the torturous wait

Mbamie is still waiting to deliver her deceased baby. They attempted induction last week, but did not succeed and are in the process of attempting again. We are all exhausted. I can not imagine the pain Mbamie and her husband are dealing with, and she still has the worst of the physical pain to affront. Keep them in your prayers, that the Comforter would meet with them and walk with them through this most difficult of situations. The hospital staff, nurses and doctors have been very compassionate, which the family has really appreciated. Right now some of the shock has worn off and the focus is on the delivery. I'm sure with that a whole heap of emotions, questions and pain will surface in the next phase of trying to face life without this precious being among us.

the valley of death

Mbamie and her husband are in need of your prayers. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, but since she has been in pain with swelling in her feet, I offered that she go with me. There are many reasons why she should not even have been seen, but things kept working out for her to go, then the doctor happened to show up when he was supposed to be gone, then we asked if he could just do her regular appointment (that was for next week), since we were already there. It was at that point, we found out that her baby had died. Probably as early as that day or the night before. She is at the hospital now being induced and I have the four kids today. They have no idea when she may actually start having contractions since she is pretty early (about 28 or 30 weeks along). Mbamie and her husband are really shaken up by this and it will be a tough few days, weeks, months...

The CEO calls His Presence the comforter. May He go to them now in their darkest time of pain. They also lost their first born the day she delivered him, so this is also dredging up that pain- which was all due to incompetency on the staff in Africa at the time. This death, the doctor assured her, could not have been prevented. They may never know the reasons why, but she was already being monitored with the utmost care and nothing had ever signalled that the baby was in any kind of danger. Please pray for their peace, faith, sense of aloneness and her feeling of being targeted with all sorts of evil. She kept saying over and over: "why is it always me?"

a connection?

I realized as we go through these potty issues with AO#1 that these trials may be in answer to my most ardent prayer, or at least may be being used to help answer my prayer. My prayer has been for my children to come into relationship with the CEO, to talk to Him as helper and friend, lean on Him, find strength in Him and know Him... AO#1 has had a definite aversion to talking with the CEO, but through his potty struggles is learning to cry out to the CEO for help and thank Him for each success. This is such a major deal and I realized that I needed to thank the CEO for our trials because they cause us to turn to Him. The potty struggle and insecurities in AO#1 also made me realize how totally ill equipped I am to know how to help him in this and that the CEO alone can guide us and strength us in this. I think this is part of being poor in the spirit. That phrase has always baffled me, but I see how our lack of resources has made me draw closer to the CEO, depend on Him and call out to Him. Then when we have had resources, we are so much more thankful and cognisant of the gift they are (not anything we have done, but real priveleges we enjoy by the grace of the Lover). Likewise, parenting can cause us to see our very real poverty in knowing how to help our kids grow into all they can be. As soon as we seem to have figured out a method or tactic, the child either grows out of it or we have another totally different child who doesn't respond the same way. The only way to possibly come through this mine field intact, with children who are full of love is to turn to the CEO and allow Him to guide the way, for the parent and for the child. Thank-you Lover for our lack that causes us to know that it is not us, to turn from our self-reliance and cast ourselves on your mercy, grace, great love and abundance.

Other praises to the CEO. Meshelle finally got her ID card, so now she can get social security cards for her and her son, as well as a bank card, library card... (all of which were lost/stolen a year ago, so that her life has been in turmoil and stalemates ever since).

Mbamie's tests all come back well, so the initial scares are not affecting her or the baby. However she is in intense pain as her legs and feet have swollen. The sad thing is that she could manage to leave work if it were not for her car payment and she is still 3 + years from finishing with that. America has taught her well. She came in with debt (the government brings refugees over, but makes them pay back their airfare) and now she is being strangled by it. Maybe I can tell her there is a better way. Maybe she could trade it in for something she could pay off now or sooner.

prayers for AO#1 and us

We would appreciate prayers for help in knowing how to guide AO1 through his issues. He has been having troubles with using the potty and has become fearful in many circumstances, plus has comfort issues, like clothing or sweat bothering him. I think that part of this is his personality, but we are trying to help him be able to face situations with confidence or at least peace and be able to join in socially to activities as well as. It has been very stressful on me as I've not known how to assist him and I see him struggling and in torment over things small or more important.

Your prayers for us and him are appreciated.

the wedding

Last weekend we got to experience an "African wedding". I put that in parenthesis because noble attempts were made to make it American, but since all the wedding party and guests were African, their culture shone threw. At the last minute, I was cajoled into translating the affair, much to my dismay. But with much prayer, the CEO rescued the day. When I went to the rehearsal, I discovered that a long time friend was officiating. We'd known him for ages, since I first landed in Abilene, and Agent B since before then. He was likewise relieved to discover that he knew the translator. My ardent prayers were answered when he e-mailed me his sermon, the vows... in English to me. I spent all morning making sure I had an idea of how to translate it, looking up words and even calling the African family to confer and select together the appropriate terms.

The funniest part was that they had an American wedding coordinator trying to make things run smoothly. Americans and Africans have differing ideas as to what is smooth. At the official wedding time, there were only about 10 guests in the chapel- Agent B, my kids and some other white American folk who think weddings start on time. The maid-of-honor hadn't even arrived, the bride and flower girl were there, an hour after their expected arrival. 40 minutes late, the chapel is filling with people and the coordinator tries to launch the wedding. She gets the bridesmaids and groomsmen in place and discovers that the maid-of-honor is not dressed or ready. The maid-of-honor's husband says that she has another 5 minutes to start getting ready. The coordinator goes to the brides dad and brings him in to convince the maid-of-honor that it's time to get dressed.

Finally the processional commences while guests continue to arrive. It's total mayhem. The most beautiful and moving part was when the bride came out. The lively African sounding song had this huge crescendo, the bride walked out on her father's arm, everyone stood and started making these incredible frolicking yells of victory. It was so incredible. I was in tears, trying to compose myself knowing that a couple hundred eyes would soon be turned my way.

Everything went well and without too many problems. Since we were so late, the wedding coordinator tells all the guests to go immediately to the reception instead of waiting several hours as was the original plan. We doddle a bit and show up a little before the original time as the coordinator had said and waited for the next couple of hours for people to show up. Everything was horribly "late", people were hungry, dancers came out sporadically, everyone had changed clothes for the reception as well as the bride- the bride's dresses were gorgeous gowns, the guests wore everything from fancy African outfits, to shimmering gowns, to jeans and t-shirts. The bride wore two or three different gowns at the reception and I later found out had another to wear that she didn't because of time. We left at 10pm since our kids were beyond tired. Mbamie told me she was there until 3am cleaning up. It was lively and beautiful, a real African affair!

An era ended?

Princess and I have been through a lot. We were matched with Big Brothers/Big Sisters when she was 7 and I was just recently married. She is now 16 and I'll celebrate 10 married years this year. She has always been aloof and not very open, although there have been break throughs from time to time. Many people have told me to throw in the towel over the years. But things have been especially strained since she got out of juvenile. She's back home now and not allowed to go places, so I would go to see her and she was always acting like she was uncomfortable with me there. While I was gone, I had hoped that she would call as a sign that she wanted to stay connected- nothing. More than anything, her hoping over to the tv, to a phone or leaving the room was a major hint that it was time to move on. I gave her back her library card that I've kept for her since she was little and we'd get books at the library and told her that I love her and if she ever wants to reconnect, she knows my number. I'm sad to let her go. I hope she will call some day or want to be friends again. Most of all, I hope she is serious or will get serious about her commitment to follow Christ. Her family has such a screwed up theology, it is really frightening. Princess' cousin was murdered recently and Princess said "well, he has his free ticket to heaven". Everyone is talking about how Cheezy was such a wonderful kid and I do hope he made Jesus his Lord, even if it was at the last minute, because he lived a life of drug dealing, car stealing, bullying nonesence. I know that everyone's reaction is their grief and no one ever wants to think the alternative of someone they know, that their life may actually be worse now.

Rosalind, Cheezy's mom has totally gone off the deep end. She is the one who was already struggling since her boyfriend overdosed some months ago. Now she is "on the war path" as her sister (Princess' mom) told me. The police had to drag her out of the street where she had laid down hoping a car would run over her. She picked up little rocks from the yard saying she was going to sell them and get some real rocks to use. She keeps crying out to die. She was in the psych ward for 3 days, but they released her- I'm not sure why.

Meanwhile her daughter, who is only 21 has had to do all the funeral arrangements and raise money for that and is not working like crazy trying to get money for a tombstone and keep her mom from committing suicide.

Princess has a ring that Cheezy gave her before he died. He said he knew he wouldn't live much longer, but would be her angel watching over her. This whole family just needs Jesus so bad and the Holy Spirit to comfort, stabilize, revitalize and redeem them from the chaos and lies. I'm not for the fire, hell and brimestone era, but I think the whole Jesus loves us all has betrayed people into thinking we could live however we want and there are no consequences. God help us.
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In other news, Meshelle's mom has been in the hospital for severe constipation and is talking about redoing her lifestyle to include better eating and exercise. I could write another novel on our recent interactions, the frustrations and glimmers of good, but if this will help her get a new take on living, that will be a very positive step indeed.

funeral bookends

The CEO was good to me in that I got to go to Canada to attend a cousin reunion and have a much needed break from Texan weather and taking care of kids. I had prayed and prayed for us to be able to go up, but when it looked impossible, I contacted my cousin telling her it looked like we wouldn't make it and she bought me a ticket. The rest was superb and I thank the CEO that He gives us times of refreshing. We need it because there are sorrows and troubles all around us.

I attended a funeral the day we drove off for me to catch my plane in Houston. It was for a little baby. Today, we came home and I attended a viewing, for an 18 year old, murdered last week- princess' first cousin (Rosalind's only son. You may remember Rosalind from my last post regarding her. She lost her boyfriend to an overdose in May and wasn't dealing with that well). Her niece (Princess' sister) told me that she is having a rough time, and can't be left out of their sight, that she is walking out in front of cars trying to kill herself. Both she and Princess try to put up a good front when other's ask how they are, but Princess' sister also told me that Princess fainted when she saw her cousin in the casket, that they had to carry her outside and calm her down. I had been praying and praying while gone if I needed to stay in relationship with her and thought that maybe if I got a call from her while I was gone that that would show me to stick with it. The call wasn't from her, but her sister wanted to make sure I knew and I can't give up with all this turmoil in her life. She is still dealing with her best friends' murder that occurred while Princess was locked up in juvenile.

To top it off, as we drove home today, we got a call from Tighe saying that Isaiah is sick again and in the hospital. They are not sure what is wrong now. He had a fever that wouldn't go down even with oral medicine or a shot. The doctors and ER kept sending them home and Tighe and her husband insisted they run more tests. A doctor did, going on their instinct and found that his white blood cells were really high, meaning he is fighting something, but they are not sure what. The good is that he acts normal as long as he's on lots of pain meds, but they are scared and in need of much support and prayer. Tighe's baby is only a couple of months old also, so they can't take her into the area that Isaiah is in which is hard on them all too.

Please lift up all these families whose lives seem so chaotic and filled with pain. May the CEO meet them in their deepest hurts, still the storms, bring them peace, and life. I'm also praying that the friends of Princess' cousin will not seek revenge and that her sisters and family would be protected. The sisters both have young children and have recently been burglarized, with people taking all of the deceased things. Princess' home and her sister's car have also been broken into. The police have not yet apprehended the killer who came from out of town. May they all somehow find the power to forgive and know the peace that passes understanding.