Please God, not Africa!

Yesterday was our "family appointment" with the Infectious Disease Doctor.  To be truthful, it is a tad chaotic when a family of seven has to sit in a treatment room made for two.  But we managed.  Each child was questioned, prodded, checked and double-checked and turns out they are all fairly healthy and somewhat normal.  (Although Jack was dying of embarrassment when the resident wanted to feel his stomach!) We started out with a round of blood work, then met with the resident and then waited for the ID Doc. About three weeks ago, Kylie had blood work done and one of her "numbers" (her CRP) was way too high.  Up until that point, her numbers had been normal so this jump to a higher number was a bit of a scare. We weren't sure what was going on inside her.  When we met with our ID doc yesterday, she told us that it could take up to four or five hours to get the results back and that she would call us later in the day. In the meantime, she took a look...

I really hope you are ready for good long read.  It's time for a big ole blog post with scads of photos and lots of info on what happened in our last two weeks in Togo.   Ready, set, go!  I already told you about the long trip there with our church team and what a sweet  reunion I had with Nate and the boys.  It was awesome.  So let's pick it up after that. The Stoney Creek team was great -- they worked so hard and got a lot done.  But they did come to understand a little traditional saying we have here in Mango: WAWA. West Africa Wins Again. Despite their best efforts, their dedicated work ethic, their hopes, prayers and moments of frustration, sometimes you just can't win in West Africa. People's Exhibit A:  Ralph (a mechanic from our church team) and the Packer On Day One of work Ralph set out to fix the Wacker-Neuson tamper/packer thing.  (This machine is critical to the construction project and...

Sweet Reunion!! It was so awesome to see all the boys!! Yay!!  Together again... Poor Jack is going to miss his buddy, Bullet. This is me, in Phase 1.  Michelle was getting all artistic with her photos! The missionary women at Cindy's place on Thursday night. I love these women!! Me and Michelle -- having survived the hike to the cliffs.  Hot, sweaty and very much ready for our PB and J lunch. The week has gone so fast.  I packed for the first three days until I could pack no longer.  Then I joined the team in painting the perlins (the SCBC has rocked this place -- from painting hundreds of perlins to fixing the back-hoe and the tractor, it's been amazing.) It's been so great to have the team here with us, experiencing life in Mango, going to market, visiting the missionaries, eating fufu and so many other things.  The laughs and the stories are endless and I'm so very grateful that we will have these memories with ...

Oops.  Is it May already? In one way it feels like we've been home for only a couple of weeks and in other ways it feels like we never left.  (Except for the fact that Nate and the boys are thousands of miles away. That definitely feels weird.) I haven't written lately because I really haven't known what to say.  It's just been day-in and day-out kinda stuff here in Canada.  From nursing visits, to visiting family and friends, doing laundry etc. A week or so ago, Kylie, Teddy and I went north to Muskoka to pick up our truck.  We were absolutely astonished when friends up there pooled their money and did a bunch of work on it.  From new brakes and tires to a new exhaust system, our big Suburban got a new lease on life.  We are so very grateful! We stayed with Nate's cousins, Tim and Karla and had a great time together.  The weather was amazing so we went to the park and played around outside.  Below is Kylie and her cousin, Pyper, four...

FIVE THINGS I MISS ABOUT AFRICA: 5.  Clothes that dry on the line in less than 15 minutes! At least that was how it was when I left during the dry season, now that it's coming into rainy season it can two or three days depending on how wet and humid it is. 4. The Two-Handed Wave. There's nothing like driving out the gate at the hospital or zipping through town and getting the Togolese-Two-Handed-Wave, even from perfect strangers.  It just makes you feel like everyone is just waiting to become friends with you and they are genuinely glad you drove past. 3. Life on the Compound I really miss the craziness, the busyness and the never-a-dull-moment life on the hospital compound.  There's always something going on, someone popping by, or some crazy adventure (from discovering rotting meat in freezers to cracking open a safe...) 2.  My Friends I miss my new friends -the missionaries on our team and the Togolese friends we made.  It stinks that...

Last night I was laying awake, thinking about how I haven't posted in a while and what on earth I had to say in a post.  There isn't a whole lot exciting going on here, but here's a quick update on what we're up to: In Africa.... Ethan had his surgery a week and a bit ago.  They removed three of the four screws and all went well.  He was pretty happy that Dr. K gave him the screws to keep.  For the surgery, he had a spinal anesthetic, and unfortunately something went a little wrong and he was leaking out spinal fluid - which means really bad headaches.  The poor guy was only pain-free when he was flat on his back.  From what other people have said, it can be really painful -- kind of like your brain has dried out because all the fluid around it has leaked out.  I don't know if Ethan's was THAT bad, but I know it took a few days before he was feeling better.  (Remember that I'm getting most of my info from a 14 year old boy or his father either...

I told you all about what is happening in Canada, now for a quick update on what's happening in Africa. Nate and Ethan went down to the Tsiko hospital today so that tomorrow Ethan could have a small surgery to remove the screws in his leg.  For now, they only want to take out the screws because three of them go right through the growth plate in his femur.  Friday he'll have that surgery and then he and Nate will head north again on Saturday.  Please pray for them as they travel and for the surgery as well. Currently the docs don't believe that Ethan will ever have to have the rod removed so for now the plan is to leave it as is.  Thank you, thank you, for continuing to pray for our family through all of this.  It truly is hard to be on opposite sides of the ocean with kids having crazy procedures and surgeries done while you're not there.  But God is good and you guys are praying because we are hanging in there...keep the prayers comin'.  We stil...