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

And to think I slept thru all of this....Anne apparently felt that Jamie needed to welcome her birthday in style around midnight last night

I'm hoping the neighbor monitor, Mr. Johnson was as asleep as I was....He may wonder about our family...I'm thinking a hose and the evening gown?? I guess if you want to dance in the rain, you can make it happen!

How to choose from a pile of puppies?

I can hardly believe our first baby girl is 18 years old today! Jamie has been such a joy and we're excited to see where God leads her in the coming years. She is finishing her 2nd year of Mt Hood Community College and officially graduating from high school June 12th.

We had lots of fun today as Jamie got to pick out her new puppy. Nana, she and I went to our friends home where the Mama dog Bailey (pictured here) was looking very content with her 8 pups. Parents are both purebred, but Bailey is quite blonde and the most petite Golden Retriever's I've seen. Jamie chose one of the little girls but hasn't decided on a name yet. She can bring her home July 10th. Krissy is sitting at the table with Jamie now trying to coax the name out of her :o) She is suggesting Lisa at the moment. Ok, Blogger has a mind of it's own and apparently has decided that you only need to see the mama dog right now....it won't let me post a 2nd photo for anything. SO....until my next blog (hopefully immediately after posting this!)

Love's redeeming work is done....Hallelujah!Hope this will be a wonderful Easter weekend for you and your family. Here is Gresham, we're being treated to a beautiful, (almost) warm, sunny day. Larry is sleeping thru it, but the rest of us are enjoying it!I was going thru Krissy's bag today where she has a huge stockpile of pictures and other things she's printed on the computer. I was amused to find a sheet of paper in the mix where she typed out "we are people helping people...showing that with just a little love and a little understanding...if we take the time to care, every moment that we share will be guaranteed to have A HAPPY ENDING". Not sure who she might have borrowed that from...Probably a well known song and I'm so NOT 'in the know'....

News from our place... 

• Jamie got her driver's license about 2 weeks ago. We haven't seen her since. Just kidding, but she is a busy girl and it is nice that she can take herself places now. Krissy is anxiously awaiting her arrival home from Vancouver this afternoon, so that they can go for a ride.
• Change in David and Emily's wedding date...Church wasn't available the 16th, so updated 'save the date' is Sunday, December 18th at 3pm. They met with Alan, our lead pastor who has agreed to marry them. Normally they would be assigned to a 'mentoring couple' at church for a pre-marital study, but Alan graciously said he would like to meet with them himself, since he's close to both our families. I think we're all aware of the wonderful opportunity this is for them. They continue to meet with Joel and Lani, a young Christian couple and have so enjoyed that time together.
• Larry and I plan to fly to Hawaii on Tuesday morning. We are really looking forward to this time together of rest and refreshment. Actually, probably a little more relaxing for me since Larry has a conference from Wed-Sat, but they finish at 1pm each day, so that gives us a lot of the day together still. We have friends who are also going (people Larry has known from the NICU for years). A couple we get together with frequently from church are also there later in the week visiting their married daughter, so we plan to take them to see the big sea turtles on a quiet beach where they are often sunning themselves...then have dinner at 'our place' on Friday. Next day, Larry's mom and David are flying over to meet us so they will arrive just a couple hours before Larry's conference wraps up.  As you can imagine the logistics of covering all of the bases at home 24/7 was challenging, but I think with God seeing to all the details I can't know about,  it hopefully should work.  There is a color chart indicating who is covering who, when every hour of the day, posted on the fridge.  Please pray as the Lord reminds you :o) 
  

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of our big boy in his new shorts. He's hanging out in the backyard today and enjoying that beautiful blue sky!

We did have an unexpected grand time this past week when we went to the church for the family pictorial directory photo shoot.  You just would have to be there, I suppose, but everyone (including the photographer) was in stitches.  I think she managed to get one that we can all live with...barely. 

Blessings to you and yours this Easter!  Love, Janelle & all