Wednesday, January 24, 2018

January 27, 2018

We celebrated Amy’s birthday this month.  That cake was more like a meatloaf (crumbles being held together…) and is mostly icing, lol. 

        This is another one of those months where lots has happened, and I’m going to break the “one page only” newsletter rule…sorry!  I’ll use headings so you can feel free to read selectively! 

Twas the night before Christmas…and we slept on the road in a broken truck.

          Well we’ve had an eventful month.  Amy and the kids got back to Lohutok with a few days to spare before Christmas.  I had the whole house ready, Christmas tree set up, presents wrapped, meal planned…it was our first Christmas in Lohutok.  
          Two days after everyone got back, we decided to go to Torit for a night.  There are some new (to us) missionaries there whom Amy hadn’t met and there were some things Amy wanted to do in the market, so we went to Torit.  We would spend one night in Torit, have some cool family time, and drive back the next day which was December 23rd…still time to get ready for Christmas!  
          On the way to Torit we stopped to pick up Paul, he pretty much comes with me every time I go to Torit now, there’s always grain to sell or things to trade.  About fifty feet away from Paul’s house I heard a funny noise on the pickup, so while Paul was loading his grain in the truck I looked and saw that one of the sway bar links was just gone, the ball joints in the link had given way and the link had popped off.  In the process of that happening the CV boot had also been destroyed.  
          Since I’m a novice mechanic at best, I thought “Well it’s just a busted boot” and we finished the remaining 3.5 hours of driving to Torit.  When we arrived in Torit I mentioned the issue to another missionary who looked, saw the torn boot, and told me I shouldn’t be driving like that.  So for our evening in Torit, Amy got to spend time resting with the kids while I spent the evening in the workshop helping replace the broken CV boot.  

Our ducks had more babies.  We have quite the farm going here with ducks, rabbits, antelope, kittens and puppies! 

          The next morning we got up and started getting ready to go home.  As it usually goes traveling with the kids, we got on the road a bit later than daddy would have liked.  We had a pretty smooth trip and were going to get home at a good time, but then about 2.5 hours into the 4 hour trip my steering wheel just stopped doing what it was supposed to!  I got out and looked under the truck, and the whole axle (the one we had spent all yesterday evening working on) was laying on the ground in the dirt.  Apparently I didn’t get one of the bolts tight enough, it rattled out and the wheel came loose which allowed that side of the axle to just…come out.    
          Paul was able to find some of the missing parts by walking back down the road, I was able to put it all back together since, fortunately, I had a drum of gas in the back of the truck and could clean all of the dirt out, but the problem was that the bolt was missing and couldn’t be found.  I decided that if I got the other one tight enough, we could probably go home slowly and maybe just stop to check for tightness occasionally…that didn’t work.  Eventually the axle came loose again and while I was stopping the truck (which I couldn’t control) we got high centered in a rut…we were stuck!  
          By then it was almost dark.  Paul decided to walk up to the next village and borrow a motorcycle to ride back to Lohutok where he could ask the local pastor to come and get us in the big truck.  Amy and the kids started getting ready to sleep in the truck for the night and I, since I’m incapable of sitting still, put the truck back together again, started jacking up the truck, finding stones to put under the wheels, and trying to get the back differential free from the ground so I could get out of the rut while we waited.  It didn’t work.  

Our dog Jax, I’m pretty sure he catches more rats than our cats do…I guess that’s why we feed him more! 


          At 4am I was dreaming about headlights when I realized that there were actually headlights pointed at us.  Apparently Paul found the guy with the motorcycle who graciously refused any sort of help for our stranded vehicle, so Paul walked all the way to Lohutok.  He reached Lohutok at 1am, roused Sabba (the pastor/driver) who got the “mechanic” and left to come and get us around 2am.  At 4am we pulled the truck out of the rut, transferred all of the shopping (we always come back from town quite full) to the truck and started the ride back home.  We got home at 6:30, unloaded the truck, got the kids resting, and then I started the mission to recover our stranded vehicle.  
          By the end of the day all of the vehicles were back in Lohutok, then there are more long stories about getting spare parts, the truck being unusable, the other vehicle having carburetor problems, another changed boot getting broken, and finally 2 days ago I was able to fix it!  Lots of time was spent this month just trying to get one of our vehicles into “reliable” condition again! 

Ezekiel the perpetual patient (and the rest of us were sick too) 

       

          Last month we wrote a bit about Ezekiel’s appendicitis scare.  He’s been complaining about stomach aches for a while but a CT scan and a few ultrasounds cleared him of any chronic appendix issues.
          That being said, our poor guy has been some kind of sick for more than half of his time back in Lohutok.  He’s had a few fevers and vomiting episodes, most of which are expected with the transition back to the village and new viruses, etc.  A couple of weeks ago Ezekiel had a fever and other symptoms that led us to treat him for malaria.  After the three days of treatment his fever was gone and he seemed to be feeling fine, but then two days later he started complaining again, so we check and sure enough, he had another fever.  Since he had just finished malaria treatment (and I had too) we decided to wait a day or two and see if it was just a virus that needed to go away on its own, but in the process a doctor friend of ours suggested that we have him tested for typhoid.  I ended up with a second case of malaria, and we treated Ezekiel for it again too because that’s what he seemed to have, but while mine got better with treatment, Ezekiel’s didn’t this time.
          Yesterday Ezekiel woke up with an abscess on his neck, so Amy took him to our local clinic and sure enough, he tested positive for typhoid fever.  So now, he gets to have a cannula in his hand for 10 days of ceftriaxone injections.  When I took this picture of him this morning I said “Smile like you’re happy about it!” and he responded, “I am a happy boy today!”


Bible Class with Paul 

          In the midst of all of this, I have started a Bible training program with Paul.  He asked me a few months ago if there was anything we could do to get him some more “formal” type Bible training without him having to leave all of the work that is happening with the church in the village.  I had a few ideas, but as I started asking around, I found one better.  We started using a series called “Theological Education by Extension” that was designed for Paul’s situation.  He enrolled through a Bible school that is nearby (but too far for him to attend while still living at home) and is now doing the courses by extension.  
          Every day Paul has to complete a certain amount of coursework in the first two books, “Following God” and “New Testament Survey 1.”  Then once a week on Saturday Paul and I get together and discuss the week’s material and go further into how to apply that material to his life, family and ministry.  We also work on Bible stories that he can use in the church and village to help teach the material he is learning.  Paul has taken this up with great excitement and is learning a lot of new things about the gospel and what it means to be a follower of Christ.  Yesterday we were in the truck going to Torit and listening to our friend Chuck preach on the radio, and Paul was excited to hear some of the things he’s learning being preached and applied.  Things like “The Holy Spirit gives us the power to repent” and “The Holy Spirit gives us new life” seem so basic, but for Paul they are exciting truths that he is just starting to understand. 

           Thank you for praying with us as we go through all of this transition, spiritual warfare and stress.  We have been unreasonably and illogically joyful through each day’s new challenges!  Pray for us this next month as we receive a few visitors in about a week, Justin has to go to Uganda to get the other vehicle working again, we receive another team at the end of the month, we pick language helpers and start to begin that process, and as the newness of everyone being back wears off and things start to become more tedious.  God is good and loves his children, and is doing some pretty exciting work here that we just get to be a part of, we appreciate you and the time and energy you put into keeping up with us, supporting us, writing with encouragement, and holding us up in prayer. 

Because Jesus is King, 

Justin, Amy, Ezekiel and Caleb