Never Bored

We got home from the hospital with Matthew on the 15th of December. We had a lot of problems with the billing department of the hospital. We were supposed to leave at noon and didn't get out until after 6:00 pm. They had our bill ready and they were supposed to direct bill our insurance, but when they finally got the authorization (they didn't send in the information like they said they were going to do) they added over $6,000 to our bill for the insurance. We can't fault the care, but there were some exorbitant charges on the bill. One being $28.00 for a 4 oz bottle. Needless to say we tried to fight that one, but they told us that this is the international price for the bottle (which I didn't want or need). We paid it, but not happily.

Thankfully we have had no problems with Matthew since he has been home. Everyone else has been sick, but Matthew is healthy.

Yesterday we had to take Joey in for his surgery to have the pin removed from his arm. We got in the truck and were ready to go, but the truck wouldn't start. We had to reshuffle things a bit, but finally fit all 8 of us in the little truck. Due to some very fast driving on Jason's part we made it to the hospital just on time. Joey's surgery went fine. He had a slightly rocky recovery time, but nothing nearly as bad as his first surgery. We had to sit in the recovery room for almost an hour because the billing office had not gotten the acceptance letter from our insurance company in the states. Thankfully we were able to contact Aetna and they let her know what email account they sent the letter to and then we were able to go home. Joey was bored sitting with me in the recovery room, but somehow we made it through.

When we got home we found out that we had another problem. When we left the house in the morning we had very low electrical power. Unfortunately that meant no shower for me. We thought that when we got home the problem would be fixed. It wasn't. After a lot of searching and testing we found out that one of the electrical wires had broken from the wind and was causing the power spikes and shortages. This morning we called our friend Alan Jackson and he was able to help Jason fix the problem. Thankfully we had everything on surge protectors and so nothing was fried in the process.

We are hoping that this new year will have a lot less adventures for us. :-)

Matthew update 12-15-2008

Today is the day that we bring Matthew home. We are at this time waiting in a coffee shop for the billing department to call us. They have to write up and revise our bill and then we can pay it and take Matthew home.

He is growing and doing good. The doctors were slightly concerned about the size of the soft spot on his head earlier last week. He has a Tate head (small) and not the Smith one (huge) like my other kids. Thankfully, his head has grown since birth and the plate in the back moved to enlarge the soft spot. This would not have kept him in the hospital, but would have been something we had to keep an eye on.

Yesterday I wrote a blog, but could not connect to the internet. I will try to post that when we get home tonight.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. Please continue to pray for little Matthew, for his health, as if he gets sick again (this is cold and flu season in Honduras) he will probably be put back in the hospital.

Matthew update 12-12-2008

Matthew has now enjoyed a full day without oxygen and all his levels have stayed good. He is currently eating just over an ounce when fed by a bottle. We are spending all day at the hospital and I am able to nurse him every three hours. We are praising the Lord for the improvements he has made.

At this time there is really no new news to report. He is still in the intensive care, but only under observation. He cannot be in the regular nursery as they don’t want him to be exposed to any bacteria at this time as his antibiotic has killed not only the bad bacteria, but good bacteria as well. The doctor still wants him to stay in the hospital until he finishes his antibiotics and this happens Sunday night. Doctor Dala told us that he will release Matthew to us Monday at noon.
Monday we are going to have a field trip to the hospital to pick up Matthew. We are all excited to be able to bring him home.

Yesterday Joey told me that he will let Matthew see his doctor when he gets sick since his doctor sees babies and big kids too.

On a funny note, on the Thursday that Matthew was born, the doctor was trying to explain something to Jason about preemie care. He took out a manual in English to show Jason, but instead of letting him read it, Dr. Dala translated it into Spanish for Jason. The doctor looked so stressed that Jason didn’t point out to him that he could read English.

Matthew update 12-11-2008

Today we came in to see Matthew and he was dressed and out from under the oxygen. He had a good night so they decided to take him off of the oxygen several hours before. He was supposed to be on a feeding tube until this afternoon, but he decided he was done with that and pulled it out last night. Rather than try to put it back in, they decided to see if he would take a bottle. He took it like a pro and so they left the feeding tube out.

When we got in he had just had a bath and was taking his nebulization treatment. He was content and sleepy. It was his time to eat however. The doctor wanted to see if he would nurse. We tried and tried, but he didn't want to wake up. Since he had eaten a lot as his last feeding we decided to make him wait a few hours so he would be really hungry.

We left for lunch and came back at 1:00. He was awake and finally nursed. He was so content to be held and to nurse that he got really mad when we put him back in his bed. As much as I would like to hold him all day, I know that it would lead to many problems in the future when I can't hold him all day. The nurses don't hold him unless it is needed. This was the first time he had been really held since birth and we both really enjoyed it.

It is very calming to hold your baby for the first time. Especially when he has been in the NICU for a week.

Matthew update

Matthew continues to get better. Doctor Dala called us last night about 10:00 pm to tell us that Matthew is demanding more food. The Tate in him had to come out somewhere. He was only supposed to be receiving 15cc every three hours, but they had to raise it to 20cc to get him to stop crying and searching for food.

This morning when we came in we noticed how quite it was in his room. We at first thought that something was wrong. The first thing I did was look at his vital signs monitor and everything was normal. He had a new nurse named Ana and she told us that they had taken him off of the oxygen mixer so that is why it was quieter in the room. Now that he is off the oxygen mixer he is receiving 27% oxygen. A normal person breathes 21% naturally so he is down to only 6% extra right now.

This afternoon they are going to take out his catheter. The put a catheter in his belly button and now that he is getting better they are taking it out and putting in a normal IV. The doctors don’t want us anywhere near when they are doing that as it is basically a small surgery. I don’t mind as I don’t want to be there either.

Because that procedure is scheduled for 12:00, they are going to wait to completely remove the oxygen until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon they want to start teaching him to suck so he can nurse.

The next step after he starts nursing would be to see if he can regulate his own body temperature. He is under a heater right now. The earliest he would be released is Monday afternoon. The doctor wants to have him completely off medications and at least 24 hours of observation prior to releasing him. It is a blessing to be able to see an end in sight. Please continue to pray that he has no setbacks so that we can take him home on Monday.

This morning we were in the room when they fed him. Just after get got done eating, he had an explosion. He filled his diaper and then proceeded to go to sleep. They were going to change him and I asked if I could change him. The doctor said that it was fine. First though I had to wash and sanitize my hands twice and take off my wedding ring. I thought it was so funny to go through so much cleaning just to change a dirty diaper. I am glad though that the doctor is cautious.

Sorry there are no new pictures at this time. My batteries ran dead when I was taking a video of Matthew getting fed. I have to get more batteries before I can post any pictures.

Eyes and Cries

Last night after I wrote my blog we went back into the NICU to see Matthew again. He was sleeping as normal. He had gotten really hungry and so was trying to put his mouth on the opening of the oxygen hood that he has. The nurse had just called for the portable x-ray machine to be brought in so they could take another x-ray and see how he was doing. We were still standing in the small room that he has and they brought in the machine and cut off our exit. We asked the nurse if we could stay in the adjoining room and watch through the window. She said that would be fine and they started working at getting him into position to take the x-ray. When she picked him up, he opened his eyes. We had never seen his eyes so we were so excited. I told the nurse that we were so glad to know that he really does have eyes.

This morning when we came in he was contentedly sleeping on his stomach so the jaundice light could start to "tan" his back. We had only been in a few minutes and they asked us to leave so they could take some more blood for tests. Here they don't let the parents stay in the room if they are doing anything, even changing a diaper. I left and went into a room across the hall to wait. I heard a baby crying quite loudly. As we haven't heard Matthew cry yet, I had to go and see if it was him. It was and he was loudly proclaiming that he was not happy. It was such a relief to hear a good strong cry. It just showed us that his lungs were indeed working well. After I saw that it was Matthew crying I went back into the room I was in and just listened to him.

The doctor came in not much later and let us know that he is doing good. He is eating up to 10cc of breast milk at this time. They are going to upgrade him to 15cc at 1:00 this afternoon. He has to get to 31cc before they will start to cut back on the oxygen. His blood pressure was slightly high today so they are also cutting back on the vitamins he is taking as he is finally getting nutrition from the milk.

Thank you for your prayers and please don't stop praying. He is doing so much better, but is not out of the woods yet.

Matthew Elian Tate was born on the 4th of December, 2008 at 8:58 am. He was born by c-section at the Honduras Medical Center. He weighed 6lbs 14oz and was measured at 20 ½ inches long. Right after delivery he had a very weak cry and it was discovered that he had fluid in his lungs. Since Joey had this same thing we weren’t very concerned. But before I go too far into this story let me share what led up to this point.

Two weeks before Matthew was born, I had a doctor’s appointment for a routine checkup. Everything was good except for the fact that the baby’s heart rate was on the low side. It was still normal, but my doctor decided that she would take the baby at 37 weeks of gestation because of this. At that same visit she gave me some antibiotics to help be get rid of a bacterial infection that I had. I was also given Miolene, which is a medication used to stop labor. In the next week I had to take the Miolene a few times, but it was nothing like the month and a half of it I had to use when pregnant with Joey. We found out just a few days ago that a complication of Miolene is water in the lungs.

Matthew’s birth went well. I had a c-section and my tubes tied at the same time. They showed Matthew to me, but as they were cleaning him up I noticed that he wasn’t crying as he should. My first thoughts were that he sounded like Joey did when he was born and that something wasn’t quite right. They took Matthew and brought him down to the pediatric floor. Jason was with him when they measured him and took all of his vital signs. They did an x-ray and found that there indeed was fluid in his lungs. They thought that this was caused by the medication I was taking. After a few hours he was not getting any better, but worse. The doctor did some blood tests and found out that his white blood cell count was extremely high. Even before they got those results the doctor put him on an antibiotic just in case it turned out that he had a bacterial infection.

The doctor let us know, after he got the results from the blood tests back, that they were taking preventative measures to keep him from going into septic shock. He was given plasma, medicine to raise his blood pressure, medicine to raise his heart rate, and two antibiotics. A few hours later just as I was given medicine to make me sleep through the night, he came in and told us that because his fingers were starting to turn blue, he was going to put Matthew on the respirator. It is a good thing that I had just taken medicine to make me sleep or I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all that night.

The next morning when Jason went to see Matthew the doctor told him that it was a good thing that my OB/GYN had taken him when she did. He said that if we had kept him in the womb a week more he would probably not have made it. He may have even been still-born.

We were all praying for God to do a miracle and heal him quickly. The antibiotics that Matthew is taking can take up to 72 hours to show they are working. If he got to 72 hours on them and wasn’t any better than the doctor was going to change for stronger antibiotics. At 11:00 am on Friday, the blood results from that morning were back and there was a drastic reduction of white blood cells and many of the chemical levels in his blood were close to normal. I have never seen the doctor with a bigger smile on his face. We had no idea what the test results meant, but by the look on the doctor’s face we could see that it was a good thing.

Saturday night and Sunday they worked at slowly lowering his oxygen intake through the respirator and his medications. Sunday they had to give him a single dose of some medicine that would make him more alert. He was real good about not fighting the respirator in the beginning, but he had gotten lazy and was letting the respirator breathe for him. With this medicine, he started to fight and the doctors started lowering the number of breaths per minute that the machine took for him.

I was released Sunday night and before I went home we came in to see him one last time for the night and the doctor had lowered his breaths per minute to 22. This is all the way down from 55. When we were in there they fed him for the first time in his life. He has a feeding tube in and they fed him 10cc of milk that I gave them.

This morning when we came in he was breathing only 8 breaths a minutes from the machine. The rest he was doing by himself.

At 12:50 today they took him off the respirator. YEAH!!!! He is still under an oxygen hood and has a feeding tube in his mouth, but he is doing better. He is completely off the heart medications and respirator. He is on a fast until 7:00 tonight. The doctors want to make sure that he has an empty stomach just in case they have to put him on the respirator again.

Please continue to pray with us that he will keep making steps in the right direction. He will be on antibiotics until Sunday, but we would like to bring him home or at least see him out of NICU before then.

Joey's Arm

Friday right when we had gotten home from a full day of shopping for a crib mattress we heard Joey start to cry. He was in the back yard and had fallen down the steps that lean into the pool. We have a built-in pool in the house we are renting. It is very deep and they want to charge us more if we use it so we have it dry. The kids play in there all the time. We use it to store all of our outside toys. It has three steps going down into it and some how he missed a step and fell.

He was crying a lot and was holding his arm. He was hurting, but could move his arm so I thought it would be best to wait a few hours to see if it would get better. We put up the Christmas tree and still he was favoring it. I wanted to take him in, but Jason decided to wait until Saturday as he could still move his arm.

He could lift up his arm and move it, but twisting it back and forth brought on grimaces of pain. After decorating the church for Christmas on Saturday morning, we took him into the ER to have his arm checked out. When the doctor came into see us he showed us the clear break in the radial bone in his left arm (of course he is left handed). I thought it was funny that his bone was not straight, but in an arc shape. I was about to say something to the doctor when he asked us if we saw that the bone was not straight. He told us that because of this, he would have to put a metal rod in his arm that would stay for a month.

He was prepared to do this right away, but I had just given Joey a small candy bar (we hadn’t had lunch and were starving). He had to fast in order for them to do the surgery. The doctor put on a temporary cast and we went home for the night.

Sunday morning we had to be with him in the hospital at 8:30 am. I explained to him as much as I could. He knew he was going to get sleepy medicine and when he woke up, his arm would be in a “pretty” cast. He woke up this morning so excited to go to the hospital. He wanted to get the sleeping medicine. He did have a slight problem with the booties he was required to wear. He didn’t want them on and he also didn’t really want to take his underwear off so they said that they would do that when he went to sleep.

He wasn’t too excited when they took him from us, but he went willingly howbeit with a frown on his face.

He came out of surgery about an hour and a half later. He was acting as Joey normally acts when tired. He was cranky. He was mad at the world and wouldn’t even shake the nurse’s hands. After about a half an hour of crying, the nurse came out with a huge syringe of pain medication for him. As soon as he saw that needle he tried to hide his hand and started crying much more strongly. We tried to tell him that it would not hurt as they were going to put it into the IV that he still had in. We had to physically hold his hand out so the nurse could get access to him. Once she had put in about half of the syringe he stopped crying and had this look on his face that was so surprised that it indeed didn’t hurt.

By the time we left the hospital he was his happy self again. He finally did shake the nurse’s and doctor’s hand. He is adjusting well to life with a cast. If he can get through this month without breaking the cast open it will be a miracle. He is running all over the place. His only complaint is about the itching. He thinks a mosquito got into his cast and bit him.

Happenings

Lots has happened in the past week. I will try to update you later this afternoon if I can find a wireless internet hotspot.

Internet again

We finally have Internet again and now that I am sitting down to write this blog, I don't know where to start.

We got safely moved in. It took us about a week of making trips with two intensive days of help to move the big stuff. We love this new house. It is just perfect for us. We have four bedrooms, a classroom, a big kitchen, and a living room/dining room combo. We also have a built in pool, but it is much to deep for the kids and we don't want to pay extra for it so the kids play in it with it being dry.

The negatives with this house is that there in no washer outlet and the electricity is not powerful enough to run the dryer (plus there is no hookup). With the washer we just fill it with a hose. It takes a while, but it gets done. I try to do one load of laundry a day. I do the lights on one day and the darks the next. On really sunny days I also wash the towels. I have limited clothes line so the towels must wait until it is really nice out. Not having a dryer means that I have to iron most everything. It has been a little bit of an adjustment, but if I do one to two loads a day and don't let it pile up on me I can get it done in about 45 minutes. Since my house is smaller it is easier to keep clean so the time I saved is now spent ironing.

Our friends, the Jacksons, rented this house a year ago and put the dryer in the kitchen. They used the same outlet that the stove was on (just unplugged the stove) and dried in there. They also burnt out their dryer from the fluctuating power so I decided the I would dry on the line as long as possible.

During the move we were able to get rid of a lot of things that we don't need anymore. We had several things that were just collecting dust as well as three trunks of baby girl clothes that I won't be needing. We decided to have a garage sale at the church and sell everything to make money for the Sunday school's Christmas Party. We have been wanting to buy all of the faithful kids a gift, but since we are also building a classroom there is no money available. I was praying that God would let us raise 2,000 Lempira (about $105.00). We didn't have much time to advertise it, but when we opened the doors of the church to start the sale there were probably 150 people there. We had a lot of theft (we were expecting it as we had to have the sale in the church and it is a high crime area), but we were still able to raise 4,700 Lempira. We have four bags of clothes left, but everything else sold. Praise the Lord we will now have enough to do what we were planning on doing.

The Monday after the sale we went to my normal doctor's appointment. I was 34 1/2 weeks along. I had been having a lot of contractions, but nothing regular so I wasn't worried. My doctor did my exam and decided to change my c-section date. It was going to be for the 20th, but because of the fact that the contractions were making progress and the baby's heart rate was on the low side, she decided that she was going to take the baby on the 4th of December. This is the day I hit 37 weeks. The baby is big and she is afraid if the baby even lets me get to 38 weeks that the heart rate will drop way down because of the size. I, however, am not worried about that. I am worried about the fact that I live further away from the hospital and if the baby decides to come we have a good drive ahead of us. Until I hit 36 weeks (Thanksgiving Day) I can take the medicine to stop labor (and have had to almost every day this week), but after that I cannot. We have another appointment tomorrow and we will see if she changes anything.

The good thing though is that the baby is measuring big and continues to grow. I, however, haven't gained a lb in a few weeks. My goal is to stay under 200 lbs (a feat I haven't achieved while pregnant yet) and so far I am right on track.

Lately I have not been going anywhere. I cannot drive because of the medicine and threat of having to take the medicine. I am so thankful that we got moved in when we did. Who knows what might have happened if we hadn't gotten in when we did.

We are also thankful that our old landlord kept begging us to get out of the house. By law we had to pay rent up to December 15th. She wouldn't leave us alone though and we found out that it was because she already had another client. We decided to move out quicker and give her back her keys and just not pay her last months rent. She didn't mind so we did this and because of that we were able to get out Internet running. YEAH!!!! Thank the Lord for his goodness.

I am hoping that I can find a little time to put some new pictures on here. Unfortunately there is a lot to do before the baby come and not a lot of time. :-)

Moving

We are moving!!!!! We got a call a week ago Saturday that a house we were interested in San Buenaventura was going to be available. We saw the house on Sunday and gave the deposit and started moving in yesterday. We have done a lot, but still have a long ways to go. It would be so much easier if we had U-haul here.

We will not have Internet for the next month or so. We must pay two rent payments this month or risk losing the house in San Buenaventura. Therefore the money needed to buy the satellite for the Internet will just not be there for another month or so. We will be relying on the free Internet in the restaurants here. Anytime we leave the house we will just have to make sure that we have the laptop with us. We should be able to check our email once a week. So if anyone has an urgent message for us it, sorry it won't be seen for a while.

For those of you praying for Xiomara, thank you so much. She is doing better and will find out on Wednesday if she can go home or not. She needs to get home and out of her mother's care. Unfortunately her mother knows more than the doctor and does not allow Xiomara to take the necessary steps toward improvement. We are praying that she will be able to come home sometime this week.

We are all striving to get moved in before Audrey's slumber party this Friday. She turns 8 on Sunday and is having 5 girls over to celebrate. They are going to Princess Club to get their hair and nails done first.

Thank you for your prayers for us and please keep praying that all of this moving wouldn't put me into labor too early.

Hospital Escuela

Yesterday, Jason and I went to Hospital Escuela to visit Xiomara. She is the lady in our church who gave birth less than a month ago. She has problems during pregnancy with blood clotting in her legs. She managed to advert it this pregnancy, but Tuesday evening we got a call saying she was in the hospital. She has a good sized blood clot in her leg and several small floating clots (not sure of the technical name) in her brain.

I talked to her on Wednesday night and she was pretty discouraged because of her baby. She is in the worst hospital in Tegucigalpa. It is the public hospital and proof that socialized medicine doesn't work. The 6th Floor is where all the adults with non-life threatening illnesses go. It is made up of many wards with 4 beds each in them. Each ward is made up of plywood walls that go 3/4 of the way to the ceiling. The floor is tile that is so broken you would cut your foot on it if you were brave enough to be walking without shoes on. The beds are old and to lower or lift them you must go and ask for the special tool to operate it. The sheets that cover the bed may be washed (who knows), but have blood stains and holes in them. There are no pillows, air conditionings, fans, tvs, or anything to do. You just have to lay there. The doctor comes once a day in the morning. After that there is nothing to keep you occupied. I wanted to take pictures, but I was afraid I would get kicked out. There was even a sign on the window that said, "Please take care of our hospital, don't throw trash out the windows."

Anyway, when I talked to Xiomara she was pretty discouraged about not being able to have her baby with her. This is her second baby, but her first one to nurse. She told me how much she was enjoying this time with her baby. Since she had been in the hospital (over 24 hours) she hadn't been able to see her baby. I decided to bring her a pump and some bottles so she wouldn't lose her supply before she went home.

We got to the hospital on Thursday morning and tried to get in to see her. We got as far as the elevators and a guard came running in trying to get me to go to labor and delivery. I know I look much bigger than most pregnant Honduran women, but this guy refused to believe that I was not in labor. I told him that I still had 10 weeks to go and finally he left me alone. He then told us that we had to use the stairs as the elevators were just for patients. You must understand that while the floor Xiomara was on is numbered the 6th floor, Hondurans have a funny way of numbering floors. You must first go up the lobby and lower level stairs before you get to the 1st floor. The man at the stairs stopped us and told us that we would have to get a pass. In the many times Jason has been in the hospital this is the first time we have ever had to get a pass. He told us the pass was from 2:00 pm on, but he would let us in at 11:30. It was 10:30 and I still had school to teach, but I was just relieved that he was going to let us in . We asked where do we go to get a pass. He told us to ask the guards at Porton 1 (Gate 1) and they would issue it for us.

Another problem is that while they may know where Porton 1 is; we, who don't come to this hospital have no clue. We tried following his directions and ended up at labor and delivery (I think these people don't believe me). We asked a nurse there where to go and she told us outside. We went outside and asked the guard and he told us in the back of the hospital. Needless to say, by the time we actually found Porton 1, I was about to go into labor from all of the walking. We were able to get our permission easily and went over to Dunkin Doughnuts to wait the extra 15 minutes we had. Normally this would be great, but there is nothing worse than a woman that can't have sugar sitting for 15 minutes in a doughnut shop. I did get a egg sandwich so the torture wasn't too bad, but Jason helped me out of my dilemma and ate two doughnuts just so I wouldn't feel bad. Sometimes his kindness amazes me (for those of you who don't know me that was pure sarcasm).

At 11:30 we got back to the hospital and were actually let in and allowed to ride the elevator. I was so thankful for that. We got to visit Xiomara and I showed her how to use the pump and by the time we left she was feeling much better about the prospect of nursing her baby again when she left the hospital.

Because of the much rain we have been having there have been many mud slides and many retaining walls have fallen. I took a couple of pictures of one that had fallen into a pharmacy the night before. It is a blessing that the heaviest rainfall has happened during the night and no one was in the building. We are supposed to get at least 5 more days of rain before this front is over. Most of the rivers and towns are underwater. Many say that this flooding and rain is worse than when Hurricane Mitch came through Honduras. The only difference now is that things are happening a bit more slowly as the rain has been falling all day, every day for almost two weeks now.

After today I am so thankful for the Honduras Medical Center and for a home that is not on the side of a cliff.

Today

Many days are normal and occur without incident. Today, however was not one of them. We woke up this morning to 10 minutes of electricity. Normally my first half an hour is spent reading my Bible and praying. So in those few short minutes that we had, I didn't get my clothes ironed or my hair done. Normally I try to iron clothes the night before, but last night I was tired and had clothes to fold. After that I decided to be lazy and iron in the morning. That probably won't happen again.

For those of you who don't know me really well, my hair is very thin and fine. Being without a curling iron is a scary occurrence. I did have some pretty bobby pins that I used to secure my bangs back so I didn't look too scary.

The doctor thinks that I have gestational diabetes, but they don't test for it here. Because of this I cannot eat cereal or anything sweet. I don't feel well afterwards if I do. I usually have a bowl of rice, or toast and an egg for breakfast. Both of those meals require cooking so they were not an option today. Since there were no curling irons or electrical appliances to take up our time we were ready early for church. Jason took us to Burger King for breakfast. This is only a few blocks from our house and wouldn't take much time. We didn't realize though that all of Honduras didn't have electricity either and they were also at Burger King. We did get breakfast, but it took about 45 minutes. If I hadn't been pregnant we would not have waited, but I am so glad we did.

Thankfully this didn't make us late. We got to church on time and had a good attendance. We had 44 kids in attendance. This is good because there is a Medical Brigade going on in Ojojona today and that normally steals a lot of people from church. When we were picking up one girl on the way into church her mom and a visitor were with her. We were excited as her mom rarely comes to church. We had almost gotten to the church when her mom signaled for us to stop and she got out with her visitor. Her mom just used us for a ride so she could go the medical brigade. She tried to get her daughter to come with her to the brigade, but Alison told her mom that she would come after church got out. I have never been so proud of someone. Alison is only 12 years old, but she showed us how much she has grown in the Lord lately.

We have been having trouble with some of the kids we pick up for Sunday School. They have been coming faithful, but we can't keep them in the church for the adult service. Today all but one was quite and sat still the whole time. The one who was not so obedient only tried to run away once. I caught him by the shirt as he rushed past me to the door. It was during the preaching so I whispered in his ear "it is time to sit down now" and he went and sat down quietly for the rest of the service. It was a MIRACLE.

While today was full of incidents, we are so thankful for the miraculous ones that God brought our way.

Muddy Water

Ever since last Friday's rainstorm we have had muddy water throughout the house. We decided to clean our below ground cistern out. It filled with mud when our back rooms flooded. Since it needs to be done just about once a year and hasn't been done in a long time, we figured it was time. We turned the city water off on Saturday so we could empty the tank. We got it mostly empty on Thursday and Jason got inside. It is about 7 ft tall and 6 or 7 ft wide. He used a two buckets. One was put underneath the pump spout and the other he used to fill that bucket. We turned on all of the faucets in the house and started draining all of the gross muddy water. We had about 2 inches of mud in the bottom of the tank. Jason did a great job cleaning it out. Once he had it mostly clean he used the wet dry vac to get it really good.

Because of the amount of rain that has been falling lately we have been getting water every day (almost). We were hoping to get water that afternoon, but we didn't. We had to eat out for dinner. Normally this would not be a problem for me, but I was so tired I just wanted to stay home. I have to admit though, the pizza was really good.

Friday morning we still hadn't gotten any water. Thankfully we had the presence of mind to save several buckets of water aside for flushing toilets. We all bathed with baby wipes, but still didn't really feel clean. Around 1:30 pm we started to hear air flowing through our pipes and not long after water also started coming in. At 4:00 pm our tank had filled enough that we could turn on the pump. It was so wonderful to take a shower.

The only problem was that all of the muddy water that we had taken out of the cistern using the pump had been sitting in our pipes all day. We flushed our toilets more than 20 times before the water came out clean. All of the sinks were pumping out black water for a while.

Thankfully,the water has finally started coming out clean today. The little things we take for granted are sorely missed when we don't have them. We are very thankful for clean water.

Sunday Services

Today we had a great day in Sunday school. Our attendance has been low, but the kids that are coming are excited. We had 5 teenagers in Sunday school today which is a record for us. They are all so excited to be there. For the past three weeks we have been missing most of our regulars. Hopefully I can go and visit them next Saturday. If they were there we wouldn't have enough places for everyone.

Two of the teenage girls that come are so white they are almost albinos. They both have white skin (like mine) and very blond hair, but beautiful blue eyes. They are the sweetest things. Today I gave them some foundation (makeup) as the Lord blessed me with lots while we were on furlough. They were so excited. It is not exactly easy to find our shade here in Honduras.

Their mother hasn't been able to come for the past two weeks since her sister came and dropped her mentally handicapped little brother (29 years old) on her door step. They woke up to find him sitting there with a note saying that it was their turn to take care of him. Cristina, the lady who comes to our church and has the blond girls, has been staying home as Oscar (her brother) has been violent. Jason encouraged her to come. She was afraid of what he would do to a kid, but Jason told her that there were many men around to help control him.

Cristina came today and brought Oscar. He sat so good during the lesson and even though he can't talk, he tried to sing with us during son time. It was so cute and we were impressed to see how good he was. We just hope that he will continue to be good. The mentally handicapped are often unpredictable so we won't be surprised if he has problems next week.

After Sunday school I had to meet with the Teachers. We discussed the plans for Christmas and the kids' Christmas program. It was encouraging to see them take the lead. Several times I told them that I would help if I could, but they assured me that they were not planning on it. What a difference from a year ago when I had to do everything and trying to get someone to help me was like pulling teeth. I am so thankful for the maturing that God has brought about in the ladies.

We have had several ladies express desire to help and at this time I am still letting them grow a bit. One lady wore a dress to church today. This is the first time I have ever seen her in a dress. It is exciting to see how God is moving in the hearts of the people here in Ojojona.

Life's Little Joys...or Frustrations

Last night Jason was in Campamento for his once monthly preaching trip. It was a warm night and so the newly falling rain felt so good. I was exhausted as is to be expected when you are 7 months pregnant and Daddy is gone. I put the kids to bed and as I laid listening to the rain my brain was thinking of all the thing I wanted to get done the next day. I fell asleep, but was awakened about an hour later to very hard rain. Now if you know anything about windows in Honduras you will know that all of ours are glass shutter style windows and leak if it rains really hard. I checked all of the kids' rooms and thankfully no rain inside the rooms. So I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but it was raining so hard that I couldn't doze off until after 3:00 am. I did get some good prayer time in so that was a blessing.

This morning the kids woke me up at 6:00 am. Normally on Saturdays they can sleep in until 8:00 if I am lucky. This morning after a wakeful night, I was not to be so lucky. Oh well, I had a lot to do so I wasn't too frustrated.

As is our custom I made a nice breakfast for the kids. This morning it was crepes. This is the first time I had made them and they were quite yummy I must admit. While Audrey was doing the dishes, I started on my projects for the day. I went into the kitchen to straighten up as she doesn't do a good job on that yet, and found my counters were full of water. I seems that Jordan "helped" her a bit and then "tried to clean it up". In the process of cleaning all of the water up I had to take all of my counter appliances out and clean behind them. I had been wanting to reorganize my kitchen to give me a little more accessibility, but today it was not in my plans. It sure looks and works a lot better for me now.

After cleaning the kitchen I asked Audrey to take the dirty rags to the laundry room. She did and started yelling for me to come quick. It seems that the hard rain filled my laundry and storage room with about 1/4 inch of mud. We have lived here for quite a few years and have never had this problem. My thinking that I had never seen it rain this hard here made perfect sense now. I hadn't and my laundry and storage rooms took the brunt of the damage.

Once again, cleaning out these two rooms had been on my To Do List ever since we took all of the baby things out, but I cannot lift anything heavy so Jason had to have the time available too and that just hadn't happened yet. Well, tonight we were forced to rectify that situation. We had to take everything out and then get rid of the mud. Thankfully it was a very liquidy mud and so the wet/dry vac took care of everything. The rooms look so much nicer now.

I love spring cleaning. Unfortunately today there were several things that needed to get done, but couldn't as a result of other factors helping me decide to spring clean.

We also found out today that when it rains it pours. After cleaning everything up, I tried to wash and dry a load of towels and after 5 seconds my dryer stopped working. We are praying that it will be a cheap, easy fix.

Library

If you are like me, the library has to be your favorite place in the whole wide world. Unfortunately, Honduras does not have a library system. So yesterday I got a box of books out of storage (we have no bookshelves) and put it in my office. The kids have enjoyed getting one book at a time out. They call it the library and have to return the book before they can get a new one. When we were in Washington we went to the library often and I think the kids miss it. When we build our own house we have one room planned for a library/office. We have at least a year or two to wait until we can get it built. We are just glad that we now know where it is going to be and now we are just waiting until we save the money to get started. It does give me more time to add/change my design again. :-) We did have to change the design when we found out that we are having a boy. We could never fit three kids in the size rooms that I had planned. I added 5 feet to the downstairs floor plan and was able to make my schoolroom bigger at the same time. YEAH!!!! As building supplies are different here, I have to take out one foot of floorspace for every two walls I have. I have been trying to make allowances for this. I just hope that everything won't be too big when it is built. It looks good on paper, but we will have to see when it is done.

We are praying that we can get a house outside of town to rent that will help us save more money every month. As it is impossible to get a loan to build the house as we are foreigners. We must save the money and put it aside so we can start building. In our house plans we are including a 2 bedroom guest apartment. Once it is built we need lots of people to come and visit us. :-)

The rat

A few months ago we started to smell a very strange odor. It was centered near the garbage and we found out that while it was near the garbage, that was not the offending member. The smell came from a bunch of plastic bags that I was keeping for later use. We threw them away thinking that maybe the cat had gone back there and used them for a litter box. That took care of the problem and life was peaceful again for a few days.

About a week later we smelt the same smell again, but this time it was coming when I turned on the oven. It wasn't strong, but I decided that we needed to mop the floor under the stove too. We did a lot of things, but the smell started fading. The only time you could smell anything was when the oven was on. I just figured that it was my pregnant nose acting up again.

Finally, last week it got so bad that I asked Jason to take to back off and see if something had died in the outer wall of the oven. He started taking the oven apart and the smell just kept getting worse and worse. We thought it would be a quick fix so I had bread rising on the counter. When we realized that something was on the insulation and it wouldn't be a quick fix we started taking the oven all the way apart to remove all of the insulation. I didn't get my bread made and ended up having to throw the dough away as we didn't get the insulation replaced until the next day. We did find a store near us that sells the insulation though.

After the stove was completely disassembled I was poking at the holes in it with a screwdriver and something moved. I shut the cat in the kitchen for the night as Jason was gone and I didn't want to see what had been in the insulation until it was dead.

The mouse escaped under the fridge and so we bought traps and more insulation and fixed things up again.

A few days after that we started to smell that smell again and so we moved the fridge and cleaned up behind it. It was so gross!!! As we were cleaning we didn't find the mouse and the cat all of the sudden had a great interest in our stove again.

Yesterday as I tried to cook dinner in the oven we once again smelt that familiar smell, although this time it was much worse. We found out that since the new insulation that we bought is thinner, it doesn't hide the smell as much. It was so bad that we had to turn off the stove, put dinner in the fridge for the next day, and eat out at Burger King after the service.

This morning Jason started to disassemble the oven once again to replace the padding, but this time we were determined to catch the mouse before we put everything back together. We put the cat on the top of the insulation and he started sniffing away. Jason tried pushing on the insulation to get the mouse to run out and couldn't find it. I started to poke with him on the top of the insulation and my hand hit this big bulge. I jumped back and told him that this was no little mouse that I felt.

That started an almost three hour time frame of chasing the mouse from fridge to stove and back again. During one of the trips between to the fridge we were able to see that this mouse was no mouse, but a rat. The little mouse traps we bought went off, but couldn't harm this rat as he was too big. The cat, we learned didn't want to kill the rat, but just wanted to play with him. Mittens was a great help though in letting us know where the rat was. After about 2 hours of chasing him all over the kitchen, the rat ran to my classroom/pantry. We kept chasing him and putting traps where ever we could to try and catch him. We finally succeeded when he was on the second shelf of my pantry with his tail hanging through one of the holes in the shelf. He was hiding from us. Jason took the rat trap (we went out and bought a new one that was bigger) and snapped it on his tail so he couldn't take off. He did manage to get loose from that, but he left about 1/3 of his tail behind. After that we chased him and he ran right into a glue trap. He caught his face in it. I took a picture of him (thinking he was dead) and then he started working his face loose from the trap so Jason took the dull end of a very big kitchen knife and beat him to death.

This whole time the kids were getting in the way so we told them to go sit on the couch and we would let them know when the mouse was dead. They were so excited to see it.

Our kitchen is now all back in order. We did move some things around to allow for ease of removing critters in the future, if needed. We are so very thankful that this is the first time this has happened to us. Ernesto and Nelly (Honduran friends of ours) told us that this is a very common occurrence and it happens to them a lot. No wonder the oven insulation is not hard to find. This is the first time for us in 5 years and I am very thankful for that. We did make a few changes to our house though. The dog food and water now stays outside and the inside garbage was moved so that nothing can fall behind it again. We are hoping that this will be the last time we have this problem.

Agua Splash

Today we had the honor to be invited to Agua Splash (a water park) by the colonel in charge of the Honduran Presidential Honor Guard. The military paid to take all of the families of these soldiers, and us, to the water park just outside of Teguc. Normally if we go to a water park it would be when no one is there and that was not the case today, but to refuse the invitation would be a huge insult. So we went and the kids had a blast.

The day started off with a bang when we found out that the time we had been given to be there by (7:00 am) was not correct and we didn't need to be there until 9:00 am. The bad thing was that we didn't get this call until 6:45 when we were dressed and ready to go, yet very sleepy. We got there a little before 9:00 am and had to wait until 10:00 am because the bus to pick everyone up was late. We were taking our own car, but we couldn't get to the park before them.

We have had a lot of heat and humidity these past few weeks. We were hoping that would last through today, but as our luck would have it, today was the day it started to rain. It rained and rained and then rained some more. The kids were already wet so we didn't make them come out of the water. It did make it cold though and they were shaking from the cold at times. Audrey (who must be part fish) came out of the water only for lunch and when we made her change to leave.

We are all tired out, but had a nice field trip day and are looking forward to a good nights sleep.

Incompetence

Today as I was working on some things that badly needed attention, I got a call from our insurance company. While we must purchase international insurance through our mission board and it is good insurance, it is not worth much here. In a normal year we have a hard time meeting our deductible. Because of this we have secondary insurance. We get it through the Honduras Medical Center (the good hospital here). We pay it monthly and receive a discounted price on medical care.

Today they called me to tell me that we were three months behind on our payments. Normally we are very prompt with our bills, but lately with all of my prenatal appointments we have been in and made sure they were paid on the first of the month. I told the lady that there was no way we had missed three months of payments.

I then had to put away what I was doing and go on a receipt hunt. The ones I had paid were filed away right where they should have been, but Jason is not as organized as I am. I called him as he was out at the property digging footings for the retaining wall and he didn't know where the other receipt was either. I did finally find it in his CLOSET. Some days I don't know whose filing abilities are more incompetent, Jason's or our insurance company's. :-)

I called them after all the receipts were found and gave them the receipt numbers. They were able to find the receipt originals and credit them to my account. Thankfully this is not the first time this has happened so we now know not to throw any receipts away.

We have the property and have spent several days out working on it. Please pray with us that God would provide the money to start building on it soon. We would so love to get things started but once we finish the retaining walls, we will have no more money to build with. Thankfully there is much work that we can be doing in the meantime. It is a good thing that the kids like digging as they will be doing a whole lot of it in the months to come.

To Many Boys

We had our ultrasound today and while it wasn't a surprise to us, we were kind of disappointed to find out that we are going to have yet another boy. We had all hoped for a girl to even the numbers out a bit.

This time I had a 4D ultrasound and it was a lot of fun. The doctor gave us a CD of all of the pictures. Most are not usable as he must have taken 10 pictures trying to show us it was a boy. I finally had to tell him that I didn't see what he was talking about and asked him to just tell me what it was.

As soon as the doctor put the machine in 4D mode the baby (who doesn't have a name yet) put his fingers in his mouth just like Joey (still does). I am going to need a good supply of pacifiers mailed to me if I am going to keep the fingers out of his mouth. Most all of the pictures have hands near or in his mouth.

When we got home and told Joey and Jordan they both expressed sadness that the baby is a boy. Joey told me, "Mommy, I am sad that your baby is a boy." When I asked him why he said, "We have to many boys." I couldn't help but laugh.

We were really hoping for a girl. Audrey and I were really going to enjoy dressing and doing hair. I guess we will have to adopt now. :-)

My due date based on my last two ultrasounds is December 25th. Praise the Lord the myoma has gone and should not cause any more problems.

Please pray for Becky Jackson (another BIMI missionary wife and best friend) as she goes in for surgery Saturday morning at 8:00 am. She has to have a hysterectomy. She is expected to be in the hospital until Monday afternoon.

Still Alive

Once again I was able to drag myself away from Facebook to write a blog. We have been really busy here so I haven't been able to spend a lot of time on Facebook either. I have a long list of emails to respond to.

We finally put the pool into storage yesterday. We bought a 15 X 4 ft pool for the kids this past summer (March-May in Honduras). It has been great. The only area of our yard big enough to hold it is a cemented square 16 X16 ft. The pool just fit, but it was underneath a big tree (our neighbors) which dropped leaves, sticks, and flowers in it all the time. A little over a month ago we cleaned it out and refilled it. It was so nice and clean, but the next day the water level was over a foot lower. We found out that the cement that the pool is on is not exactly smooth in all areas and one side of our pool has many pin holes in it. We emptied it then and it has been sitting there empty (except for the rainwater) for a while. We started noticing a lot of mosquitoes and finally figured out that we had our own mosquito hatching farm in the pool. Yesterday we had to clean it out once again and dry it out with towels so we could pack it up. Thankfully everything went well and the pool was put away just 15 minutes before it started to rain. The kids are enjoying the space to ride their bikes.

Please pray for us as we are in the process of purchasing some land. It is the property we were looking at when our truck broke down. We have been hiring a man Yoni (Johnny) who is an institute student and will be our next door neighbor to fix the road and then fence in the property for us. We should have enough money to put in the retaining walls needed to begin leveling out the property. We have our house and the layout of the property designed, but are not looking forward to waiting two more years to be able to move into the property. Please pray for us that we could find a house nearer the property to rent while we are building so that we could start right away. If we could find a house that is cheaper and closer we could take that money that we saved and put it into buying the materials needed to build the house.

This Friday is my ultrasound. I am very excited to finally find out if this baby is a girl or boy. I am almost 22 weeks along and this ultrasound will tell us what my due date is. My last ultrasound said I measured 1 1/2 weeks farther along. We are also excited to see if the Myoma that I have has gone away or if it is still there.

So far I have only gained 4 lbs which is good, but the bad thing is that until 2 weeks ago I hadn't gained a pound. I guess I am going to have to cut back on my deserts. I have had a craving for sweets that I only had with Audrey. Which is not so good as I gained the most weight with her. My doctor told me not to worry about not gaining weight though because I have plenty of reserve. I had to laugh at that because it really showed me that we are not in the states anymore.

Murphy's Law

I just have one question, "Who is Murphy and why is his law so mean?" Ok, so maybe that is two, but why can't his law be nice.

Yesterday, we went to talk to the owner of some property that we are interested in. It is a new property near Alan and Becky Jackson's house that is for sale. It is around 2 acres and might be usable. At this time it is so overgrown with brush that we would have to get it cleared to see what is actually available as there is a sizable hill on the property, but with retaining walls and moving the mountain around we think it will be really nice. The owner is the dad of one of the institute students and the property is next door to their house. The owner is asking a good price and we would pay to have this institute student clear the brush before we would buy the property.

Anyway, as we were driving to the new property, Jason said that he lost the clutch. The truck had to be left in the middle of the road (thankfully there are not many vehicles that pass on that road). We saw the property and then had to walk back to the Jackson's house. Jason and Alan then got some tools and went back to the truck. About 30 minutes later we heard a truck (they live in the middle of nowhere) and then it stopped. A few minutes later we heard it again and then it stopped. After about 15 minutes of this, we saw the truck drive into the property. Alan was driving and Jason was sitting in the truck bed. They had to push start it and anytime they had to slow down for a pothole it would die and they would have to push start it again. Jason started taking it apart in the driveway and found out that the problem is a part that went bad.

Becky took us home and today we have to try and find that part then go back to their house and fix the truck. This is the first time this truck has ever broken down on us and thankfully it is not a major fix. I just wish that it had broken down in our driveway. That would have been so much easier. :-)

Today is my shopping day so Becky Jackson (who also has an empty fridge) will take me shopping while Jason fixes the truck. I am so thankful for good friends. Becky told me last night that she is glad that it is finally their time to help. Usually the come into town to get their car worked on and we take them around. I am glad we have them for friends.

Jordan update

Yesterday when I tried to write this update the blog site was down. So you are getting day old information.

We got Jordan's test results back and that showed that he did not have Mono, but just your normal average flu. He is doing much better and has gone a full day and a half without a fever.

Joey, however, decided that someone in the Tate family just had to be sick and so he is now down with the same symptoms that Jordan had. He is so excited to be able to stay in his jammies all day. He has a high fever, cough, and watery eyes. Yesterday he took a 3 hour nap. Today his fever is not as high, but we will see what happens later on in the day when fevers normally spike.

Thank you all for your prayers. Jason is doing much better. He still has a cough and is weak, but he is getting better each and every day.

Home again

Jason is home again and doing a lot better. He is still weak because of his low blood pressure and the platelets that he lost. When he left the hospital his platelet level was low, but climbing. He has mandated rest and is required to stay at home until Sunday.

Jordan also seems to be getting better. He actually slept through the night last night. He still is running a slight fever, but it is nothing compared to how he was doing. We are just praying that by this Sunday we will all be back to normal.

Jordan

Jordan is also sick and has much the same symptoms. He was doing better on Saturday, but yesterday he seemed to regress again. When his fever is up he will be laying down and crying because "everything hurts". When his fever is down (when he is on his medicine) he is fine. The only problem is that he can only get his medicine every 8 hours and his fever comes back after about 6 1/2 to 7 hours time.
If he doesn't start making a marked recovery we will have to take him back to the doctor tomorrow and do some tests to make sure he doesn't have something different than what Jason has.
At least we are not bored this summer vacation. :-)

Jason Update

It has been a crazy couple of days. Jason has been in the hospital since Thursday evening. He didn't find out until Saturday morning that he has Mono.

His blood platelet level is what is keeping him in the hospital right now. They found out that he is losing blood platelets late Friday evening. They have continued to fall. Each day the rate of decline is less, but until this problem regulates itself he will not be coming home.

He is also having problems with his blood pressure. He has been on blood pressure medicine for almost a year now and the past month or so has seen much fluctuation in his blood pressure. It has been consistently high (though not dangerously), so the doctor changed his medication. Now it is very very low. Hopefully once he gets out of the hospital it will regulate itself. The doctor thinks that Jason is having this problems because of stress, so we will be talking about ways to reduce his stress when he gets home. It will definitely mean cutting back on some of the ministry areas that he is working on, but we are hoping that with a little effort we can shift some things together so that it will reduce the stress, but not the areas in which we are serving.

Anyway, we are hoping that Jason can come home today.

Jason's sickness

We have been dealing with a lot of sickness lately. Jason finally got his turn on Monday evening. He finally went into the doctor last night. They ran some tests and then put him into the hospital. The test results showed that he had an enlarged spleen. The doctor wasn't sure so she had him stay for observation and more tests.

This morning he had an ultrasound and found out that his spleen and liver are enlarged. They have taken him off of his medicine to make the fever go down so that they can draw blood when his fever is high again. The doctor is unsure at this time if he has Salmonella poisoning or Typhoid Fever. We will find out more information later on today. We plan on visiting him the afternoon and hope to have more information at that time.

He also has a cold on top of all this other stuff. I am glad that they are finding out what the problem is. Please pray that he starts to feel better soon.

Jordan is also sick, but he only has the flu. We are hoping that he gets over that soon as well.

Jordan's sickness and sleepwalking

Jordan has been sick for the past two day. He had a high fever and upset stomach. He was happy as he got to watch tv while laying on the couch all afternoon on Wednesday.

Wednesday night after I had put them to bed, I heard the boy's door open and then close. The light went on and off several times so I decided to investigate. I opened the door and Jordan was standing by the door turning the light off and on. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he had to go to the bathroom. He had had a little accident so I shooed him toward the bathroom. I then went and got him out new clothes.

As I entered the bathroom I saw that he had gone all over the floor. He was acting a little dazed so I had a hard time not laughing at him. I told him to get undressed and change his clothes. Normally Jordan is very obedient but this time he just stood there looking at me. I repeated it and again he just stood there. So I helped him take off his shirt and hoped that would kick him into motion. I told him again to get his wet clothes off and he just stood there. Finally I said, "Jordan, what did I just say?" He told me that I had just told him to stand up. I figured then that he was not in his right mind.

So I helped him take his pants off and left him his clean clothes to put on. I went to check on his bed to make sure it was clean and dry and it was. When I came back he had put his wet clothes on and then his new dry clothes on after that.

So I undressed him again and put new clean clothes on him and that seemed to wake him up and he was fine. I have never seen Jordan walk in his sleep. I am sure it was his high fever that help to add to his sleepiness.

Thankfully Jordan has fully recovered this morning. Jason is taking him with him to Campamento a town about 2 hours from here. We are maintaining a work there until missionary Daniel Jacobo comes and takes it over. Jordan is so excited to be going. We were all praying that his fever would be gone so he could go today. They are scheduled to leave in about an hour and Jordan is just sitting by the door with his backpack waiting. This is his first time to go overnight with Daddy when he preaches out of town.

Family affairs

Our family is doing good except for the occasional flu and cold that most families get at times. Audrey is dealing with a cold now and is taking this opportunity to stay in bed in her jammies. She is milking her sickness for all it is worth.

I just finished making her new jammies, a dress, and a purse. She loves the jammies. I am probably going to have to force them off of her so I can wash them.

Jordan is a little sad because he has been growing and is having to give some of his favorite clothes to Joey. He is still as skinny as ever so we are having a hard time finding clothes that fit him. When I went home for my brother's wedding I was able to purchase several pairs of jeans for him, but many are still to long for him. As Jordan is very hard on clothes, if I give them to him now then Joey will never get to use them.

Joey is having behavioral issues right now. He doesn't want to clean his messes up. Yesterday, Jason told him to clean his toys up and he told him, "I don't want to, Jordan can do it." You would think he would get tired of getting spanked, but it doesn't seem to affect him.

My pregnancy is going well. I have found out that the myoma can cause problems during pregnancy, namely miscarriage, only during the first trimester. As I am past that I don't have to worry so much. The other problem that it can cause is difficulty during delivery. If it gets absorbed into the uterus then there will be no problems whatsoever, but if not then it could stop contractions or prevent a normal delivery. We will know more about what we are going to do later on this month. Another issue we have is that my doctor is scheduled to be in the states with her kids from December 17th to the 27th of December and I am due the 24th. While I have never actually had a pregnancy go 40 weeks, I am not sure I will have this baby by the 17th either. We will be taking to my doctor at my next appointment to see what are our options. Please pray with us that we will make the right decision.

We are looking for another house to move into and some property to buy. We have not had a lot of luck with either of these things. We found some great property for a great price, but we only have about half of what we need to buy it. We talked to the owners (a group of 6 brothers and sisters) and offered them what we have for half of the property with the provision that we would be offered the other half before someone else had the option to buy it. We would love to buy the whole property, but we just don't have the extra $16,000 that we need to buy all of the property. Please pray with us that we will find the property that God wants us to have and be able to but it.

The Toncontin Saga

Toncontin (the Tegucigalpa airport) has been ordered by the President to be opened. After much pushing and urging from everyone (even Boeing sent a letter to him stating that the 737s are certified to land at 1,500 Meters and the current runway is 1,650 meters), he has ordered it open until... We are now waiting to see if that until happens. According to the papers, the airport has 120 days to make some small changed like removing a fence that is at the beginning of the runway and installing it further away (they have already started doing this job) and changing some lights and things.

There should not be any problem getting this done, but this President has great desire to close this airport and move it to Comayaguela (where our military base is). He is getting a lot of pressure from Nicaragua and Venezuela to open this base up to commercial traffic which would in turn put pressure on the US to leave. The agreement to open the airport in Teguc is only until Palmerola can be made ready for commercial traffic. This means making a new 4 lane road from Teguc to Comayaguela. This would be wonderful to have, but not at the cost of the airport here.

We are not to concerned though as we know how Honduras works. It could take years to fix the road. While they estimate 6 months we know better. We are hoping that by the time this gets fixed a new president will be in office and will not close the airport.

Tomorrow the first commercial planes should land here in Teguc again. Yeah!!! We are so happy.

First Ultrasound

Yesterday was my first ultrasound and the doctor's determined that everything was fine with the baby. Due to the size of the baby my due date has been moved up to the 24th of December. Yeah!!!
They did notice a myoma on the outside of the uterus. The doctor said that this is very common and not to worry. I did some research online to try and figure out what she was talking about and discovered that it is pretty common and as long as it doesn't grow there should be no problem. The doctor told me that it is common for the uterus to absorb the myoma with time (as it grows).
Please pray with us that this is what will happen and that we will have no problems with this.

Airport News

"The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it withersoever he will" Psalms 21:1.

For many of you who have been praying about the airport situation, we have good news. The airport is scheduled to be opened in 8 days.

Many people have been effected. We talked to Domingo, a leader of a church in the mountains (where they don't even have electricity) and he has been hugely affected. He makes leather stools to sell to business owners in the tourist town of Valle de Angeles. Valle de Angeles has had no one come into Teguc so they have had no business. Therefore Domingo hasn't sold any chairs for over a month. That means his family has had no income for over a month.

Over all there were an estimated 30,000 people who would be affected by the closure of the airport permanently.

We are praising the Lord for his changing the president's heart on this matter, because this president is not one to change his mind even if he is wrong. He has been listening to the council of some president that have very communistic tendencies. We are so thankful that God moved his heart in this way.

Baptism Sunday

This Sunday we had the privilege to see Carmen and Noel baptized.

Carmen is a direct result of our church's missions trip. Carmen was befriended by Bernadette, one of the ladies who came. Bernadette encouraged Carmen to follow the Lord with all of her heart. Carmen told us just after the group left that she wanted to get baptized. We had scheduled the last baptism service with her in mind, but she was not able to get baptized on that day because of some health issues. This week, though, everything worked out perfectly. We had a great service and Carmen was so happy to be able to take this step of obedience.

Noel is the son of Juanita, the lady with Elephanitis. He has been coming off and on for several months. For the past two months Jason and Ernesto have had a great burden for Noel and have put a lot of emphasis on getting him to return. He has been coming faithfully for three weeks now. Last Saturday he went with Jason to Bible Institute to see how it is run and to decide if he would like to enroll next term. They were talking about Biblical fellowship and somehow, someone raised a question about baptism. Noel asked Jason after that if he could be baptized the next time we had baptisms. Jason told him that tomorrow was the next service. He then told him not to tell Ernesto (who has been praying that Noel would get baptized) so they could surprise him. Ernesto had been praying that Noel would come to us without us having to talk to him about taking this step. Ernesto was so surprised when he saw Noel get into the water. He told us as he got out of the car at his house that he still can't believe it. The devil has really been working hard trying to discourage all of us.

Ernesto and Nelly have been plagued with many health problems. Nelly has such problems with her back at this time that she has had to miss services for the past two weeks.

The devil is trying to discourage us through a new church that is starting up in Ojojona. Baptist Medical and Dental Mission used to be a part of BIMI, but decided to form their own group many years ago. They have a habit of coming into towns where there is already a good Baptist church and stealing all of the members to form their church. They are very pentecostal in their teachings and are at the other end of Ojojona, but a few months ago they started a "house church" next door to the church. It is really frustrating to us as we have seen this happen so many times before. Please pray for us that we won't get discouraged and that God will keep moving in the people of Ojojona. On the heels of a great victory is when we are the most easily discouraged.

Tate News

The reason for my inconsistency in keeping you all updated on what is going on here in Honduras is, I am pregnant again. For those of you who know me know that I get very sick in the first trimester. Well, this pregnancy has been no different. I have been so sick that I have not been doing anything that is not necessary. I am due around the end of December and am now 11 weeks along.
The kids are excited though. Audrey practices with her babies every day. The kids can't wait until Christmas when the baby will come. Please pray for us as Mommy being sick is not a fun time for anyone.

Airport update

We went and saw the plane a few days ago and were surprised at

how there were not more lives lost. Praise the Lord for his goodness on that matter. Five people died in the accident. The pilot, the Brazilian ambassador's wife, and a banker (who died from a heart attack) were on the plane, and the plane landed on a pickup truck and killed two young men. The road that the plane landed on is usually clogged by buses. It is a miracle that there was not one bus on the road at that time.

They are in the process of cleaning up. The plane looks the same outside, but looking through the doors you can see that they are dismantling it from inside.

At this time it is a big discussion on what they will do with the airport. It has been determined that the pilot touched down in the middle of the runway. Tegucigalpa has a short runway and touching down in the middle does not give you time to stop. For a pilot to land at Teguc they must be super qualified. This pilot has been employed by Taca for many years so who knows what went wrong. We do know that he landed the airplane going the wrong way. The control tower suggested that he land in one direction because of the direction of the wind, but he wanted to land with the wind.

They are talking about closing Teguc permanently and moving it to Comayagua and using the Palmerola airbase which is jointly used by Honduras and the US. At this time there is no terminal and they would have to convert a hanger into one. We are praying that they find someway to keep Teguc open as it is a 1 1/2 hour drive to Comayagua. That would make it much harder for us and would lose Teguc much tourist $.

Taca Flight 390

Today was a sad day for us. As Audrey was washing dishes from breakfast we lost power. We had no clue what was going on until a friend of ours called us to tell us that a plane had just been involved in an accident. We live very near the airport so they were wondering how we were. We were without any form of finding out what was going on so we got in the car to listen to the radio and found out it was a big plane from TACA that had over shot the runway.

Honduran news has said that 5 died (three died inside the plane including the pilot, and two were trapped in their cars underneath the plane), but the articles that I have read have stated that two died. When we saw the news reports we were praising God for the small amount of causalities. It could have been so much worse. Also, several of those first on the scene came just to steal the baggage of the traumatized passengers.

While nothing "official" has been said, we know that for some reason the plane kept going right off of the end of the runway. Thankfully planes land away from our house so we were in no way harmed.

There is talk of closing the Toncontin airport (just remodeled and very nice) for a time and flying people into Comayagua (1 1/2 hours away). We are praying that this doesn't happen as it would be a huge headache for us. The city has been in the process of taking down a really big hill to extend the runway, but we don't know if that is going to halted at this time.

If you would like to see the news article you can click here. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,360842,00.html

Water, Rain, and Dogs

We have not had any water for three weeks. We have a tank that holds 1,500 gallons of water. We have had to buy a truck of water a week for the past three weeks just to use for showers, washing clothes, and washing dishes. Finally after a week of calling, Sanaa (water company) came out today to fix the problem and found out that someone turned our water off just to be mean. I, however, am not convinced that that is the problem. We are supposed to get water again tonight from the city so we will soon know if that is what was wrong or not.

We have had good rainfall this past week. It has made it so nice here. Once our water starts coming in I can spring clean. I am going to start by washing curtains. I have some beige lace curtains that are now dark brown from the dust. I hate to let them get so bad, but when you have no water there is not much you can do.

We had baptism Sunday scheduled for Sunday. A few days before one of our members called to tell us that a dead dog had been thrown into the water hole where we baptize and told us that we should cancel the service. We asked him to take the dog out. His wife called on Friday and told us that the dog was still there. We went out on Saturday and found out that God had cleaned it for us. It had rained so much that everything floated down the river. We had our baptism service and two from our church got baptized. One was Jordan and the other Cristian (8 years old). To have children get baptized is a huge step. Here there is a very common belief that children shouldn't get baptized until they are 12 (the age Jesus went to the temple). It is very hard to get parents to give permission. We were so excited for Cristian to finally get permission. We had a great service with Bro. Alan Jackson's church joining us. This was the first for them to baptize in the river and they loved it.