Recently, we had visitors from the West who blessed us with their presence and some encouragement from the Word. Not surprisingly, part of the message was to "Be strong and do the work." This has been an ongoing theme in our regular readings over the past several months. Further the passages spoke about how He would complete the good work He has begun. This is essential to hang on to as we recognize that being Here is by His direction and for His purposes. Finally we were reminded to "strengthen our hands" for the work Here. We have needed this encouragement as we're feeling inadequate for the work before us.
I would be lying to say that it has been easy-breezy over the past month of radio silence on the blog.
We've had changes.
Our teammates who were Here for 18 months departed last week. It was an emotional time and one of surrendering to change. Our girls, particularly Magpie and The Bug have had a rough time of it. In many of their classes, our teammate's girls who were the same age as our girls and our two were the 4 musketeers. (that was a terribly complicated sentence.) So they see/feel the new absence daily.
We also had some real disappointment and frustration with Qian Qian's surgery. We have been waiting for 6 months to get him into a special surgery bloc this month. Foreign doctors from Canada came to a southwestern city here and we had reserved a spot for Qian Qian. We were delighted when we finally got Qian Qian and his parents on a train to the SW'ern city just 10 days ago! One of the other reasons we've waited for the palate surgery was that QQ needed to gain some weight. To get him in with the Canadian doctors, he had to weigh 10 kilograms, due to a regulation of the hospital there for anesthesia.
QQ weighed 9.5 kilograms when we had him Here and got his lip closed. That was in November. We thought for sure that in 6 months, a normal 14 months old baby (at this point) should have gained weight. Sadly, we got the call after they had arrived for the pre-op physical that our precious boy had LOST weight in the past 6 months. He was down to 9 kilograms. As you can imagine, on so many levels, this was not good news. We had to put them on the train back home the next day.
QQ's family has 4 older sisters and then himself. Mother and Father are farmers living in the poorest Province of this great nation. They explained that often to fill QQ's tummy they feed him sugar water...to save on having to purchase expensive milk powder. Sugar water does not grow babies well. And so, dear QQ has lost weight over the past 6 months. We were so discouraged!
We are changing our direction now, and we have entered into an arrangement to supply monthly sponsorship funds to help with the purchase of milk powder. Now our eyes are set on November again...the foreign team will be here and they are reserving a spot for QQ. Our focus is on getting QQ growing and gaining.
We're hoping to find some like-minded folks who live in QQ's family's province who can check up on him regularly as well as work on developing a relationship with the family as a whole. Keep lifting this situation up with us!
We also been involved for the past 5 weeks with a massive reorganization of our apartment. We have really needed to make better use of the space we do have so that we can more effectively fit our numerous family members into this place! So to that end, we have moved all the kids into sleeping in bunks in one room. So far this makes for a CRAZY bedtime situation, but it seems that they're settling.
We've gotten rid of a large guest bed that we had in a room that took up so much space and since none of your people will come over and visit us, it largely sat unused. We took out that bed and Daddy constructed a massive closet in that bedroom. Shelves from the floor to ceiling and now ALL the kids clothes are in one room. So far the reviews are really positive!
We also used one of the other bedrooms (we have two apartments together, so 4 bedrooms in total) as a second "living space" for games and movies. This may be my favorite improvement as it gives us the chance to get out of the SAME ROOM all the time! We had guests recently, and we could put some kids in the new room, while discussing matters easily with the guests in the living room.
All this improvement nearly broke us however as we worked on it in our "free time" (Saturdays) for 5 weeks! The house was in total chaos and I thought I was going insane! But all is right in the world now...at least in our apartment. Perhaps all of it points to that nesting urge we feel when a new child is coming.
Today I hope to find out about the feasibility of getting Nehemiah home before summer furlough. It would be a mind-bending, mountain-moving experience that would potentially rival the boys' journey last year. But we have FAITH for whatever! Please lift this up with us. We believe it would be so much better, in so many ways, if he were to get home with us ASAP and we didn't have to wait through the long furlough before getting him!
Must run and get some breakfast on...sorry for the long and tedious update.
My hands still feel a bit weak for the work before us.
3 comments:
Hello H Family,
We are lifting you up! So good to see your post. Will lift up QQ, Nememiah as well as all of your family; and your work there, too. Our hearts are there, too.
Glad to hear you have finished the work on your home, I am sure it makes a big difference :-).
Blessings to you,
Donna L.
I was just thinking today that, since we hadn't heard much recently about Nehemiah, that you were going to make it easy on yourself for this one and just get him whenever it was convenient, like the fall. What an insane thought! Of course when would you take the easy route? Only maybe never. Our hearts are with you these next weeks.
Definately lifting QQ and the little J man up in prayer! So excited to see how God is moving and to see how you all are allowing Him to work in your lives! How do we get on board for monthly support?
Post a Comment