Kijabe pre-Kristmas News

Moneys are browsing in the tree a few feet from my porch, the rain is drizzling down incessantly, the kids gave up on waiting for sun and went to play soccer anyway, Scott is on call but post-strike he has an INTERN, plus the rest of the world is not transferring patients our way left and right, so it's been relatively quiet. It's good to be home after several long hours sorting out both nursery and the regular paeds service this morning. One thing I do love about rounding on EVERYONE (OK I'm looking for a bright side here) is seeing the very baby who I despaired of living, now thriving. So nice to greet Dancun and his mom today. He's out of the incubator and starting to breast feed, happy and growing, and a few weeks ago I didn't believe he'd survive the night. We have a whole room of little oxygen-dependent heart-defect babies who are hoping for surgical sponsorship from a German charity (see http://steeres.com/ "A tale of Two Hearts" and http://www.helpachild.de/de/hilfsprojekte-/medsoforthilfe). Our ICU baby is coming back to life too, and his neighbor is much better once we figures out his severe electrolyte deficits. Now I have been plowing through a month or more of flagged emails, the up side of being made immobile by having my hair braided. If it turns out I'll post a picture.

Most relieving news of the last few days: Caleb has officially completed his college applications. He hit the submit button. From our human perspective, it is done, and all goes into the black box of God's will and human random choice and the beating of butterfly wings in China that will somehow determine the next phase of his life.

Most exciting news: Julia got to fulfill her goal of learning to ride a motorcycle, thanks to the cheerful can-do kindness of another station family, who took her with a handful of boys out to the airstrip to practice.

And most meaningful news, we had a lovely evening with our Medical Officer Interns. We had planned a pizza evening for them on the 16th but with the strike we weren't sure it would really happen. I think it was God's timing to bring us all back together. Six of the seven were able to come (one didn't get away from call at the hospital). I realized once again what a great group they are. Intelligent, game, hopeful, curious, seeking. I have to say they made some very good pizza, catching on quickly. They were, of course, rather late so it was dark as we finished. Then they came up with a couple of very active laughing dancing sort of games, almost giddy with the freedom of a night off, lots of food, the end of the year in sight, rest from their ten days of strike. We lit advent candles and focused on Zechariah 4, not by our might but by the Spirit, God bringing victory from the day of small things, very appropriate to our work. The evening ended with mutual thanks. I guess we're old enough to be their parents which was how they categorized us, and I was complimented by that. As we miss Bundibugyo, these evenings with our colleagues at Kijabe are very sweet to me.

And most anticipated news: Luke is, even now, in his organic chemistry final exam. In a few hours he'll be DONE with the first semester of his sophomore year, and boarding a plane for Africa.