Picture Preview from our First Week of Vacation

We are just wrapping up a week at Murchison Falls National Park and I'm happy to report that while we saw (and heard!) many, many hippos, we did not become their midnight snack.  On the contrary, we had a lovely and very refreshing time.  We were able to do two game drives through the park and I have lots of pictures, but here are just a few tonight to get started.  Tonight we are at a guest house in Masindi and tomorrow we will drive to our next camping destination...the Hairy Lemon...an island in the Nile, where once again we will enjoy another "tech free" week.  :)  

Crested Cranes...Uganda's National Symbol

This is how we drove through the park: so.much.fun!

My favorite shot of my new favorite animal.  Giraffes are so amazing!

And here is something to keep you occupied while you wait for more pictures...you can play "spot the animal" with extra points if you can tell me what kind it is.  :)

Keeping it real in a bullet post update...

::Vacation time is here!  We will be camping for a week at Murchison Falls National Park and for a week at Hairy Lemon Island...and island in the Nile.  The best part?  It's full-board so I won't have to cook.  The crazy part?  Apparently guards have to stay away at night to make sure the Hippos keep eating the grass outside your tent and not the people inside your tent.  There have been no end to Hippo jokes this week...if you are friends with us on face book, you might have even seen pictures...

::Correspondence...I stink at it.  I may have written something to this effect on the white board this week while prompting my children to write some long overdue letters...

::Immediately following our vacation, Christi will be flying home for a month to visit her family.  Our kids and the neighbors wanted to throw her a good-bye party.  They did the whole thing with out a bit of involvement from me...in fact I was blissfully taking my Sunday afternoon nap (just distinguishing that from my Monday-Saturday afternoon naps, as if it's any different) while they set up.  They made the cookies and everything...and I guess the fact that it made it to the blog shows just how impressed we were.

 ::And what do you do to entertain energetic children while waiting for food at the local Mt. Elgon Hotel?  Have them race with chairs on their heads of course...

We probably won't be spending too much time on line over the next couple weeks (although I'm sure that we'll check in from time to time to update you on the hippo situation), but I'm sure there will be an onslaught of pictures when we return.

Thanks for praying for us!

A Princess in the Making...

Thank you for your prayers...

I happy to tell you that the boy energy in our house hold has returned to it's normal high levels!

William has had a few "better than ever" days.  Benaiah's lymph node reduced in size enough that we are no longer worried about it.  Both of them remain on medication for a few days longer to finish kicking any malaria parasites, but they are on the mend.

Eric and I were wondering last night if we jumped the gun in heading to Kampala, but then we started to talk about how many people (and churches) were praying for our health and instead we began to praise the Lord for his healing hand.  God uses the prayers of his saints... to heal our bodies and also to encourage our souls.  I have been thankful for both this last week!  So thank you for standing in the gap with us and calling out to our great God for us!  He truly is a God that cares!

Kampala Trip to the Doctor

The sickness marches on and since the symptoms have been so unusual and the availability of extensive lab work is limited in Mbale, we decided on Friday afternoon to go to Kampala with William (who continues to be sick every few days with fever and vomiting) and Benaiah (who wasn't responding to the antibiotics and malaria meds, at first).

We were able to find a doctor who seems committed to getting to the bottom of this with us.  We were also able to get lots of blood work done and the boys even sat very nicely for it.  (God gives so much grace when it is needed! :)  

We haven't heard anything yet, but we continue to pray that God will grant healing and answers as to what is making them continually sick.

While William has repeatedly tested negative for an usual strain of malaria, called Vivax malaria...we have chosen to put him on meds for it anyway.  His symptoms are similar and it is possible to get a false negative test.

Benaiah finally rounded a corner with the malaria, but his lymph node is still quite swollen.  (Although it has reduced some in size with the antibiotics)  If his blood work doesn't give us any clues, we will likely do a biopsy on his lymph node.  We would like to rule out the possibility of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis.

So thank you for praying for us!!  I continue to be so grateful that God has blessed us with the means of seeking medical attention for our kids.  So many brothers and sisters here, have no hope...they only can sit and watch their children suffer and often die.  God has been so generous with us!  I'm also thankful for the peace that he has filled our hearts with.  Even when we hear scary words like "TB" and "unknown bacteria", we know that God is sovereign and has everything under control.  We can't see it, but God can and we praise him for that and live our days in the joy that such knowledge brings.  God loves our children so much more than we do and this suffering is leading to their sanctification and their eternal joy, as well.

On a lighter note...

Not having time to do much research to find a "good value" guest house and wanting to stay close to the medical facilities, we ended up at a really nice hotel.  

The boys were so sad that we didn't bring their bathing suits!

This hotel had a 12 story tower on it, that had a rotating restaurant on the top floor.  We didn't eat there, but one of the workers was sweet to let us come in and take a peek around.

And here is where I have to digress and just make a note that Uganda doesn't quite do things the way we do in America...

...wide open windows on the 12th floor? (note Benaiah's hand being held in the above picture, much to his displeasure...)

And what about 7000 volts a few feet from the pool?

And one more funny moment...

The hotel gave us grapes for breakfast...a favorite, often-enjoyed snack in America, but something we haven't had the entire time we've been here.  While you occasionally see them they are cost-prohibitive for our size family. (I would guess about $40 for the size bunch we would get at Costco).

Benaiah took one look at them and said, "What is this?!?"  Ah, yes...it has been almost a year that we've been here and one year is a long time for a toddler!

Benaiah's Spiders

The plagues have continued to march on in the Tuininga home in seemingly endless procession.  The most recent victim has been Benaiah.

We went yesterday to get some blood work done to check on a super-enlarged lymph node.  We discovered that he too, has an unknown bacterial infection that we are trying to fight with antibiotics.  It was also discovered that he has a pretty bad case of malaria.  Last night, before bed, he started drugs to fight both.

At midnight he woke up screaming in bed, so we brought him into our room and settled him down on our couch.  A few minutes later he was screaming and had squirmed up to the top of the couch.  He was hallucinating that spiders were "being mean" to him and crawling all over his pillow and blanket and legs.

Give me Jimmy's hallucination of legos making noise or Katelyn's hallucination of the floors and walls straightening out any day...but spiders in my bed??  No thank you!!

We spent the next hour trying to console him and trying to explain that his sickness was making him see the spiders.  He didn't buy it.  He kept trying to pick the spiders off of himself and off of Eric.  We tried moving him to our bed, back to his bed, back to the couch...nothing could calm him down.  We tried giving him something to drink and turning on a light for him, but he continued to insist that spiders were everywhere.

Finally, Eric and I prayed together and then Eric brought Benaiah back into our bed and had the following conversation...

Eric (holds up hand in spider formation): Benaiah, you see this spider?
Benaiah (through tears): yes...
Eric:  It's saying, "Good afternoon, Benaiah!"
Benaiah: oh...
Eric:  Now the spider is going to go to sleep on your leg...is that okay?
Benaiah:  okay...
Eric: Say good night to the spider.
Benaiah: goodnight.

Then, just like that, Benaiah rolled over and went to sleep!

Eric and I had a good laugh and then went back to sleep too...

We would covet your prayers for continued health in our home and very specifically that Benaiah's body would respond to both the antibiotic and antimalarial meds.  William is doing okay still...he has periods of tiredness during the day and is still at about 80%, but we praise the Lord that he has been fever-free for 5 days now.  Jimmy spiked another fever yesterday, but seems to be better today.  We would also pray that if the Lord wills, we will be able to figure out what has been causing so much continued sickness, so we can use more specific medicines.  Thank you for your prayers!!

A Weekend Away

Our family has been suffering through so much sickness lately!  One virus after another...seemingly no end to it all!  All the kids, except Matthew, got sick last week again.  Katelyn and Jimmy were even hallucinating with their fevers...kinda creepy and hilariously funny at the same time.  William also has some bacterial issue that continues to make him sick.  He was on an antibiotic, but now he is sick again.  Not quite sure what the problem is with him yet.  Thank you to those on face book that prayed for our kids!!  God is truly gracious to us!  We would appreciate continued prayers for William's issues to be resolved.

None-the-less...the kids managed to get mostly better by Thursday...Eric's birthday.  Eric had a mission meeting that day and while he was occupied, I planned and packed for two nights away...to celebrate his birthday and our 13th wedding anniversary.

When he came home, I convinced him to go run some errands with me and much to his surprise (good job kids in keeping the secret!!) we kept on driving straight to Jinja to the Kingfisher...a lovely resort on Lake Victoria.

So glad to get away from the sickness and busy-ness that is making us CRAZY!!!

Not quite that good at aiming the camera, but here we are!

Got to watch the sun rise...

And the moon rise! (Set the camera on its timer for this one :)  )

So thankful for this guy... I'm so blessed to have walked the earth as one flesh for 13 years now.  God is so good to me!