Shaving with Daddy

Micah has become totally fascinated whenever Paul shaves his face. As soon as he sees his Daddy put on shaving cream, he stops whatever he is doing and runs over to watch him shave. He stares and stares until Paul is finished. Recently, Paul decided to let Micah join in on the fun. Micah kept smiling and looking himself in the mirror. I don't think Micah quite knew how to take it. Oh the simple joys of little ones :)

Catching Up With Old Friends

Over the past two weeks we have had the opportunity to visit with some great friends whom we met back in the States at training. Now we are all literally scattered all over Africa. They came to our city for some relaxation and/or meetings, and it was so nice to catch up and spend quality time with familiar faces. We have missed them so much and God was good to bring along the fellowship when we needed it. It was fun hearing about everyone's different areas of work and how the Lord is using each of them for His glory. 

Food Poisoning?

This past week has been filled with emotional, physical, and even spiritual exhaustion. It may have been one of the toughest weeks for me since arriving to Africa. I can say that God has taught me a lot and reminded me that "He directs my paths." Once again I am learning to be still and patient and to allow the Lord to guide me in HIS timing (which is very difficult for me!!). I am so thankful for our sweet families and friends who have called us, emailed us, prayed for us, and encouraged us during this difficult time. You are a blessing and I personally wouldn't have made it through this week without you! So, thank you!

On top of everything else going on, sickness swept through our home at full blast. Micah-man started us off on Tuesday night with a high fever over 102F and fussiness...which we believe is from teething since he has FOUR top teeth coming in all at once (he will soon look like a totally different boy!).  His poor little body was sweating so bad and was on fire! He hadn't been acting like himself for several days as he was much quieter, extra clingy, and was not eating anything. Tylenol and teething medicine every 4 hours has thankfully brought our little one back to life, although his appetite still isn't totally back yet.

Look at how pathetic Micah looked...

Although, I HATED seeing him so down, I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely LOVED all the extra snuggling that he gave us. On Tuesday night, he sat in our arms for over 2 hours, which NEVER happens these days as he is always on the go. Paul eventually encouraged me to put him in his crib around 7:45pm. 

This was Wednesday morning as Micah watched his favorite (and only) Baby Einstein DVD and snuggled with ErnE the Elephant (Jill, you should know where that name comes from! Ha!).

Once Micah recovered, poor Paul was up on Wednesday night (from 12:30am-6am) every 30 minutes with vomiting and/or diarrhea. Before we went to bed, he had mentioned that his stomach hurt, but I didn't think anything of it because that has come to be common problem as we do live in Africa! However, this was the most violent sickness I have ever seen. I felt so bad for him and also so helpless. He ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor for a little while to ensure he would make it to the toilet before another episode hit.

Normally, I would wait to take him to the doctor, but considering the fact that the next morning he was extremely pale, dizzy, and basically depleted of all H2O, I decided we should go ahead and go. Thankfully, our house helper was there to take care of Micah for us as we rushed off to the hospital. It took about an hour to finally see the doctor. After doing a full assessment, he diagnosed Paul with food poisoning. Since Paul was so dehydrated, his blood pressure significantly dropped (about 30mmHgs) from the lying to sitting position (which also explained the dizziness). The doctor decided to take action immediately, so he walked us outside and across the hospital (which they would NEVER do in the States) to the emergency room and started an IV. Over a period of 2 hours, they pumped 2 liters of fluids back into his weak little body. After the first bag had finished, Paul's color was back, he felt a little better, and had much more energy. 

 

Meanwhile, I had felt nauseous all morning, but nothing had ever happened. But of course, leave it to me to throw up into the hospital trash can while sitting in Paul's room. It was extremely embarrassing and oh so gross! Thankfully, that was the course of my sickness-which was nothing compared to Paul's. We both laid on the couch the rest of the day with a dizzy and nauseous feeling. It was not fun! We don't think it was food poisoning after all since the night before we ate the same meal as 15 of our friends, and we were the only ones who got sick. So who knows...anyway, now we are much better and are ready for a new week filled with sweet FAMILY!! We can't wait! :)

A Night To Remember

This past weekend we went on our first safari with the team that was here visiting. It was a one night and two day deal where we camped in the middle of the game park-quite the experience! We saw most animals, but were upset we didn't see any lions or leopards (especially when we heard that some of our friends saw them at the same park the very next day!). However, we weren't too bummed because both our families will be visiting over the next month and we will be going on many more safari's and are hoping to see our share of wild animals. 

This time we took Micah with us camping-which we don't think we will do again for a LONG time! He actually did a great job throughout the whole safari and even went to bed with no problem (which was my main concern). However, at about 12:30am, Micah rolled over and hit his head on a pole inside our tent...and for the next 15 minutes he just wailed and wailed. Paul and I immediately woke up (along with the other 17 people that were with us) and tried to sooth him by doing anything and everything we could think of...but, nothing worked. He only got louder and louder, and we began to think about how a lion, leopard, hyena, etc. could hear him and come eat us. Before we had left, we had heard horror stories about how the wild animals often follow babies cries-so, I'm not gonna lie, we were pretty terrified. Finally, we found some juice and a little snack and that did the trick. Both my boys went back to sleep pretty quickly, but I stayed up until morning. That night may have been one of the longest of my life as I was trying to make sure Micah stayed quiet and also was surrounded by wild animal noises of hyenas and wart hogs. I could hear them digging into our trash too, so I knew they were literally right outside our tent. Paul woke up around 4am to these lovely noises as well, but thankfully they didn't phase Micah as he slept until 6:30am. All in all, we had a great time and were proud of Micah, but also made a note to ourselves to never again camp with a baby in the middle of a game park in Africa! :)

At the Rift Valley with our teammates

These are flamingos that surround the lake-it was beautiful.

Since we didn't see any lions or leopards, our biggest excitement consisted of a rhino fight we saw up close and personal. One of the rhinos ran forward and jammed it's horn into another ones leg. The horn remained in the leg for about a minute or so as they ran around in a circle and the hurt rhino whined-it was quite sad! Finally, the horn was disconnected and they went their separate ways.

Cape Buffalo-we saw hundreds of these

Zebra love :) If you look closely, you can see baby zebra feet behind the one on the right.

These monkeys were there to welcome us to our campsite. They stayed close by all night and the next morning there was 43 of them right there when we unzipped our tent (and yes, I counted them!). Micah loved them and kept chasing them and calling them "cats". 

Our campsite for the night (our tent was the blue one at the end on the far left)

Our cute "little camper"-he had so much fun rolling around and round on these sleeping bags. I think he was a little confused that he was zipped up in a tent. Oh, and there is that stupid pole that Micah whacked his head on in the middle of the night!! Gotta love camping :)

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I Team

This past week we had a wonderful team come and join us in our work and we quickly made 11 new friends! Lets just call them "Team Flexible" and you will see why... 

1. Their team leader ended up not coming because he got a serious bacterial infection before they were supposed to leave

2. They ALL got some sort of stomach bug on day 3 of their trip which lasted about 2 days (we don't know if it was food poisoning from a place we took them to eat in our area of work that has been nicknamed "Flies and Fries" or if it was an actual stomach bug just going around)

3. The guest house they were staying at ran out of  warm water and then ran out of water period...no fun!

4.  Due to some circumstances that took place where we work, half way through the week we had to totally change our plans and schedule

Honestly, they were such troopers! They were here at one of the most difficult weeks we have been through since living here, and served as a huge encouragement to us all. God knew what He was doing when he send them our way! We had a blast with them, but are exhausted and trying to catch up on some much needed rest :) 

Some of our local friends came over to hang out and did henna for the girls before they headed back to the States. The henna was so beautiful and each girl had her own unique design.

Eating lunch in the beautiful country side of Kenya at a Tea Farm