January 30, 2008 - Am I an egghead?

I think you can tell about a person’s disposition by the way they peel a hardboiled egg. Would you agree? Garth has always peeled them very well, slow, and careful. And he is a very patient person. I used to peel them slow until they became difficult and then I would pull off whole chunks of the egg in my impatience. But tonight when I was peeling eggs for Wyatt, I noticed something. I was taking my time, and each egg still looked like an egg when I was done, not some deformed eyeball that fell out of some monster’s head. Do you know what that showed me? God is working on me. Every day I pray for patience, because it is something I am lacking. And God is giving me opportunities here to learn patience. I am not saying this to toot my own horn-but I would like to toot God’s horn a bit. Toot. Toot. He cares enough about me to give me struggles and difficulties to help me learn patience. YEAH for struggles and difficulties!!!!!!!!! See, when I lived in Wisconsin, I was a cheese head. Now, I am in Indonesia, and I guess I am acting like an egg head. (Whatever that is.)
Anyways, Garth asked Sophie today what she thought God’s voice sounded like, and she said, “Uh, Dad. I can’t really do His voice.” And he said, “But what do you think it sounds like?” And Soph said, “Well, it is really low and it sounds kind of like my breath.” I took her back to the clinic today to do a malaria slide on her and will let you know when we get the results. She is still running a fever, so hopefully this antibiotic will start working and kick this virus right out of her system.
Yesterday, Garth thought it would be nice to take Sophie and Cale on a motorcycle ride. Sophie wanted to get out of the house and we figured some fresh air would be good. She had been laying around on the couch all day long, so she was ready to go out. Well, about 10 minutes after he left a huge storm rolled in. It was pouring! Garth called me and said that they were out in the front of a little store down the road and would just hang out there until it stopped. I knew that would be difficult with the kids and nothing but a dirt floor to sit on, so I called our neighbor and asked her if she would run me to the store to pick up the kids. She did and I am grateful because it rained for a long time. Cale was covered in dirt and mud and very wet-but happy. Sophie was o.k.-wet and cold. Yes, I did say cold. I was cold yesterday with all the rain too. I asked Carlena if she was cold at all when she was here, but she said no. How many of you have seen my family since they came back? Raise your hand? I see those hands-thanks!!!! You lucky people! I miss the fam!
I won’t be able to write anything tomorrow as all of the internet connections will be shut down. The whole hill is changing to a different service-hopefully a better one. Anyways, so you probably won’t hear from me until your Thursday night at the earliest.

I helped Jason with Yanis’ foot today. That is always interesting. I was encouraging Jason to cut off as much of the dead and infected skin as he could, so there isn’t as much for me to do when he is gone. He is so good at it, and I am still getting used to the whole idea of cutting into someone elses’ open, oozing wound…o.k. enough, I know. It is looking good, but I have a question. Does anyone know if you have pigment on the bottom of your foot? Because his new skin is coming in pink, and all of the new skin on his leg has black spots underneath that are his skin pigment, but on the bottom of his foot where the new skin is coming in is some black. We are hoping it is his skin pigment and not a line of infection or trapped blood etc. If any of you smart people I call my friends know about these black spots or if any of you went to special skin pigment school-email me.
Oh, we had a waterfall today in our kitchen. Shortly after the pembantu’s came in this morning I was in the kitchen. I heard water running and I looked over and saw that everything was turned off. But once I moved and went around our middle counter I saw water pouring out from the cabinets under the sink. Some pipes came off or something, I don’t know. I called Poppi to come in and she called our Indonesian fix-it guy and he came right over and took care of it. Now, if my Dad was here, he would have fixed it in a jiffy-I know that.
I hear that you are having more bad weather and cold. Some of the school’s were even cancelled. I wish you could all just stay home, put a fire in the fireplace, make some coffee, answer my emails and STAY OUT OF THE COLD! I get nervous thinking about you driving on such slippery roads so BE CAREFUL! MSN News says that you have -4 and a wind chill warning as of 6 AM on Wed. Here it is only 82 (cold, I know!) but it is also 9 PM. If you are cold, go to our blog site, pull up the pictures of us on the beach and squint your eyes so it won’t look like us, and pretend it is you. Can’t you just feel the sun beating down on your back-giving you sunburn…? Nice, isn’t it?
Well, on that pleasant thought, I must go.
Love to all,
Rachel