Family Time

Ben graduated magna cum laude from college! So very proud of him, especially with all the learning challenges he has faced. Wow, he has learned to excel in spite of challenges! 

We were sad we couldn't be there and instead watched online in the middle of the night, but we were thankful for those who were able to celebrate with him, including Mikayla & her boyfriend, my mom, and Ben's fiance & her family. 

It was strange how graduations worked for our kids - they all had only 1 sibling who could attend, but they alternated who that was. Zach attended Mikayla's, Ben attended Zach's, and Mikayla attended Ben's. :)

A few weeks later, Ben & Katye went to visit Mikayla and Austin in Michigan, and they had a lot of fun. Sad we couldn't all be there, but thankful they take the time to invest in one another like this!

Ben & Katye also got their engagement photos done. These are just a couple of them, but we are so excited for this sweet couple and how God is going to use them together in the years ahead. 

Also in May, Steve spent most of a week in the hospital. Thankfully, the myriad of tests ruled out some really scary possibilities, and we were left with a fungal infection...it seems like treating that has been helping him get his strength back. Pray with us that this is all it is and that he'll be back to full strength soon!

A Stirred-Up Rainbow

Recently while driving back from Bicol (a drive that seemed interminable this time for some reason!), Steve & I saw this in the sky. After some research, it is apparently called "cloud iridescence" and has to do with thin clouds & moisture content, but Steve said it looked like a stirred-up rainbow. As I was thinking about this post, it's a hodge podge collection of things that are happening, but really they are all like a stirred-up rainbow - God's promises and beautiful work on display, but a random, stirred-up collection of them. Beautiful but also a little overwhelming to see all that He's been up to lately!

Construction has been continuing down on the land, and that has kept Steve very busy as he manages that from afar, makes frequent trips there, and stays on top of the finances of it all. The biggest project going is the team house (2k square ft structure with flat roof), but we have also just recently completed a duplex for our church-planting team on the property, a new BOOST classroom (now a roof without walls, rather than just a tent), a deep well, the raised goat pens are nearing completion, as well as the excavation for the road around the top of the property and the new BOOST dorm. Exciting stuff but busy times!

The Bicol Tribal Church Association has continued their monthly leaders' trainings, and here are some pics from the recent one (around 60 in attendance!)

Another exciting development was the McCoys move to Bicol. Since they achieved their Tagalog requirements, they were approved to make the move down to Bicol. So we loaded up 3 vehicles with big top loads and made the 15 hr drive together as a team. Thankful for no maintenance (or top load) issues. They are now settled into a little airbnb until the team house is finished (hopefully in January?).

This new pic shows the newly-completed BOOST classroom on the right side, and it was taken when we had some visitors come through to see the property. We had 2 sets of visitors, and it is always a blessing to show them all that God is doing here with Tribals Reaching Tribals.

In the midst of all the "stirred-up rainbow", I've continued to push hard with Physical Therapy after my knee surgery in March. On April 28, I was tasked with riding a stationary bike with increasing resistance for 30 mins every day, 7 days a week, as well as doing a specific weights program 2x/wk (at the beginning it was 3x/wk). I successfully completed 6 MONTHS of this regimen, never missing a single day! Only by His grace! We bought a portable bike to bring with us when we traveled and a nice "recumbent" one for home, and then we've hit the gym when we can for weights and substituted this fancy bands system to do weights when we're up in the mountains, far from any gyms. Yesterday, I met with the Dr, and I can cut back to 5x/wk for the next 6 wks, and I am very much looking forward to my very first day off in 6 months. :) Thanks for praying with me to be faithful in this and for continued healing of my knee. While I am thankful to have less pain at night and be sleeping better, I am still having a lot of pain when walking, so appreciate continued prayers.

Mish Mash

Ok, little bit of everything in this post.

First, here's a gorgeous shot (and a rare smog-free day) of the city of Manila, taken from the kids' school, Faith Academy.

Many of you know that I have struggled with issues with my wrist for years now, and it has started really bothering me again. I took a quick trip to Singapore to see my doctor there, and she wanted me to try 6 weeks of various levels of immobilization. I had 2 weeks of this fun brace...but at least it was only 2 weeks! Sleeping was pretty rough. I'm finished now with the 6 weeks of limited/no activity, and unfortunately it didn't work, so I am looking at surgery in July.

 Steve had several trips during the time my wrist was immobilized, so the boys pitched in extra with the cooking and housework.

 The boys were part of organizing a fun event called "Glow Touch". They gathered a BUNCH of glow sticks and then had a couple games of touch rugby in the dark with about 30 of their friends and classmates.

 

The event was a hit, and Zach got a little bonus when he asked a friend to go to the Jr/Sr banquet with him. She said yes. :)

 Zach also got to participate in an out-of-season soccer game. Every year, we get invited to play one of our key rivals during their season, and it is a fun time for the team to reunite and get in one last game for the year. Zach did a great job, and he helped his team secure a hard-fought win.

It was a very physical game, and a funny quote from the game was when a guy (bigger than Zach) shoved him pretty hard, but Zach held his ground. The guy told Zach, "You can't do that! You can't shove me!" Zach replied, "I didn't shove you. I just didn't fall over when you shoved me." The guy blustered, "Well, you can't do that!" Umm... :) Proud of our young man.

 Ben and Zach also recently participated in the annual school musical. Zach was behind the scenes as the crew chief, keeping the stage crew in line. Ben did a great job acting and dancing. I loved his expressions, even when he wasn't in the spotlight.

 Can you find Ben in this one? 

 So very thankful for the many activities that our kids have the privilege to participate in at their school here.

Poor Ben

Ben had a little run-in with some barbed wire tonight. The barbed wire won.

Poor guy is really hurting. Took a while to stop the bleeding, but it is cleaned up now. He has it elevated and is watching Star Wars. He was a brave little man.

And, yes, he is current on his tetanus vaccination.

Back in the Philippines

Ok, we are back in the country and back online again. I have TONS of stories to tell and pics to share but no time to do it right now so will have to catch up later. But in meantime, i just had to share these pics from earlier today. We went on a family bike ride around our neighborhood to get to know the area. Mikayla was riding on the sidewalk and went to ride over the weeds. Looks like a pretty nice sidewalk, right? Just a few weeds - no big deal.

Well, as it turns out, those weeds were covering a 6 ft deep sewer hole. Thankfully she was going fast enough that when her bike went down into the hole, she flew on across.

The hole is actually several feet deeper than this shows - the bike got caught on the weeds and didn't make it to the bottom.
Mikayla is ok. Pretty scraped up with a good headache, but she got off REALLY well considering how serious it could have been. Scraped tummy and elbows, wind knocked out and headache. Thankfully she was wearing her helmet!!!

Thanking God for His protection.

Please keep praying for the shipment to arrive! Customs is still holding it hostage but refusing to tell us their ransom demands (will be at least $500 but they not saying exact amount yet!). Has been almost a month now since we shipped it, and we desperately NEED those school supplies so we can start school.

The Agta are doing well and we are encouraged, but we also see some specific areas we need to help them with. More update and pics to follow - TONS to do yet today to continue moving in to our new house. Both the fridge and the washing machine went out - $300 to fix them. :( Feels like we are hemoraging $ here! Good news is that the leak in our bathroom seems to be fixed now - no more waterfall into the kitchen! And they have fixed the termite damage in the living room - now we need to get them working on the damage in the dining room. Well, at least there is something to keep us busy since the school books aren't here! :)

From the Hospital

Just wanted to let you all know that Jen came out of surgery fine. Her arm is still completely numb from the block that they put on her arm. We will find out in a couple of hours what the pin level will be, but we are really rejoicing that she did not react negatively to the anestetic like last time. Thanks for praying.

Steve

Exciting Week

This has been an amazing week here. Yesterday, Steve got to the end of the evangelism story set with one of the groups, and it seems that several truly understood for the first time what Christ has done for them. There were about 20 in attendance, we will wait to see how many of them continue to come. This is the point when we normally will lose several people as they realize that what we believe is different from their age-old Catholic beliefs, and they chose their old way rather than the truth of the Word. However, there were several who really seemed to get it, and the chieftain's husband (pic below) was one of them - he was actually in tears by the end of the study, as were several of the ladies. Interestingly, for those of you who have one of our Agta prayer calendars, his picture is the one featured this month! So cool how God works. One of the old ladies said, "I have tried to follow God my whole life, but I have never understood this before. I finally understand now and have hope. Thank you for coming to explain this and for being patient with our confusion."

Also, this morning, Jose's parents were baptized! Unfortunately, the camera malfunctioned so we don't have any pics of it, but here is an old one of the two of them - some of you may remember them from previous posts or from visiting here with us.
All three kids have had nasty asthmatic bronchitis coughs all week. They have been taking turns doing nebulizer treatments a couple times a day. Well, Ben has also been "phasing out" his nap time, so I wasn't too surprised tonight when I saw that he had fallen asleep while doing his treatment! :)

PTL!

Thank you so much for your prayers and notes of support! After many hours of soaking in hot salt water, and praying often, look how great his hand looks tonight! Thanks for praying!

keep praying

Thanks for continuing to pray for Zach's hand. After soaking it most of the day yesterday, we were able to get much of the infection out last night. Little guy is such a trooper with it, but it is hurting him pretty badly.

Poor Zach

We arrived home safely today - and we have visitors again! It is a family with 3 little kids who have come to see us and what God is doing here amongst the Agta. We also arrived home to a package for our home church! Thanks so much!!! (Pictures to come :) )

Well, Ben finished his antibiotics, and he is well now, but last Friday Zach's hand started bothering him. At first it looked like he had gotten an insect bite, but then his whole hand swelled up down to the wrist, and he was starting to have shooting pains up his arm. He also started running a fairly high fever so we took him into the ER nearby our meetings (2nd time there, 2 different sons). They put Zach on antibiotics for cellulitis. He has finished 3 full days of the antibiotics now, but he is STILL running a temp and feeling miserable. The swelling has come down quite a bit now, but his fingers are still very puffy. Also, it is starting to come to a head, and we are wondering if it is just a terrible boil. It is just in a terrible place between his finger joints so is incredibly painful. We are continuing with the antibiotics as well as soaking it several times a day. Please pray that the infection goes away soon and for wisdom for us to know how to take care of him. Please also pray that he (and us!) are able to sleep tonight - he has been very restless with the pain.

Surgery Update

Thank you all for praying for Ben and I this past week as we went up to Manila for his surgery (sorry I wasn't able to update you before now - I didn't have any internet access up there). Ben has had persistent fluid behind his ear drums for more than 6 months, and the last time we confirmed he still had fluid was 2 weeks before we went up for surgery. Our flight ended up SIX hours delayed on our way to Manila so things were pretty crazy when we got there and had to fit all the tests and appointments into a couple hours instead of all day. But we got all the tests done, and I was absolutely shocked when the dr said that the fluid had inexplicably cleared sometime in the last 2 weeks!!! Since there was no fluid, there was no need for surgery after all! Well, we asked for God to make it clear for us whether or not to go ahead with the surgery, and it doesn't get any clearer than that!!! We were so thankful to not have to do it, but it did feel a bit like a wasted trip. Since it is semester school break right now, all the flights this week were full so we couldn't even arrange to come home earlier. So Ben and I were stuck in Manila for the week with no surgery after all. :) We had some great 1-on-1 time and got to visit with some friends we haven't seen in a while so that was nice. We will have to continue to keep an eye on him with the fluid thing since it is possible that it is coming and going, and he may still end up needing tubes eventually, but hopefully this is the end of it. Thanks again for all your prayers and words of encouragement!!!

Please pray

I know many of you have been following the situation with Ben's speech delay and the persistent fluid behind his ear drums. Well, on Monday (Oct 20), Ben and I (Jen) are headed up to Manila to check into all this. We will go straight from the airport to the hospital to get some various tests done, then we will see the ENT at 2pm. He will do a thorough consultation, and if his advice is for Ben to get tubes in his ears and/or his adenoids out to resolve the persistent fluid issue, then I will call Steve and our company dr in the States to discuss it. If we agree that this is what needs to happen, then Ben is scheduled to stay the night at the hospital Monday night then have surgery at 7am on Tuesday morning. If it is just tubes, then he should be out that same day. If he has to get his adenoids out as well, they may keep him Tuesday night as well. Ben and I will plan to come home on Friday morning as long as all goes well. Please pray for wisdom as we make quick decisions, for Ben to be brave and cooperative with the various tests and possible recovery pain, and for me to have patience from above as I help Ben this week.

Steve and the older 2 will stay home this week, and Megan will be teaching all their school so they can stay on track even though I am gone!!! We praise God for how willing she always is to help however she is needed.

WHAT?!?!

***This post is not for the faint of heart...or stomach***

Ok, so Sunday after that amazing Bible Study (see my previous post), Steve called me to pass on the exciting news then he said he would be a few hours late since he was getting a late start heading to the 2nd Bible study. He ended up being even later than he thought, and when he arrived home, he had 2 people with him. Well, it turns out that there was a rabid dog (they are assuming it was rabid) in the village, and it bit 2 people - a man who attends our Bible Study and a little neighbor girl. With rabies, it takes 10 days to 2 years to begin to show symptoms of the disease after a bite, but by the time you begin to show symptoms, there is absolutely nothing medical science can do to save your life, it is 100% fatal in humans. You must have a series of shots BEFORE you start showing symptoms to prevent the disease and death.

The only problem is that the tribal people here rarely go to the doctor unless they are on their deathbed - they simply don't have the money to go otherwise. We checked into it and found a place in Naga (about 1 hr away) where they can get the shots for free (otherwise it would cost more than $500 for the course), and we offered to pay their transportation to go up there for the shots (7-10 times). We also explained how critical it is that they get the shots BEFORE they get sick. The problem is that it is not just the cost of the injections and travel that is preventative for them, it is the work/school that they will miss in order to go to Naga to get the shots. The little girl would likely miss so much school that she would have to repeat a year, and the man's family would not have money to buy food the days he couldn't work. So we encouraged them to catch the dog so that it can be tested for rabies (if it doesn't actually have rabies, then they can skip the rabies shots - we already got them tetanus shots).

Well, Steve got a text from him last night saying that the dog had bitten another person, and everyone in the village is sure it has rabies. Then he told us that they had killed the dog - which was bad news because it makes it difficult to find out if it had rabies or not. But it gets worse. He then told us that THEY HAD EATEN THE RABID DOG!!! WHAT?!?! We couldn't believe it and have no idea why they did this, but if that dog did have rabies, the chances are very high that everyone who ate it was exposed to the disease. I couldn't find any info on the dangers of eating a rabid animal (seems like a no-brainer to us so who is going to write about it?), but I did find that they say that the body should be buried at least 3 feet under the ground so that other animals are not infected by the body. Now, I don't know if cooking the body makes it no longer contagious...

To top it all off, nearly everyone up there is refusing the shots; they are simply not interested, despite our explanations, because they are obviously not sick. They "treated" the wound by rubbing it with the brain of the diseased dog. Thankfully the one man in our Bible Study is going to go through with the shots (no brain rubbing for him), and we will just pray that the dog was not actually rabid or that God somehow protects the rest of the people from getting the disease.

So, are you as shocked as we were by this whole thing?

And one more

Ok, so once the tribal guys arrived and saw the picture of the baby snake, they said it IS a python after all, not poisonous. YEAH!!! Amazing how innocuous a python in your ceiling can seem after you have thought it was a poisonous snake for a few days. :) They made a thorough search of the attic and never did find it, but they sealed up the holes to the attic so it can't get back in. They figure the babies have all found other ways out of the attic to the outside - those 2 unlucky ones just happened to find ways into the house instead of outside. Anyway, so it seems like the snake issue is resolved for the meantime - thanks for praying!

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Ben's stomach problems had thankfully cleared up by the next am, but his ear has continued to bother him (he has been on antibiotics for an infection for a week now). Then this am, he had some blood coming out of his ear. We took him to an ENT in Naga (about an hour away) and found out that his eardrum had ruptured in the night! Poor little guy. It should heal on its own, we just need to continue the antibiotics for another 10 days and make sure no water gets in his ear for a while.

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Despite his ear pain, Ben has been a little trooper this week and put in a LOT of intensive therapy hours with Jennifer. He has been making progress, and we are encouraged in a lot of ways but realize too that we have a LONG road ahead. We appreciate your prayers as we continue to work this week and figure out how we can best help him ourselves once Jennifer leaves.

A few updates

Um, so we found out today that the snakes we have are not pythons after all. Sound like good news? It's not. They are actually a rare kind of poisonous snake. And you thought we were creeped out before... Steve arranged for 4 guys to come here 1st thing tomoro am to help him track down the mommy and all the babies. Please pray they can find all of them!!!

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In other news, Ben has had a rough day. First, we were crossing the lake in a boat to the village today, and the kids were out on the front with Steve. Well, he got talking, and they got scooting, and then suddenly Ben got bumped right over the edge!!! He managed to grab on to the edge until Kayla was able to grab ahold of him, then Steve was there within another few seconds. Poor little guy was shaking like a leaf for an hour afterwards - so was I though!

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Zach's cut was looking great this morning, but then he managed to get hit by a basketball in the village today and split part of it open again. Actually, the original cut stayed closed (that glue is good stuff!), but it split open another little part. The thing that concerns me the most with this one is infection since it was several hours before we could clean it properly. We cleaned it thoroughly once we got home, and put some more glue over it. Looks good again now, and he will not be going near any flying balls for a while! Please pray for no infection!!!

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As we arrived home, Ben suddenly started crying -- excruciating pain in his lower abdomen. Took him to the dr (for a check up for his ear infection), and he is on some meds to help what we think is gas pain. If he is still hurting tomoro, then we will be trying to do stool/urine samples in the midst of the snake hunt. The adventure never ends around here!

Not Again!

We visited a pool today for our day off, and Zach had a little mishap on the slide. Fortunately, a doctor friend in the States had JUST sent some medical strength stitch-replacing glue for situations just like this. Unfortunately, we hadn't put any of it in the car yet, so we had to wait til we got home to use it. We were able though to pinch it together with a home-made butterfly bandage so the blood wouldn't clot and prevent us from closing it by the time we got home. Then we were able to remove the butterfly bandage (OUCH!) and use the glue to "stitch" him up once we were home. As always, Zach was a real trooper, and he has been assured that "chicks dig scars" by the volunteers that are with us right now. If that is true, chicks are really gonna dig our boys! I love this pic of the finished product. Can you see the 2 smaller scars just under the new cut from previous accidents? Then the remains of a boil on his forehead, one starting on his cheek, and a long scratch to top it all off. Never a dull moment! :)

Speaking of which, be sure to check out the next post to see what is living in our attic. If only it would stay up there and quit coming down to the ground floor!