Days Ten & Eleven - Second Weekend

The days of Jeff's absence are passing by--only 8 more to go! We're over halfway, and that's a very good feeling. :)

To begin this (long) post, I'll give an update on Marlene, our neighbor girl. All of my information (except from a conversation this evening with Douglas, Marlene's father) has been second-hand (or third- or fourth-) so I hope I have my facts straight; but as best as I understand it, here's the story. Friday night, after being admitted to our local hospital, Marlene was determined to be in need of more advanced care, so she and her mother Wilma were flown by medical helicopter to UVA in Charlottesville where she is even now. Apparently, Marlene had swelling on her brain and had been having seizures...at the time, the doctors didn't know if the swelling was causing the seizures or if the seizures were causing the swelling--a chicken-or-the-egg type of situation. Marlene was unresponsive; in fact, the only two indications of any kind of response from her were when she flinched when being pinched on the leg and when she bit on the tube in her mouth when a nurse yelled at her to "WAKE UP!" (to test her response...obviously, not to be mean). A spinal tap was done on Marlene, but it takes a significant amount of time to get the results back from that--maybe 24 - 48 hours? I didn't hear this for sure; but my dad is positive that high doses of antibiotics and steroids were being given by IV the whole time, even before the results were known. It was a tense situation, and Marlene's complete lack of response was extremely troubling, to say the least.

Last evening (Saturday) there was one positive sign: Marlene woke up enough to say that her head hurt, then she curled up in her usual position (rather than being stretched out unnaturally as she had been) and went back to sleep. Her grandmother (Douglas's mother) was staying with her when this happened, as Douglas and Wilma had not gotten any sleep the previous night and had gone across the street to a hotel to crash (which Douglas said he did from 8:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.).

Fast forward to this evening: when the boys and I pulled into our garage from being over at a friends' house (more on that later), who should be coming across our driveway to meet us than Douglas himself?! It was obvious from his body language that the news was good; and we were all incredibly relieved to hear that Marlene was sitting up, talking and making sense, and even laughing this evening!!! He said that she was very surprised to hear that it was Sunday already and she thought it was really interesting how she got where she is now (since Old Order Mennonites don't ride in airplanes or helicopters normally). :)

The diagnosis given to her condition was "viral meningitis," and one of the medical personnel told Douglas that the pain that Marlene probably experienced was 10 times as bad as the pain of a migraine. She still needs time to recover fully; but what a relief (and that's a complete understatement) that she's come this far already.

Marlene's birthday is on Tuesday; and if she's still in the hospital, Douglas and Wilma may take their other daughters Rosalie and Wanita (who are currently staying with Wilma's parents) over the mountain to see Marlene and celebrate her birthday there together. What a celebration that will be!!!

In our Sunday school class today, we talked a lot about healing which I thought was highly appropriate since healing has been on my mind so much the past few days. In recent memory, I can't think of another situation in which I have prayed so fervently for physical healing. I felt like I was begging God for her life (and I know many other people were praying, too). I always want to pray in accordance with God's will, and I do believe that things which seem tragic to us can play an important role in His plans...but in this situation, I found myself praying over and over that God would raise Marlene up and restore her to complete health. Josiah and David were well aware of what was going on, and we prayed a number of times together for her healing. Our custom as a congregation is to have an open mic at the end of each service for anyone to speak what is on his/her heart, including any requests for prayer. Josiah asked me this morning if I was going to stand up and tell everyone about Marlene so we could all pray for her, so I did that...then told him that next time, I would let him stand up and speak. ;)

Many heartfelt thanks to all those who have been praying for Marlene! I mostly wrote all this info for Jeff's sake since I know he was concerned about the situation and will want to hear the details; but I've heard from others of you who have been praying for her as well, and I (and our neighbors) deeply appreciate that. The sense of relief is enormous, and I treasure the sight of Douglas being so filled with joy tonight that his little girl is going to make it. I think only if this had happened in our own family would it have gripped me more.

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On to Jeff... :) Just for fun, I want to share an email that Josiah dictated to me this morning to send to Jeff.

Daddy,

I miss you. A lot. I wish you could come home today. But you can't. Our ring chain isn't empty yet. And I love you no matter what.

Love,
Josiah

And the response he got back from his daddy...

Josiah,

I miss you a lot, too. Please tell David I miss him, too! I wish I could be with you right now. I love you so much. I can't wait until the next 7 days are over!

I only have 4 more teaching days... it has been hard to teach the Arabic kids English. They always want to play instead of pay attention to learning.

Tell Mommy I love her bunches and oats!

Daddy

Awwwww, isn't that sweet??? :)

On Friday, all the kids (200 or so) from the English camp and the teachers got to go swimming in a nice big pool with a huge water slide which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, despite using sunscreen, Jeff still got a sunburn which is particularly bad on his shoulders and is entering the itchy stage.

This weekend was full for him with driving the van for their service team and touring a number of sites in Galilee: Dan, Banias, Tabor, Hermon, passed Gamla (which I mentioned in my Day 7 post), then dinner at a Lebanese restaurant on Saturday evening and the night in a hostel in Tiberias. Today they toured Capernaum, Tagbas (there is a famous ancient mosaic there which commemorates the miracle of the fish and loaves), a drive around the Sea of Galilee to the entrance and exit of the Jordan River, another drive-by of Gamla (it's a great place, what can I say?) :), Arbel, Zippori (Jeff wrote this in an email, but I'm actually not sure what it is!) :), Nazareth Illit, a shouk (open-air market), then to his hosts' home for a BBQ of lamb and chicken shish kabobs which were very good, he wrote. (Hey, I had chicken shish kabobs tonight, too!) :) He and the others sure packed a lot into their weekend, but I'm glad for his sake that he's getting to revisit these sites...and I'm glad for the others that they're getting to see them as well. Now when they read the Scriptures about Capernaum or Nazareth or Dan or the other sites, they'll have an image to go with it, and there is no better way to learn than that.

Tomorrow it's back to teaching those kids who "always want to play instead of pay attention to learning." Hmmm...sounds like some kids I know. :) It's a good thing Jeff knows how to combine learning with play!

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Israel pic of the day: yes, there are McDonald's restaurants in Israel--lots of them, as a matter of fact. This one happened to be fairly close to our home, and (maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this) it was quite a treat when Jeff would stop by and bring McDonald's food home for us. :) Josiah was particularly fond of their free balloons--and their ice cream cones.

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I've been thinking recently about the theme of "continual feast" since that is how I'm feeling these days...which is a surprise to me since I thought that this time of Jeff being away would feel very empty for us; instead, it has been very full (although a huge hole still remains where he would normally be, of course). It's just that so many people have run to the rescue to fill in the gap for us and my focus has been on providing joy and laughter for my boys (rather than organizing the garage or even keeping up well with the laundry!) so our days have felt abundant rather than sparse.

Here are some aspects of our recent continual feast...

Yesterday morning, we went berry picking at a local arboretum with our good friend Anna Kathryn and her granddaughter Makayla (who is in Josiah's Sunday school class and whose mother is Melanie who graduated from high school with me). Guided by Anna Kathryn, we picked wineberries--a first for me--and then had a delightful snack of vanilla yogurt over fresh-from-the-vine wineberries. The weather was perfect...the environment gorgeous...and the company delightful!

~ Makayla, Josiah, and David picking wineberries...Makayla and Josiah both managed to get a sizable amount in their containers, but David was definitely "doing a Sal" (from Blueberries for Sal) because he would pick a few, put them in his container, then promptly reach in and eat them all!...I admit that even for me, it took a great deal of self-control to pick the berries for my container, rather than do what I really wanted which was stuff them in my mouth as quickly as I could pick them...they were SO yummy!

Meanwhile, Tobin was lying contentedly on a blanket in the clearing which was ringed by wineberry bushes. He looked at this toy and made the parts spin...

...then decided to chew on it for a while.
If he wasn't such a contented baby, I wouldn't have the freedom to do nearly all the things I've been doing recently!

While Josiah and Makayla looked for honeysuckle before our little picnic, David hung out by the pond and let me take his picture.

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This evening, our church held a Guess Who's Coming to Your Backyard BBQ; and we were fortunate enough to be sent to the Bontrager's house for dinner. Burdette and Carolyn made the BEST chicken kebabs; and from that to the homemade ice cream that Chris and Monika brought, it was all delicious! The real treat though was having the opportunity to get to know people in a deeper way through a different context than a Sunday morning worship service. I had so much fun, and my boys enjoyed it so much that David got a little teary when it was time for us to leave. I think Burdette's promise to have us back sometime to roast marshmallows over their fire pit helped David get over his sorrow though. :)

The Mumaws brought up this blog since they've been checking in to see how Jeff's trip has been going...so of course, I told everyone that I would put pictures from the night on the blog. Here they are! :)

~ the Bontragers have three boys, too, so they must be a great family :)...in any case, they have lots (and lots and lots) of trains and other things with wheels so Josiah and David were well entertained!

~ Carolyn holding Tobin while he prepares to bite down on that poor purple bear's nose...by the way, all the Carolyns I have ever known have been such extremely nice people: my mother's cousin, my good friend in college, my mentor and very close friend in San Diego were all named Carolyn...and now this Carolyn joins the ranks of "very nice people" in my mind :)
~ of course, this Ruth is a very nice person, too, even if she did insist on messing up the dominoes game with all her doubles ;)
~ we played Mexican train--only my second time ever playing it--I did NOT win, but I had a great time...I LOVE games and was glad when Clay suggested this

Thanks so much, Bontragers, for a wonderful evening!!!