Dear friends and praying ones,
It has been a while since we’ve written and let you know how we are.
Some of that is because we’ve been sick AGAIN, most of that is because we’ve
been lazy. Please forgive again.
The latest sickness to hit the Rathmell home has been a doozy…this virus
has rocked our world. Thankfully, it hasn’t gotten to Buddy and he
has been such a great help and encouragement to us. It has been 14
days, so yesterday I took Adrianne in to the doctor because I smelled her
breath and it REEKED! That was a first, so I figured that it must’ve
turned in to bacteria somewhere along the line. The doctor thought
Jack should be looked at in a couple days as well. Being true to form,
Jack accelerated those three days into three hours, because after his nap,
he was happily playing and about an hour later, I realized that one of his
eyes was swollen shut! Back to the doctor in the afternoon. He’s
on antibiotics too.
Now I’m wondering if I should be. J I know something, I’m all
out of love. I need something because even the cutest things that the
kids do are driving me crazy. And there have been some really funny
things. Once, Adrianne sneezed and I looked up at her to see two lines
of snot coming all the way down to her knees. I really should’ve gotten
then camera…it was amazing. Jack has also gotten cabin fever and has
learned to bring me his shoes as if to say, “let’s get out of here!”.
His favorite word is “mo” for more of anything. Usually it’s food.
Well, it’s a couple days later, and Jack’s other eye swelled up yesterday,
so we went from the one-eyed Jack to the ½-eyed Jack. He kept
running into walls and bumping himself everywhere he went. He’s been
a trooper, but has been getting Buddy up at 4:30 every morning because he
can’t breathe. Of course, the ole’ snot-sucker-outter has never been
known to lull any babies to sleep, so he punishes us by staying awake from
that point on. This morning both eyes look a little better. Adrianne
is well.
We wanted to let you know that this weekend is our annual “Rampage” retreat,
and though we usually get out a prayer card, we weren’t able to this time.
(Translation: Jen didn’t get it to the Home Office to have them do
it!) Would you please remember us as we take our 70 students and staff
for the long weekend? We are excited…there is a servant team of 12
people coming to help, so I don’t even have to cook! There is a potential
for this to be a more “relaxing” retreat…whatever that means. Please
pray that our students will grow deeper in their faith and have a heart for
others who do not know Christ.
Our fellow Malachi workers from Mainland Japan will be coming down to speak,
and then will hang around for a couple extra days. We are looking forward
to having them here. Please pray for their safety and travel.
We’ll let you know how things go…and update you on some travel plans for
the summer. Buddy’s grandma and grandpa have graciously offered to
pay for me (Jen) and the kids to come back for Buddy’s brother’s wedding,
so it looks like we might be able to swing coming. We’ll let you know
more later…
Love to all, Jen for us.