Another NOT routine day!

It seems like everyday I have more blog-worthy stories. I'm really hoping we begin living a very routine, boring life soon!

What I thought would be the big news was that we met with the landlord of the house that we like yesterday, and we agreed on lease terms. He is preparing a contract. There is a family living in the house currently, and I'm not sure when they will be moving. We've joked that we'll just send the kids over every morning to stand outside the gate and ask when they are leaving.



I also wanted to share a moment I had with God recently. I was reading my Bible in Judges 18. It talked about the tribe of Dan looking for a place to settle. They sent out some men to find a good place. They men stopped to inquire of a priest if their journey would be successful. The Lord replied, "Go in peace. The Lord is watching over your journey." This gave me such peace in our house hunting. And, sure enough, the next day we got great news. We are definitely still on this journey - and I am so glad HE is watching over us! (By the way, the men in the story then go and capture a village, burn it down and take it over to settle there. I'm sure glad I didn't have to go to those extremes!)

Now for the news that stole first place in my "big news" category...Willow and I had the opportunity to spend the night in Limso Filipino Hospital. Yesterday morning she woke with rapid breathing. We've dealt with a few episodes of this in the past, but this one really surprised us as there were no advance warning signs. We waited a couple hours and when things didn't improve, the mission directors (who I'm affectionately calling our personal chauffeurs) took us to the emergency room. She gave me a scare when she got pretty wobbly on me - that's when my "driver" started honking the horn and racing through the streets to the hospital. The ER was very attentive and quickly got her a breathing treatment. She showed great improvement, and we were on our way. We grabbed a bite to eat and met with our potential landlord. After the meeting her breathing was worse so we went to another local hospital where the pediatrician we were hoping to get in with worked. Again in the ER we had two breathing treatments and were admitted to the hospital. We had chest x-rays and blood work. Then we were taken to our room. Not exactly what I'd planned to do for the day.

We were well attended to, but it is never fun being in a hospital with a scared two-year old. Fortunately she went to sleep fairly quickly and slept off and on for almost 12 hours. We did have to get her up for antibiotics and breathing treatments a couple times, but she settled down again fairly quickly. From 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. was torture - confined in a small room with a not-so-sick two-year old. But it was definitely better than being with a sick two-year-old! Praise the Lord for his healing. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and we are now the owners of a nebulizer (breathing treatment) machine. There were lots of different things about the hospital system - we were well taken care of - but if given the choice I'd choose a U.S. hospital any day - until we paid the bill. Yes, you pay the bill BEFORE you are allowed to leave the hospital. I think all total for two ER visits, medications, hospital stay, dr. visit, etc...we paid around $100. That part was very nice. I should also take the time here to publicly thank Matt and Krys McNeil for bending over backwards to take care of us (and our other children) - and Joy Essenmacher for staying with me overnight in the hospital - and Lisa for taking great care of the boys when Nolan came to the hospital! There are wonderful people all over this planet - I'm so glad to have the opportunity to get to know the ones in Davao!



We are now praying that Willow (and the rest of us) will not continue to be hampered with breathing difficulties while here in the Philippines. I'd really rather that be my only opportunity to visit the hospital as a "patient"! Please pray with us for strong respiratory systems!

Love to you all!
Salem