Chai found a new resting place
Fast asleep...

 

The hike
Playing in the River
Jesse playing catch
Taking the Plunge!

 

A Week of Typhoid

It started like a regular cold. Many people in the school were getting sick, so I (Teresa) figured I had caught a cold from one of the students or another staff member. By Friday evening I knew I would be sick, but I was still hoping to fight it off (most of the time my colds go away before they really begin). So, on Saturday Daniel and I went ahead with the hike we had planned. We went with some friends from church, and some kids from the Ark, to Magote, but took a different path than the very difficult one we have done previously. I was grateful for this, as I was feeling a little bit out of it. We walked along for about ½ an hour, until we came to a gate. Daniel and I, Regan, and Allison, a girl who is working at the Ark, went on a little further before turning back to join the rest of the group. We then had a quick lunch and drove to a nearby river to do some swimming. We only stayed for 10-15 minutes, but we had a great time! The activity made me feel much better, and my energy had returned. By Saturday night, however, I had a fever. This surprised me, as I rarely get fevers, and have only had another one other time that I can remember since I was a kid. I stayed home from church Sunday and rested. Daniel was a wonderful help- making me comfortable and taking care of me. That afternoon we got ice cream and took a motorbike drive down to the Confluencia just to cool off- it’s been so hot! On Monday my throat hurt and it was difficult to talk, but I decided to try going to school anyway. I was encouraged by some teachers to get a blood test, just in case, since another teacher had been sick with a type of typhoid. So, on Tuesday morning I missed my first class (another teacher took over) so I could get a blood test. I am very thankful to friends who are willing to help out! Sharon Branson, a missionary and doctor, explained what I needed done, translated the results for me, and told me what medicine I needed. As it turned out, I tested positive for a type of typhoid.

For those of you who know anything about typhoid, this is not “the typhoid fever.” Thankfully, I’ve had an immunization for that, and do not ever want to get it. This is a relative/ strain of typhoid which is not as serious, but still annoying, and there is no vaccine for it. I was told to take Wed. off from school, which I did, much to Daniel’s relief (he wasn’t happy that I didn’t take off on Tuesday). Daniel was very sweet, and visited me during his lunch break. By Wed. night I still didn’t feel better, so I stayed home yet another day (though I was not happy about it). However, I am now glad that I did, as I feel much better and more rested. I am, however, very much looking forward to going back to school tomorrow.

As annoying as typhoid has been, God had definitely shown me how the body of Christ pulls together to help- it has been so encouraging and humbling to know that others have been taking on extra classes, etc. to give me time to rest, as well as praying for me and supporting me. And, of course, I am so thankful for Daniel’s help and love, as he has had to do lots of extra work during this time. Praise the Lord for friends and family! And praise the Lord that I am finally getting better! J

Blogging

For some reason the whole post from yesterday did not get posted, so we just updated it. :) Oh, and the Chinese food turned out very good!

Quite a Week!

School is school, full of its usual stresses and joys. One of Teresa’s students had a tough beginning of the week, but after some discipline and encouragement, he has turned around well and was all smiles by the end of the week. She will also be getting a new student who was here last year and was going to move to the States with her mom, but she’s still here and going to start school now. This brings the number up to 19. Quite different than the 11 she had at the beginning of last year. Her new student also has a brother in 7^th grade who will be in my math class.

Another addition to the busy schedule is that Teresa is currently tutoring a high school student 1.5 hours after school on Mondays and Tuesdays. This will only last for 6 weeks, and she is enjoying it. On Wed. and Thurs. evenings, we will be meeting with a Dominican couple for one hour each time: 1 hour to work on Spanish, and one to help them on English. We are looking forward to it!

Our mail just came last week, and with it a bunch of things for our house. The most exciting is a rug we mailed down and sits wonderfully in the main living room. To me, the next most exciting thing is a large battery-powered light in our pantry so we can see what’s there when the power’s out. We also now have more books and school supplies. It was like Christmas opening it all!

Because of the mail delay, I wasn’t able to start one of my grad classes until a week late. It made last week pretty hectic trying to catch up, but it’s all good now. One of our teachers is not going to be staying at JCS, so the two 2^nd grade classes are being combined (to make 22). The combining included tearing down the wall between them and reorganizing the whole room. Teresa helped the two teachers on Saturday, while I made Teresa more cubbies to hopefully make it easier on her students packing up after school. So Saturday ended up being: get up at 7:00, run from 8-9, spend our personal time with God, do grocery shopping and the week’s baking, eat lunch, work at school from 1-6, go out to dinner with some other teachers, and then Teresa hung out with a new teacher while I did grad work. Sunday was much more relaxing. We went to church, had lunch with some friends, and then spent the afternoon and dinner together relaxing (and Teresa made granola), and had our first Sunday-night couples Bible study of the year.

More interesting news- we are very seriously considering buying a new motorbike. It belonged to one of last year’s teachers who bought it new, so it seems to be in good shape. It has a much bigger motor and a transmission, so it’s really a motorbike and not a pasola (mo-ped). On top of that, ours is not in good shape at all and seems to be dying under heavier loads and turning into a money drain. We also want to buy a new mattress to save ourselves from back pain and discomfort and, at the moment, we’re not sure we can afford both. Please pray for wisdom and a clear sense of God’s will.

Tonight we’re going out to the new Chinese restaurant for our date night. Our first trial was far from extraordinary, but we think we know the better menu items now (and they didn’t have any egg rolls then).

Feel free to post or e-mail us any prayer requests or praises!