April Update

Well, we are getting down to the final weeks of our Africa adventure. We only have 7 weeks of school left before we are heading home. I have parent teacher conferences in two weeks. This is the final quarter of school. Teaching has been going well. I finished my tutoring sessions with the student and his mother I had been working with. He has made good progress and is on his way to becoming a great reader/writer. I am glad he will be able to finish the year out with the class. His mother also now knows how to help him at home, as well as his 9 siblings. His family gave me a really cool African shirt and Christi a really nice traditional dress as a thank you.

Since we know that we will be coming home we have been planning get togethers and trips for when we get back. We have been talking a lot about what we most look forward to with getting home and what we will miss the most with leaving. It ended up being about the same answer. We are most looking forward to seeing people that we miss so much, and we will most miss people whom we have made relationships with here. I have been talking with my school district about next year. I should know my teaching assignment in about a week. I was guaranteed a job when I get back, but I have no idea what grade or building I will be teaching in. The budget situation in my district is quite grim and everyone hired the year I was hired will be drawing numbers in case the cuts go that deep. They are proposing to cut about 37 teachers next year. This will raise class sizes.

We all went to Burundi to visit Christi's sister and husband during our spring break. Unfortunately we all got really sick. We had a really bad cough and high fevers. When we got back we all went to the doctor and got some antibiotics and cough medicine. I have been doing well this week and Christi and Mili are just about in the clear. They had been coughing all night and sleep was lacking- so it has been nice to wake up feeling rested the last few mornings. Christi had been having some heart issues and went to see a cardiologist. He gave her a very scary diagnosis and prescribed a drug that we didn't know would be safe or not with the pregnancy. He is an American trained doctor. We sent the EKG off to doctors in the States, thanks to Christi's Dad. They all feel that his diagnosis was not correct and that she should be ok. She did not take the drug that was prescribed and has been taking it easy, no caffeine, and walking instead of running in the mornings. We are trying to keep her work load from causing stress that could be a problem. She has been doing really well and we feel good about where things are now. She will have to get looked at when we get back. My insurance won't begin again for the family until October. We were able to get Christi health insurance for the pregnancy and she can use it to have her heart looked at when we get back. We have the insurance now since there is a six month waiting period for preexisting conditions- like pregnancy so we will be covered if there is any kind of emergency. We are blessed to be covered.

Mili is doing better after getting over her sickness and has been back to her active self most of this week. She is learning new songs and has been loving singing. The weather has been off and on rainy so we haven't been able to play outside every evening, but quite a few. I have missed the seasons, but I cannot complain about having an entire year of Spring. This weekend we will be going to a lake here in Rwanda for a night with another couple. There is a little beach that Mili is content to play on all day long. We are looking forward to having a night away with friends.

I have had an opportunity to meet some wonderful Rwandan people who have become my friends. I always love learning from them. Growing up in different cultures gives us different perspectives on things. A friend of mine who owns a local restaurant near my house recently lost everything when the building next to his caught fire. I like to go and hang out with him to practice language because he doesn't speak English. He was telling me about how the fire temporarily shut down the business and destroyed his apartment in the back of the restaurant. He then said, “But God is good.” I was amazed that he could say this so easily after such a loss. I brought my brother-in-law with me there when he was up last weekend and was able to learn a lot more since they both speak French. He said that there is a Rwandan proverb that says a fire brings rains, meaning that after the fire that destroys, blessings will follow. He looks hopefully toward those blessings and teaches me a better way to live.