A Long Week

Whew...what a time we've had lately.  Malaria season has kicked in...with the rains returning the mosquitos are also returning.  William and Benaiah had malaria first, then Katelyn came down with typhoid, then Talitha came down with malaria and some sort of bacterial thing going on, then Benaiah got malaria again, and Rebecca followed that with a tummy bug.  In the middle of all that, I ended up with a blocked kidney (but seemingly not from a stone) that left me in excruciating pain (way worse than childbirth) on Sunday and I spent the day in the hospital getting an Ultrasound and ultimately a CT scan.  On Monday, Talitha spiraled down further and we ended up in the clinic with her for IV antibiotics, antimalarials, and fluid.  Now Eric is playing catch up with the rest of us by coming down with malaria too.  In these seasons, we sure take comfort in God's mercy and compassion and also the prayers of very many saints.  I was listening to Paul Tripp's recent talk at the Gospel Coalition Conference on suffering.  His final point was that suffering happens in community as brothers and sisters in Christ pray for and support one another.  We really felt that last weekend as we walked through some difficult moments, but knew people around the world were praying for us.  

Towards the end of the week, the smiles finally came back out.  Praise God!

And the kids got a turtle as a gift. 

Today, I was able to run in a 5K for CURE hospital.  We have been very thankful for CURE hospital.  They specialize in pediatric brain surgeries...hydrocephalus, spina bifida, and brain tumors.  But they also have helped us out on more than one occasion with stitches, asthma attacks and this past weekend with my CT Scan.  (The radiographer even came back in after-hours from over an hour away to do the scan).  I was so thankful to be able to run today and support a great cause while I was at it.  And running in races here is just an overall great experience...late start times, dance party warm-ups, and dodging bodas and traffic... so much fun! I couldn't convince my family to join me this year, but it was a fun time to catch up with friends.

December Photo Project: Day 24

Today the youth of our church gathered to do Christmas Eve Christmas Caroling in our neighborhood.  Before they left, they gathered under our mango tree to do one last practice.

They had a cute little audience...

As the youth were leaving, I also snapped a few pictures of the littles just hanging out...

Then while we were eating dinner, we saw one of our Eastern Grey Plantain Eaters surprisingly eating plantains... which is actually an unusual sight...maybe because the people tend to get to the plantains first.  ;-)

December Photo Project: Day 20

My kids are telling me that December Photo Project is supposed to be more Christmasy and I'm not doing enough Christmasy pictures. So I told them to start doing Christmasy things and maybe my pictures would be a bit more Christmasy.  (Whew...never had to deal with such critics in my blog's early years...lol!)

So here I present my two youngest ones Christmasy School Assignments.  Thank you IEW for forcing me to do something that meets the expectation of my home-grown blog critics...

From Benaiah...I think it's safe to say he's a pretty big fan of Christmas food...

From Talitha...she evidently read somewhere about the Holly plant being a Christmas thing.  It wasn't until after she had completed her assignment that she asked, "What are hollys anyway mom?"

December Photo Project: Day 11

What a day it's been!  After 8 weeks off of school for our trip to America, we really need to get in a couple more weeks before Christmas.  So today we resumed.  We faced dusty minds, bodies not used to getting up early, uncooperative computers, having to find water in jerry cans because our city water has been out for two days, finding someone to hand wash our laundry because of no water for our machines and lots of rain today.

There were a few tears, but by the end of the day the smiles were out.   Story of the World came this afternoon with renewed post-nap vigor, soft rain, 3 cups of comforting spiced chai, and lots of coloring to do.

December Photo Project: Day 6

Benaiah's ducks grew from cute little fuzz balls to handsome grown-up ducks while we were away.  Sadly, out of the 10 only four survived.  These ones are just now starting to get their flight feathers.

December Photo Project: Day 2

December 2 brought a sweet welcome home gift for the boys by their very creative friend.

(I confess...I took this picture today, December 3.  The boys got their gifts yesterday, but yesterday ended up being a sick day for me...it takes a while for me to recover from traveling... so I didn't make it out to take their picture.  But they're cute enough to make it count right? )

Bullet Post

The weeks have continued to pass by quickly.  Here are a few of the highlights:

:: We celebrated the first wedding in our new church building.  It was such a fun day!  Denise, Katelyn and Rebecca were all bridesmaids, Talitha was a flower girl and Benaiah was a "peg boy"...aka ring bearer.

When we got to the church with the girls, the crowd was so large and so loud!  I was sure that Talitha would get scared and not want to walk down the aisle...especially when she had to go first!  But she was so brave and danced her way in.  Afterward, Eric asked her, "Weren't you scared?" She said, "No, everyone was looking at me and how beautiful I was!" Eric said, "I think everyone was looking at the bride."  She said confidently, "No, they were looking at me" This does nothing for her humility. haha!

Here's a small sample of the excitement of the crowd!

They did the very non-Ugandan thing and kissed at the wedding.  As you can see by the look on the attendants face behind, it was a bit shocking to most people... haha!

Aw!  What cuties!

Such a fun day!

:: For Fourth of July, the British missionaries in our community hosted a BBQ.  Now affectionately referred to Brexit1776

Katelyn made a super cute cake for the occassion.

It even looked like a flag when it was cut.

::  We've also celebrated three birthdays:

First Rebecca turned 13 (we now have five teenagers in the family!!)

Then Matthew turned 14:

Then Denise turned 15:

::Then, this past weekend, we had an end of year picnic with the students and their families at KTC.  It included a volley ball tournament between the KTC students and some of the youth of New Life Presbyterian Church.  Our church youth won.  

Here is a picture of all the students and their families:

This is a picture of all the students that attend or are currently pastoring PCU churches:

And while the former group was lining up, these brothers, not to be outdone, insisted that I take a picture of the "presbycostles" as they affectionately refer to themselves as.

::And I'll leave you with just one more picture, simply because he was a cutie...a dangerous one...but cute nonetheless!

December Photo Project: Day 7

We are back to the East Coast from all our travels across America.  It's time to get serious about school again.  (Yes, I'm saying that approximately 17.5 days before Christmas).  

I recently found these wonderful books for my reluctant readers, so I thought I'd share for today's post.  Benaiah was dragging his feet when he began this book but now he loves it.  They encourage lots of reading time, but also art, logic, a little bit of writing and even "video" days.  It's been a lot of fun for him!  Unlike some of his other subjects, he gets absolutely absorbed in this book.  I'm really thankful for that these busy and sometimes difficult days.

In the US

We made it!

The flight was great.  Emirates was a wonderful airline.  The kids watched available movies on the airline screen and played numerous games of battleship against each other.  I enjoyed a few episodes of "Call the Midwife" haha!  And we tried to sleep as much as possible.

Love this gang of mine.

A photo posted by Dianna (@diannatuininga) on Sep 15, 2016 at 5:42am PDT

Hanging out in Dubai

A photo posted by Dianna (@diannatuininga) on Sep 15, 2016 at 12:39pm PDT

The VanEssendelft cousins (and one Huntington!) were all at the airport to meet us.

The fun has begun!

But we have had a few bumps along the way.  On our first full day in country, Katelyn was on the zip line with her cousin on her lap and the zip line broke.  She fell about 10 feet and suffered 4 fractures of her spine.  Two are compression fractures in the vertebrae and 2 are pars fractures.  The good news is that all the bones are still in place...no pieces fragmented off or anything.  The bad news is that it means 6 weeks in a back brace and no heavy activity for the rest of furlough.

We also had all of Benaiah's appointments to figure out his asthma.

It turned out that his adenoids are severely enlarged and were blocking his breathing, especially at night!  This was exactly what we were observing.

So two days later he had surgery to remove them.  He was scared going into it, but did really well.  When he was waking up from anesthesia, he was so upset with me, as if I had betrayed him.  haha! He kept saying, "oh mama, oh mama, don't ever ever ever do this to me again!"  As he got food in him and got distracted with his kindle games, he perked up.

Despite the craziness, America has been great fun.  Thank you for praying for us!  

Final Visa Interview is finished!

We praise the Lord, that God has moved mountains and allowed us to get Denise's visa.  It has been such a long process...taking almost a full year and a half.  But what a blessing it is to be at the finish line now!

She's been worth it!

We are so ready to fly back.  It's been a long time since we've seen our families!  In addition, Benaiah has had another very bad season with his asthma.  He had to be on oxygen and was really struggling.  It will be so great to be able to get him to a pulmonologist in America.

God has been pulling this trip together for us.  Just this past week in addition to the visa appointment, we got plane tickets, a van, and houses to stay in.  It's almost hard to believe that after all this waiting, it's almost time to fly!

We've also been looking forward to some cold weather.  Here are the girls showing off some of the winter clothes we found in downtown Mbale.  But, as I said on instagram... #theyhavenoidea.  haha!