Abigail

There are so many kids that we love to have in Sunday school. They are excited to come and love to participate in class time and in church. And then there is Abigail. Abigail is a strange case for us. Her cousins (that live with her family) used to be some of our most faithful kids. They loved coming until one of them got saved and wanted to get baptized. Then their maternal grandmother didn't want them to come anymore. Abigail is 13 and never was faithful. Lately though she has become very faithful. Her paternal grandparents come very faithfully and she comes with them. She has a bad attitude when she gets into the truck and acts like she is being forced to come. What is funny is that if she didn't want to come there is no one to make her.

Abby is a big problem in church at this time. I am constantly having to chase her back into church. For the past month she has been complaining about feeling like she is going to throw up right when the sermon is in full swing. It would be nice to sit through a service without having to chase her down. She obviously wants to be there as no one is forcing her. I am praying that God would really get a hold of her heart and that she would change her behaviour. She claims to have accepted Christ as her Saviour when our church was here.

Some day, if we can find the space, we want to start a class for girls of this age. We have four of them at this time, and it would be so good to have a class especially designed for them. First, we have to finish the classroom and then add on the 2nd story for this to happen. I probably won't happen for a while, but please pray with us for this. We are tired of losing girls of this age. Just last week I had a 14 year old, that used to come to Sunday school, come to church and show us her new baby.

Registering Matthew

A few days ago we went into Teguc to register Matthew. Knowing that it would take a while, we hired Jenny Jackson to watch the kids and keep them going on school. We left at 9:00 am and got into town at around 10:00. We decided to go to the registry first and then do our running around. We got there and had a hard time finding a parking spot. We saw a huge line outside the registry. So instead of just getting in line we decided to push and shove like everyone else to trying to get inside and ask which line we are supposed to be in. There are two doors leading into the registry and both have lines that go around the building. We finally pushed our way up to the door and as politely as I could I started yelling, "Excuse me, I just have a question", in Spanish of course, when the guard opened the door. Finally he got to me and I asked him what we needed to do to get our baby registered. He told us that we had to be there at 8:00 am and get a number. He told us that there are only 50 numbers given out a day and over 300 people who show up to get a number. That means if we want to be one of the first 50, we must be there at 6:00 am to be one of the first 50 in line to get a number.

I was so frustrated. When we registered Joey there was a line, but it only took about 2 hours to get helped. It seems that with time the process should get better and more time efficient. To deal with just 50 people a day is crazy. A good worker could do that in less than 3 hours.

We decided to take Matthew to San Buenaventura (the town where we live) and register him there. We thought that going to Teguc would get us the papers much faster. So the next day, we went to the registry in San Buena and found out that the man in charge of registering was in Teguc. They took our phone number and told us they would call us when he came back. Later that afternoon Jason checked back in with them and was told that while the man was there, they had not been given the official book for births yet. They had the one for deaths and marriages, but not births. We checked back a few days later and they still hadn't received it. They suggested that since the land we own is part of Santa Ana (another town nearby), we should try to go there to register Matthew. We did yesterday and finally we got him registered. It will take us about a week to get his official birth certificate, but that is fine with us.

We need a Forma Larga (Long Form) certificate as well as the normal one for the US government. We had a time explaining to the registrar what we needed, but finally she understood and told us that she would have it ready at the same time, but it would be handwritten as they don't have even a typewriter. I hope the US government doesn't have a problem with that. Once we get the papers in order we will go and try to get his US citizenship. We are in a little hurry this time. We need to have everything done before tax time. :-)

My Birthday

Today was my birthday and it didn't start out to good. Matthew decided that I did not need to sleep last night, so I didn't wake up in the best mood. We did school and had to leave at 1:00 pm to go to Teguc for Dr's appointments for Matthew and Joey.

We have been having problems with bugs (Joey looks like he has the chicken pox, but it is some kind of insect bite) so we decided to set of bug bombs when we left for our appointments. We took the time to make sure all of the lights and electronic equipment was off, any food was put away, and the windows were shut. We then set off the bug bombs and ran out of the house. We started looking around and realized that we had shut two dogs and a cat in the house. The only dog that wasn't in the house was Snuggles (our pug) and he was in the neighbor's yard barking at their visitors. So we can back in the house and quickly found Anne (the mutt) and Mittens (the cat) and got them out. We couldn't find Max though. He is the husky mix that was given to us after Goldie (my Golden lab puppy) died. Jason and I held our breath and ran through the house several times and couldn't find him. This is unusual as Max is the one dog who will not stray from the yard. He was hit in the eye before we got him and is cross eyed now (we found out after we got him). This makes him timid. He is a great as a watchdog though as he sits by the front door while we are gone. Since he is a bigger dog everyone is afraid of him.

Anyway, we couldn't find Max. Jason and I decided we just had to leave him and hope he wasn't dead when we got back. Jason asked me to go and chain Snuggles up so we didn't lose him. As I was going into the neighbor's yard the fence snagged my shirt and ripped the sleeve (of course it was my favorite shirt). So once again I held my breath and entered the house. I quickly pulled a shirt out of my drawer (thankfully it was wrinkle free) and ran out of the house by way of the guest room entrance. We had shut the doors leading to the guest room from inside the house as we didn't buy enough bug bombs. When I got inside the guest room I took a huge breath of air and was greeted by Max who had found a nice cool room to lay in. I called him and being gun shy like he is he ran away from me.

I had my new shirt in my hand and picked up Max to take him outside. I got him out and got into the truck. With a great deal of difficulty, I changed my shirt (modestly) while Jason was driving, but when I was going to put it on I felt a wet spot. Thinking it was damp from the line I continued to put it on anyway. Once it was all the way on I noticed a strange smell and smelt the wet spot on the neck of my t-shirt. It was then I realized that as I picked up Max to take him outside in his excitement he had helped me "wash" my shirt again.

So I got to put back on my ripped shirt. I was going to try to do it modestly again, but it was not easy the first time I did it. So I crouched down on the floorboard and told the kids to shut their eyes and changed really fast. Thankfully we were on a deserted road.

After all that it didn't seem like anything else could go wrong and thankfully it didn't. We made it to the appointments on time and Matthew was given a clean bill of health. The doctor wanted him to put on at least a pound in these past two weeks, but Matthew gained 1lb 12 oz. Joey's arm also looks good and in a week and a half will get the stitches removed.

After the doctor's appointments Jason took me to an Argentinian Steakhouse and it was so yummy. The only way it would have been better is if they had served baked potatoes. YUMMY!!!

As we were leaving dinner, Jason had to run into the store and so I sat in the car with the kids and told them to start working on the last of their seatwork. It was then Audrey realized that she couldn't find her Spelling book. We tore the car apart and couldn't find it. Thankfully the restaurant was within 5 miles from the doctor's office. We returned and found it right away. I was thanking God for that one as we found it in another part of the doctor's office than where we were, but it was visible from the main doors.

We came home and had cake. Jason did a great job buying the cake. It was very good. Unfortunately he undid that good deed by telling everyone that I was turning 39 today. :-)

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.