Lena

One of my favorite people in the world is my sweet sweet friend, Lena.

I hired her a couple years ago to help me when I was getting overwhelmed with housework...but over the years she has become a wonderful blessing in my life.  She has an amazing heart of compassion and kindness that shines the light of Jesus!  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to visit with her when she comes over once a week.  I enjoy the casual chats we have about what's going on in the villages around us...but she also lets me ask difficult questions, when I'm not understanding something about the PNG culture or language, without judgement.

I'm also thankful for her willingness to help me clean (I know I would be drowning in housework without her!), and her patience with Miles who is continuously by her side asking, "Whatcha doin, Lena?  Whatcha doin?" or "Lena, come play toys? Come on?"

Miles adores Lena, and she will always lovingly take a few minutes to play on the floor with him or involve him in her work.

Thank you, Lord for Lena's friendship!

Our Normal: Water

After living in Papua New Guinea for 6 years certain things have become our 'normal'.  However, after each home assignment I realize how different somethings are compared to life in America.  For example...our source of water.  See those two big metal tanks?  Our entire gutter system flows into those two rain tanks.  Rain water is what flows out of every faucet in our house, it fills our toilet, flows into my washing machine, and comes out our shower head.  If we want drinking water we filter it first through a filter that sits on our counter in the kitchen.  On the very top of our roof is a solar panel that heats our water.

Usually in PNG it rains almost everyday and keeps our tanks quite full.  However, there are times when rain is more sparse and we need to go into water conservation mode.  That means we collect the water before it gets hot to put in our water filter before filling the sink to wash the dishes.  We shower less (and wear more deodorant...yikes!), Miles gets a very shallow bath, and we use that water to flush our toilets.

It's not always the most convenient...but we are ALWAYS thankful we don't have to bucket water up from the river!!  We've also been thankful for some heavy rains in the last few days that have filled our tanks!

How could I...

It had been a long Saturday. 

Graham woke up earlier than normal, then didn’t have any interest in going back to sleep. 

After giving Miles the breakfast options of yogurt and granola OR eggs, he insisted he would looooooove some eggs.  After making eggs and setting them in front of him, he decided that he would much much much rather have yogurt and granola!   

Jordan had to work most of the day putting up powerlines so that people in the lower section of station could have power that evening.  (I do a lot of extra praying on days I know he’s working on powerlines.) 

Miles spilled his apple juice.

Graham thoroughly covered my clothes in spit up.   

I picked up the same blanket off the floor at least 4 times.

As soon as I got my hands covered in bread dough, Graham decided to wake up screaming and crying.

Thanks to my awesome clumsiness, I spilled raw chicken juice on my kitchen floor…then cleaned it up…then spilled it again…then cleaned it up…again.

By late evening, I was holding my sleeping baby and telling myself if I could just stay awake 30 more minutes it would be time to feed Graham again and then I could put us both to bed!  At this point, I was, to say the least, a bit cranky.  If it wasn’t for this baby I would be in my warm comfy bed already.  Better yet…if it wasn’t for this baby I wouldn’t have woken up so early and therefore not been so tired in the first place!  If it wasn’t for this baby I would have gotten a shower today.  If it wasn’t for this baby I would have gotten something…anything done today.  If it wasn’t for this baby…..

I opened our blog to work on a few posts I had saved.  The old post about my emergency surgery caught my eye.  I realized some people had commented on the post…I didn’t even know they could do that!  After reading the comments I decided to re-read the post itself.

I cried.

How quickly we forget.  How quickly I had forgotten.  What a miracle this baby was!  My beautiful little boy…an amazing miracle from God.  How quickly I had forgotten.  How could I not spend every minute of every day rejoicing in what God has given us?  How could I look upon this child with anything other than joy and amazement?  How could I forget how close we were to losing our little Graham.  How could I…

I know there are going to be more days like this one. 

I pray:

May I find joy on those days.  May I find Jesus on those days.  May I be able to go to bed with a heart bursting with thankfulness for the blessings and miracles our God has given!  May I never forget the gift of salvation God has given in His son Jesus.  May I be a mother who points my children to Christ. 

Amen.

Traveling Back to PNG

Our travels according to Miles:

First, we got on a "wittle wittle" plane.  

I met the pilot who was a very nice man...even though I was convinced the 

entire flight that he said "Arrgh!"  

(Pilot vs Pirate - very confusing!!)

Then we waited in an airport in Dallas for a very long time. 

I did a lot of this.  Please don't judge my parents. 

Then we got on a big big plane.  

We ate some food and went to sleep. 

 I was quite comfy curled up in my own seat between Mommy and Daddy.  

Graham got to sleep in his own neat little bed that folded down from the wall.

After I woke up I watched some movies on the airplane.  

My parents said sometimes "ya gotta do what ya gotta do 

when travelling with a toddler." 

 I'm not sure what that means...but I like it!

 We FINALLLLLY made it to Australia 

where we missed our original flight.  

But don't worry...God took really good care of us and we were able to get on an even better flight!  

Even though this picture makes me look a little cranky, 

I really was a very good boy for my Mommy and Daddy.  

On the last flight Mommy and Daddy thought about just letting me and Graham 

share a seat while they both took a nap. 

 I'm glad they didn't do that...Graham gets heavy after a while.  

After four airplanes rides, we made it to Papua New Guinea.  

There were a lot of people at our house and I was tired, 

so I cried a little...

but now I'm all better and I'm having fun getting to know everybody again!

Thank you for your prayers for our travels.  God answered them.  

Baby Graham

Thanks to an adorable little church in Ottumwa, Iowa, we realized that we had forgotten to blog about the birth of our second born.  We showed up to Ottumwa Trinity Church of the Nazarene, who had put together an amazing dinner and tons of information from our blog about Jordan, Miles and myself.  Unfortunately, the arrival of Graham had been a surprise.  So...

We'd like to announce the birth of Graham William Thompson on August 13th, 2015 at 7:30pm.  He weighed 8lb 2oz, and was 20 inches long!

Thanks to my amazingly talented cousin, Maribeth Rocke, we have beautiful baby pictures of our little miracle.

Station Development

I thought I'd try to do my best to give you a glimpse into the various projects that Jordan is working on these days.  Please forgive my lack of technical knowledge.  

Water Project:

The plan is to redo the station's entire well water system.  This involves tearing down the old water tower, building a "water collection site" (made of a bunch of water tanks) at the highest point on station, and running all new pipes throughout station.  Jordan currently has all the tanks purchased and is expecting to have a new well dug soon.  

 Fencing Project:
The plan is to construct a new fence around the hospital and reroute non-hospital traffic around the outside of that fence.  Jordan currently has guys working on constructing the fence so it can all be put up at once. I once thought it would be neat to know how to weld, but I'm super glad I don't have this job...it's super tedious.  Each piece of metal has to be cut to length, one end flattened and cut into a point, and each point made to look pretty (Jordan won't like that I said "pretty"...shhh, don't tell).  Then, each of those pieces need to be welded to a bigger piece of metal, the welds cleaned up and painted with a special paint, and then the whole thing needs a coat of paint.  Ugh!

 Staff Housing Project:

The long term plan is to construct 29 new housing units for hospital staff.  The first phase of the project is to build 6 duplexes on the old airstrip across from the hospital.  Jordan currently has each of the 6 housing sites at different stages of development, but so far the project is appearing to be running smoothly, on schedule, and on budget (amazing!!).

These three guys are busy constructing all the trusses (is that right?  the roof support thinger-ma-bobs?).

There are three duplexes on each side of the road.  These are the three most complete houses, but you can see they are each at different stages.  

This is the inside of the house...not much to look at yet.  Also, Jordan didn't know I was taking a picture.  :)

Standin around talkin... ;)

Site #6:

Site #5:

Site #4:

Site #3:

Site #2:

Site #1:

 The Dentist House Project:
 We have a dentist interested in coming and we had no housing for her...solution: build a house!  It's a cute little two bedroom cottage located directly behind Stone Cottage and the Myer's house.  I think she'll like it!  Jordan is currently waiting on his custom ordered quila wood floors (ooo...fancy!) to arrive before the rest of the inside can be finished and furnished.

 

Emergency Surgery

Monday morning I began to feel intense abdominal pain.  I knew I was almost 10 weeks pregnant, so my first thought was I must be miscarrying the baby.  About 6 months ago, I miscarried our 2nd child at 10 weeks...so when I found out I was pregnant this time, the possibility of miscarrying again was always in the back of my mind.

I knew I needed to go to the hospital when I couldn't sit or stand without feeling like I was going to pass out.  I called my dear friend, Gail, to take me to the hospital.  I immediately went to see Dr Bill, the only other person on station who knew I was pregnant.  He did a quick ultrasound and said I was bleeding into my abdomen, and assumed the pregnancy was ectopic (when the baby begins to develop in the fallopian tube) and had ruptured.  Bill had such a sense of urgency, it made me thankful I had come to hospital when I had.

I was immediately taken to the ER and prepped for surgery (and asked many many times what my blood type was...to which I did not know the answer.  Now, I'll never forget!).  Someone found Jordan, who quickly joined my side...along with several other missionaries and staff who showed up to tell me they were praying for me.  Dr. Jim, our surgeon, calmly explained what was going to happen, and I was wheeled into the OR.

I remember having an amazing sense of calm and peace.  Hymns and worship songs came easily to my mind and I would quietly hum them to myself while they got the OR ready.  I fell asleep thinking about two things...how much I loved Jesus, and that they were going to see my bubbly yellow fat layer when they cut me open (how embarrassing!).  ;)

While I was out, my heros: Dr. Jim, Dr. Bill, and Gail found that our tiny baby was right in the uterus where it should be and that the cause of the 1-2 units of blood in my abdomen was a ruptured ovarian cyst.  They removed the cyst, cleaned up the bleeding, very thoroughly checked for any other cause of the bleeding (I can attest to the thoroughness by the amount of soreness I experienced later), and closed me up.

Once I was awake and they got my pain under control, I was on the road to recovery.  Jim explained what they had found, but was also clear that our tiny baby had undergone an incredible amount of trauma, disturbance, and strong medicines, and they were unable to do an ultrasound right away because of the location of my incision.

The next day...or maybe the day after that (it's kind of a blur), Bill did an ultrasound and found a wiggly little baby.  It was a miracle that our little baby had survived!

Since the surgery, I've been humbled to tears with the thoughtfulness, hospitality, and compassion of my fellow missionaries and PNG friends.  Every meal has been provided for us, never once did I worry about Miles being taken care of, and Jordan has done an amazing job taking care of me.  I've heard stories of people all over station stopping whatever they were doing to pray for me, of my friends and students immediately offering to give blood for me, and of people all over the world lifting me and our baby up in prayer.  Just saying I'm THANKFUL isn't enough...but I'm not a writer and I can't think of a better way to say it.

Just overwhelmingly thankful!

Please keep our tiny baby in your prayers.  It's still only 10 weeks old and still has a lot of growing to do.  No matter what, we are trusting God's perfect will and timing.
I think of one of the songs I was humming on the operating table...

"Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be your name"