Lately my weekends have been filled with baby showers and fetus festivals: eating baby food, making toilet paper diapers, guessing baby birthdays, buying diaper gifts, and playing 'pin the sperm on the egg'. Four of our closest friends are pregnant, and all but one of them were accidental/unplanned pregnancies. It will be fun to watch our friends over the next year with their new little ones in tow.
Maybe in a year or two, these friends will be planning a baby shower for us. :)
While living and working in Sierra Leone, Steve tested positive for malaria (again). In spite of being treated with anti-malaria meds, he was still quite sick throughout the week. He was admitted the hospital in Sierra Leone where he was diagnosed with malaria, worms, and abnormal liver function. Shortly after, since his condition did not improve, it was decided that he should be medically evacuated to Paris, France. On Monday night, Steve was put on a private plane with a private nurse escort en route to France. Upon his arrival he was admitted to an ICU and then transferred to an Infectious Disease Center. Dave flew out early Tuesday morning to accompany him.
Side note: The Salpêtrière hospital, where he was admitted, "was originally a gunpowder factory, but was converted to a dumping ground for the poor of Paris. It served as a prison for prostitutes, and a holding place for the mentally disabled, criminally insane, epileptics, and the poor; it was also notable for its population of rats." - Wikipedia
Blood tests in Paris soon revealed that, in addition to the malaria, worms, and abnormal liver function, Steve has Hepatitis A. The Hepatitis A was causing the worst of his many symptoms, including gaundis. His liver problems were the most serious. A healthy liver, from what we understood, emits 20-40 enzymes each day. Upon arrival at the Salpêtrière hospital, Steve had an enzyme count of over 2000! Doctors are monitoring his liver closely and taking blood regularaly. He is feeling much better, and he now faces a long road of recovery. Dave is staying with him in Paris until they discharge him from the hospital, at which point Steve will move back to the USA for recovery. Please keep him in your prayers.
We are grateful that...
Steve's condition was not worse
Dave was able to fly out so quickly to be with Steve
Steve was evacuated to a country where both he and Dave speak the language
Skype has allowed us to communicate so well across continents
Steve has excellent insurance
GWA has been so supportive in giving Dave time off
So many friends, family members, and strangers have been lifting our family up in prayer
Still not cleared for release - but at least they got to tour paris for a few hours!
Saturday was the first warm day of spring. Literally, we were still wearing winter jackets just 24 hours before this gorgeous, 82 degree weather spontaneously decided to come our way. It was the perfect day for the International Festival. The International Festival is a celebration of all the different nationalities which are represented at GWA. Each country has a booth where they display artwork, decorations, and information from their country. Each booth also sells traditional foods from their country (The USA booth sold Coca-Cola, grilled cheeseburgers, apple crisp, candy apples, and cupcakes decorated in red, white, and blue).
This year, each elementary classroom was responsible for helping an assigned country booth by contributing either artwork or a presentation. I quickly claimed the United States, as I had previously planned a project long before the International Festival was on my radar. There are 46 students in third grade, and I wanted to do a project on the 50 states. Each third grader was assigned a different state to research (The other third grade teacher and I took the remaining 4 states for ourselves). After completing a worksheet research paper on their state, the students took an outline of their state and turned it into a collage of pictures/drawings which were relevant to their assigned state. All of the state outlines fit together into a gigantic USA puzzle when it was complete. Amazing. But that's not all...
We recruited GWA's finest middle-school music teacher to help us teach The Star Spangled Banner to third grade. We practiced every day for two weeks; and they sounded absolutely perfect toward the end. All but two third graders showed up at the international festival (wearing red, white, and blue) to proudly sing the American National Anthem. Their performance was accompanied by the trumpet (played by the middle-school music teacher) and the cello (played by the French teacher). It was, by far, the best performance at the international festival. After taking a few pictures, David turned on the video-camera and recorded the second half of the song. Check them out!
