Hi, everyone. I wanted to update you all. Wyatt’s temp has been the highest (103.2 on Ibuprofen) and the lowest (99.6 on Ibuprofen) today. The nurse came back over and took some blood. Poor guy. He was not bleeding well, so she wound up poking him 3 times, then the tube clotted because it took so long, so we had to start over and poke him twice more. He has band aids on three fingers. She was joking that he might run out of fingers so she would have to use his toes. His platelets were still down, only at 120,000. So once his fever breaks we will check his blood again. He started feeling better before bed and his fever was a lot lower. He is on Tylenol and Ibuprofen, so that is good. If he has dingy fever he will break out in a rash, so we are watching for that. His throat hurts and his tonsils are swollen, and his body is achy. Then there is Sophie. Her teacher walked her home at 9:30 and she was so white. Her little cheeks had no color in them. She thought she was going to throw up. I was sitting with her on the couch for a long time reading books when I noticed she felt hot. Her temp was up to 102.5, then she started throwing up. She still feels lousy, but is sleeping. We are looking at Sophie being sick as good news because it means that Wyatt might not have dingy fever-it might be something viral that they both have together. Dingy fever is absolutely horrid, so it would be great if Wyatt and Sophie just had a virus. Emma is feeling good. That girl has a great immune system. Cale is good too. The challenge today was trying to keep Cale away from Wyatt and Sophie.
We have had quite the week. I received a phone call on Thurs. morning that Ibu Poppi was not coming in because a family member died. So I was real busy in the kitchen trying to help Ibu Yulli get lunch out on time. Yosina, one of the pembantu’s that does laundry was also at the funeral, so that made it difficult too. The kids were all trying to get last minute things washed before they packed up to go home for the holidays, so the laundry pile was enormous. Friday I woke up wondering if Poppi and Yosina would come in, but they didn’t. Another crazy busy day in the kitchen. Ibu Yulli had a lady come over demanding a key-that was quite the heated argument. Yulli had to leave early or this lady was threatening to throw all of her stuff out in the street. Saturday morning, none of the pembantu’s showed up, except for Nona Agu and all she does is laundry. She doesn’t cook. So that meant I had to figure out lunch for everyone, which is always a creative challenge when it comes to 18 hungry people. Sunday Garth decided to give me a break and order food from a local restaurant, Mickey’s, so I didn’t have to cook. That was a nice treat. Then Sunday night Wyatt started feeling sick and he has been home ever since. He isn’t sleeping good because his fever is so high. Imagine having a 102 fever with the temp outside 100. It is nearly impossible for him to cool down. So I let him sleep in our bed last night with me since some of the air conditioning blows into our room. That helped him, but Garth had to sleep on the couch. I have yet to see a couch that Garth fits on. I am so glad though that Wyatt was in our room, because he kept getting up in his sleep. At one point during the night he walked over to the towel by the bathroom and was pulling on it. I said, “ Wyatt, what are you doing?” He said, “ I am trying to get something to eat.” We put Sophie’s mattress on the floor of our room for the night since she was so uncomfortable. Hopefully they will be able to sleep all night.
Garth keeps making trips to the airport to get all of the dorm kids on their flights on time. All of the dorm kids are gone but three. Two leave tomorrow and one will leave on Friday. You know I wasn’t going to mention all that stuff about the pembantu’s not showing up and the predicament it put me in, because I feel like I am whining. But on Saturday when I was having a grumbling match inside my head to God, He taught me something. I realized that God never promised us an easy life. Just because I am doing something for Him by serving here, does not mean that my life should be easy. He did promise me that He would be with me through the hard days, give me strength when I am weary and endurance to carry on. That is what I need. I definitely do not need a life with no problems. I learn a lot through these uncomfortable and challenging times. I was thinking about a story I heard once about an old Rabbi that was talking to a young discouraged Rabbi. The young man was talking about how hard the job is and how he didn’t think he could do it. He wondered why God was bringing him hard times when he was doing such holy work. The older Rabbi said, “That is your problem there. You pray for God to take away hard times. We pray for God to make us stronger so we can endure the hard times.”
So, life here continues. Sophie wants to know how Santa will get in since we have no chimney. And then realized that maybe he has a key. Wyatt said-wouldn’t it be fun to go to heaven and get 3 huge buckets of snow to dump on Indonesia so the people can see what snow is? Emma was such a big help today with Cale while I was playing nurse and Garth was playing taxi driver. She has so many Mommy instincts. She comes up with the greatest things to do with him. I went to the library today and checked out about 45 books. I figured if we are going to be stuck home with sick kids over Christmas break, we will make the best of it. I got books on making paper airplanes, and origami, kids cookbooks, hair braiding, how to draw animals and cartoons etc. You name it, I probably have a book on it.
Our Internet is still down so we will try to get to the lab and send this so you get it on Thursday. Take care. We will keep you posted on the kids.
Love you,
Rachel
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