’t ask the father anymore in hope that in Abancay they
will find out the whole truth about how the fracture really happened (a beating?).
Any thoughts based on this x-ray and the story of falling with his hand behind
his back?
</span><a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/IMG_1993_zps9c0e637b.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo IMG_1993_zps9c0e637b.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/IMG_1993_zps9c0e637b.jpg" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Patient #3: A 28 year-old woman who came in with 3 days of
cough and pain in her lungs. The chest x-ray showed a pneumonia. She followed up
in 3 days and was greatly improved with antibiotics!
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">On the x-ray you can see a faint line in the patient's right lung between the middle and lower lobes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Patient #4: A ~75 year-old woman came with history of liver
masses from a recent ultrasound in Cusco as well as labs and ascitic fluid
being taken out of her abdomen and sent for analysis. When she arrived, her
oxygen saturation was 75% (normal is 90% or higher). She was very dehydrated
and looked terrible. I admitted her and in the morning ordered an ultrasound
and labs. They showed that she had an 8-cm mass in her pancreas, cirrhosis of
the liver and was in the beginnings of renal failure. Her chest x-ray showed
what looked to be possible metastasis in her lungs. I talked with the family
and told them of the poor prognosis and said that the only place to treat her
cancer would be in Lima. I recommended that due to the severity of her disease
and the extremely poor prognosis that she not get chemotherapy, radiation or
surgery that would severely decrease her quality of life. Instead I recommended
that she go home with pain medications. I then prayed with them that the Lord
would be with her in these final days and that He would give her peace in Him.
After a couple of days she was sent home feeling better, but also knowing that
these would be her last days on earth.
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">On the x-ray there are some questionable nodule behind the heart concerning for metastases.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/IMG_1996_zpsd073b874.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo IMG_1996_zpsd073b874.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/IMG_1996_zpsd073b874.jpg" /></a>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Patient #5: This was a 50 year old woman who came with three
days of pain her belly. An ultrasound showed that she had an infected
gallbladder and she was admitted with antibiotics and will have surgery to take
out her gallbladder. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Patient #6: This is likely the most interesting case of the
day. He was an ~80 year-old man who lives high in the Andes mountains with his
wife. Over the last 3-4 months he’s had more and more troubles with swallowing
and eventually it got so bad that he could hardly get anything down for the
last 3 weeks. His daughter came to visit him and his wife 3 weeks ago (with her
1 year-old son) and realized how sick he was and immediately took him to the
health post in Cusco. They checked a couple of labs and gave him some medicine
for pain and sent him home. He wasn’t improving so she took him back and they
checked his urine and gave him some medicine for a urinary tract infection (UTI)
and sent him home. He still wasn’t better and so upon the recommendation of a
friend, brought him to see me at Diospi Suyana. Looking at him, he looked like
one of those people you see in Africa that is starving to death or dying from
AIDS. Just looking at him, I knew it was more than a UTI. His mouth was so dry
that there was some dried mucous attaching his tongue and palate that he
couldn’t remove because it had dried that way. He also had spots of blood under
his mucosa throughout his mouth and throat. I gave him some fluids and unlocked
the lab and ran a lab test finding that his platelets were only 29,000 (Normal
150,000-450,000). He also had signs of infection. I admitted him and did some
tests in the morning finding that his kidneys were quite stressed from the
dehydration and that his lungs looked terrible! See the picture below. The
following day, Dr. Klaus John did an endoscopy and found that he had thrush
from his mouth to the bottom of his esophagus and found tuberculosis in
aspirates of his gastric fluid like we expected based on the x-ray. Even after
just one day of fluids, he already looked SO much better and he and his family
were extremely thankful for the treatment that he’d received. After a few days
of care by Dr. Martina John (She saw all of my patients for a few days while I was
stuck in bed sick) he was sent to the local health post now with a diagnosis of
tuberculosis which they typically treat very well. We pray that he will not
only find physically healing through this process, but also spiritual healing
as well!</span>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/IMG_1994_zps530234b1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo IMG_1994_zps530234b1.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/IMG_1994_zps530234b1.jpg" /></a>
</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thanks for your continued prayer for our family as well as
all of the people that we are coming into contact with! God is working in their
hearts and lives and every day we have more and more people coming saying that
they know that they will get healing here because this is where God is working! We know that we may not be able to find physically healing for everyone that comes, but we do know that God is offering spiritual healing to everyone of them through Jesus Christ if they are willing to accept it. This is the most important healing that anyone can receive!</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-81771425978404507042014-07-26T20:49:00.005-07:002014-07-26T20:54:00.169-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Pictures and Cakes</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am a little behind on pictures and cakes. Here is a little shot from Hannah's birthday session with me that was in April. I still have not gotten around to making Huddy's first birthday cake or taking his or Caleb's birthday pictures?!!? So terrible but my excuse was that I had pneumonia. That is a pretty good excuse after all. I cannot believe how fast they are all growing up.<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/CoffeeShop10Picblogheader_zpsa362764e.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo CoffeeShop10Picblogheader_zpsa362764e.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/CoffeeShop10Picblogheader_zpsa362764e.jpg" /></a>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-47817397351769616552014-06-27T20:20:00.000-07:002014-06-27T20:20:17.253-07:00
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Another Update on Hannah</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It is hard to figure out where to start with this update but
I suppose I should start by thanking everyone for their prayers and support. So
many people helped make our quick stay back home go much smoother than anticipated.
I am sorry for the huge delay in getting this information out to everyone but
life seems to be going in one great blur right now.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Our trip flight back was pretty uneventful considering how
young our children are and the flight length/layovers. We actually had a
layover in Fort Lauderdale for 14 hours so my mom drove 5 hours and got a hotel
just to see us. I am sure it was a five hour drive well worth it for her
because I KNOW it was for us. It was great getting to see her even if for a
short time. She picked us up at the airport and took us out to breakfast at the
closest IHOP. The kids were super excited about eating but I think Caleb was
more impressed with the bathrooms as he came out saying, “ MOM! That bathroom
had toilet paper and toilet seats!” – He then looked at the waitress and told
her she had a really nice bathroom and he liked it a lot – WHICH IS HILARIOUS
since it was a rundown IHOP at that. Oh, I could go on and on about the
ridiculously funny stories we have about the kids experiencing the U.S. for the
first time in a year…which feels like forever to a three (or now four) year
old. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We spent the day eating food we had not had in a while – I think
we hit up several fast food places. My mom did come prepared though with a
fridge FULL of goodies. The kids were in heaven and so was I with my ice cold
Dr. Pepper. I am not even a pop drinker but after a year I was grateful to see
some DP. We had a fabulous time at the beach and the kids did not want to
leave. My Mom is AMAZING and I am so glad we had the layovers on both ends of
our trip. Our time in Florida made for the perfect beginning and perfect ending
to our trip. Love you Mom – you are an amazing woman.</span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We got into Denver late Sunday night, having left Friday
morning we were happy to be at our final destination. Just was we were getting
into the elevator to meet our family Caleb got sick all over the place – you know
just the “perfect” ending to our trip. Really, though it was no big deal seeing
as everything else went so well – prayers appreciated here because it could
have been much worse. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We got in on Sunday and had our appointment on Tuesday to
meet with the GI doctor for Hannah. From Tuesday on most of our time was spent
driving to Denver, which was about one and a half hours from our home base,
going to appointments and waiting for results. To make a long and emotional
story severely short we are still not exactly sure what is going on with
Hannah. We had wonderful doctors who expedited us through the system getting us
all types of appointments and running all kinds of tests. Hannah did have a
colonoscopy and endoscopy where they did find some swelling in her colon. This
coupled with other tests is leading the docs to think we are dealing with some
sort of inflammatory bowel disease such as crohns. Since it is really abnormal
to have this at such a young age (age of normal diagnosis is between 15-30
years of age) the docs wanted us to see an immunologist just to make sure there
were no other autoimmune things going on. As we were waiting to see the
immunologist Hannah’s stool cultures returned positive for campylobacter
bacteria. This bacterium can also give the same results on a colonoscopy as
inflammatory bowel disease. So at this point we do not know whether her results
were tainted by the bacteria or there is something else going on. This was
incredibly frustrating. It is technically in the realm of possibility that
Hannah has had campylobacter since before we left to come to Peru last year but
it is not probable as campylobacter usually resolves itself after a short
period of time. Hannah has had a few rounds of antibiotics since being in Peru
as well and we think this should have taken care of this type of infection, but
this would be a good reason as to why she is not growing. Results from the
immunologist suggest that Hannah does not have any underlying autoimmune
problems and we are thankful for this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the middle of all
this we wanted to get Hudson some shots to keep him up to date and we decided
to go ahead and do stool samples for the all the kids since campylobacter is
highly contagious. Hudson came back positive and Caleb came back negative. This
made total sense because Huddy was having such a tough time while we were home.
I won’t go into details but campylobacter means I changed A LOT of diapers –
enough said. So Hannah and Huddy were on antibiotics for a while and then we
stool checked them again and they had Clostridium Discophiles (or C-diff). This
is kinda common to have after exposure to antibiotics, but totally not something
you want to have while you are traveling with small children.</span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Up until the day we left we were chatting with docs about
whether or not it was safe for us to come back to Peru and even though both the
kiddos were really sick they said it was okay to return. At this point they cannot
do much more for us as there is no straight up test for inflammatory bowel or
crohns. So here is what our future looks like right now. Hannah has to gain
weight. She does not have to be in the 90 percentile but she has to have an
upward curve. The docs want us to really get Hannah eating well for the next
two months. We do weight checks every week and stool cultures every two weeks
to make sure she is not getting re-infected with ANYTHING. This sounds well and
dandy but it is much harder than it sounds. Hannah has no appetite – which I
consider strange for a two year old. You can put candy or whatever you want in
front of that girl and she will not eat it. Even at the IHOP, after not eating
on the plane, when pancakes with strawberries and ice-cream were put in front
of her she never even touch it. Gratefully, her appetite appears to be slightly
better this week but still I have to sit with her and feed her EVERY bite – yes,
every single one- just so she will eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our meals take hours because I am also doing this for Huddy too since he
is still a baby. In addition to this, while we were in the States we found out
that Hudson has started to take a dive off of the growth curve as well (this
could be due to travel, teething or a variety of things) at just the same age
Hannah did and he also appears to be iron deficient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is iron deficient but not iron deficient
anemic which is worse and often at his age means cancer. So we are grateful, at
least at this point no cancer for any of our kids. </span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">***Sigh of relief*** We had lots of appointments at Children’s
and after seeing the little kids with chest tubes and no hair I am feeling
really grateful and blessed. Yup, I shed lots of tears this trip…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Back to eating for Hannah – so she must eat LOTS of food and
if after two months if there is minimal to no weight gain we will be starting
her on meds for inflammatory bowel disease. We really did not want to jump into
these meds as this is not always easy on small children and basically she will
take them for the rest of her life. We will try these meds for two months –
that is, if we get this far in the plan- and if she is not responding well we
may have to come home on a more permanent basis. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good news is - we did have a positive weight
gain this week !!– which I am so grateful for since this is really my whole
life right now. The trick will be seeing weight gain over the next few weeks as
she has just gone off of the antibiotics. Hannah seems to have a pattern of
eating well while she is on antibiotics and then taking a dive in weight after
she finishes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This pattern is consistent
with inflammatory bowel disease. We will be doing a stool sample over the next
couple of weeks to make sure she is not getting re-infected with anything and
then we will also get an MRI done in Cusco, if she has a clean stool sample. We
are now washing/rinsing every dish in clean water, and bathing the kids in
clean water too. Other families do not have to do this, but we will do what needs
to be done. That being said my kids do not get bathed that often because it is
quite the chore to heat up water and fill a tub. We also have to be extra
careful with ALWAYS washing our hands and at this point- Hannah is having
minimal contact with the outside world. We need to make sure she stays healthy
to get accurate results – living in a 2<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">nd</span></sup> world country makes this
incredibly difficult. I mean how many families can say they have a favorite antibiotic?
– We can because we are constantly sick here. I never imagined how sick we
would be and how often we would be sick – just thinking of it makes me SICK <span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span> - NO, but seriously I
am sick right now – but with a chest cold – which for us is actually abnormal
here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What does inflammatory bowel disease mean for Hannah? Well,
if she indeed has this it will be hard to tell whether she has ulcerative
colitis or crohn’s disease for a while. We will have to see as things develop but
one of the most common risks for someone with these diagnosis’ at such a young
age is that she will lose her colon/ and or have a much higher risk for cancer.
Not exactly the news you want to hear about your two year old. It is hard to imagine
my playful little girl with a colostomy bag. I pray this is not what our future
looks like, but we are taking things day by day. We are still not sure what is
going on. We are frustrated we do not have answers but we also know that no one
can give us those answers right now. Even the doctors told us it just takes
time and that at this point it is fine to continue to work on things from Peru.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We had really hoped to come back with answers, but we do not
have them unfortunately. This month has been exhausting physically and
emotionally. We are so humbled by all of the help from everyone during this
difficult time for us. We are so sorry we had to come home right in the middle
of everyone’s super busy schedule and we appreciate everyone’s flexibility
while we were home. I also just want to say a special thanks to my Dad for
making our hospital stays much more comfy – we are so grateful. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We feel so blessed to have had such a wonderful team of doctors working with us over this last month. I am overcome with gratefulness that we could return to the States and get such excellent care for Hannah. The medical system in the States is incredible. Truly it is. I cannot help but thinking of so many little kids John sees in his office who have a terrible prognosis and nothing can be done for them because the medical systems here. The world we live in here is so different from our world back home.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Please pray for us as we embark on our two months of trying
to get Hannah to eat. Pray that God gives me patience for this difficult task
and pray that God gives us wisdom to figure out what is going on. If she only
had a bacterium all this time we are so grateful but if this is not the case we
would like to figure out what is truly going on.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I think your prayers are what kept us going the last month –
so please, do not stop. We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful team of
supporters always lifting our family up in prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We love you guys!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-34332639501998958082014-05-06T19:18:00.001-07:002014-05-06T19:18:39.931-07:00April 2014 Newsletter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/April2014NewsletterLarge_zpsd9d54543.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo April2014NewsletterLarge_zpsd9d54543.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/April2014NewsletterLarge_zpsd9d54543.jpg" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-79965577744058583492014-04-08T19:36:00.002-07:002014-04-08T19:39:03.143-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A Few Photos of the Boys</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hudson, or Elias as he is called here because no one can pronounce his first name, is quite the go getter. I think that is just natural since he has to catch up to his older siblings. He is wasting no time though. We went from army crawling to crawling up on top of things. He has definitely already had his share of faceplants to our tile floors, and for this reason I hope he starts walking soon. Enjoy a few picks of our little Huds.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0051s_zpsb9a7404b.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0051s_zpsb9a7404b.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0051s_zpsb9a7404b.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0008s_zpsa1c7689e.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0008s_zpsa1c7689e.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0008s_zpsa1c7689e.jpg" /></a>
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0044_zps1f640fcd.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0044_zps1f640fcd.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0044_zps1f640fcd.jpg" /></a>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Oh, and check out Caleb on his first day of school a few weeks ago. What a HANDSOME guy in his little uniform - minus the slacks. We are so grateful to have this new Christian school here in Curahuasi. It has been such a blessing for us and Caleb.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0387copy_zps23df0054.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0387copy_zps23df0054.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0387copy_zps23df0054.jpg" /></a>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-40254750491316296312014-03-24T10:14:00.001-07:002014-03-24T15:14:26.743-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">An Update on our Little Princess</span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have been sparse with sharing our information on what is
going on with Hannah mainly because we just do not know exactly what is going
on with Hannah. We started running a myriad of tests on her in October but we
still do not have any concrete answers. We ran a bunch of tests here at Diospi
last week and we are currently consulting with a German Pediatrician here to
plan our next move. We have done blood tests, urine tests, stool tests, and
ultrasounds. At this point I cannot tell you much but it looks like we are not
dealing with Leukemia types of cancer, celiac, heart problems, or kidney
problems. We will continue stool sampling this week and will go in for an x-ray
and abdominal ultrasound as well. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
stool samples both here and in Arequipa show she has white blood cells in her
stool but no blood. Unfortunately, her blood tests are also consistently showing
elevated platelets at 750 with normal being under 400 I believe. Hannah is
ranking in at less than the 3<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>rd</sup> percentile for weight and actually
they cannot measure below the 3<sup>rd</sup> percentile so we really do not
know where she fits on the charts. Charts are not all that important since John
and I are small people but we noticed a huge dive in her weight after she
started on solid foods. Her height has also started to drop off and her head
circumference remains okay right now which we are grateful for as
developmentally she seems fine. That girl is super smart, and quite frankly she
has a hilarious little personality. More concerning than the lack of being on
the “charts” is her night sweats. She consistently wakes up from naps and
nights with her pillow soaked within a 10-15 inch radius. Having cancer on my
side of the family, this symptom kinda makes my skin crawl. It’s also really
hard to look at Hannah and then look at Hudson because right now they could be
wearing the same clothes – that is if I really wanted to dress Hudson in pink.
I am sure Hudson is passing her in weight but in all honesty I have not checked
lately because I really do not want to know. She is still wearing the same
clothes that we came to Peru in almost a year ago next month. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is hard on the heart especially being so far away from
home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we both feel a little
helpless. Especially John is he is the doctor – who can heal everything, right?
– WRONG. This is a constant reminder to us that God is our healer and ultimately
he is in charge. I have started asking myself questions that make me a little
sick. What if this time next year Hannah is not with us (and I might be being
incredibly rash here) but what if that is true? Would I be okay with it? Would
I be bitter about being here in Peru and not being able to find the answers?
Would I be angry with God that we have come all the way to Peru only to have
God not show up in some miraculous way? Really, when I think about these things
my heart aches, but my answer is no. No, I would not be bitter or angry because
I know that my children were given to me. They are a gift, and they are not
really mine. I am grateful for all three of my gifts, and I would miss them
terribly if they were taken away from me. I also know that God’s heart would
break to watch me go through such a terrible ordeal, but I know that in this
world there is sin and therefore our bodies do not always work as they should.
I am not bitter about it; it just is what it is. My eyes tear up even now
writing this as I watch her dancing around the house knowing that things are so
unpredictable in life be it disease, car accidents, whatever it may be we only
have so much time here in this world – and in life, disease and death our God
will be exalted. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all honesty, I am at
peace with everything, whatever it is. I do not even worry about it anymore, as
I know ultimately my worrying will not change anything (except how many gray
hairs I have <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span>
).</span></div>
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</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently, we think the tests we need to run are not
available here and we are trying to get an appointment at Children’s Hospital
in Denver which has proven quite difficult. We were planning on returning in
August to visit family for the annual fantasy football draft, but with things
being the way they are we are hoping to return earlier sometime in May if we
can get an appointment at Children’s. We will see what the results from this
week are, try to get an appointment at Children’s and then we will make the
decision on whether John goes back with just Hannah for a while or whether we
all go back for a short time to try and figure out what is going on with our
little Hannita. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this being said we would really appreciate your prayers
this week. We really need to get an appointment at Children’s Hospital ASAP,
and we would love to find some economical tickets so that we can all go back
together. Right now the prices are not bad but the longer we wait to figure
things out the tougher the details get. Pray also that Hannah continues to eat
well. We have had a terrible time getting her to eat, and she really cannot
afford to lose any weight. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As always
thank you so much for your prayers and support!</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-14396947892476754642014-03-15T07:53:00.002-07:002014-03-15T07:53:51.038-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">A Few Months In Curahuasi</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No I have not died – although from the lack of communication
you might have thought that I had. My lack of sleep and our lack of internet
have put our blog on hold for a while. We are doing okay here in Curahuasi. We
have been here for an entire month now. The kids and I have “settled” into the
house and John started working at the hospital last week. His days are filled
with interesting stories and many sad ones. Unfortunately a handful of people have
passed away at the hospital over the last couple of weeks, including a newborn.
John’s job is tough intellectually always having to translate in his mind from
Spanish to English what is going on, learning the new meds that are available
in the hospital (which are often not the same meds we use in the States), and
just learning how to work with new people but none of these things are as tough
as losing a patient. Medicine is tough on the heart. If only we had done this –
If only they had come in sooner – If only we had had this type of equipment –
horrible questions that plague the mind. The most terrifying question of all
really is “Do they know their maker”? The only person in this entire world who
can cure the most deadliest disease – sin. The hospital has a great system
going and all the patients get to see the Jesus film while they are waiting for
their appointment. Speaking of waiting- can you imagine waiting in line for
days just to see a doctor? We would flip if we had to wait outside IN THE RAIN
just to get an appointment the next day, and this is common practice here.
Every day there is a line of about 150 people just waiting to be seen. I
remember waiting for 3 hours once to see my OB in the States. I was a “little
bit” frustrated, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but seeing the line
everyday kinda puts that in perspective now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John and I have moved<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A LOT in our lives. My dad was in the military and John’s med school took
him all over the place. Every time you move you find your “new normal” – your
new normal food, your new normal routine – everything just settles into the new
normal. John is working again – and is finding his new normal in his job. Which
I think can be kind of dangerous. It is easy to develop a new routine, and really
it becomes just like living in the States (minus lots of stuff). I cook, clean
and watch the kids, and John works. It is so easy to just work a job and forget
why we have really come. John has not come to just “see” patients but to show
them Jesus. Not always as easy as it seems. John usually goes to work at 7:30
and returns between 6:00 and 6:30pm unless he is on call. He is usually
exhausted from his day/night on shift, and then he walks 20 minutes each way
home (and the hill up to the hospital is KILLER). John then watches the kids so
I can finish up dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We get the kids
ready for bed. I spend the night making food for the next day/week, cleaning
the dishes, and doing the laundry or just unpacking. The day is pretty much
consumed for John and I. So what does ministry look like for John, or for me?
Well we are trying to figure that out. Pray for us as we try to determine what
things outside of the hospital/house that God wants us to be involved in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday was the first day I made it out of the house with
all three kids alone –quite the challenging task. I will not be doing that
often, at the ages the kids are at now 3, 1, and 7 months. For me this means I
pretty much stay in the house all day, every day. Thank goodness we have a
small yard for the kids to play in, even so my life looks so different than it
did in the States. It is tough not being able to get out of the house. By the
time John gets of work and the kids are in bed nothing is even open here! I am
finding that at least at this moment, my ministry will be my children and
making sure that John can serve his best at the hospital. You would think that
coming over to Peru would give me more time to spend with my family but sadly I
spend most of my time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. EVERYTHING is from
scratch. You cannot even find a loaf of sliced bread here! I actually really
enjoy cooking but all day, every day is tough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For the first time in a month I could actually sit on my couch at least
for a few hours until another load of laundry finished drying on the line and
then ended up on my couch. The laundry and cleaning never end. Three kids three
and under is physically/mentally exhausting – and I have not even mentioned
bugs yet! Yes, bugs – they are EVERYWHERE! I found a LARGE centipede in the
house the second week we were here but that was put into perspective the day
Caleb found a black widow in his pale outside (and let’s not forget the
scorpions we have found in the house including in Caleb’s toys). Yup, I think I
was screaming- and by the time I got done with it, it was definitely dead. That
prompted me to make some door snakes – long, thin bags of fabric filled with
rice to put at the bottom of the door so the bugs cannot get in. This was a
great idea until the rain came through the back door – soggy, rice, in a bag-
not good. The ants are always in my kitchen even if I clean it every night. At
this point I have given up and now I know we will never be bug free. However,
after putting up the door snakes now in the middle of the night when I wake up
to feed Hudson there is not a constant crackling under my feet of rollie
pollies. There are still bugs in the house but less of them. You see if I am
going camping I know that there are bugs but for a short time – there is an end
in sight – no end in sight here. Roaches, flees, spiders, worms – you name it
we probably have it (including black widows and a scorpion that I found in
Caleb’s legos). Just kill ‘em.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On another note, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>after
two weeks of sanding, putting chemicals and varnish on all of our furniture it
looks like we have not gotten rid of all the mold which is kind of a bummer
since I appear to be allergic to it. Unfortunately, our dresser which is
molding is still sitting in our room, because John has not had time to resand,
rechemical, and revarnish it. Needless to say we are not having fun with this…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And a few weeks ago I found BEETLES in my beans!?! They were
in a bag from the vendor in the market – no such thing as pre-packaged beans
here. Oh America! How I miss your pre-packaged goodness! That morning I was going
to pull my hair out at the sight of beetles in the beans – but I couldn’t pull
my hair out because I cannot afford to lose any more of the brown ones!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">** I have attached a few pics of the outside of our house. We are incredibly grateful to have this home - made of cement - not mud.**</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-58675439070679291082013-12-19T17:12:00.001-08:002013-12-19T17:15:11.664-08:00<a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.sim.org/giveusa" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo December2013Newsletterlarge_zps233ee9bc.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/December2013Newsletterlarge_zps233ee9bc.jpg" /></a>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-46907106927045921332013-11-30T17:30:00.003-08:002013-11-30T17:30:34.955-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I Know it is Overdue...</span></div>
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Well in all honesty blogging has kind of been the last thing on my mind these days. For the last two months the kids and us have been off and on sick with all kinds of things. In addition to that Hudson has just not been sleeping well, partly from being sick so often and partly from who knows what??? Sometimes he sleeps for a whole 4 hours but usually gets up every hour to two hours just depending on the night. Oh, and he loves to wake up for the day between 4:30 and 5:00 am. Sounds fun right? Needless to say this has been quite trying on my body over the last two months and when night time rolls around I am EXHAUSTED. </div>
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On top of all of that we have been dealing with some issues concerning Hannah's health. This is another reason I have not been blogging lately, because I really do not feel like talking about something that has emotionally exhausted me as well. A couple of months ago we decided to get some tests run on Hannah first, because she has not been growing well since we got here and second, because our niece was diagnosed with celiac disease. Through a series of blood work we have found out it does not look like she has celiac, which we are grateful to God for. Hannah's blood work did however, come back a little abnormal. Sometimes though it is kind of ironic because even though I did not want her to have celiac I was sort of hoping for a concrete answer. Now we are on what seems like a never ending quest to figure out what is going on, which is not easy in a foreign country. Currently we are talking with some docs in the States and it has been recommended that we count all of Hannah's calories for 2 weeks and see if after two weeks of pushing her to eat we can get her to gain weight. Our two weeks will end next Friday and then we will do some more blood work. If the results return abnormal again and she still is not gaining weight we will need to make a trip to Lima for an endoscopy most likely. Now it just seems like a waiting game. I do not think about it every day any more like I used to because I know God is in control and He knew what was going on with our girl even before we did. However, the idea of whatever is going on with her just sits in the back of my mind waiting to emerge at a moments notice. I know God holds her in His hands and I also know that in reality she is not mine - she is His. At one point, okay maybe a few more than one, I got a little angry because why now? Why her? But God, who is always faithful reminded me of this verse:</div>
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"But he was pierced for our transgressions, </div>
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he was crushed for our iniquities;</div>
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the punishment that brought us peace was on him, </div>
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and by his wounds we are healed."</div>
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Isaiah 53:5<span class="p"></span></div>
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God never promised to heal our physical wounds here on earth but He did promise to heal our spiritual wounds and for this I am eternally grateful. In my short life I have seen enough to know that God is indeed faithful and He loves us in a way we cannot comprehend. I know that every time I am breaking down in tears for my Hannah I know he aches to see me in pain. Being in Peru has developed my trust in the Lord in ways I never thought possible, if this would be the only tangible thing I could see over these three years it will have been three years well spent.</div>
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We are praying that we have worried in vain, but we will keep you updated when we know something. Just to ease your hearts as of right now whatever it is does not look like cancer - thank God. </div>
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So sorry for the long delay in posts and lack of pictures/cultural stories. There are many which I hope to write about in the future when we are not so consumed. John finishes language school next week and I will finish in 3 more weeks. Hard to believe our time here in Arequipa is almost done. Be praying for our transition time and that God would give us wisdom in what we need to do next with Hannah.</div>
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Here are some pics of Hudson at 3 months (now he is almost 5 months!) and a couple of Hannah. I cannot get Caleb to slow down long enough to take a photo these days :)</div>
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*** Can't remember if we told you guys or not but we sold our house!!! Praise be to God for yet another piece of the puzzle that He has so graciously taken care of!!!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-52890219459741430402013-10-08T19:26:00.002-07:002013-10-08T19:26:30.405-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Putting things into Perspective</span></div>
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A while back John and I went out on a date. We got a bite to eat at a local restaurant and then headed to "El Centro" - just the center of town. Every "center" of town here has what they call a Plaza de Armas -really historical buildings that are still used for lots of government things- and usually in front of the plaza is some type of park. The park in front of the plaza in Arequipa is quite beautiful with a huge fountain. During the day there are always lots of people sitting on benches just talking and hanging out. The little kids are usually feeding/chasing all of the pigeons around the square. All of the local vendors are selling bird feed, candy and other random things. It is a pretty busy place and when I have three children attached to me it is quite important to keep an eye on them. </div>
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Anyway, so after our date we meandored on down to the park in front of the plaza. Often times there are local vendors who sell the most beautiful roses. John and I spotted a young girl selling roses the other night and we went over to try to buy one. As we were walking over we could see that she was earnestly trying to sell one of her roses to a couple close to her. They did not seem to be interested and she continued to be patient to try to make the sale. When she turned to see us you could tell she was excited to make a sale. We bought one rose from her. A whole 5 soles - equivalent to about $1.75. As I was handing her my money, I could not help but notice the two very big feet hanging from the carrier on her back. It is very common to carry your kids across your back here horizontally not vertically. So I could see two big feet sticking out of her side, but I could not see a head. In an effort to practice my Spanish I asked her how old her baby was. She replied 2 and a half years! It was around 9:30 at night and this poor lady was carrying her 2 1/2 year old on her back while she was selling roses! You cannot help but wonder how much she makes an hour and what kind of conditions she lives in. By the look on her face you could tell she was exhuasted. The truth is, she probably works at least two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Almost everyone here in Peru works at least two jobs and maybe three just to pay the bills. My perspective is changing...</div>
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Or how about last week when the kids and I were walking to the Plaza de Armas when suddenly I hear this man yell, "Ayudame, ayudame, por favor!" I turned around to look and that is when I notice that a blind man was about to step off the sidewalk into one of the busiest streets in downtown Arequipa. I had Hudson in the carrier on my chest, Hannah in the stroller, and Caleb holding onto the side of the stroller and I thought to myself, how in the world am I going to help this man?? Then a lady came from out of nowhere, grabbed his arm and walked him across the street. I am not sure how blind people survive here in Peru. At times I think that the uncovered drainage ditches, and the 15 ft drops off the edge of the sidewalks give me more gray hair ***especially since I have young children - imagine if you were blind living here? Again...my perspective is changing...</div>
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Recently John helped with a rural clinic a few hours away from here. After he got back that night he began to tell me about his day. Quite sobering I must say. As I sat there nearly in tears as he was telling me about some of the patients he saw that day I thought my day was pretty boring in comparison. The kids were kind of rough that day, hence my day was rough too, but everything was put into perspecitive after hearing some of his stories. My day did not seem too bad as he told me about the mother who brought her 50 pound, 18 year-old son who had hardly eaten anything in 3 months and had an undiagnosed case of what was likely muscular dystrophy (which they could not do much for). Or the little 18 month-old boy who got his hand caught in a sugar cane grinder. Or the man who had been blind for 10 years (due to a car running over him) who was hoping John could restore his sight (to no avail). Or the lady who miscarried during the clinic. Sometimes being in medicine is overwhelming and difficult on the heart. Thank you Lord for putting things into perspective...
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-91833956066229353792013-10-01T09:29:00.001-07:002013-10-01T09:29:08.469-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Fruit Chronicles</span></div>
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We are really enjoying the fresh fruit over here</div>
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and thought I might photograph some for my kitchen wall someday - whenever I find a place that prints photos and a place to buy frames. No big deal right? I will let you know when this happens :) Anyway enjoy! </div>
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This is a granadia (granadilla-not sure on the spelling here). It has seeds that are encapsuled in sack that resemble fish eggs. Not the most apetizing but very interesting to look at.
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Okay well these are just apples so not to exciting but they photograph well :)...and they are very tasty. I buy them by the kilo, sometimes 4 or 5 kilos at a time. Just imagine me with three kids, one in the stroller, one holding the stroller, and one in the baby carried on my chest carry 4 kilos of apples (~2.5 pounds per kilo). Quite the sight I tell you.
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Hannah has fallen in love with oranges. She makes a ridiculously large mess with them but at least she is getting some fiber.
<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0105copy_zps0e61a522.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0105copy_zps0e61a522.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0105copy_zps0e61a522.jpg" /></a>
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We did find some blueberries this last week. I bought a TON of them. Really wishing I had some canning jars :( Still cannot find these...what a bummer. So I made some blueberry muffins, blueberry syrup and I froze the rest for now. What a treat!
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-51453741921193561342013-09-21T19:39:00.001-07:002013-09-21T19:39:23.506-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Jardin or no Jardin - That is the Question!</span></div>
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It is considered incredibly normal and quite frankly was expected that we were going to put both of our children in the Jardin once we started language school. What is a Jardin - well I am glad you asked! A jardin is basically a daycare center for preschool/kindergarten(jardin is Spanish for garden as well). Here it is normal for Peruvian children to go to the Jardin at age two if they are wanting to get into a better gradeschool, however it is obligatory to place your child in the Jardin at age three - at least that is what we have been told. The Jardin is from 8:50-12:30 every day during the week. For most parents this works out wonderfully because they need to work to support their families. However, for us it is a little complicated. First off John starts school at 8:30 and the Jardin does not open until 8:50 so that means I would have to walk with all THREE kids a few blocks to the Jardin - which seems like a few blocks to many unless I grow another arm. There are services to taxi your kids to school but those cost money and that scares me a little bit. Another thing to think about, is that if I did actually get Caleb to the Jardin in the morning I would not actually see him again until 4:30 because I have language classes from 12:10 till 4:30. At this time I would come home cook dinner and by the time I got done with everything I would be lucky to even get 20 minutes with the little guy before he goes to bed at 7. I feel like I am not ready for this. I think to myself, am I just being selfish or is the just not the right timing? John and I would really like for him to speak Spanish, but is this out of prideful ambition of just wanting to be able to say our kid speaks Spanish or does he really need to learn it right now? I mean I absolutely agree he needs to learn Spanish but right now we have a good schedule going and I fear the emotional turmoil (on both his side and mine) we might create might be worse than not sending him to school. At this point we are not sure if he will benefit from only having a few months in the Jardin before we move to Curahuasi. Once we get to Curahuasi we do not plan on sending him to school, for a couple of reasons (1) He is still very young (2) We have not decided whether we are wanting to homeschool or not. Caleb is still very young (3 in May) so really if we were in the States I would not even be considering whether or not to put him in preschool, however we do feel a good amount of cultural pressure to put him in school here. Every week people talk to me about the benefits of putting him in the Jardin, and really the only benefit would be that Caleb would learn Spanish because realisitically I will still not be able to get more homework done. Will 4 months in the Jardin really make a difference if we decide to homeschool them anyway in Curahuasi? Will it really be that important if we come back after three years anyway? Truth be told if we come back after three years he will not really retain any of it anyway although I am sure this will make it easier for him to learn Spanish in the future. Or will we stay here longer than three years? Tough, tough, tough decisions. Please pray for us on how to go about this.</div>
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We do have DVDs and music that the kids have been listening to and they are learning lots of Spanish words. We also have a sweet girl who comes to our house to watch the kids while John and I are walking to language school. She stays for about two hours and only speaks Spanish to the kids which has also been helpful. We also just started attending church on Thursday nights too in hopes to get Caleb exposed to more Spanish. We visited this particular church for the first time this past Thursday. What an eye opening experience. I imagine this will be a little bit more like the church experience we will have in Curahuasi. They had two kids rooms, one fore preschool and a nursery. The preschool room was a concrete room with ten plastic chairs. They did have a boombox for music and some crayons but that was pretty much the extent of it. The nusery had two small beds, one crib and lots of stuffed animals. Normally you expect to see a child safety gate in the nursery and they had one creatively made out of material easily available to Peruvians. Kids do not need much - just love and care - and that is what they got that night. When we returned to pick up Caleb that night he was so excited that he got to sing songs and color a picture. Who needs fancy toys right?<br />
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Pray for our friend who helps us with the kids as she will be going to have surgery next week, sooner than we expected. She will need to have about 3 weeks off after the surgery and we will miss her dearly - ourselves included. She is such a blessing to our family during this time of language learning.<br />
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...The decision on whether or not to homeschool is giving me more gray hair for sure. Any thoughts on this? I have many...</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-88610204992899679202013-09-21T18:12:00.000-07:002013-09-21T18:12:50.447-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Oh the Microwave...</span></div>
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After several trips to oeshle (where we purchased our microwave), one mechanical repair that gave us back our original microwave and one mechanical repair that failed, two months later we have our microwave back. Seriously when I say several times I mean 15 times - not exaggerated at all. We took the microwave in before I delived Hudson and we just got a new one this week. Not sure we will ever know why it took so long but at least we have it back. We have not had a microwave for so long now we kind of wonder why we bought one in the first place. As we have used it this week we have realized that having a microwave is much more convenient when you have three kids and saves a lot on washing dishes. The funny thing is we have gone without one for so long that Hannah walked in and saw the mircowave, she pointed her finger and with a concerned look on her face said"Uh oh...uh oh..uh oh!". We are all grateful and astonished to have our microwave back. Oh the joy of modern conveniences!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-41671422802634967962013-09-07T20:14:00.000-07:002013-09-08T20:00:29.242-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I Can't Speak in English or Spanish</span></div>
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My brain is getting so confused I cannot even speak my native tongue anymore. Just a few days ago Caleb asked me how to spell the word "patient" I said, "P...A...C...I...." - John just looked at me and started laughing. I did not even realize that I was spelling it the Spanish way! Oh dear...</div>
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***By the way Caleb's first word he can spell all by himself is, of course, the word "jet". This kid has had airplane/helicopter brain since as he was born!***</div>
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Learning a new langauge does horrible things to your mind. Sometimes I cannot remember the English word for things - I consistently forget the English word for "palta" which is avocado. The avocados here are AMAZING- back in the States I could never find ripes ones but here I can choose if I want one for lunch or for later in the week. They always have ripe avocados here, and we are really enjoying them. </div>
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I just have to share some of these ridiculous language learning stories. This week for me has been a difficult one with the whole learning Spanish thing but I am slowly learning to laugh at myself - and so is everyone else! During class this week I was describing a scene in my vocab book to my teacher when I said, "The people are eating the duck", when what was really happening was the people were feeding the duck - no big deal right? We got a pretty good laugh out of this one. Oh but it gets better....this week I was trying to explain to John how Hudson's baby blanket smelled like dirt. Let me clarify this - I had just washed his blanket - however it is windy here in Arequipa and when you hang your clothes over night the wind blows all the dirt on the clothes. At least the blanket was cleaner than before it was washed. Anyway, as I was trying to describe that Hudson's blanket smelled like dirt I said, "The blanket sounds like the earth." John looked at me all funny and we both busted up laughing. </div>
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Sometimes language learning is hilarious, awkward, and extremely frustrating. The funny thing about this is that I **thought** (which is the key word here) that I pretty much knew Spanish before I got here. HaHAHAAHa! So FUNNY! Everyday I spend my time working on pronunciation, grammar, and just plain stumbling over my words. Spanish is such a beautiful language and it is horrible how I just butcher it every day. Just one more example..I had been here for 5 weeks studying Spanish when on one Sunday I asked my pastor, who is a guy, how his husband was doing?! In my mind I thought, "Did I really just do that?". Yep, I did. Oh brother...</div>
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I know that with every week that passes I am getting a little (emphasis on little) better, but sometimes I wonder if it will ever be enough. One of the hardest things about learning a language is, well, that you actually have to practice speaking - profound right? Well as a mom I think this is really hard. I cannot spend all day integrating myself into the culture or meeting/talking with people well because I have three children who need to eat. In addition to this, every time we go out, we fall into the same pattern as we did in the US - John usually does the talking and I watch the kids. This is especially easy to fall into here since John knows considerably more Spanish than I do - I mean the guy is a genius! They say that some people are left-brained (better at math and science), and some people are right-brained (better at everything else). Well it is obvious to me that John uses both sides of his brain...I mean he is a doctor, and can absorb/speak new languages like no one else I have ever seen. After this evaluation of John, I am beginning to wonder whether I am right-brained, left-brained or just do not have a brain. I will let you know when the verdict is in.</div>
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We take for granted just being able to walk into a store and communicate with someone. Yesterday I went to one of my favorite stores here in Arequipa to purchase a few small wooden toys for the kids. They had these beautiful, colorfully-designed little instruments I had been keeping my eye on for a while. When I found out they were on sale I decided to go in and get a few. I spent a while looking at prices and finally determined what I wanted and went to the register. As the prices began to ring up something was not adding up because it came out to be more than I had intended on paying. I took my receipt back and asked the lady why the price was so high since it said right here it was on sale. She tried to explain the problem to me for a couple of minutes but it was futile. I could not understand what she was saying and more importantly why I had paid so much for something that was supposed to be on sale. I had spent twenty minutes making sure I had everything added up right only to fail miserably. I walked home pouting in disappointment because I just could not understand a word that lady was saying to me. I tried really hard not to break down all the way home because so many people were watching me walk down the street - as I am always a spectacle with the baby. I got home, told John my story, and started crying. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to fully understand Spanish and more importantly have spiritual conversations - or make any sort of impact while I am here.</div>
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Everyone here is kind to me when I butcher the very language that so easily rolls off of their tongues. No judgemental words - a little laughter but hey that is just normal. When you learn a language it is like becoming a child all over again except children lack pride. With all of the silly little mistakes I have made lately I am lacking pride too - maybe that is a good thing. Oh Lord help me learn Spanish!
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0089_zps402fc451.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0089_zps402fc451.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0089_zps402fc451.jpg" /></a>
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A break from studying Spanish!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-43703601659342494442013-08-25T21:26:00.000-07:002013-08-25T21:26:39.050-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Confessions of a Spoiled Rotten Missionary Wife</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I admit sometimes I consider myself the most unlikely of candidates to be considered a missionary wife. I mean before coming to Peru I had never made my own applesauce (which I do on a regular basis now. As a matter of fact peels were flying tonight!) or even considered making my own baby wipes (this is next weeks new adventure). It is a for sure thing that I will never do cloth diapers - not because they are not awesome. I know lots of amazing women who use them but it just isn't for me. We all have our limits you know. Never before had I imagined not giving my kids a bath for an entire week, but here life is just different. No bath tub. Somtimes no power, and that changes everything now doesn't it. I never really realized how spoiled I was till I came here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">**Just for the record Peru has a lot of things. You can get lots of American products, but you will have to pay a little more for them and the trick is actually finding them - which can take forever, and who knows if you find it once, if you will ever be able to find it again. They do not really stock items here as I have found, which turns you into an impulse buyer for sure! Oh look they have corn chips, let's buy ten bags!**</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I miss my high heels, having girls nights, eating fancy chocolates, and going out to high priced coffee shops for a few hours of relaxation. I long for my cowboy boots and country music. I decided not to bring my boots because I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb here, and I was right - but that does not change the fact that I miss them. John and I had really counted on being able to access Pandora while we were here too - then I could have had all the country music I wanted! Guess what?? Pandora doesn't work in Peru - really? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I miss my kids not getting sick all the time. I miss having a yard for the kids to play in with all of their toys. We have plenty of toys here but it just isn't the same. Sometimes I look at my kids and wonder if I have robbed them of the "American childhood" by coming here - or have I just given them different opportunities? In reality the kids are just fine and they are pretty much considered famous here. A guy in the super market today told us to warn people back home that are kids are going to be movie stars here - it is just so rare to see such light skinned children. I miss all of Hannah's beautifully color coordinated, ridicuosly, frivolous, girly outfits. Shouldn't every girl be gorgeously dressed? Somtimes I wonder if by coming here we have somehow managed to avoid the rat race of American culture, and maybe that is better. Since being here in Peru I have realized how materialistic I had become. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I miss hot summer nights in Missouri, grilling in the backyard (back when we had a yard), green grass that has been freshly cut, and playdates at clean parks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I miss my dishwasher. It seems as though I spend all day doing the dishes. I miss my microwave - yes we had one but it has been out of commission since the 3rd of July. We have taken it in to the store we bought it from only to wait patiently to someday - hopefully- recieve another one. Glad we have a toaster and a TV - although like a lot of things that we've bought here, they are electrically spastic. Our TV randomly turns on whenever it wants - which is pretty creepy at 3 o'clock in the morning playing childrens DVDs. Our toaster also works when it wants to. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I really should not be complaining though becuase at least we have these things. I think of all of my friends in the Sudan who have NONE of these - these are the real missionary women. This is what I mean by calling myself a spoiled rotten missionary wife. Sometimes even with all of these amenities, I feel as though I am not cut out for this. It's true, I am not cut out for this. Inadequate - for sure. I do know one thing for sure though - God has called us to Peru. US as in both of US. Sometimes I am not sure why God has called me to a place so far and so different from home - but I know without a doubt we are here for reason. Sometimes God asks us to do things that do not necessarily make us happy, but they are the best things for us. God loves me and knows what is best for me - and for me right now it is Peru. I rest in this and in this alone because I know by myself I am a wimp - just ask John. He heard me scream tonight when I went to blend the applesauce and grabbed a worm on the blender - um that is just grose! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am definitely no missionary wife hero - just an average, everyday, person who God has called to Peru. Not special, just doing what God has called me to in the place He has called me to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Just so you know Peru is a beautiful country with many wonderful places to see and to visit. I think it is only normal to miss home regardless of how beautiful the country is or how wonderful the people here are. We have been warmly welcomed here in Peru, sometimes I just miss home that's all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here are a couple pictures of the kids I took today. Yes, Hannah is in a color coordinated swimsuit/headband that I brought from home!</span><br />
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0623ab_zpsbe9826e0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0623ab_zpsbe9826e0.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0623ab_zpsbe9826e0.jpg" /></a>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-54766216371930254262013-08-18T19:16:00.005-07:002013-08-18T19:16:48.679-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A New Meaning to the Term "Porta Potty"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here is the picture people have been asking me for. Apparently I forgot to post the promised picture! This is the bathroom of the place we decided not to rent. Can you see the hole with the blankets tied up around it in the front yard? Get it - porta potty - just dig your hole and hang up a sheet! Any idea why we made the decision to rent the other house - can you just sense the sarcasm in this comment? :) </span></div>
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSCN1750_zpsc921c722.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSCN1750_zpsc921c722.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSCN1750_zpsc921c722.jpg" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-47757594722386055752013-08-14T20:10:00.001-07:002013-08-14T20:10:16.614-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Our house in Curahuasi and a trip to Machu Picchu</span><br />
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSC_0042a_zpsa7d39b3c.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSC_0042a_zpsa7d39b3c.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSC_0042a_zpsa7d39b3c.jpg" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This picture is from Curahuasi on a hike up the mountain - more pictures from this hike to come in a later post.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well we got back a little over a week ago from Curahuasi. We were looking for a house to fix up for our upcoming move in January/February time frame. Well fixing up a house turned out to be WAY more expensive than we thought. We looked at three places that were in need of some "fixing up", or just plain "finishing", and one that was completely finished but needed a few things to be worked on. The three fixer uppers consisted of cement or adobe blocks and wood poles. Needless to say after John introduced me to our first "fixer upper" some crazy things started running through my mind like...umm are we nuts? This house had no indoor bathroom, no indoor kitchen, no finished walls (only adobe bricks), no running water to the house, two floors but no stairs, no windows, electric wires hanging everywhere, and a giant gravel hole in the backyard. Can we say hazardous for three small children? I think once we exited the house John could tell by the look on my face that we were not going to be renting this one. I left that house thinking, " I know God never gives us more than we can handle so God must think I am one tough cookie." We went on to look at house number two. This was a cement block house with three rooms on the bottom floor that were totally unfnished although it did have one window that had glass in it - it was broken but hey, there was glass. This might sound strange but here in Peru "hallways" do not really exist. These houses all had space for a kitchen, living room and bedrooms but not of them are connected. You must exit each room and go outside to access the next room. Not really conducive for my potty training children considering the other hazards that are outside, gravel pits, electric wires, wild pigs, and loads of cactus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second house seemed like a better option even though the pigs were roaming around what would be the yard and the cactuses were in the multitudes, however, our hopes were dashed when were told the price to fix up the three rooms on the first floor (the second floor was not finished yet and rebar was jutting up into the air) - $10,000 american dollars - yep you read that right. We were shocked and disappointed because we do not have that kind of money and there is no way the kids and us will be living in the same room for the next three years - nope - not happening. </span><span style="font-size: large;">On to house number three. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This was a little adobe house with enough bedrooms/space for us, but we were going to have to do some significant rennovating still. This included adding a bathroom (because there was NO bathroom - just a hole in the front yard surrounded by tarps...you can see it in the picture below), connecting all the rooms with hallways, redoing the stairs, making a room into a kitchen, raising the ceilings - aka digging out the floor (Americans are super tall in comparision with Peruvians and especially the Quechua people), and making a place for the washing machine. This list was just too long and the translation from English to Spanish to Quechua was just too difficult. So, on to option four. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our fourth option was a finished duplex that had a kitchen but no counter tops. When we entered the house it stunk of rotting meat from the night before which was displayed on the table in the kitchen. Our first impression was not great but at this point things were looking good compared to our other options. This house was at least finished and only needed some minor work so we decided to go with it. We will be getting a larger water tank for the house since it is common to not have water for four or five days during the dry season. We will also be getting some counter tops and shelves so that I have a place to cook and a place to put my dishes. The best part about this house was the tiny plot of grass in the front yard. The kids will have a place to play and the yard is even fenced off! We have been told the windows leak and if that is true the landlord said he would fix it. So we now have a place! Quite the adventure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">These are a couple of pictures of our future place.</span>
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSCN1738_zps362038c2.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSCN1738_zps362038c2.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSCN1738_zps362038c2.jpg" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is a picture of house number three, which we decided not to rent.</span></div>
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<a href="http://s1024.photobucket.com/user/crystalros/media/DSCN1748_zps0120e630.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo DSCN1748_zps0120e630.jpg" border="0" src="http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/crystalros/DSCN1748_zps0120e630.jpg" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pray for us this week as:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- We really need our house to sell</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- We would really like it if our car would sell as well (an added bonus)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- That we would continue to learn the language well, which iI've found is especially difficult when I have Hudson in class with me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- That the kids would adjust to having us back in school, and having our empleada return to help us with watching the children during our school time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Suzanne and I ventured off to Machu Picchu while we were in Cuzco waiting to take our bus ride back to Arequipa. John so graciously stayed with the kiddos all day in a local Hostal and I bet he has some pretty awesome stories to tell you about that experience. John is such a trooper and really just an outstanding guy! Suzanne and I enjoyed our day off traipsing through the ruins of Peru. What a treat! It was more walking than I think either of us expected, even Hudson was tired! Poor John he has always wanted to go to Machu Picchu but it was just not going to be feasible with all of the kids. Hudson was only three weeks and now he can say he has been to Machu Picchu, I am sure John will never let me live this one down :) Love you honey!!! Enjoy the pictures from our trip!</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-9041456119917076302013-08-06T20:12:00.002-07:002013-08-06T20:12:47.054-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Back to School...</span></div>
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Just a few more pictures of our little man. He is growing up so fast. I finally put him in a 0-3 months outfit today - getting big - out growing the newborn clothes. Hudson rolled over for the first time yesterday - quite a bit ahead of schedule than Caleb and Hannah. </div>
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Pray for Hudson and Hannah as they both have some kind of respiratory thing and the nights have been long. Other than that Hudson is growing well. The kids really enjoy having a new sibling and everyday it is so fun to watch them enjoy their new brother. What a blessing!</div>
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We have had the last month off to adjust to having Hudson around and it was also a Peruvian holiday time so school was not in session - including our language school. The timing worked out perfectly since we had the baby right before vacation time. During our time off we flew to Lima to get the kids visas and to register Hudson with the U.S. embassy. Dual citizenship sounds cool but in reality it requires a bit more traveling and quite a bit more paperwork. After our adventures in Lima we flew to Cusco and then made the supposedely 2 and a half hour drive, which took about 4-5 hours due to road closures, to Curahuasi. We will be moving to Curahuasi in January or February and we will need a house that is ready for us to move into at that time. Since things tend to take a little longer than expected we ventured to Curahuasi to find a house now so that the necessary improvements could be made before we arrive. Finding a house was quite the experience which I think deserves a blog of it's own. So hopefully sometime within the next week or so I can get that up as well. On a positive note we did find a house, and we are grateful for that!</div>
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We returned to language school this week. We are feeling super blessed to have our friend Suzanne here to help with this transition back to school. The kids have truly enojoyed having her around, and quite frankly I think John and I have enjoyed the extra help around the house. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-35487772684148437792013-07-17T12:02:00.000-07:002013-07-17T12:02:17.080-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Bath By Candlelight</span></div>
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Constant electricity is a luxury really because most people around the world do not have it - us included. Although I really cannot complain because the electricity has only gone out a few times since we have been here and really for only a minimal amount of time. This morning just happened to be one of those mornings we did not have electricity. This just happened to be the morning we had planned on giving the kids a bath. Good thing we have a gas stove and matches. So the kids got to take a bath by candlelight. Nine pots of hot water later, they had a warm bath. Oh, the things we take for granted in life. The fact that we have running water in our house is just a blessing because there are lots of people here, even in the second largest city in Peru , who do not have this luxury. Sometimes I feel incredibly spoiled. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8226228682810649065.post-28559527454419106812013-07-16T20:33:00.005-07:002013-07-16T20:33:57.862-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A Day With the Dinosaurs</span></div>
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For the first time in a few weeks John and I took the kids to the park this morning, but this was not just any park - it was a dinosaur park! A great deal of the parks here seem to be themed. I have seen a train park, an airplane park, and now a dinosaur park. The strange thing about the parks here is that the majority of them do not have any play equipment at all. Sometimes the parks are only open in the weekend as well. Saturdays we always go to the park but not with the intent of playing, but buying food for the week. Our park down the street has no play quipment, is super tiny, and is residence to the pack of neighborhood dogs. However early, early, early, on Saturday morning our park is bustling with people buying their food for the week. Just last week Caleb and I were buying our weekly vegetables/fruits, when we saw a pig head on the meat table of one of the vendors! Needless to say in many ways my definition of the word "park" has changed significantly. </div>
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Soo....today we went to the Dinosaur Park. Caleb has been asking to go since we got here and he heard about it from some of our friends. Our empleada, Ines, has been encouraging us to go as well, and we finally got the chance to go today. We spent a good two and a half hours there just playing on the swings, play equipment, and trampolines. Oh, the kids had so much fun! It was sort of like an miniature amusement park - at least that is the closest thing it reminded me of. Unfortunately none of the fun stuff, including the ferris wheel was running. Apparently, the park is open but the rides are only open on the weekend. It was still not a disappointment though because the kids have not played at a park with play equipment since we have been in Peru - so they were VERY excited. Hannah was exploring everything, and getting incredibly dirty. Caleb enjoyed going across all of the "rickey-rockety bridges" as he described them. We had such a wonderful, relaxing time today I almost forgot I was still in Peru. Enjoy some of the attached pictures of the kids just enjoying themselves.</div>
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We ended the day with icecream today. The kids really like icecream - who doesn't right? It is not easily accessible, or affordable, to buy a gallon and put in your fridge but it is easy to buy off of a vendor on the street. The truly special treat for John and I was watching Caleb, unprompted, share with his sister. She would go off and play with her toys, return signing and saying please, and then wait excitedly for Caleb to feed her another spoon of icecream. Caleb is such a great big brother, and we enjoy watching him grow. John has been teaching Caleb how to pray as well and this has been a daily source of enjoyment for us all.</div>
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Hudson is doing well, and the kids just adore their baby brother. Every morning Hannah joyously screams his name when she sees him. Caleb enjoys touching his little toes, and showing him all of his airplanes. We feel so blessed to have this new little guy, and we cannot wait to see the little personality, and character God has given him.</div>
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The kids are also very excited because our friend, Suzanne, is coming tomorrow. She is about to make the flight over to Peru as I am writing this blog. Pray for her safe travel. Suzanne is coming for about a month to help us out with the children, and to check out missionary work here in Peru. The kids are very excited to have a new friend to play with, and Caleb cannot wait to go to the airport tomorrow.</div>
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Oh and this is how they "water" the parks here in Peru. </div>
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