Mama’s recovery, Victoria’s visit

Pray for Mama. She has had a few bad days as far as the pain in her knee is concerned. She was hesitant to go to church last night because she was hurting so badly. She ended up going in spite of the pain – partly because I offered to take her out for dinner – but mostly because she and I enjoy going to church for the preaching, for the fellowship, for the blessings it brings and for the time to serve and to encourage our church family. I was able to get a medical device working that we used on her last surgeries. It will pump cold water through a sleeve that can be wrapped around her knee. The wrap allows both the front and back of the knee to be simultaneously cooled. That should help with the swelling. Reducing the swelling should help with the movement and increased movement will eventually reduce the pain.

Also, the device has wraps that squeeze the calves of both legs while the knee is cooled. That should help. At first, we were not able to get the sleeve that the cold water is circulated through to fill with water from the reservoir, but I left it hanging while I had the device elevated and last night I discovered it had finally filled so that we can use it on Mama. She is excited. She did finally have a good night of rest last night. She was awake when I got up for work, happy that she had slept uninterrupted for seven hours. For her that is a victory we can celebrate.

Last night Mama played a video for me of Savanna counting to ten in Spanish. I am not sure where Savanna got her West Virginia draw, but it will definitely influence her diction as she progresses in both languages. I will look for a way to capture the videos so that they can be shared, but to date I have not taken the time to discover the pathway to accomplish that. Marco Polo has become the de facto communication app and I enjoy the times I get to see those video chats, but they are not necessarily easily transferred to other media for distribution.

Digressing a few days, I have not written anything about the time Victoria spent in Honduras. Obviously, she had a wonderful time – most of it spent in Cori and Nate’s house with the kids. Victoria was only there for a couple days so it was over far too quickly. Probably the most notable parts of the trip were her surprise arrival and her sudden departure. The exuberance at her arrival was answered by an equally emotional response at her departure. Cori told Mama that for several days after Victoria left, Savanna was very needy, always wanting to be help and cuddled, plying her with constant questions about when Victoria was coming back. The lack of understanding about the cost and the effort involved in Victoria getting there and back is lost one so small. But the visit will continue to play out over the next few weeks and hopefully, Mama and I will be able to make our way down there late in the year and stay long enough to make Savanna understand that we are now far away from her house. That we will not be able to come and see her very often.

A few weeks ago, Nate shared a letter with us. It is a letter written by a missionary wife about the emotional struggles of moving to the mission field – especially as related to her children. In that letter she touches on the idea that as family does make their way to the field to visit those serving on a foreign field– generally one at a time – the time they are able to spend with each other during those visits provides a unique context for personal interaction; unlike anything normally experienced when they were geographically close. What she worried about in relocating so far from family was that the connection to family would be lost. However, she has discovered that those connections are only made stronger as, one by one, family members come to spend time at with them at their place of service. It is a bonding that works both ways – on those serving far away and on those visiting those serving in those faraway places.

Victoria found that to be true.