Merry Christmas

Happy Sabbath (well almost)

I'm leaving on my great Christmas adventure tomorrow night. Going to be exploring the southern part of Peru for about two weeks. We are hoping to see Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, Cusco, and Arequipa and of course everything else in between. It's gonna be a different Christmas away from family and all, but it will definitely be adventuresome and memorable!! Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year!!

By the way, I'm feeling tons better. Turns out I had worms in my tummy. So I took some albendazol and am feeling amazing! Didn't even see any worms come out. Actually, kind of disappointed. I was kind of hoping for a worm or too. more exciting that way. Well, Kaitlin got one, practically coming out her nose. gross!! Well, that's all for now. Thank you so much for all the prayers and support. God bless and have a merry merry Christmas!!

Clinic, sick times and rabblings

Well, it’s Sabbath as I write this blog and I’m hanging out in my hammock typing away. I really love my hammock, quite comfortable in fact. I’m gonna have to figure out some way to hang one up back home in States, though not really sure how it’s gonna work. This whole day has been spent chilling in my hammock, sleeping, reading, and now typing. Well, that’s not normally how I spend Sabbaths around here by any means, but the thing is I’m sick, vomiting and diarrhea to be exact. God has been good to me and kept me from getting sick until now, which is amazing considering Tara, Kristin, and Emily have been sick off and on the whole time down here so far. So I feel really blessed about that. But being sick is no fun! Not having energy to really do anything and no appetite to eat is kinda annoying. But I am soo incredibly thankful because we just finished clinic yesterday and I didn’t get sick till this morning. God kept my sickness away until the perfect time, a Sabbath. I have been able to spend this special day reading and talking to God, actually relaxing and resting, for which I am so very thankful for, despite the frequent trips to the bathroom!:-) I just finished some broth and crackers, so I’m hoping I’m getting over my nausea at least! Most days are so crazy busy around here, even Sabbaths, visiting different churches and helping out with church activities that I really appreciate the quite Sabbaths every once in a while to spend some one-on-one time with God.

Yet another clinic week has come and past. Wow! time flies. This clinic took place in a small town just outside of Pucallpa, Luz Divina. What a fun time we all had! Another crazy clinic. We left early Sunday morning around 6:30am and drove to the site with our over-stuffed truck, at one point carrying 13 people, meds, and our stuff for the week. Don’t worry, we drove slow!;-) A torrential downpour didn’t detour about 150 patients from coming to the clinic for medical and dental care on Sunday. Sunday is usually a slower day as we must set up for clinic and figure out logistics. The beginning of the week was steadily busy and continued to pick up as the week went on for Brent, Manuel, and I in dental. By the end of the week, Brent and I (Manuel had left for km38 already to watch over the place) pulled about 64 teeth on Friday, which is quite a number of teeth I must say. Needless to say we were all quite tired, but thankful for a good clinic week, by Friday evening. With each clinic, I’m gaining more confidence, efficiency, and experience in my skills with pulling teeth, it’s exciting. The mornings were usually quite crazy in dental, with patients been seen all morning, but by afternoon I was actually kind of bored because everyone decided to come in the morning! This gave me some good time to take pictures and video, though which was quite nice. One of the highlights of clinic without a doubt though was the arrival of two dental chairs on Friday!! Wow! The coolest thing ever! Brent and I had been working all week and previous clinics with patients sitting in small wooden chairs, like you would use in elementary school. Needless to say, not the most comfortable things to sit in for the patient, making the “visit to the dentist” that much more nerve wracking! And bending over at weird angles to see inside people’s teeth, after a while takes a toll on your back, so without a doubt, when we saw those new, cushioned, adjustable, real dental chairs arrive Friday morning, Brent and I (not to mention our backs as well) were quite excited!! They are amazing! I didn’t get half as many patient complaints of pain after these chairs arrived! So, I am forever thankful for these new chairs! Thanks Dr. Filman, you’re awesome!!

Well, another highlight of the week, which I think is one of the most amazing things God has given us, the miracle of life. Not only one, but two births occurred during our week-long clinic. I was privileged to be able to witness one of them on Wednesday evening. The other happened Friday afternoon as we were finishing up clinic. This was my first time to see a birth in person, much less inside a home, so needless to say, it was quite exciting for me! Jenni, Doctor, and all us girls were able to help out and witness the birth of an adorable baby girl. Seeing this lady give birth was just so cool. To just think that this baby started from a microscopic sperm and egg and to develop into a fat, healthy, crying baby, is just so amazing to me! The baby girl was named Jenni, fitting because it just so happened to be our Jenni’s birthday on Wednesday as well. How precious! Well, Jenni got quite a surprise on Friday afternoon when the second baby landed in her lap, literally. We had gotten word that a lady was about ready to give birth, so Jenni, Kristin, and Emily went to check on the lady and see how far along she was. When the girls arrived, the pregnant mother (she already had four kids) was still walking around, so it at least appeared to be still a ways off. Not so. The girls were there for maybe 5 minutes when the lady was like, “it’s coming.” Suddenly, the head crowned and Jenni ducked down just in time to catch the baby as it came out. Quite the surprise! Well, Kristin and Emily come running back to the clinic to grab everything needed for the mother and already-born baby. I stayed back this time because there were quite a number of dental patients waiting to be seen still. But I hear the baby girl, also named Jenni, was quite adorable and precious!

Time is going by so fast and we are all trying to convince ourselves that Christmas is actually coming quite soon, despite the 80-90 degree weather strongly discouraging us from that fact. Only a couple weeks more and off we will be on a new adventure exploring southern Peru. Kristin is flying home for the holidays, but the rest of us are all eventually making our way south to visit Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, Cuzco, and Bolivia in order to renew our visas. So, Christmas will be different this year, though I actually might have a white Christmas for once because we’ll be spending much of our time in the higher parts of Peru. Work is piling up as we near the end of the year with deadlines for projects and so the next couple weeks (as the last few weeks have been crazy as well, hence no blog updates for like a month) will be crazy. God is blessing incredibly in this project, and I have been blessed so incredibly much. I am having such an amazing time here in Peru and I wouldn’t trade this time for anything! Satan is trying his hardest to discourage and distract the team and project, but with prayers and support, each difficulty and obstacle can be overcomed and used to increase faith in our Awesome Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for the packages, words of encouragement, and prayers, I really appreciate it soo very much. Please continue to keep each of us and AMOR Projects in your prayers!! God bless

Thanksgiving Day

yummy pumpkin pie

Kristin is REALLY excited about the big dinner!

All us ladies excited about all the delicious food we made!!

This year I had the privilege of experiencing Thanksgiving with my friends-turned-family and despite being in a country where veggie-turkey slices, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie are not easy to find (impossible actually), the holiday was quite delicious, memorable and fun! Kaitlin’s family and Tara’s dad and step-mom were visiting for the week and so we were able to have quite a large get-together, minus the real turkey of course:-). My mom sent down pumpkin pie fixings and other delicious thanksgiving additions, and so I was able to make pumpkin pie, which turned out quite delicious I must say. All of us ladies spent the morning and afternoon cooking lots of food. When we were actually able to sit down and eat, it was all quite delicious. Even our Peruvian friends living with us were able to enjoy our special day of thanks with us!