Joy in Toon Town

Most often my ramblings about trips down south are recollections of near misses, tense moments and surprising adventures.  Of course there is lots of fun thrown in….otherwise you think I’d keep going back for more?  You see, I’m not really a “Disneyland person”, at least I wasn’t before Kristin.  From infancy I had major issues with motion sickness…to give you an idea, I don’t feel well if I sit in a rocking chair and someone (Krissy) walks by and pushes it.  But this is the place our daughter looks forward to and loves more than anywhere else.  With her autism significantly impacting her life, I’ve been grateful to be able to share these joyful experiences with her, whenever we have the opportunity.

We had an experience on Friday that though I will never forget it, I wanted to try and capture it on paper and share it with you.  I am moved to tears even as I recall it.  You see, I found myself standing on a little slice of Holy Ground….in Mickey’s Barn, of all places. Before you decide I’m crazy or maybe irreverent, hear my story. 

Krissy and I proceeded thru Mickey’s house in Toon Town, out to the movie barn where the ‘meet and greet’ takes place.  It was nearing the end of our last day there.  After a 15 minute wait, it was our turn to go in with our group of 12 or so.  In front of us was a young woman, maybe 15, with her parents.  She was severely disabled physically…semi-reclined in her wheelchair with limbs contracted.   It was her turn and Mickey gently took her hands in his gloves.  She apparently couldn’t speak, but then Mickey doesn’t either.  Trust me here, no words were needed.  That roomful of people went quiet and she was the total focus.  Mickey was in no hurry.  He approached her as though she was the only child in the universe.  He gently rubbed her head….he nuzzled that big ol’ mouse nose against her cheek. Her smile was a mile wide…everyone was captivated by her joy.  I’ve see a lot of nice ‘cast members’ be very kind and accommodating…but I’ve never experienced what we saw.   I have no doubt that under that costume was a heart that belongs to Jesus.  Because isn’t that just like Him…to show up in unexpected places and leave no doubt who’s Presence we are truly enjoying? 

I never expected a sacred moment in Toon Town, but that’s how I described it in a phone call to my husband shortly afterwards.  And I’ve decided I can’t wait for Krissy to ask me some day if Mickey Mouse will be in Heaven.  I won’t have to think twice before answering~

Update

Greetings~

I'm still hoping to get into a routine this fall....it's not quite come together like I hoped. I thought things would be fairly straightforward with the 3 older kids all at Mt. Hood this year. However looking at their schedules, you'd seriously think they were trying to avoid each other :o) In short, carpooling just isn't very practical.

Anne is settling in well to the college routine and much prefers it to high school. The kids have lots of friends attending there too, so we continue to be so thankful for the CYT community that God has blessed us with; in particular the great friendships our kids have formed over the years.

Jamie has really been hitting the books, taking microbiology as well as a difficult A & P class. And then there are the other classes too. The reality of her moving to Arizona after Christmasis setting in...I bought the airline tickets for January....Jamie and I plan to fly to Phoenix and have a few days, getting things together for her to move into her dorm on Sunday the 8th. My mom is planning to fly down that day and she and I will have a few days of vacation together before flying home the 11th. Hopefully we can steal Jamie away from campus one evening for dinner or dessert before we leave. Mom and I may drive out to the Grand Canyon, just because it seems a shame to be that close and not see it. We also have friends in Phoenix and hope to see them.

David and Emily got their wedding invites ordered yesterday and we are having a gathering this afternoon to address them. I have cinnamon rolls rising as I write. They are getting excited as we approach the 2 month mark until the wedding. Emily's mom has quite a challenge with making Emily's dress as well as 5 dresses for the bridesmaids and jr. bridesmaid. She is also costume chair for CYT, so is in charge of the costumes for Oliver that opens late October. Their fall hasn't quite gone how they planned either. Work has been really slow for Bill (he's self employed and does flooring, tile work, etc.) as the economy has of course really impacted people doing home renovations etc. Emily's sister Amanda had her appendix rupture several weeks ago, resulting in an extended hospital stay (catastrophic insurance only). It's good their family has a close walk of dependency on the Lord and they are very relaxed about things, so you never feel like they are in a frenzy. I'm sure the wedding will come together and everyone will have a dress to wear :o)

Krissy is doing well other than a few random acts of property destruction (don't get me started) Over all, she has been in a good phase for some time, but lest we get too comfortable, she'll impulsively do something that scares me to death. The last thing was suddenly darting to the blender, sticking her hand inside and hitting the button. I plan to write a letter to Cuisinart to thank them for their design, that by God's grace saved her fingers. Larry got me this really nice blender last Christmas. I honestly thought it was a little nicer one than I needed, but didn't say so. It sits on the counter; the girls use it more than I do to make smoothies, etc. I have wondered over the last year, why they make you first hit the on button (nothing happens) and then you hit the puree, stir, liquify. etc. options which actually makes it take off. I've never seen another blender that requires 2 different steps to do the job. But that feature is what kept the blades from activating. We now have it unplugged all the time, except for the moments of use.

Which brings me to Benjamin....we would appreciate your prayers for him. He has been quite sick this last week. We've been to hospitals 3 times and the MD's office twice. We still aren't sure what's going on. In short he's better than he was last Monday and Tuesday when he was unable to stand up straight and was guarding his tummy a lot. Even when asleep, if you touched his belly. he jump and was obviously in a lot of pain. We saw the doctor on Monday. had xrays and left puzzled. By Tuesday night, I was getting very worried and Jamie and I spent the night with him in the ER. They felt it wasn't surgical, but didn't really know what was up. Besides how he was acting, the most impressive thing was a white count of close to 20,000 (normal is 5-10,000; his usually is around 4000). There was definite evidence in the cell differential that it was a bacterial infection, but the doctor just didn't know for sure. We opted to come home with the IV in, instead of being admitted. We thought he was turning the corner some later Wed, but by Friday, it just seemed like something was still really wrong. His urine was very dark, an unusual symptom. Back to the pediatrician's office, then to the hospital for xrays again. The doctor on call talked to Larry yesterday and said the xray showed an enlarged liver. This is his 3rd set of abdominal xrays this week, but the first time this was mentioned. So now I'm thinking "does he have hepatitis??" or what is going on? I hope to talk with our own pediatrician today and see what we should do...I'd think checking on his liver function thru blood tests would be helpful...thankfully he's not jaundiced, so that's got to be good. But he's never had liver problems, and we'd really rather not go there. Thanks for praying for him and for wisdom for us and his MD's as we try and figure him out and care for him.

I better get to these cinnamon rolls....

It seems like we're finally having the summer weather we've been waiting for. We've had a few warm days and it looks like a number more are in the forecast. But, it's back to school for Benjamin (Tues) and Krissy (Wed) this week.It's been a really good summer for many reasons. Krissy had an excellent experience at ACAP. They had several children with biting issues, and that was hard on the staff. It also became apparent that Krissy was one of the easier ones...welcome news for us. She really seemed to enjoy the variety of activities and we were blessed by Missy (who was hired by ACAP and also works for us) coming by in the mornings for any last minute getting ready...then took her to ACAP for the day, and brought her back home.
Benjamin, as I mentioned last post, has had a happy summer. I can't believe our 'baby' is going to middle school. This will be a new FLS (Functional Living Skills) classroom after K-5 at the same school, so I'll be going in to spend part of the day Tuesday with him. I need to teach the staff about his care and how he communicates. I've heard good things about his new teacher and the OTA for the classroom is a friend of ours from church, so we're optomistic about this change....though I would have been most happy leaving him with Merrie, his teacher we really love and appreciate from his previous classroom.
Krissy had a very fun birthday...we did go to the hotel in Sandy. She got one swim time in before Larry showed up with pizza. Then she and some of the kids went again and that was lots of fun. But she was so hyper about it being her birthday the next day, we realized we probably were not going to have the best night...so we began reviewing possible options. In the end, Anne went to spend the night with Emily, Larry & David decided they would enjoy staying at the hotel and watching a movie (Safeway was right next door, to rent one) and so Jamie, Ben, Krissy and I came home to sleep. It was a good decision :o) Krissy was happy because Jamie spent the night in her room with her. Ben and I were happy getting a good night sleep. Krissy and I headed back up Friday morning to enjoy breakfast with the guys. Missy picked Krissy up at noon from the hotel while I came home to decorate the cake and Anne worked on decorating the house for party time at 4 pm. She was so happy with how things went and got a number of things she had been hoping for.

Larry and I enjoyed a further celebration of our anniversary (early August) today by going on a small sailboat ride on the Willamette River. This was one of those Groupon deals from several months ago that caught my eye. It really was nice. Just 6 people (incl. us) plus the skipper. We boarded at the marina right at Newport Bay, and we had a wonderful lunch when we got back. It was a beautiful day to be on the water and we had a nice time...visiting is often hard at home with so much activity. We are feeling some twinges of sadness anticipating the next few months of not just one leaving the nest, but two. No, Jamie isn't getting married....but she has applied to go to Grand Canyon University in Phoenix in January. She's flying down next week to look over the school and talk further with them. She has several good friends there and they have a strong nursing program. She hopes to be accepted into the program next fall and thought it would be good to finish the pre-requisites and be an existing student when she applies for it. She thinks most of the pre-req's she's taken the last 2 years at Mt Hood will transfer and she'll continue working on those this fall term. We know if she goes in January, she'll likely be back for the summer (who wants to be in Phoenix in the summer?) but we'll sure miss her. David and Emily will be close by, thankfully. We enjoy seeing Emily often since she's here helping with Benjamin frequently. She's done such a great job with him. I think that will probably continue after they are married. David has stepped up in being much more involved with the 2 younger kids and they enjoy the time he spends with them.

Mom is doing well....she's had lots of 'grandma fixes' the last couple weeks. Jacob & Amy and kids were here from Boston. We got together with them a couple times....then their flight home was canceled due to the hurricane, so with an extra week here Amy and Emily (my other niece) planned a family get together last Wed evening, so there was a houseful. Emily and mom went berry picking Friday, so mom shared a wonderful blackberry cobbler with Larry and I this evening.

Anne is gearing up for the early college program that has her at MHCC this fall. She's very motivated about her classes and I think this will be a good fit for her. Lots of good friends are there and for the most part she's happy with her classes/schedule. Like Jamie, since she's entering this program as a Jr.. she will likely graduate from high school 'on time' at 18, with 2 years of college under her belt. She's very ready to get the algebra over and done with....which I can relate to VERY easily. She is going to be doing childcare for the Women's Bible Study at Good Shepherd on Wed am's this year....I decided since I'm taking her out and picking her up, I should just sign up and stay. We'll be studying Ephesians and Colossians. Larry and I plan to be in the same home group as last year on Wed. evenings as well.
Larry is continuing hard work in the front yard, digging the massive roots out from the tree he removed. Our niece's husband is coming tomorrow to talk about putting sod down in the next few weeks. We didn't want to kill the existing grass (spray) until our blueberry crop was over...but I think we're ready now. Pictures? maybe, sometime....but we have new plants and trees we'll need to put in as well, so that may not be until spring.
Bye bye for now~

Hello...here it is nearly September and such a long time since I last posted.

Obviously I survived the trip to Uganda, although honestly it was considerably more challenging than last year. We camped out in the bush, the remote village where we were nearly mobbed last year. The medical team was a very small part of this outreach, which was primarily an evangelistic crusade that a number of Ugandan pastors and evangelists participated in. Many people responded to the gospel and work is now in progress for a discipleship program for the new believers. There was about 70 of us camping out on a rocky hillside (if you even need to know,those little self inflating air mats that they sell for camping are pretty worthless when you have grapefruit-size rocks under your bedding. However the torrential rain blowing thru the netting on my bug hut was a fairly good distraction. After several nights of discomfort I managed to move some of the bigger rocks out from under me and a tarp was made more secure for the 3 of us that were sleeping outside without a tent. All in all we were really glad we went....it was wonderful to be part of the very first baptism service in that village before we left

We had one extra day in Uganda at the end of our trip and enjoyed a beautiful day visiting the source of the River Nile over near Jinja. We put our feet in the water, had a nice boat ride with some sightings of unusual birds and just a fun day of relaxing together. Long trip home with about 7 hrs of layover in Holland, but we hopped on the train and went down to the canals and looked around a bit. My sister Mindy had made welcome home signs for the team and was there with her 2 youngest kids, my mom plus Larry and Anne to meet me. It was fun!

David, Emily and Jamie had been rehearsing all summer for "Joseph" and 2 days after my return, they moved into the theater and started dress week. Anne was very involved too as she was on backstage crew, doing props,etc. It was an outstanding show...I think I saw it 6 times and could have enjoyed it a 3rd weekend if they'd done that. The girls then worked another week of CYT day camps (they've both had work this summer) before their teen camp this week down at the coast. They are at a camp in Cloverdale and their showcase is tomorrow at 1pm. Mom and I drove down to Lincoln City today just to enjoy an overnight here before heading over to the camp for program. It's chillier than I expected, probably in the 60's, but sunny.

In other Julian family news, we just enjoyed time with my niece and her husband and 4 children who were visiting Portland from Boston. We hadn't seen then for a couple years and so it was wonderful to enjoy one of mom's great breakfasts the other morning and to meet their youngest daughter, Sophia for the first time. Kristin is doing well...really enjoyed the Autistic Children's Activity Program this summer. I heard several times that she was one of the 'best kids there', so we're encouraged that she's doing well participating and keeping a check on her impulsivity and emotions. She's EAGERLY anticipating her 14th birthday next Friday. I made a local hotel reservation so she's excited about it all. She'll be in the same classroom with the same teacher this year, so not much adjustment hopefully in returning to the school routine. Ben is going to middle school, which seems so funny. He's so little. He's had a VERY happy summer. Emily has worked with him alot and he is just one happy little guy. Lots of just smiling and cracking up for very little reason. We have fun together :o) Wedding plans are picking up now that Joseph is over and David is done with his summer intensive spanish classes. All 3 of our older kids as well as Emily and her sister Amanda will be at Mt Hood CC this fall, so they'll enjoy that.

Larry is doing well. He's been working hard in the yard as trees needed to come out in prep for the new lawn going in hopefully soon. I learned that I love to powerwash the other day when Larry rented one. I spent about 5 hrs. working on the driveway mostly. Lots of moss, but it was SO rewarding. I told mom I'd do hers :o)

I've put a picture up of Larry & I yesterday down on the Willamette. We went with friends on their boat all the way from Fairview on the Columbia River down to Newport Bay Restaurant on the Willamette where we had dinner. Such a beautiful day and so much fun to enjoy it with friends.

The sunset photo is this evening, just awhile ago here in Lincoln City.

Take care and catch us up on YOU when you are able! Warmly, Janelle

Janelle Update

I hear all is well on the homefront. Our last night in Kampala before heading north on an early morning MAF flight...
If you are interested in team updates... www.karamojatimes.blogspot.com
It's a church blog that will have occasional updates either from one of the team or Rakel from Global Outreach.
Thanks for your prayers for us and Krissy and all at home!
Love Janelle

this and that....

Happy Summer....It's sure beautiful out there isn't it? Summer seems to have arrived, right on schedule, at least here in Oregon. I'm sitting here in the recliner with a fleece jacket on, but it's more due to the air conditioning in the house and the ice packs on my leg.

With just 2 weeks until our team leaves for Uganda, I would appreciate your prayers for my knee. My mom's dog dashed into our yard last Wednesday morning and I was afraid she would get one of our kitties.....so I made a rather noble effort to scare her back to mom's yard. I just didn't have time to think thru the flimsy sandals + early morning wet grass and it didn't work out very well for me. I went down with my left knee sort of under and behind me and felt something snap inside (I did this in front of a group of the girls' friends and some of them heard it pop). It really was quite painful, and I just had to lay in the wet grass for awhile until I could move with help inside. I was able to get into the doctor a little later that morning; he wrapped it and told me to stay off of it and ice it. By the next day it was much more swollen so they ordered an MRI for early Friday. He called Saturday am and said the MRI showed quite a bit of injury, but while there was possibly a partially torn ligament, I didn't need surgery. This was a relief as obviously that probably would have canceled the trip for me. As it is, we're not sure how the recovery will go. I saw the Dr. this afternoon and he said to still ice it (it's pretty swollen) and I have to be completely non-weight bearing, on crutches. He'll re-assess it on Wednesday. It's just very difficult to do very much when you've got 2 crutches in your hands all the time.

I have done some things (like working on Uganda projects at the church today and making 5 batches of strawberry freezer jam yesterday) that even though I wasn't putting much weight on that foot, probably didn't help the swelling, as I was upright for a number of hours. I'm going to try and be very compliant as I really do need this to get quite a bit better. I can't quite imagine how I could possibly use a pit latrine in my present state...although I don't really want the whole church to try and imagine this, so I'll keep my public prayer requests more general! Thanks for your prayers.

Since this is Krissy's blog, I should talk about her and the wonderful first day she had at ACAP. They did a community outing to a park and she was perfect, according to the staff. That's music to this mama's ears :o) We like reports like this!

Jamie and Anne are both working for CYT this week at a kids camp. They like it alot! Oh, I thought I'd include a couple of Jamie's recent 'senior pictures'. I wasn't with her, but from the 100+ pictures the photographer took, it looked like she had a fun time!

Hope you are well! Janelle

PS: ...and a recent favorite of Anne too

Here he is....Charlie the (bride price) cow, happily getting fat out in the field at the Wrights!

Jamie's Graduation Day~June 12

And a visit today with Jamie's new puppy, now almost 6 weeks old. She (no name yet) will be about 9 weeks old when she comes 'home' July 10th