New Adventures!

We have been going non-stop the last several months. With Josh and Joy gone on furlough our work load has increased. We also had a new missionary family arrive in January and we have been helping them get settled in and deal with immigration.
We are also about to embark on a new adventure! God is moving us to the north shore of the island, to start a new work. So, we will be heading back to the States for a short furlough to raise a bit more support in August. When we come back we will be working in Puerto Plata.
We will also be short one child when we come back. Delayna is finishing up her 12th grade now (a year early) and will be staying in the States to work for a year before heading to college. She wants to be a doctor, so she is planning on going to Pensacola Christian College. She is also wanting to go on a missions trip to Peru with ACE in July (this will also be her Senior trip). She is trying to raise her money ($800) to be able to go. She is a very determined person and is working hard to get the money.  If you would like to help her with this, she is selling some more of her paintings. She is also accepting donations. :) Here are the paintings she has for sale. Please let me know if you are interested.

Family photos and a church need

The first Sunday in December we always do a family picture day. This usually gets some of the family members of our church members out for a service. This year Stu added backgrounds to out pictures and they turned out really good! Here is ours.

 

 

If anyone is interested in a special Christmas project (you can take advantage of those after Christmas sales!), we have a few small needs for our church that I thought I would share. We need kids scissors for our S.S. classes. We are also needing some puzzles and games that could be used at the end of a class to give the kids something quiet to do until the adults get done. They would be fore ages 5-10. The games would have to either be simple games that I could write out the instructions in Spanish or some that were already in Spanish.

November

We have been doing a lot of catching up since we got home from the hospital so I have not had time to post anything. Stu was released from the hospital on the evening of October 22nd. We didn't have our car there, so we were going to call a taxi. BUT GOD....sent an angel. :) Our neighbor showed up just as we finished getting everything together and he drove us home. What a blessing it was not to have to ride in a taxi. Stu had to stay at home for a week, taking it easy until his follow up visits. It was hard to keep him still! He answered the phone one day and it was for me. I was outside taking care of something and he called out the window of the office that it was for me. I picked up the phone as he was walking back to the bedroom (I was downstairs and he was upstairs) and heard a crash! Well, I was very jumpy still because of the accident so I threw the phone down and took off running upstairs (stubbed my pinky toe on the way). I found him laying on the floor in the hall. He had tripped and was not able to catch himself. I got him up and back into bed and told him for my heart's sake to please stay there! The next morning I was in the kitchen with Juls and I was looking at something on her back when her head went down on the microwave. I asked her what she was doing and then her head went up and banged back down on the microwave so I grabbed her arms to turn her around to see what was going on and she went limp. Thankfully I was able to lay her down on the floor. At first I thought she was having a seizure but quickly realized she had passed out. As I was telling Stu about it a little bit later, I finally lost it and started crying. I guess the stress of everything had finally gotten to me. I did take her to the doctor and her heart rate was slower than normal and a bit off but the doctor thinks it was post traumatic stress since she had helped me take Stu to the clinic after the accident. She seems ok now. Stu was cleared by all the doctors and is doing better but is still having a few problems. He is still having headaches, but not as many, and still has some jaw pain. His short term memory is VERY SHORT, worse than before. He also has problems getting what he is trying to say to come out right. And he can't focus well when there is a lot of noise or a lot of different things going on at once.
 Please keep praying that these things will get better quickly, especially since his load is about to double. The Wessons are leaving for a 6 month furlough on Tuesday. Please keep me in your prayers to as I will have to start driving the Wednesday night route and it is not a safe time of the year to be out on the roads after dark.
Seth took up the offering in church for the first time ever. When Bro. Josh called him name, he looked up with such surprise on his face and all the people went, "ahhhh". :) Stu was up front in a classroom with a sick headache, trying to get ready for his class, so he missed it.
We have also been fighting a war the last month. We have been overrun by biting ants. They are everywhere!!! They have even been in our beds. For some reason they like to bite Jesse's eyelids, so he wakes up with swollen eyes for a few days. We have sprayed and put out every kind of poison possible but we still have them. They disappear from one room and show up in another. Then we realized that we have rats again too. Stu got one with his hockey stick and we got two more with poison. I just want to be able to go in my kitchen to cook and not have ants or rats joining me! Jesse is scared to go downstairs by himself because of the rats. If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would love to hear them!

Surfing accident

This is the whole story of Stu's accident. It is as much for us to have a record of as it is to inform anyone who may not have heard. 
Friday, October 18th, we were at the beach and Stu was heading out in the water with another guy to surf. On the way out a wave came and the other guy lost control of his board and it hit Stu in the face and knocked him out, the problem is that none of us saw it happen. We are not sure how long he was under the water. I had looked out and saw Stu's back, it looked like he was bending over with his head under the water. I thought maybe he was fixing the strap on his ankle. Finally the other guy realized that Stu wasn't there and went looking for him. I saw him pull him up out the the water and realized that something was wrong and took off into the water (I don't swim). On my way out, I yelled to Juls that something was wrong with daddy and to go the the restaurant and get help. I also yelled to Delayna to watch the boys and yelled to them to get out of the water. There was only one other person on the beach so I yelled for him to help. I got to Stu and we started carrying him out of the water.  We were able to get Stu into the shore, but the time I got there I was so exhausted that I could hardly stand up. He had come to and was yelling, but had no idea where he was or what happened. He had a hole in his cheek with blood going everywhere, we got a towel on that and he started coughing/vomiting up water. Juls brought two guys from the restaurant and they helped me get Stu into the van and the one guy led me to the clinic. I took Juls with me to help and left Delayna and the boys at the beach. He coughed up water the whole way there and asked about every 2 minutes where he was and what happened. We got him to the clinic, a small 2 room clinic with no back up power, and they started hooking him up to an IV and oxygen. They had me ask him some specific questions to see what he remembered. He knew who we were and where he lived but he didn't know what town we were in or why we were there or what happened. At one point, out of the blue, he started singing "I saw the light" (of course he doesn't remember it) and I told him to stay away from the light! They gave him some meds, took an x ray of his chest and got him into a room. I had Juls call the manager of the villa we were staying at to see if he could go get the other kids from the beach. He was more than happy to help. The kids of course were very scared and crying. Juls kept asking if Stu was going to be ok. So he got the kids back to the villa and got them something to eat (we were supposed to be leaving Saturday morning, so there was no more food left). A man that we had met while we were there, came to the clinic to help us. He talked to the doctor for me and let me know what was going on. God does provide help even when you are in a town where you have no friends or family! They got his face sewn up, which he didn't enjoy! Sometime after that he started remembering things. He now remembers everything except for from about 5 minutes before the accident until about 3 hours afterwards. We stayed the night there but didn't sleep much at all. Every 30 minutes his oxygen machine would go into a high pitched beep until we reset it. Plus the power went out and since they had no back up, we were very hot and uncomfortable. 
On Saturday, my birthday, after talking to many people and feeling very stressed because the kids were alone in the villa and I was trying to go back and forth to take care of them and Stu, we were able to get him transferred back to Santo Domingo. Me and the girls were able to pack up and load the van with the help of a Canadian couple we had met. After they loaded Stu in the ambulance, we headed out. A friend met us halfway and took over the driving since I hadn't slept or eaten in two days. 
Being back here we are well taken care of, the hospital is much better and we have many friends to help with the kids. He did get an infection in his lungs but it looks like that is clearing up, they are just concerned about a couple of other things. His CAT scan results were normal and nothing was broken or dislocated in his face. If everything is looking good tomorrow, he might get to go home. I know that he is ready, although he will still have some healing to do. He still gets tired very easy and has quite a bit of pain in his face and head. Thank you all so much for the prayers. We appreciate them so much!!!

Vacation Bible School

We survived VBS! Before the week started we kept talking about VBS and the boys asked if they got to go. We said yes and they got very excited, "yay, we get to go to VBS!" Then Jesse asked Seth, "What's VBS?" and Seth said, "I don't know!".
We had from 100 - 150 kids each day. We only planned for 100, so I had to scramble to come up with extra crafts each day. We had several saved and we had half of the kids and some of their parents come to church on Sunday. It was a good week but I am glad it is over. :)

My Girls' Adventure!

My girls made it safely to Toronto today, although without their suitcases. :) They are hoping to get them tonight or tomorrow. I guess the suitcases took a different flight. This is the picture I received of them enjoying Tim Hortons and of course I noticed the Walmart bag right away!!! Their adventure has begun.

A trip!

The girls are going on a trip. They leave on Wednesday (please pray for them as they travel alone) to go to Canada to spend 2 weeks at camp and then they are going to the States to visit both sets of grandparents. They have worked to raise their money for the tickets. Thanks to many of you buying her paintings, Delayna was able to raise all of her money. They are very excited. I think Jesse wants to go to because he was hiding in Delayna's suitcase. :)

A tunnel!

This is a tunnel I made the boys one day while Stu and the girls were at camp. They had a great time with it for  few days.

White People!

We have a church group here this week. There are 29 total, but 8 of them are sleeping at our house. The first morning when Seth came downstairs and they were sitting in the living/dining room eating breakfast, he kept hiding behind me. He is not normally like that so I asked him why he was hiding. He told me that he was embarrassed because we have never had that many white people in our house! :) He is used to the Dominicans coming over but those gringos startled him!

Fun with Friends!

Making Smores, indoors!

Happy Birthday Delayna!

16 years ago today, God gave us our firstborn! I can't believe how fast she has grown up! Happy 16th Birthday Delayna!!!

The boys' water balloon war!

Everybody wins this war!!!

Our Puppies

Busted!

Please keep us in your prayers! Besides the whole driving situation, :), we have had many things "go wrong".  We feel that we are under attack right now. Some of the things have been "big deals" and others have been small irritants! Just when we think it's over, something else happens. Last night while my husband was out visiting, someone busted out the back window of our jeep. I don't know if they were trying to rob us or just being mean! I was just thankful that he wasn't in it at the time. It was a minor thing, compared to other things, but it is getting discouraging.
Over the next few months, I am going to try to post some pictures of our life. It probably won't be every day, but I will try to do it often. If you want to see a specific picture of some aspect of our life or ministry, just let me know! Enjoy!

One reason we need your prayers!

A friend of mine just posted an article from the Washington Post that I found very interesting! Just one of the many reasons your prayers are so important to us. :) 

I've copied part of it below, to read the whole article you can go to... 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/07/a-map-of-the-countries-with-the-most-dangerous-roads/

Lots of people think that their home town has the worst traffic, the most aggressive drivers, the craziest cabbies. Sometimes they have strong anecdotal evidence. Russian drivers often employ dashboard cameras to record seemingly inevitable collisions with reckless motorists. In the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi, a three-day Blackberry phone outage coincided with a 40 percent drop in traffic accidents. When I visited Cairo, where just crossing the street is a sort of art form in itself, I presumed no roads could be more dangerous until a friend who had just returned from Indonesia assured me that Jakarta’s are far worse.

So who has the world’s most dangerous roads? It turns out, based on a comprehensive World Health Organization report that measures road safety by the number of motor vehicle-related deaths per 100,000 people, the answer is the Dominican Republic.

The Caribbean island nation (it shares the island of Hispanolia with Haiti) reports a staggering 41.7 driving deaths per 100,000 people per year. That means that, in any given year, a Dominican person has a one in 2,398 chance of being killed by a car. That’s not so bad until you extrapolate out by 70 years and find that, over a lifetime, a Dominican’s odds of dying in a car-related accident are one in 480. The WHO report notes that the Dominican Republic has weak helmet and speed laws and even weaker drunk driving laws. More than half of driving related deaths, 58 percent, are of occupants or drivers of two- or three-wheeled vehicles. In other words, motorcycles.

A new kind of Hockey

Most of you know that my husband grew up in Canada so therefore grew up playing hockey.  Well, since we have ben here in the DR, he doesn't get to play much hockey.  He keeps his stick handy in case the opportunity arises. Yesterday morning that opportunity came. I went down to the kitchen to get him some more Sprite, we have both been sick the last several days, and when I walked in the kitchen, something moved on top of my stove. You guessed it, another rat! I called for Stu to come down to help me and the first thing he asked for was his hockey stick. After several minutes of trying to get the rat to come out from behind the stove, it finally did. Stu started practicing his slapshots.  He smacked that rat against the door over and over until it stopped moving. I was laughing so hard and wishing I had a video camera. When it was all over, I told the girls that they better marry a man who knows how to use a hockey stick. :)

May is gone already!?!

Is it really June already??? May seemed to fly by. It probably helped that my sister and her family were here. We sure enjoyed getting to know my niece. She turned 1 year old while she was here. The poor thing got smothered by all of us wanting to hug and kiss her!
May 26th was Mother's Day here. On the Friday night before, the men put on a Mother/Daughter banquet for us. They did a really good job. On the way home that night it was me, Joy, my girls, her daughter and my sister. There were lots of police out (they have upped the patrols due to more violence) and as we passed through a road block they stopped us. They looked in the van and said "oh, a van full of beautiful women. You must not be Dominican, you are too pretty." then they let us go. :)  We were glad not to have nay problems.
It has been raining a lot here the past couple of weeks, which has been nice! After it rains here a bunch of flying ants come out. We don't notice them as much when we are at home because we have screens, but at the church they can be a bother! One Wednesday night it had rained quite a bit and as Josh started preaching the flying ants started coming out. As they would fly under a ceiling fan it would push them down onto the people. There were so many of them that we were being swarmed with them. People started swinging and swatting, waving and picking them out of other peoples hair. It was very distracting! Then one flew into my sisters mouth and she started gagging. At that point, Stu was chuckling and I was having a hard time holding it together but I was doing ok. Then one flew into Josh's eye and we all lost it. The whole church was laughing. After Josh saying it was a good thing they were ants and not roaches we got back to business. After the services there were so many dead ants all over the floor, you could tell it had been bad.
We have had a special evangelistic campaign going on since Thursday. The devil has really been fighting, there have been so many complications. On Thursday morning we were informed we could not use the building that we had secured several months in advance because the Catholics were going to use it. We ended up having the meeting outside on a basketball court. In the middle of the service, between the two preachers, while they were singing, it started pouring! Everyone started running. Joy spread herself over the keyboard until someone came to help her, she was drenched by then! Then last night in the kids service, Stu was about to pass out a few prizes to some of the kids who had won and a riot broke out. As soon as the first kid held up their prize everyone rushed forward. They broke the sound system, trampled people and then started throwing rocks and eggs. Because the sound system wouldn't work, they had a hard time getting it back under control. Needless to say, some of them were nervous about what would happen tonight! I do know they have had a good attendance and at least 18 saved so far.
Seth and Jesse are done with school for the year (YAY!) and the girls are getting close. We are working extra hard to try to finish on time. We are looking forward to summer break this year, especially me! So, if you don't hear from me this summer it will be because I am laying out back in the pool trying to stay cool and enjoying my break. :) Not really! I am going to be taking two Spanish classes a week through the summer. I am nervous and excited all at once. Please pray that my Spanish will improve greatly during this time.

Fighter?

When I came home yesterday Seth looked like he had been in a fight! Him and Jesse had been in the pool and while Seth was looking down into the water and Jesse came up out of the water right into Seth's eye.  He immediately had a huge knot. Today it was black and swollen. When I told him he looked like a fighter, he said, "I don't want to be a fighter". That makes me happy! :)

Didn't have to visit the jail!

Praise the Lord all went well today. I know it was due to your prayers! We got there this morning and as we suspected the other guy didn't show up. You would think that would be a good thing for me, but the other accidents where one party didn't show up, had to go back next week and try again. After we heard the people in front of us saying that, we were thinking that we would be taking another trip down there next week. Well, when it was my turn, the lady asked about the other guy and we explained that he wasn't there and we couldn't reach him on the phone. She tried to call him and couldn't get through so she said well, I guess I'll give you your license and documents back and you can go. What a surprise, but a huge blessing!  Now we get to start the insurance process of trying to get the jeep fixed. That could take a while. Thanks for all of your prayers!

My first trip to the police station.

Well, I had to make my first trip to the police station today! It all started with a quiet afternoon. The girls were gone with friends and Stu had taken the boys out. After working on my to do list for a bit, I decided to run a quick errand that was just a couple of blocks away. As I was leaving the entrance of our neighborhood, I had to cross traffic to turn left. I waited until it was clear except for a motorcycle that was quite a ways down the road and I headed toward the center to wait for one car to pass the other way. Instead of passing he stopped right in front of me and I couldn't move. The next thing I know I heard screeching tires and saw the motorcycle fishtailing his way towards me. He smacked right into my car right at my side view mirror. He busted my front windshield, broke off my mirror, dented the front side panel and knocked my bumper loose. I think I just sat there staring at him, I couldn't believe he hit me. He had plenty of room to go around behind me, which is the lane that he had been in. He picked his bike up and I backed back into the entrance of my neighborhood. There is a police compound across from our entrance and a couple of them had been pulling out, so they came right over. They were very nice and agreed that it was not my fault and that I shouldn't be upset, but I was very upset. After realizing that I did not have any minutes on my cell phone, one of the police used his phone to call Joy for me. She called Stu (who was out with Josh and the boys) and then she walked up to the entrance to help me out. We ended up having to go to the police station to file a report. When we got there the guy suddenly gave a whole different story than mine. We also found out he didn't have a license, but they didn't do anything about it! So, because he was hurt (he only had a couple of scratches on his stomach from my mirror) they kept my license. And, because our stories didn't match up, we have to go back Thursday morning at 8am (I think for some kind of a hearing to sort it out).  It is so frustrating dealing with the way they do things here. Please pray that we won't have any problems Thursday and that I will get my license back. I will try to update you afterwards. Thanks!

Just so I can end this on a good note, I am adding a photo of my handsome men on their way to the driving range.