Taking Christmas to Orphans, 2008

Once again, I am part of a team of people who are heading to Russia to play with and love orphan children, who are usually under loved. This time, though, we are heading there in the dead of winter! The past three times I have gone, we have played outside and really enjoyed Siberia--it looks and feels like East Texas on a warm Spring day when you are there is June. This trip, I get to meet the Siberia of Dr. Zhivago and feel her punishment. I am strangely excited at the prospect of real, god-honest cold.

Here's a copy of the guide that our church produced to let people know where we are, what we are doing, and what they can have in mind when they pray for us. Please keep us in your thoughts for the week we are going:

27-28 December - multiple flights to Tomsk
Pray for safe travel of the whole team.
Psalm 143 “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.”

29 December - sharing the Christmas story at Orphanage #4
Pray for the orphans.
Psalm 8 “From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise.”

30 December - sharing the Christmas story at the Preschool Orphanage
Pray for Tomsk UMC and their members.
Psalm 133 “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

31 December - sharing the Christmas story at the Blind Orphanage
Pray for the leaders of the Russia Peace Foundation.
Psalm 122 “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say „Peace be with you.‟”

1 January - sharing the Christmas story at the Deaf Orphanage
Pray for greater awareness of the global needs of children.
Psalm 125 “Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their
hearts.”

2 January - sharing the Christmas story at Eagles Nest Orphanage
Pray for children’s health during the intense winter months.
Psalm 30 “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.”

3 January - multiple flights to the US
Pray for our future partnership with the people and children in Tomsk.
Psalm 103 “But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting…”

TEAM MEMBERS
George Brigman, Team Leader

Fay Adams + Mitzie Avera + Claire Brown + Sheila Brown + Becky Canter + Jacob Canter + Zack Canter + David Dickerson + John Hilliard + Penelope Loughhead + David Thacker + Paula Wallace

Happy Birthday number FIVE, Mia!

I have been thinking a lot the past couple of days about this morning in 2003. Stacy was complaining that she felt pain in her back and sides--pain that we might have recognized as labor pains, except that this was three months early, and we had been to our "how-to-be-pregnant" class only once, thanks to a November thunderstorm. I went on to campus to teach my eight a.m. Freshman Comp. class (the best class of students I ever had, thus far!) betting that Stacy would feel better later. She did feel better later, but "later" was after delivering Mia via emergency c-section, and getting and recovering from the flu.

Mia was so terribly tiny. She was bright red, and I watched the doctors (who were pretty freaked out, in my opinion) cover her with saran wrap to help keep her warm. About then, my mom and Suzy showed up, and Nana, too. I was in a daze, but I remember other people coming up to the nursery window to coo at their new baby. After showing off her new nephew, one lady asked me which one was mine; her face changed when I told her my daughter was the tiny one surrounded by doctors.

Mia and I took our first trip to Dallas together that day on a fixed-wing care-flight plane. Before I left Methodist Hospital that night with Dianne Betts (the coolest lady I know, to this day!), I got to touch Mia for the first time. All I touched was her toe--I kissed it before I left and I told her that I loved her and asked her to fight.

The day after she arrived, Jason took off work and drove up to Dallas to take care of me. Evidently, I was a little freaked out! He took this photo to show Shannon how small Mia was.

I am so glad she is a fighter! I don't even mind her being a little stubborn now that she is a big girl! She blesses me every single day, and has done so, now, for five years straight. Her birthday is more to me than any other.

David took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Seeks affectionate, satisfying and harmonious rela..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

ADVENTURES IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH

Check out Moore Farms in Bullard for your own Pumpkin-Patch, Corn-maze fun.

This Tin Man stands guard over a haystack near the main barn

Emily, Mia and me in the Maize Maze

Kathy, Stacy, Mia and Emily

Kathy and Emily navigate the corn labyrinth

Emily likes to help Mia walk. They are really sweet friends.

Mia contemplates the existential experience of "hayride." She is smart like that!

This hayride could be called a "hay train," or "city bus" in many parts of the world

Stacy tolerates our usual silliness pretty well; she's a good sport!

From the look on Mia's face, the whole situation is disturbing

She got pretty tired from walking the maze and waling all over the pumpkin patch, but daddy is always good for a ride, if you need it! :o)

Sunset over the Pumpkin Patch

Stacy and Mia playing in the corn bin

East Texas State Fair, September 2008
(Yes, we all realize that East Texas is not a state...)

Even though we didn't technically deserve it, here's our

Anniversary Vacation, 2008!

Anniversary Vacation, 2008 found Stacy and I in St. Croix, USVI. We stayed at Carrington's Inn in the hills above Christiansted. We much preferred this B&B experience--where we were able to meet other travelers and enjoy their advice, as well as the guidance of our hosts, Claudia and Roger Carrington--to staying at some resort.

The view of the harbor from our terrace

The Courtyard at Roger and Claudia Carringtons' Inn

While we were there, we sailed out to Buck Island to snorkel. We got to visit with Captain Steve and his wife, Lindsey, and hear their story. Apparently, Lindsey met Steve on board the boat while she was taking a break from grad school, vacationing. The next thing they both knew, they were in love. She dropped out of school, moved to St. Croix, and married Steve. They seemed very happy.

Stacy is a snorkeler

Captain Steve at the helm

Day two was the highlight of the trip, for me. Stacy and I met up with another couple, newlyweds Michael and Nicole, and went on an eco hike with Ay-Ay Ecotours. We were guided by a very passionate and colorful naturalist, Ras Lumumba Corriette. The hike was four hours: two to the tide pools on the coast and two returning up into the rainforest hills. Ras took time both ways to introduce us to all sorts of edible plants and fruits, as well as to aquaint us with various animals and natural features we encountered. Despite nearly passing out from getting overheated on the way back, that hike was fascinating!

We had to use the trees to keep from rolling back down the hillsides a la Jack and Jill.

Stacy enjoys the tidal pools halfway through our eco hike

Ras Lumumba Corriette, 62, could outhike a triathelete!

Our final full day there, Stacy and I went for a kayak adventure in the Salt River Ecological Preserve. Despite having a good guide, the kayaking was a bit anticlimactic after the Annaly Bay hike, but we still had a great time.

Me and Stacy near Columbus' 1493 landingsite

Before we flew out on Sunday, we wandered around the Whim Plantation for an hour or so before driving into Frederiksted for a look-see. The plantation was closed, but that meant that the grounds were abandoned aside from ourselves and three rather large iguanas. Stacy and I had a great trip and enjoyed a much-needed time of renewal together.

Stacy really needed a bath before we flew out...

This big bowl is not Paul Bunyan's cereal bowl, but rather is a pot used to reduce sugar water to syrup on the plantation.

"Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!":
Happy Birthday, Dear Shelley!

Today would have been Percy Bysshe Shelley's 216th birthday. He died of drowning when he was only 29, but is considered immortal because of his poetry. He is best known for other poems (like "Ode To The West Wind"), but here is my favorite of his works:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Because Childhood is Not Traumatic Enough...

"Dr. Mia" prepares for surgery with a smile.

Since her early birth in November of 2003, Mia has suffered from a condition known to medical science as "the wonky eye." Basically, everyone but me could see that her right eye--her weaker eye--would drift off from whatever she was looking at, especially when she was tired. Occasionally, even I could see in some photograph that it was especially difficult to know just what Mia was focused on. The problem with this nefarious "wonky eye" disease is that, if your eyes do not see the same image, the smarty-pants brain tends to ignore the image sent by the weaker eye. Through time, the weak eye will atrophy and literally shrivel up and drop out.

Because we would prefer it if Mia had the chance to use both eyes for her 80 plus years on this planet, we finally scheduled a "procedure."

So, Wednesday morning we showed up to the hospital for Mia to experience eye surgery. It was not a terribly difficult operation for the doctor, Dr. Hunter, to perform; basically, he detached and reattached the lateral rectus muscles (the outer muscles that rotate her eyeballs). The procedure is supposed to be relatively painless, and Mia has not complained one bit about pain in her eyes.

She was called "Dr. Mia" by the nurse there, and she had visitors! Mr. Paul and Miss Cyndi came to see her and stayed to pray with us in the waiting room, and Nana (a.k.a. "Grammy Nana") came and stayed through the surgery and then came to the house later and stayed for some of the fun times there. Dr. Baker also came by--Mia loves him and gets excited each time she sees him at church--but he had to leave before the surgery was over. He left Mia a cute black teddy bear and drew her a bunny.

As is common with her, the anesthesia made her very sick, so she was basically unable to eat all day yesterday. Other interesting side effects: now she is visibly cross eyed and she sees things at a distance in twos. She says she can see two daddies, etc., which is a little disconcerting (though common after this surgery).

Mia just a little drunk after enjoying "silly juice" pre surgery

She is fine and happy today, although a bit more temperamental than usual--she is usually a sweet angel, of course! :o)

We will keep her at home through the weekend, and possibly through the beginning of next week to lessen the chance of infection. Even after she is released to return to school, she will not be allowed onto the playground for about a month, which, if I recall correctly, is about a year in kiddom.

Dancing with Mia Emmeline