September 2, 2008

Dear all,

Hello from cooler but sunny Alberta. I'm "home alone" for a change, as all 4 kids are at school for the first time in our family's history! Mike and Jenny will be home at lunch time, and Laura only goes 2 days a week, but I'm enjoying the temporary quietness and a chance to do laundry, email, and catch up on the world news!

We enjoyed a wonderful long weekend at my sister Ruth's place (5.5 hours away), picking wild blueberries, digging potatoes, picking other garden produce, and of course eating our fill!! Sunday evening we enjoyed a corn roast - yummy sweet corn - far different from the field corn we eat in Cameroon!!! The weekend went far too quickly, and, as was often the case in Cameroon, our vehicle was being worked on just before we were scheduled to leave (Kendall helped get our cruise control working, for one thing, which Mike enjoyed using on the way home!!). After doing some quick shopping in Camrose, we arrived home very late, and the kids dropped into bed with their clothes on :) So this morning it was a rush to get them all up, showered, and ready for school on time. Laura was a bit shy on her first day, but no tears or clinging; I think she'll really enjoy school.

It's been a long time since I've written - days have flown by!! Between making sure all the school supplies are in order, trying to figure out the best way to deal with Jenny (the right balance of help vs. pushing her to do things on her own), and some more dr. appointments (with the local doctor), things continue to be busy. This weekend some people were asking us what we were doing (for work) now that we were in Canada; it's pretty hard to answer that - Jenny still takes a lot of our time, especially when there are appointments, but Mike has been doing some Field Director "stuff" via email and phone. When the school schedule settles down, we'll tackle more of the Oroko dictionary stuff. Mike will be flying to PA in a few weeks to attend the handing over of the World Team International Director position from Albert Ehmann (who has done a fantastic job over many years) to David Riddell (who has been in leadership on the France/Europe field for many years), so he'll be able to talk with some of the leadership about our future. It's looking like we'll be here at least until next summer, but that's just a guess, depending on Jenny's recovery, etc. Mike is hoping to try again for his Canadian Permanent Residence (along with Laura and Kenneth), so we'll see how that all works. At this point I don't feel ready to reapply for my citizenship, as it takes a lot of time and effort (and it's emotional for me), so we'll leave that alone for now.

So, how is Jenny doing? The medical staff at the hospital were able to get her over a big hump, so she is able to make herself do a lot of things on her own - she can dress herself, feed herself, bathe herself, etc., but it all takes a tremendous amount of effort and is very jerky, so sometimes she balks at it. It is a lot easier on us physically, but is still emotionally tough. She is attending gr. 8 every morning, then comes home for the rest of the day; the staff at the school has been great, and are doing everything they can to make things work for her. Mike is with her all the time right now, but the school is working on getting her a part-time (for now) aide. She needs someone to write for her (as she dictates), and to help her move from one classroom to another (with her books, etc.). She seems to enjoy participating in the classes, and was thrilled to beat someone at Math baseball last Friday :) One big step was that she has started reading more - she surprised us by finishing her reading book in the van on the way up to my sister's on Friday afternoon - she probably read 50 pages in one sitting, which she hasn't done for 4 months!! So there are a lot of big positive steps; but sometimes there are still very hard times where she will refuse to (say she can't) do something, so keep praying!! Frankly we do not think the cause has been discovered, but maybe it never will be -- the Post-Traumatic diagnosis didn't show up at all on her discharge papers; the doctor put "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Movement Disorder" as her diagnosis, but at least one nurse disagreed, telling Mike that while Jenny does have some OCD traits, she does NOT have OCD as the major problem. We are certainly not finished with the doctors yet; the dr. here in town is meeting with us maybe weekly, plus we have various other appointments in Calgary (2 this week?), and on-going follow-up with Dr. Jericho in Calgary.

Meanwhile, Mike had his birthday this past week, my parents' anniversary is today, Christy is really enjoying school, and Kenneth is really enjoying his 3 recesses (!). We need to start thinking about winter clothes soon here, and get our house a bit more organized between trips. We really enjoyed talking with the Oroko translators via Skype last Friday morning - we miss working with them!!!

Ok, enough for this week.

Love,

Becky

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