Cyclops & Earthquakes

This week had a rough start on Monday morning with some glitches with our high school hearing screenings, but it all worked out. We actually had issues throughout the whole week with the screenings (finding quiet rooms was the main challenge). We're almost done - just a few freshman left and some re-screens. I got to give my "I care about your ears" lecture to the high schoolers when I did their screenings and at their Chapel on Thursday. I told them to not listen to their iPods at more than half the maximum volume level, and to use over-the-ear headphones instead of earbuds to protect their ears from permanent hearing loss. Eve and I went through my midterm evaluation, and I finished up the reports from our evals last week. We saw our regular kids and didn't have any new evals this week because of the screenings, but we did have a parent conference. It was a relatively relaxing week.

Wednesday we got peanut butter cookies at Bible study (compliments of Alyssa's pembantu). I had a dream about finding a giant armadillo on my toilet (not sure where that came from), and just last night I was woken up by an earthquake! It wasn't bad and it didn't last very long, but I definitely felt it. I tried to find out the magnitude online, but it hasn't been reported yet. I'll keep you posted. ;) Joel and I did a lot of wedding planning this weekend, so we spent many hours on Skype. I also did some work for Mission Emphasis Week (MEW), coming up March 23-27. Please keep that in your prayers, as Melanie and I finalize plans and get all the preparations done. I think it's going to be a great week for the kids at "Camp H.O.P.E." Pray for the students and volunteers as well. Thanks! Kevin (my pilot when I went to Anggruk) spoke at church on Sunday about Jeremiah 29:11-14, emphasizing that God will be found by us when we seek Him wholeheartedly. We had communion, too, and I had the privilege of praying for the mother of one of the ladies. That was the first time that I was asked to pray for one of the requests that was shared, and I was so excited! It was actually a praise that God had healed her mom - we had prayed for her last week. It's so cool to see those immediate answers to prayer.

I did get to climb Mt. Cyclops this weekend, but I didn't spend the night. Not having done anything like that before, I thought it'd be smarter to just go for the day and maybe do something a little more extreme next time, after I knew I could handle it. We were on the mountain by 6 am on Friday morning, and we hiked up and up and up! We saw some great views of the city initially, but then we were climbing through the jungle. It was so green with tall trees everywhere! The bugs weren't too bad, but most of us ended up with flea bites around our ankles. The trail was pretty steep - there were several sections where we had to use vines (graciously provided by our 5 guides) to climb up. We all have a better understanding of what it means to be "connected to the vine" (John 15). We climbed until noon, had some lunch, and then half of us started back down the mountain while the other 3 ladies set up camp. It took us almost as long to get down the mountain as it did to get up. It was a lot harder going down - partly because we were tired, and partly because it was just so steep! Going down the vines was definitely trickier than going up. I used a tongkat (walking stick) on the way down, which helped a lot! We got back around 6:30, when it was definitely dark. I was tired and sore and dirty, but I felt really good, too. We found out later that we were half an hour from the white flag - the goal. It's not quite the peak, but it's close. I'm content knowing that I was that close and that I could've done it had I known it was just another 30 minutes. I don't feel a need to climb Mt. Cyclops again to prove myself. ;) I'm a little sore, but can still function normally so I'm not complaining.

My dad still has a fever. He's going in for his IV antibiotics every evening, and has been going in to work for a few hours. But the fever's still there. They're going to do more tests next week I think. Please pray that God will heal him of this fever and that the doctors will figure out what it is so they know how to treat it. It might be related to his heart murmur, but we're not sure. At any rate, the procedure to remove the tumor on his bladder is scheduled for April 2nd, as long as he's healthy enough by then. He and the rest of my family have been busy filling sand bags. With all the snow Beulah's gotten and the not-wide-enough drainage ditches near our house on the way to the river, there's a possibility of flooding. Please pray that our house would be protected from a flood. I really don't think we should have to deal with that, too!

Good news: the 4th grade teacher's visa finally went through!! Thank you for praying! There's still some other paperwork that needs to get wrapped up with his mission organization, but we're hoping that he'll be in the classroom by the middle of next week. Praise the Lord!!!!

Photos from hiking Mt. Cyclops