Wichita Falls Team

Today is the day that the Wichita Falls team comes in. This is the first team that Heidi and Matt ever hosted. Almost exactly a year ago, we had been here for two entire weeks when they arrived. The first week was some turnover with Jim and Kathleen and the second week was with Russ, Bethany, and Carrie, cleaning out the pharmacy and making the house "ours" a little bit. Then this team came in.

It's amazing how much we've learned in a year. For example, Matt can now speak some Spanish. It was funny last year when the team was asking him to help translate for patients. Thank God Hannah Ficker was here!

Anyway, this year should be a little different. We know a lot more about the place, the culture, the people, the language... and we have a baby. Heidi has referred about ten patients in this year, too. Last year we didn't have any - we hadn't been here.

We'd like to ask you to pray, especially, for a young boy named Jaiben. Jaiben is nearly three now. He has Down's syndrome and was also born with an imperforate anus. That means that his intestines do not connect to his hiney. There's no "out door". The immediate treatment is a colostomy. Later in life, when the baby is bigger, doctors will go in and connect things properly.

Jaiben's family cannot afford colostomy bags. So they make do. They have been tremendous caretakers of him, even though they now have an even younger baby. They brought him in last year and surprised our general surgeon friend, Dr. Mercer, who didn't have the equipment he needed to repair Jaiben. So they waited an entire year, cleaning an open colostomy all day every day. And now their day has come. Please pray that everything goes smoothly with his surgery.

Isaac was a little better with the colic last night. Having two extra pairs of hands around probably helped (Carrie and Abby came in last night to help host the team.) Starting tonight, there will be about 20 extra pairs of hands. Perhaps we'll make it through the week without any serious meltdowns!

Well, we have a little cleanup to do before the team gets here. Gotta run. And, sorry, no new Isaac pics. But we'll take some with the team members, we promise!