A new week, a new year, and General Happenings

The kids are off to a new school year:  Luke a senior in college, Caleb a sophomore which at the USAFA is officially a C3C-Cadet Third Class, Julia a senior in high school, Jack and Acacia Juniors in high school.  Meanwhile our Paeds department lost colleagues to further training and higher jobs, with Mardi now the Medical Director I am working pretty much full time.  We'll see how that goes, and there is hope that we will get more help again soon.  Bethany came to RVA from Sudan to work as a counselor at RVA, so now we have the Maras, Myhres, and Bethany as a WHM contingent and are eating together several times a month.  We're starting back into RVA rhythms with Caring Community and Class Sponsor activities.  And just to keep us thoroughly off-balance, this coming week I am joining Scott for the first time at WHM Area Director meetings.  Bethany will stay with the kids and we will fly tomorrow to a location that sounded quite exotic until I saw the schedule:  7 am to 7:30 pm meetings, with a couple of half-hour breaks.  Please do pray for the kids while we're gone, and for the WHM leadership to be sensitive to God's presence and leading.

Meanwhile here are a few images of the week:

It is amazing to work with our Neurosurgery team.  The ten-year-old girl whose CT is above had a huge mass occupying a large section of her brain.  But this non-malignant tumor was removed, and we watched over her in ICU a couple of days and she should fully recover.  Sadly a different neurosurgical post-op baby yesterday developed a severe pneumonia complication and in spite of trying three hours to keep her alive, she died shortly after I got her into the ICU.

First Thursday Lunch with the kids we sponsor.  Only now I work on Thursdays.  Thankful for Abigail, so I could just zip home and say hi while she had prepared a lunch of rice and beans.

Mardi in her new office!  She is gifted and dedicated and we are thankful for her new role.

Monthly Medical Staff Meeting:  16 Kenyan and 16 Expatriate consultants, a great group to work with.  Ann Mara just put together our new Kijabe Hospital web site:  http://kijabehospital.org/

My last clinic patient yesterday.  They were missing this sewing needle then noticed that the 1 year old had a swollen foot.

It's also great to have an excellent general Paeds surgical team.  Not only can they remove the above needle but also treat many congenital malformations, like this infant born with his liver and a large part of his bowel in an external sac by his umbilical cord.

Caleb's friend and class mate Aneurin stayed with us a good part of the week, always a joy.  Here he is with his brother Ali and our kids after a goodbye dinner, before he headed back to St. Andrew's.  Love the connections this place allows with amazing families from all over the world.

So that's the week:  colleagues, xrays, patients, death, smiles, kids, food, meetings, homework, phone calls, early morning psalms, schedules, music.  

Praying the next week allows Scott and I to join together for the good of all our Africa teams.