Thanks for Praying!

Thank you so much to all of you who regularly pray for us. We have felt those prayers even more over this last week. Many of you know, and I'm some many of you don't, but I've been quite sick. A week ago I woke up early in the morning with severe pain in my abdomen and back- so severe I was vomitting and in a cold sweat. It lasted for 7 or 8 hours before I started feeling a bit of relief. The only time I've ever been in this much pain was when I was in labor with Gavin, just to give you an idea. We called our doctor in Moscow and determined it was most likey kidney stones, though we couldn't know for sure without a trip to the doc to rule out some other possibilites. To make a long story a bit shorter- we decided to wait to go to the doctor in case they admitted me to the hospital- b/c I'm nursing Carter and I don't have a ton of milk stored up. After another day I felt back to normal- only to be awakened the next day by such severe dizziness that I was vomitting. I couldn't even move my eyes w/o feeling so dizzy it made me sick. I've never known anything like it! Again, we called our doc in Moscow and he said it could be a zillion different things so I best go get checked out. So, we called the clinic nearby and made an appointment for the following day. After a trip to the clinic and a plethora of tests it was determined that they can't say for sure what's wrong with me! My kidneys and gall bladder seem just fine, there's nothing wrong with my stomach (they did an endoscopy- where they put a scope down your throat! ) and blood work and other tests. Though, they did give me an IV that helped tremendously! They sent me home with a bunch of pills to take and orders to come back in a week for more tests (and to see the eye doctor and get an xray! That's Russian medicine at it's best... lots of tests and way too many pills!) The day after I was at the doctor and had the IV- I thought the dizziness was gone. But it's not. The longer I'm up and moving each day the worse it gets. I am taking one of the meds they prescribed that seems to help quite a bit- but doesn't completely get rid of it. So, please continue to pray that we would find the cause of it and/or that it would go away. It makes it so difficult to care for the boys when the only way I'm not dizzy is sitting still or laying down!

But, PTL- Saturday night I was feelin well enough to go to our first English Cafe! It was great! We had so many students show up and made some great contacts. We held it at a local restraunt in a private room. We had a great response from the students and we are really looking forward to getting to know them all better. We are hosting an "American Thanksgiving" feast at our home the Thursday before Thanksgiving. I'll be cooking a traditional meal and all the students are invited... not sure where we're going to put them all yet, but we'll make room! We're going to enjoy all the traditinal foods, the thanksgiving day parade (from last year- thanks mom and dad for recording it!!!) and of couse some american footballl (thanks to my wonderful parents!)- but, more importantly, this will be the first time we'll be able to share with our students about our God we are so thankful to.




And, thank you for praying for our boys! Carter is finally sleeping through the night and last night was the first time they both slept in the same room! We're so glad to finally have our own room back :) Gavin is on his way to being a professional potty trainer! He does so great running to the bathroom on his own and requesting "geen M" (aka a green M&M) after he goes potty! He even wipes up the seat after himself :) Thought I'd start to teach him that early on...though most likely I'll be 'reteaching' it for years to come!!! hehe.


(just in case you're wondering... we don't let them sleep together :) but they love sharing 'story time' in G's bed before they both go to sleep!)

This week we head off to Anapa- back to the good 'ol south of Russia - for our annual field retreat. Please pray for us as we travel the 2 hr flight to moscow (sit in the airport for several hours) then travel the 2.5 hrs down to Anapa. Pray that the boys would do well on the flights and during all the down time in between as well as for their adjustment to the new place and 2 hour time change. I hate to change their schedules up- especially since Carter just started regularly sleeping through the night! But, nothing is too big for our God and no care is too small (aka- my sleep!!!) We leave Wednesday for Anapa and will return early (our flight gets in at 2am!!!) Tuesday morning! Just in time to celebrate my birthday the next day! Though, JB already gave me my gift- he was too excited to wait! I love him! I'll write more about it later- very creative and I can't wait to get it hung up on my wall! But, I'll leave you in suspense, just so you'll come back to the blog to find out what it is!!! hehe!

Blessings!