Noncommittal

  Simply put, I'm a fairly noncommittal person. Looking back, I can hardly believe I came to Bolivia for a year. I think I've had a job once that I stayed at for a year, before coming here in 2007, but other than that I've never stuck with anything for that long. During school, I had nine months of work and three months of break/play. Any job I had (other than that one) I've always had for up to nine months, then went to Arrowhead for the summer to work, and then returned. So, really, in some ways I've never really made much of a committment to anything. I think it's for this reason that I'm so nervous about making decisions concerning college in January. I had a friend advise me that due to the competition in Nursing Programs in general, and the different classes that each school is going to list as requirements, the best way to go is to pick a school and stick with it for the entire program. Wow. I don't know exactly how long it will take me to study, but I'm guessing it won't be anything less than four year. FOUR YEARS! of my life, committed to one place. Granted, I'll have my summers free again to do what I want, but if I'm thinking about returning to the missions field (which I am) I'm going to want to graduate with as little debt as possible so I'm not stuck, in a sense. So I'll be working during my summers. Ugh. Yeah, noncommittal indeed. I know four years is not that long in the whole scheme of things, but, from where I'm standing right now, it's a good chunk of time! I know that God is calling me back to school, but that still doesn't make me very excited to go.

My New Baby

Internet is down at my house, so I'm not able to upload pictures, but I wish I could so you could all see my beautiful new baby Mariana! She is a year and a half old and arrived at the home Wednesday afternoon. It's been a couple of interesting days for her, that's for sure. My heart breaks for her, as she spends a fair amount of crying, staring and pointing at the gate, longing to go home, I'm sure. However, in her moments of distractedness she brings me much joy- her smile and laugh are so incredibly adorable!! I can never understand how on earth these parents can just give their kids away. She is slowly adjusting to life at the home. My other little girl, Abigail, loves having another little girl to play with. She's getting used to the schedule and is getting to know each of us workers little by little, but it's still easy to tell it's all a little (or very, really) foreign to her. I'm trying to imagine the thought process a child like that goes through being taken from a family setting, no matter how awful, and being thrown into a completely new environment where she nothing and no one is familiar to him/her. But it does make me happy to know that she is now in a place where she will have people taking good care of her and loving her and playing with her like a little girl her age needs. She is such a sweetheart. We need to take her to the doctor to find out how her health is, but as far as we can tell she doesn't have any outstanding health issues, but is just in need of a home and a little love. I'll have to get a picture up of her soon- she's such a little princess. Please pray for her and us through the adjusting process. It's different for every child, of course, but it reminds me a little bit of Diego's first week, and I know it was pretty rough- some moments were happy, some sad, some screaming wanting to leave, and just hard over all. It's hard to watch a child have to go through.

Recovery

Esperanza's back at the home! Wow, open heart surgery Monday, back at the home Thursday- that's pretty quick! We have her pretty well separated from the other kids, because ideally she would have spent a few more days in the hospital, but for a number of reasons she's back at the home a little early. However, this does speak of how rapidly she is recovering!! She stayed in the ICU until she came back with us, but the fact that she's already healthy enough to come home is incredible to me! Until Monday we will keep her pretty isolated for her own sake. Her lungs have some slime in them at the moment, which is typical after this type of surgery, and already normal for her because of her cleft lip and cleft pallet, but we have a physical therapist coming in each day to do chest compressions to help loosen up the flem, and we have her on a special schedule of moving her around in her crib/just changing her position to try and keep the fluids loose inside in the hopes of getting them out. Also, she's on a pretty rigid medicine intake. However, it's exciting to have her back. She's not quite back to herself completely, but she smiles and kicks around some when she's feeling a little better, which is really encouraging. You can tell she's still in some pain, but she is doing really really good for how recent she had her surgery. Thanks for all who have been praying! Monday she will have an appointment to see how recovery is going and then after that life will be able to go a little bit "back to normal" for her, although I'm sure we'll be keeping an extra good eye on her for more than a few more weeks to make sure she's getting better as she should.

Yay Surgery!

Yesterday was the big day! Esperanza finally got her surgery!! Yaayyyyyy : D  She went in Sunday evening to be prepped for surgery. The operation started around 8am Monday morning and by 11 or so she was all finished. They had thought she may be on a respirator for up to a day but came off in a mere six hours, and she appears to be doing really, really well. Kristin, the director of the home, got to go see her for just two or three minutes, and says she's looking great. Lots of tubes and everything, but she said her color has never been better. She's currently in the ICU and should be there another day or so, and then will be in the hospital up to a week depending on how she is. So, thank you all for praying! I can hardly believe it finally happened. After waiting for nearly nine months it's strange that every thing we waited for happened in just three hours. Couldn't this have happened eight months ago?? But, it's all done and all's going well now, so I suppose I can't complain. I'll be excited to see how she is able to put on weight and grow over this next month and a half (and further down the road of course).

News....

Hello Everyone,
  I just wanted to send out a quick note letting you know a couple things-
1) For those of you who didn't know, the family that is adopting my little boy Lucas finally got custody about a week ago! Hooray! So he's no longer at the home, which has been a little sad for me, but not as hard as I would have expected. The family has contacted us a few times and he seems to be doing really well. They said he was very curious about his new home and just taking it all in. He follows his new mom around the house saying "mama, mama" which is a good sign I guess :)
2) WE SCHEDULED HEART SURGERY FOR ESPERANZA!!! I don't think I'll fully believe it till I see/hear that she is on the table being operated on, but we made an appointment for October 17th, and the doctor says she can't wait, so I'm pretty confindent in the fact that it will finally be happening. Finally! You can pray for us as we try and get things in order, find volunteers to help us cover as we'll have to have people at the hospital, etc. I'm so excited but also a little nervous. But she really needs this surgery, and I know that God is in control, and I can trust in Him.
  Thanks for your continued prayers!
God Bless,
Samantha

Mixed Emotions But Hanging In There

     I can think of few other days in which I have been given more reasons to be joyful than this one, but I also find myself a little sad at the same time.  Just around a month ago I was informed that one of the boys at the home I'm working at was going to be adopted. I was told it would probably happen in about a week or two from then, and then every week I heard the same thing, that it was taking a little longer than expected, maybe following week the papers would all be finished. Well, today all the papers finally were finished. The adoptive family went before the judge this morning and were awarded custody of Lucas. Let me tell you, first and foremost this is a HUGE answer to prayers. I am so incredibly thankful that the Lord has provided my little boy with a mommy and daddy that are going to be PERMANENT in his life, Christians, who are going to love him well and teach him about Jesus. I don't have to worry about him when I leave, that he's going to feel abandoned again, or that he'll continued to be moved from children's home to children's home until he's an adult or runs away. God has blessed him and therefore blessed me. However, all that being said, I can't begin to say how much I'm going to miss having this kid in my life! A short time after he got here he latched onto me as his mom, for whatever reason, I really honestly don't know. But, for some reason, I'm the one he'd come to when he got a bump on the head and needed a kiss. He prefered to sit in my lap as opposed to my coworkers. He wanted to hold my hand when we walked to the park. As far as he knew, I was his mama. And while sometimes he was a little overboard- like when he'd scream and cry thinking I was leaving him when I entered the bathroom for two minutes- I don't think I could have enjoyed our relationship more. I have so many fond and funny memories with my little boy- tickle sessions, being painted on with chalk, singing him to sleep at night, eating ice cream when we got to go just the two of us to the grocery store, getting thrown up on when I tried to take him to cine center haha!, teaching him to blow kisses, dressing/doing his hair up for church, celebrating his birthday- the list could go on and on and on. I guess that's why in some ways I couldn't help but feel like they were taking my baby away from me.  It's hard to be someone's mom for nearly eight months and then just have him climb in someone else's car and watch them drive off! However, I'd say I've been holding up much better than expected (by everyone actually, lol). I'm not really one for waterworks, especially in public, so I think my coworkers and boss were a little surprised when three of them got choked up and I didn't. "You seem really chill" one of them told me after he had left. I don't know if it's cuz I cried some ahead of time, or if I just knew far enough ahead of time that it was gonna happen that I prepared myself, or maybe (most likely) God's just giving me an extra helping of grace today. But, overall I'd say I'm hangin in there. I'm remembering lots of fun moments and also wondering how he's doing. Did he fall asleep alright tonight? Does he miss his little companions here? Did he cry? I wish I could see everything in movie format. Ok, that's kinda creepy, but I'm curious, I'm not gonna lie. Anyway, all that to say this- thank you Jesus. You are way more incredible than I could ever imagine. And please give me strength during this next week or so as I adjust to the current strangeness. I miss my little boy! And it'll probably be harder when it hits me a little more that he's really gone. It's still just a little surreal to be honest. Your prayers are appreciated! And for the record I hope to go visit him in a month or something, after he's had some time to adjust. And then maybe once more before I leave. So it's not like I'll never see him again, it's just hard for me to think of him calling someone else "mama". Again, I'm super super thankful for this, but I still definitely have sad selfish feelings too : )  I know this is such a good thing, but it's still hard. But God is gracious and merciful and loving and in control. And I am so incredibly thankful that He did this for my little boy, for His glory, no doubt.

what's goin on in my life these days

     I can hardly believe another month has nearly come and gone. I've been away from home now for over eight months! That is so crazy to me. And only about two and a half months left- just as crazy to me. My time has been going by pretty quickly, but it's been so good.
     A little over a week ago we got the go ahead from the doctor to have Esperanza's surgery, which was very exciting! But now we have to find out where we can have it done- the doctor told us this a day after the team from the States left : (  So, we'll have to find out where and when and how much it will cost and see if we can find some people who would be interesting in giving towards the surgery, which should cost somewhere from 3-10 thousand dollars (if you would feel led to give towards her surgery you could let me or my mom know and I/she can give you more information on where money should go).
     The adoption process for my little boy Lucas is going pretty well, although taking a little longer than first expected. Last week some social workers came to visit the home and the family's home that he'll be moving into, and then today a psycologist came, and the family that's adopting him believes that he will probably be leaving sometime within the week. But, if there's anything I've learned in Bolivia it's that nothing's final till it's absolutely final, so we'll see. In some ways I'm so sad to see him leaving but his adoptive parents have been coming to visit every day so it won't be so shocking to him when he goes, and it's been exciting to see how much he's growing to love them, and it's been nice to get to know them a little better as well. I'm so thankful that he will have a permanent home and a family of his own!!
     Other exciting news- there's a new little one at the home!! This past Wednesday Miguel, an adorable one month old, arrived! He is so incredibly precious, I can't even put it into words. He has HIV, but appears to be pretty healthy. I don't have a lot of experience with kids this small, but he eats every two hours and sleeps most of the time in between, which I feel is probably pretty typical. It's been fun having him, but I'll admit it does add to the chaos! There are now five kids! And four workers, usually three of us scheduled but sometimes only two. It's a little crazy. But thankfully God has been faithful in providing volunteers as we need them.
     More than that things are going well. Everybody seems to be pretty healthy at the moment and the home is running well overall. Some days I'm full of energy and others I'm absolutely exhausted, but I've been spending a lot of time with my friends Heather, Amy, and Suzanne on my days off, visiting other homes or just sleeping at there house, and it's been really refreshing for me. They live a short walk from my place so it's been nice to have a sanctuary from the crying screaming children when I need it! And while I'm still enjoying my time I'm also getting excited about going home and getting back to school. I think I mentioned it in an update months back, but I'm planning to go to school in January to study nursing in hopes of returning to the missions field someday, if that's what God calls me to. I would really like to study at Augustana College in Sioux Falls SD but have also been accepted at UW-Eau Claire, so it will mostly come down to scholarships I'll be offered.
     Anyway, that's a little about the excitement going on in my life at the moment. Thanks for your prayers! Please pray for us as we continue adjusting to all the changes and the upcoming changes as well. It's a very comforting thought to know I have so many people back home holding me up in prayer! Also, I'd love to hear from you all, how you're doing or if there are way I can be praying for you as well! I miss you all and look forward to seeing you in a few short months.