Calling the troops again...

At lunch I was thinking and wondering what else could happen and I knew that I need to post again and call for your help once more. We so need to be covered with God's grace and strength each day and this battle is not ours to fight alone.

We've all been moving forward, going on with life, proccessing what God is doing in our hearts through these
experiences. Bianca is doing as well as can be expected. We helped her collect all the photos we could find of her and her baby and she made a memory album. That was very special for her and she also really appreciates the cards and notes that she's received.

We had a wonderful weekend with my parents here! They came on Friday and left on Tues. It was just what we needed and was so special to be able to be together again after having been through these very difficult weeks here! Dad was busy fixing odd and end things here in our house, while Mom stayed busy keeping the cookie containers filled and helping with everything in here. Of course, making memories playing games and just being together was very important too!

Then on Wed. the first Orphans For Jesus people came. This is a group of around 55 people that comes to MX every year to work at different orphanages and help with any projects that they can. They don't stay here but they are here at times and each day send people to help here as well. Sunday they were here for church but not for lunch.

One really good thing that happened on Saturday was that Marcella returned from her 4 wk vacation. Regina and Bethany were taking her place as caregivers of the teenage girls and also filling in for cooking lunches so it was really good to have her come back and have our staff back to a more normal routine.

On Saturday we were cleaning here and I put our laptop on a stack of chairs so that I could move the table it was setting on. I had my back turned to the chairs and heard a sickening sound of the computer hitting the floor! I picked it up and sure enough, it was a dead box! We did some diagnostics and it showed a bad hard drive. Um, well. Data. Yes, a backup is a good thing but who has time to do it regularly? To say the least, this was not a good thing! So we wait for the new hard drive to get here and thank God for the blessing of a computer.

Last night, I had just crawled into bed when I heard someone knocking on our door. It was around 10:00 and I wondered what could be wrong now. It was Anna saying that I should come quickly because 13 yr old Jaqcueline is choking! I jumped up and went quickly to see what was happening. She had fallen out of her bed and was on the floor and clearly having a seizure of some sort!  Her limbs and mouth were locked up, her eyes rolled into her head, making gurgling noices and rolling around! Lorne did a quick assessment and concluded we will need help, but there's no way an ambulance can come here in time for an emergency! He grabbed his phone, which was out of minutes and didn't work that day, and he called Greivin. The phone worked without minutes! That's God. In the meantime we were working to revive her with all we knew to do and she slowly stopped seizing and lay still. In the beginning she didn't know where she was or how old but after a bit she became more rational. Greivin and Lorne decided that Greivin would just take her and Marcella to the hospital to see what is wrong. By the time they got to the Dr she seemed ok again and he didn't believe that it was as they said, so we don't know more than we did before.

Today Lorne needed to go to Tecate and soon after he left Gideon came in with Ismael holding a rag to his head! I wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan. Another child had gotten angry and thrown a can towards him and caught his head. It was busted open but not very deep, so Nevin helped me and we were able to close it with super glue. Then came the challenge of dealing with the deeper issue of the cause of the dispute. Another day at the home!

Tonight our youth had the privilege of joining the OFJ group for supper and fellowship. Tomorrow night the group plans to come here for a hymn sing and possibly supper. Phil and Edith unexpectedly needed to leave for Lebec, CA today. They are due to have their second child in 6 wks and she's been having some early labor threats which had gotten worse the last few days. They had planned to go to a clinic in southern CA to have the baby but it seemed best to go up where they would be close to a hospital in case the baby does come this early. Her parents live in Lebec and it's a familiar community for them. This all means that one of our families here will probably be gone for a number of weeks and the few people we have will be fewer. But, we trust God to keep them in His care and that all will be well according to His will!

It's nightime and for a moment all is quiet. I'm so tired and best go absorb whatever rest I can while I can.
Continue to pray for God's protection on us here and His grace for each day's happenings as we face them hour by hour!