Hi Everyone....No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, but close :o)  More on that in a minute.  First, all is well here.  Krissy continues to enjoy her summer, with nearly daily community outings with our college student Missy, who has been with us full time this summer.  They have done a variety of things, much like the ACAP (Autistic Children's Activity Program) last summer.  There were some glitches with it this year, so we opted to use the funding instead to bring Missy on and do more of a customized ACAP program. It's been ideal since Krissy gets to do much of the planning/choosing of activities.  They swim,  go up the gorge, numerous trips skating (special Disney skate on Thursdays!) as well as the zoo, park, Chuck E. Cheese and Oak's Park.  This helps Krissy learn appropriate ways to interact and integrate into the community while learning appropriate behavior.  I can't believe she'll be 13 on Thursday!  We're celebrating with a trip to Disneyland next week, so she's counting down the days.  We originally hoped to have Larry and Anne with us this trip, but finances as well as circumstances just didn't work out. Larry really wanted to stay at home (what's that about?????....I told him how much fun it is to be at Disney with Krissy, but he look's abit skeptical :o))).  Anne starts at Damascus Christian next week, so she didn't want to miss the first days.  So it's just David, Jamie, Krissy and I this time...thankfully not driving...I need a little time after the June trip to take that on again, and Jet Blue made it hard to refuse with their low airfare.  We bought annual passes when we were there in June, so that all made it very do-able.  Down early Monday morning, back late on Thursday.  An added bonus is that David's girlfriend Emily will be down there on Wednesday with her Grandma, celebrating her graduation, so we'll spend part of the day Wednesday together enjoying the park.  Suzie, her grandmother worked in Special Ed for years, so she's quite happy about experiencing Disney with Krissy :o) 

Now, about my nearly falling off the face of the earth...not quite, but I've just returned from being part of a medical outreach to NE Uganda.  What a wonderful, life impacting trip this was for me.  Larry actually suggested that I go last winter and we began praying about it.  God was so good to also call my close friend Susan to participate, so our small team (2 MD's 2 RN's) began to prepare.  We were asked to begin a training program for Village Health workers, so our first 3 days out in the bush was primarily teaching some basic public health and first aid as well as addressing many questions about specific illnesses (never expected them to want to talk about chicken pox as much as they did).  Many local pastors who were also Karamojong were also with us...it's so wonderful how immediate the fellowship is when Christ is the common bond.   Because of both security concerns and the worst imaginable road conditions, our staging area was in a remote village instead of staying most of the time in the Peace villages as we planned.  We got our chance to live in a tent out in the larger one where we saw over 1000 patients in a couple of days.  We also traveled to a smaller peace village where there is no health center or regular care. Understandably there was a level of desperation there, to the point of them nearly pushing us over trying to get help.  Many stories of God being at work there and it was wonderful to have these days in a front row seat.  I returned to Portland on Sat evening.  Larry and the kids did great with not too many stories, thankfully!  

This was definitely a step out of my comfort zone...as I said before I left "I think I'm more of a Marriott girl".  My 'after statement" would only involve one word change.... "I KNOW I'm more of a Marriott girl".  It was certainly an opportunity for my faith and dependancy on the Lord to be stretched and I'm so thankful for that.

In case you wonder about the picture with the baby, no I didn't bring him home with me. Jesse is the 7 month old son of Anne, part of the local staff of the the organization we served with.  Once when he got fussy, it was amazing...I tied him on my back like his mom did and he was almost instantly asleep.  

Drop us a line when you can....Love, Janelle