Phew

We made it to Davao in one piece (though I'm not sure I can say our emotions were in one piece!) We literally hit here and all the exhaustion and emotional turmoil of the past month just bowled us over! I was SO sick... getting up at night to throw up even! So my lovely Nurse Practioner friend told me to just bite the bullet and go for some anti nausea meds (ok, she said it much nice than that!) So she found me some and I took it... dang! Good stuff... and I was knocked out for a day and a half! Seriously I barely woke to eat, pee and then crawl back in bed and sleep some more!
After some needed sleep, we got to work on our last bit of boxes... sorting out shipping and what was actually flying on the plane with us. We contacted the shipping company, they came, they measured, they were getting us a quote.... we waited... not too worried since our friends had just shipped with them so we figured it would be similarly priced... Finally we hear from them yesterday... um... sir... we don't actually have a port to ship to in Alaska... Wow.... maybe they could have told us this a week ago! Sigh... so we are now on Friday evening and not too much closer to finding ourselves a shipping company that can send our stuff... oh... and we leave Tuesday morning! Yikes! (Prayers are appreciated on this subject!)
On a better note, we've had such a blessed time here... being encouraged, uplifted and refreshed by our fellow missionaries. We are staying w/ some awesome people who have really shown us what support and building up of those around you can do for a mission organization! Kudos to Global Impact!! (This is the missions group of our friends Glen n Sarah Biggs who visited several times in Kihan).
We've also had the chance to just catch up with some friends, say more and more goodbyes... (so so hard!) And try to prepare ourselves for the changes taking place in just a few short days... not just the weather, but the emotional and spiritual challenges awaiting us in Alaska. Please do continue to pray for us all as we make this transition w/ our crew.
Thank you all for your love and support....
Blessings...
Jenn

Serenaded!

Well who says that serenading is just for guys expressing their love to their girls? This morning at 4:45 we woke to the sound of voices... at first I thought our neighbor had just stuck the radio on... but soon I realized I recognized a couple of the voices.... they were singing how they love us and will miss us... aaahhh... we came downstairs in our jammies (they were also in their jammies, so no worries!)... they prayed, served mountain coffee and sticky rice... spoke blessings over us, then prayed and sang some more... we woke the kids around 5:30 and they came down (Tyler had 3 cups of coffee before we realized it... YIKES!)
We were informed that the usual tradition is to serenade someone at 3 am... but they thought maybe we would like more sleep! Thanks! :) It truly was a sweet gesture and we will miss everyone tremendously...
Today is the last of the pack up and tomorrow we load the truck and go.... hard to believe...

goodbyes stink!

Tonight we had an improptu 'party'.... we had planned on a birthday celebration dinner for our friend/helper Jobert (a local village boy)... but then neighbors showed up w/ special rice n Adobo... then all the health care workers showed up to chat and say there goodbyes (and get in one more plea for us to stay)... through tears and prayers later, they left and we were left with that empty feeling one gets right before you leave your home and life you know.... sometimes I wish God would make us the type of people to settle in one place and stay there 20 years! And maybe someday that day will come.... but I know that each place He's brought us on our journey... He's had an amazing purpose and plan through it all.... I will never doubt God's plan of bringing us here to Kihan... I will never doubt His plan continues on even now... I am thankful to be in a place in my relationship with Him that I KNOW that I know that His will is PERFECT in EVERY way! .... "even when I cannot see... I still believe!"

Even when life is crazy and full of all this... craziness... just wanted to tell my friends out there who are taking the NARM... thinking and PRAYING like crazy for you girls! You rock... you'll do awesome!

One more step completed

This morning was our big 'garage' sale... more like a porch sale... We had people all week long trying to be the ones who got the preview of the sale... (whcih of course we let our helpers dig through first)... but the others we made wait until today.... so there were people lining our gates quite early in the morning... but first things first... we ate breakfast and gathered a few more of this n that... (and heard pleas from a few kids on please please please don't sell this or that)... Selling things is definitely hardest on kids! The older kids were each in charge of their bikes to sell (they were basicaly doing a silent bid system)... we had had probably 30 people want the 8 bikes we had... so it was madness! Joe finally had to help them out about half way into the morning... people were shoving money in the poor kids' faces trying to convince them to sell it to THEM! lol... Tonia, Levi n I manned the money box while my helpers n Earl helped answer pricing questions from the throngs of people! All in all in went well... though exhausting of course! But my house is emptier than it was... which gives me more room to pack! I'm still not sure how it's all going to get done... but at least whatever I'm not sure about I can just throw in a box and take to Davao..... then sort when I'm there!

As the reality of the transition is upon us... I find myself having random moments of... panic maybe? Realizing that some of my younger children can't even remember much of anything about American life... this morning was a funny little example... as I'm sorting through Meggie's clothes for the garage sale and she doesn't want a certain pink shirt... Tyler pipes in that he could have it (or even Levi)... now here one would think nothing of a boy wearing a bright pink shirt... some of my kids long pj pants we've sold in past garage sales end up on adults as capris! Clothes are just not paid attention to... the kids can wear stained, holy, too small or too big and nobody even notices! If memory serves me well... this isn't quite so in America!
Some things though I am looking forward to... all this packing has brought out cockroaches in the hundreds (or so it seems!).... Every morning there are at least 4 or so in my bathroom.... I'm looking forward to the day when my multiple trips to the bathroom at night doesn't involve being on the look out for cockroaches, huge spiders and even bats in my toilet! It's not so easy to go back to sleep after a cockroach races over your foot! (or worse is when a nasty bug flies in your ear and wakes you from a dead sleep!)... I'll be glad when I don't automatically think that a black belt or piece of tape on the floor is a snake... or my hair falling down on my arm is ants crawling on me! Sigh... but even with all those things 'better'... I will miss our little village here in the Philippines... miss what we are doing and the ability to help people in this way. Such are the conflicts in our hearts.

death to supermom

All of us women know that try as we might... we just can't be supermom... there are times we might even feel like we are getting there... but then life throws us 'something' to realize that we are completely human and in need of God's grace every moment of every day. It's been that kind of month! We have just over a week until we move to Davao, then another couple before we head stateside. In that amount of time we need to finish sorting what things we're keeping and what we're selling, along with what we're taking to Davao to get rid of and taking to Davao to ship back (mostly school stuff). Of course there is the normal challenges of moving with children (WHAT?... Why do we have to sell THAT!) Then we are continuing to homeschool whilst we pack the house around the kids (distracting...) Then to top it all off I am in full swing of morning sickness/1st trimester exhaustion! This is the 8th time I have experienced the full first trimester of pregnancy... and in each one I have had varying degrees of morning sickness... ranging from non stop vomiting that required injections to stop it... or only a mild form of constant nausea... Sadly this pregnancy seems to be following extreme nausea and vomiting side... every day it gets worse and I feel more and more exhausted... As much as I 'want' to do everything and 'be' everything to everybody... it's just not gonna happen...
To top it off.. I have this normal... 'faith' in the goodness of people... especially those that are our Christian brothers and sisters... but man... lately that faith is definitely being tried... and I know that cyncicism could easily creep in...
So it's times like this that I like to think of just hiding ourselves in Christ... letting him do battle because we are too weak to battle for ourselves...
Thank you for those who are praying... we treasure it!
Blessings

Catch up

Just because we stopped blogging for the decision making time... doesn't mean that life stopped here in Kihan... We had more 'firsts' this month...
We had a young boy brought to the clinic who was kicked by a horse.. in his head. It looked like it wasn't too huge of a cut, until we started cleaning it out! An hour and a half later we finally got the thing clean (and were able to easily visualize the skull!) Apparently horses hooves are quite dirty! When he kicked the boy on the forehead it pulled the skin away from the skull and then deposited a LOT of dirty nastiness under the skin. We got him sutured up and on antibiotics, watched him overnight and then he was fine and dandy (well, besides his eyes being swollen up almost shut).
We had another patient stay almost a week... an 80 plus yr old who had fallen down a hill more than 2 weeks before and had been unable to move around or deficate since! On day 4 we finally got our reward (I won't elaborate)...
Then this week was the local barangay fiesta... sounds fun right?.... nope... basically a ginormous drinking and partying festival... and the 10 speakers on the basketball court blared straight into our house... disco music lasted till 2am the first night, then 5 am... then on the last night it just didn't stop till after 8am!!! It vibrated the entire house.... I wish I had taken the family on vacation, but we thought we might end up with patients. We did have lots of patients... one girl had run into barbed wire that a local lady who was ticked off had strung across the road... this poor girl split her lip completely in half and then it tore down the edge of it towards the corner. The suturing job looked awesome at the end and I think it will heal with only the smallest of a scar.
Through all this... the morning sickness and extreme tiredness had taken over my body... I feel as though I can barely function! Somehow in the past 5 years its been since i had my last... I've forgotten!!! Or maybe I had it in my mind that somehow since I was a midwife now I would have all the answers and not suffer as much.... yeah... not so... :( Praying this is just a first trimester issue and not a whole 9 months thing. Praying I also get some major energy boost in the next week and a half since I need to sort and pack all our stuff before then! Thankfully all our furniture sold, so I don't have to haul that back to Davao! PTL!
I'm sure there is lots more, but pregnancy fog brain has also taken over...

update

I have opened my blogger many times in an effort to write this blog, but have been unable to find the words, so I have always closed it for another day. But not one to shy away from the truth, here it is...
We made probably the hardest decision of our marriage over the last several weeks. Due to some 'extenuating' circumstances, we are moving our family back to Alaska. We leave the Philippines for the final time on March 3rd and arrive in AK the same day... We would covet your prayers as we transition back to another culture (one several of our kids have barely lived in)... as we continue to seek God's guidance for our lives and our family.
Even though the reason for parting wasn't one I would wish to repeat, we are looking forward to a time of rest and renewal. God so mercifully didn't allow our house to sell, and we still have our shuttle bus there, so at least we aren't starting completely over! Some very nice ladies from a couple churches have gathered household items we can use to start off with as well!
God is STILL in control, that much we know. And one thing we've learned through the years is that even when things don't seem to make any sense or have any reasoning... God WILL bring us through to the other side and he does cause ALL things to work together for good...
Thank you to all who were there by our side, supporting us as we prayed, cried and worked through this decision making process... we love each and every one of you!