Singapore

Dear Friends and family,

We are all in the Singapore Airport waiting for our flight that leaves at 10:30 pm. It has been a long day as we had to be out of our hotel at 12:00 and so we had a lot of time to kill. So we went to Borders Bookstore, had some Coffee Bean then went to lunch at Subway (big treat) then went to watch a movie but only Nick and Luke watched a movie because the one that Anna and i wanted to see had an over 16 years of age limit on it and as you have probably heard, Singapore is tight with its rules and there was no getting her into see it, although i am sure it would have been fine. So, Anna and i hung out, she drew, i played scrabble on Nick's Palm Pilot and then we roamed a bit in the mall, had a Starbucks and then they finished the movie and we headed here to the airport.

Yesterday wasn't a whole lot more exciting...so much for an exciting get away from Indonesia. We woke up in the morning to hurry up and head to a doctor's appt. for Annaliese at 9:30. We met Dr. Siow and are very impressed with him. He is a neurologist and one of the few headache specialists in Singapore. He has studied in Boston, Philadelphia and Ireland and has been back in Singapore since 2003 practicing. It was so nice to finally sit down with someone that had the expertise in this area and was able to pinpoint what most likely is going on.

Basically after listening to us and checking out Annaliese he thinks that she has two things going on. One is that she most likely has Rebound headaches or Medicine Overuse Headache. This is typical of someone that has a chronic headache and has been using medicines such as ibuprofen and tylenol etc. to help deal with the pain. Our first goal is to get rid of that problem...which can take up to a month for all of those types of medicines to be out of her body. She is on steroids this week to help deal with the pain as she isn't to take anything but the Steroids and another drug that she was on before but wasn't in a high enough dosage. Then after dealing with that we will begin dealng more directly with the main problem which is called "New Daily Persistant Headache". If you google that you will find out more about the type of headache she has. It usually happens after or with having a virus, the person can remember the exact day that the headaches started (which we can-Jan. 3) and there is a sensitivity to light/sound with some nausea and the headache is 24/7. The bummer is that it is one of the hardest headaches to treat and it could be up to a year or more before we see any relief. If she is not better by the end of May when they come back for visa work again, she will probably have to be admitted to the hospital for 4-5 days to be pretty much knocked out for a time so as to break the cycle. We are really hoping we don't have to go that route. So, please pray that all of the treatments will work quickly and thoroughly. She is very weary of having the headaches but i think for all of us knowing a bit better the type of headache she has helps-now we just have to figure out how to support her and help her through the pain. Please pray especially for the next few days since the headaches could get really bad since she is not able to take any pain reliever. We will plan on missing school if needed so that will mean making up school work as well. It seems never ending but we are getting to the end of the school year so that is a real praise. :)

Please continue to pray for new teachers for the elementary. We are still in need of 4 staff members-Kinder, first, second and fifth. My heart is trying to not worry-keep giving that over to the Lord on a daily basis but still wondering what God is up to. If you know anyone that might be interested tell them or send them our website www.mountainviewics.org Thanks...

That's all for now. Hope to give you a good update by next week about Anna's headaches. Oh yah...praise that the kids and Nick go their social cultural visa with no problem and probably in another month will get their residence visa. :)

Javaarm Update

I realize i haven't been posting much lately on this blog site. So, here comes an update.

Anna: It is late Saturday evening and we just spent four hours in a doctor's office. Annaliese is still experiencing headaches daily and so we decided to try accupuncture. We should have arrived at 4 pm and put our names on the list, then come back at 5 but instead we arrived around 5:30 and waited til probably 7 or 7:30 before we got into see the doctor who poked Anna with disposable accupuncture needles in various parts of her head and made her lay with her face down so she could hardly breathe. It didn't have any immediate relief but i suppose we will have to try several times before we see real relief. Please keep praying for her. The constant pain has been really hard for her and she is pretty drained. She is keeping up with school okay but every now and then just has to take a day off because it is just too much to sit through school.

Luke: He has been doing pretty well the last couple of months. He finished up his basketball season and now he is in the water lots as he is on swim team. Their only meet is this next weekend in Surabaya. They will be competing against 4 other International schools in Indonesian that are about the same size as our school. Nick and i went to this swim meet the past 2 years but i think we will have to pass on this years. Kind of sad to miss it but i am sure Luke will be glad to not have Mom and Dad constantly around. Luke is definitely counting the days until school is out. He didn't have the greatest attitude during 3rd quarter but it seems to be getting better so we are very thankful for that.

Jay: Did we tell you that we have a third child? His name is Jay and we have adopted him into our family. :) Jay is one of our teachers at Mountainview who has gone through a rough time recently and moved in with us. He has been a huge blessing to our family-being a great older brother to both Anna and Luke and just a huge help all around. We have throughly enjoyed having him as a part of our family. Please pray for him as he continues to work through issues in his life. One day at a time.

Nick: This past week has been rather stressful as Nick has been trying to figure out what to do about his and the kids visa for staying in the country. Their visa expires the end of this month and it was thought that it would be renewed under the organization that Nick has had his visa with for the past 3 to 4 years. But, last week he found out that the government has had some reshuffling and new laws and it was not possible for him to stay under that same umbrella. He has been doing some fast thinking and seeking out different options and it seems like he has found a viable option. We will have to go out to Singapore at the end of this month to get a social/cultural visa until the other one can be processed. Please pray that all of this works out and goes smoothly.

Laura: It has been a hard couple of months-very busy, very full, very hard watching annaliese be in constant pain, trying to be an encouragement to the family, just a lot of STUFF going on. I too am looking forward to the end of the school year and being able to catch my breath some this summer. But until then, i pray for the stamina and endurance to finish this school year strong. There seems to be infinite things to do but not much time to do it. Despite feeling busy all the time, it has been encouraging to see God at work amongst the students and the faculty. It feels like a lot of us have been walking through fire these days, yet it is very evident that a refinining of our hearts is what is most importantly happening. God is good and most days i am able to rest in that. :)

That's all for now. Scroll down to the next post for pictures of our time at the beach over Easter. If you want to see a bigger version of the photo, double click on it and it will take you to the photo. To get back to the blog just click back on your web browser. :)

Pacitan-Easter Weekend April 6-8th

So here are lots of pics of our 3 day Easter weekend in Pacitan. The four of us plus Jay D., Jeremy C., Maria and Ferdinand went to have some fun in the sun and that we certainly did. :) The weather was great, the water was warm and the beaches were not crowded. It was just what we all needed.

First Row pics: Happy Easter in the sand, rooster in the yard, Luke body surfing
Second Row, Views from balcony, Jay as a pregnant mermaid (don't ask-i think we had the sillies that day), the culprits who turned Jay into a mermaid.


Shell Beach Pics...we had fun looking at the tide pools. The third pic above is a neon blue fish right in the middle.

Jay swimming in after a two mile ocean swim. We made a finish line for him and cheered him in.

Easter Sunrise morning... beautiful...Jeremy C. :)

Easter Dinner at O Solo Mio and it was O so yummy. :)