Gracias a Dios, we’ve had water this week after three days without it last week. We have also had more rain, although the weather is still warmer and dryer than usual. Our Internet connection seems to be better and thus we feel more “in touch.” There are still many people in Shell without water for the past 10 days, however.
Josiah started school two days a week at a preschool run by one of the missionaries. He is one of two missionary children and the other 9 students are from Casa de Fe, the orphanage in town. He hears lots of Spanish and hopefully the Casa de Fe kids will be picking up English. He seems to love it and we enjoy having him home the other days. This morning he told me his friend Katie doesn’t like kisses, so he has to marry someone else!
Sammy is busy writing book reports for school and Nathan stayed on green all week, earning a special treasure today! Not an easy thing for our active, impulsive little boy and we are very proud of him. Isaac is cruising around and showing some interest in taking steps. He constantly says “Hola” and charms everyone who sees him. He loves playing on the porch and makes a beeline for the door whenever he’s crawling around. He seems most interested in playing with dirt and sticks when he’s outside, so soon we’ll have another jungle boy running around!
Paul and I started Spanish tutoring this week and hopefully we will cement the grammatical rules that we practice in daily life. He and Sammy finished their homemade basketball backboard this week and now we have the dribbling rhythm often in the background. He also fixed the microwave, installed a fan on the porch, rearranged the furniture in Isaac’s room to give him more room to play and solved the problem of our slowly defrosting freezer. (This time it was simply an open freezer door, but last week the coils had to be thoroughly cleaned to return it to normal function.) The honey-do list here tends to have several more critical problems than we seemed to have in Dallas! He also oversees the hospital equipment and the “technicos” that are here from Quito to work on anything that needs repairs. After attending a meeting on HCJB’s new missionary training vision, he is now up to date on the exciting role that our jungle hospital will play in this initiative. Yes, he is still primarily doing anesthesia, but as you can see, he doesn’t lack for things to do when his partner is on call.
With everyone is school now, I was able to start back at the Consulta in the hospital. (I didn’t work my one clinic day during the summer months with everyone out of school and all that we had going on.) My last patient this week was a very yellow little baby who had to be admitted for jaundice to receive phototherepy. It was heartbreaking to wonder if the parents could afford the admission. Although they decided to go through with it, they were worried about how many days it would be due to the expense. Although I had many patients in Dallas without insurance, this problem didn’t seem to be as common there.
So, a busy, normal week. We’re glad it’s Friday and looking forward to pizza at our favorite Italian place with 2 other missionary couples. Paul has great plans for playing games with them after the kids are in bed. Tomorrow we are going to attend our church’s OANSA kick-off. This is the Spanish version of AWANA – a club for children focusing on memorizing Bible verses. We hope to get more involved in our church’s ministry to the surrounding community.