An unexpected visitor

For the last 2 weeks we have had a guest in our home. No it is not some wonderful family member or friend from the US--although we wish(hint hint). It has been a lttle dog named Scruffy. There are many things I thought I would do on the mission field, but babysitting a dog is not one of them. Being so far from home, the mission community becomes like your family away from home. While the transient nature of mission life makes making friends difficult, the friendships that develop tend to be strong. Will's teacher, Ellen, and her husband, Dan hold a very special place in our hearts--not just because they went to Auburn either. We have enjoyed getting to know them this year and do somethings socially especially during football season.

During the last week of school, Dan's father passed away. It is hard to imagine being far from home during the midst of a family tragedy, and Dan and Ellen made the tough choice to return to the States for a few weeks. Therefore, we are watching their little dog Scruffy. He is a tiny little thing, but he and WAGs have gotten along well. The kids were very excited to have Scruff come visit. It has changed the dynamics of our house a little as we have added a 4th dog to the yard. Every few days Scruffy sends an email and a picture about his life and trials in the Gilmer household. The Brooks have posted some pictures and a few of his letters on their blog if you want to check it out at-- http://www.brookslanding.com/

Isn't it about time for a Clinic update?

I want to apologize for the lack of blogs about the clinic recently. Ginger has been very faithful to write updates about our family and adaptation to the Filipino culture. There are a couple of reasons for my lack of blogging. During the last part of April and into this week in May, I have had several bad weeks of feeling miserable, running a high fever, unable to eat, unable to get out of bed. I truly felt like death on a Ritz cracker. The first week in May was probably the sickest I have been in many, many years. Fortunately, the memory of those 2 weeks now just blur together into one big, very long, terrible day. I am still not sure what my diagnosis was – it was a fever of unknown source. All my labs were normal except for a high White blood cell count with a high neutrophil percentage. I had a few ideas about the possible causes but lacked the proper lab tests to distinguish any particular cause.

I appreciate those of you who prayed for me. I know Ginger sent an email to some about my sickness and in return, we received many words of encouragement through email and phone calls. If I spoke with you or emailed you during that time, please forgive any incoherent statements or mumblings made.

As for the clinic, we have had some very interesting and some very difficult cases recently. It seems the severity of illness that we are treating is increasing. There have been an increasing number of extra-pulmonary (outside the lung) cases of tuberculosis with some showing signs of being resistant to our current supply of medications. I will discuss this more in one of our future newsletters. Some of our sickest heart and lung problems would certainly be hospitalized in the USA but we struggle to manage them through the clinic since hospitalization would certainly deprive them of many of the resources they need for food, shelter and the necessities of life.

One of our biggest blessings this month was the arrival of our ultrasound. This equipment came from the same hospital closure in Illinois that also provided us with an EKG recently. The ultrasound was so large that it had to be crated and shipped separately from the smaller items. In God’s perfect timing and planning, a non-profit group with world-wide logistics connections offered to ship our ultrasound here free of charge. This hospital quality ultrasound will provide a great benefit to our patients. The various imaging transducers will allow us to perform 2-dimensional echocardiograms (heart images), obstetric measurements (for the moms to be), abdominal and soft tissue imagines (such as liver, gallbladder, kidneys, etc).





Our equipment is first off the shipping container.










The packing crate was so big we had to disassemble it just so we could put the Ultrasound on the truck.













Finally on our truck and ready to head back to the clinic!

Isda anyone?

This morning I was awakened at 6:15 by a man walking down the street shouting "Isda.....Isda.....Iiiiiss-daaa". It is not uncommon for us to have salesmen walking down our street announcing their wares, but this was a little earlier than normal. So what type of things are for sale? you ask. Of course we have the Filipino version of the ice cream man, which is either a young boy carrying a Styrofoam cooler slung across his shoulder filled with ice cream, or a bike type push cart that plays a song as it rolls, but we also have other goodies for sale as well. Anything from Ice cream to balut (a Filipino delicacy consisting of a half formed duck egg), to men carrying foam mattresses to plastic ware and of course isda--which is Tagalog for fish. My thought at 6:15 am was-"Who wants fish at 6:15 in the morning?" Quickly followed by the thought--"Of course- fish is a breakfast food here". I am sure someone took the fish vendor up on his offering of fish and right now they have cleaned and cooked that fish and are sitting down to a nice breakfast of fish, eggs, and of course rice. As for me, I will just stick to my toast. After awaking a few minutes early this morning, I woke up the kids for the last day of school. I then decided to lay back down for "just a minute since I don't have to fix lunches." The next thing I knew the kids ride was here and they weren't ready to go. There was no lunch to fix or backpacks to pack. Yet, for the first time this year, they were not ready when their ride showed up. Will didn't even have a shirt on because he could not find his uniform and Emily had not even begun to de-snarl her hair. I quickly helped them finish up and get out the door. What a way to end the school year.

addition to the above blog: It is now 7:20 and it just dawned on me why the kids were late in getting ready for school and the reason I was awakened by the Fishmonger. We normally wake up at 6:00 not 6:30. No wonder the kids couldn't get ready by 6:45. Ooops! Do you ever have those little mental moments?

Fresh Pineapple!

The weather has cooled off a little since last weekend's typhoon. The rains have come and the clouds have kept it from being quite so hot. This afternoon(Sunday), Will, Emily, WAGs, and I enjoyed being out in the back yard. Will was busy doing his "workout" which consists of swinging, running laps around the yard, 50 pushups, chinups, and climbing up a rock wall. He began having a workout routine in Greenwood, where he also used hand weights. He is so funny when he does this. He says he wants to get big and strong. Emily spent her time visiting with the baby bunnies and swinging. WAGs spent his time chasing Will or the Nelsen's dog. Our yard is on a large slope and so the back yard is terraced. As I was sitting at the top of some stairs leading to a lower level I noticed something growing in what I had thought was just a tropical bush or plant. In the center was a cute little pineapple. How do you grow pineapples? Cindy told me that you cut the green part and about an inch off the top of a fresh pineapple and plant it. It takes 9 months to mature. I guess this pineapple was planted shortly after we arrived. One of the things we like about living here is eating fresh pineapple. I usually buy one each week-- my favorite variety is Dole super gold. It is very sweet and smells really good. There are many varieties, but this is one of the more expensive. It costs only a dollar a piece so we bite the bullet and get our favorite. I think over the next few weeks I will plant some more pineapple tops. I will let you know in 9 months how they turn out.

Emily checking out the pineapple

Will and our pineapple

This young coconut tree was planted when our house was built about 5 years ago.

One day it will provide some shade for Will's swingset

Our boy!

I just thought I would post this picture of Will. A friend took this picture of him at school and sent it to me today. I thought it was really good. He has changed so much since we moved here. The kids are growing up so quickly!

Our first Typhoon!

Well we have survived it--our first typhoon. Early Saturday morning a catagory 1 typhoon passed through. We knew it was coming from the news, but I am not sure I really believed it. We had done a little prep work of filling buckets with water and bringing some chairs in off the balcony. About 3:30 in the morning the winds began to really blow outside so Allan and I got up and shut all the windows in the house. Shortly after, the power went off.

The Philippines averages about 19 typhoons (a pacific hurricane) a year. I guess it is like snowfall in the US. When it snows a little down south, everything shuts down, but in the colder regions, it takes a blizzard. That is how it is here--like the northern US in winter. Emily's class was having a sleepover at school Friday night. No need to cancel that for some rain and wind. 8 am Saturday morning when she returned home, Jeepneys, trikes, and people were out in the rain going about their business. People went on with lives and work like it was just a long summer shower. Power outages are not rare here so even that didn't seem to slow anyone down. The grocery store just fired up their generator and continued business as usual.

As for the Gilmer clan, we stayed home and enjoyed the cool breezes that blew. It was a great day for me to curl up on the screen porch with WAGs and a book. Allan did do a little work on our generator and finally got it going in the afternoon. It ran for about 4 hours so we could didn't lose the food in the fridge. We also had one light for a couple hours in the evening. It turned out to be a nice relaxing day. By Sunday morning power was restored and it was off to church for Mother's Day! We went out to eat with another family afterwards and it was like nothing had happened. We are still having really cool weather. I hope it last, but know it won't so I will enjoy it now!

More Slumber Party Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from Friday night's big event!

Eating Pizza!

Hanging out on our roof!

We have a flat roof with a metal spiral staircase leading up to it. The kids love to play up there. Emily and Will often ride scooters there. I avoid it usually because I hate climbing down the spiral staircase.

The girls brought baby powder to make their faces white and "scare" the boys

Will's class

Last night our house was full. Will's class of 13 came to our house for a sleepover. He has an exceptionally sweet group of kids in his class and so his teacher wanted to do something really special as they wind down the school year. It began as soon as school was out with a couple hours of swimming at Faith. After that, everyone piled into our van and Mrs Brooks car and headed over to our house. The kids organized themselves into a game of capture the flag while we waited for pizza to be delivered. After dinner, we watched the original Little House on the Prairie movie from the tv series. The class has just finished reading "Little House in the Big Woods" and studying the American pioneer era. They were sufficiently worn out by this time to fall asleep just after 10. Boys stayed down stairs and the girls stayed in Emily's room.

It was great fun and the kids were all so well behaved. One of the nicest moments of the day came just before bed. He Min (aka Joy), a little girl from Korea, closed our day in prayer. This year, Mrs. Brooks has really encouraged the kids to pray in the language they feel most comfortable using when talking to God. It is good for those who do not speak English as a first language to feel free to pray in class in their "heart language". So Joy ended our day by praying first in Korean and then in English. It was very sweet. I wouldn't normally have 13 kids over to spend the night, but we have loved this class this year. It has been such a good class for Will to be in. He has made some great friends.

more WAGs Tails

A funny thing happened tonight. WAGs went into the closet in the office. There is an old mirror in there and it really freaked him out. His hair stood up on his back and he began barking at himself. Allan and I had a little fun with him. Al pulled the mirror out and WAGs kept circling it looking for the other dog behind the mirror. It was really cute. I am not sure he ever got it. Al and I are such exciting people that we can be so easily entertained by a dog. It reminds me of the days when Emily was a baby and we spent all our time watching her do exciting things like bat a toy hanging above her head- not that she in anyway reminds me of a dog.

Who's that in the mirror?

"Where did he go?"

Happy Birthday to me!

Today was my first birthday spent in a foreign country and it was declared a national holiday. The kids were off from school and we went for a swim in the afternoon. Later we had a cookout with the Nelsen's and another family. It was a lot of fun and good fellowship! It was nice that a holiday was declared in my honor. They called it Labor day, but I really know the truth! (Funny how in the US people have a hard time remembering if Labor day is in May or Sept)

For my birthday, Emily baked her first cake. She got the recipe out of an old American Girl magazine that belonged to Anna, who lived here before us and is now around 20. It was really easy and the taste wasn't too bad, but it wouldn't win any contests. I think Em was proud of herself, but a little disappointed in the taste. I explained to her that the recipe has a lot to do with how good something is and a cake recipe that lacks eggs, lacks a lot. I was so proud of how good she did with no help. We had a great laugh when I told her about the first time I made a macaroni cassarole for Allan's dinner as a young newlywed. I didn't know you were supposed to cook the macaroni first. Oops! It was a little crunchy. I think she was glad my cooking skills have come a long way. Anyway I am now....well I am not going to announce my age on the internet. Those of you who love me know how young I am.

Emily's cake with a beautiful flower candle!