Oliver and I sitting in the hospital last week.

Oliver

         One of our younger children, Oliver (6 years old), started having convulsions brought on by malaria last Thursday night.  They first treated her in a Budaka clinic, and then we rushed her to a hospital in Mbale as she wasn’t responding to the medication quickly enough.  As she continued to convulse, kicking me, ripping at the clothes of Aunt Betty (who was holding her in her lap), all of us in the car were scared, wondering if she would even make it to the hospital.  We just kept trying to hold her head away from the door, where she could bang it, and continued praying.

         Thankfully, the doctor got Oliver into the hospital immediately on arrival and was able to get her the needed treatment.  Her convulsions stopped by about midnight of the same night we brought her to the hospital.  Our nurse at Cornerstone, Mary, was able to stay the night with Oliver and make sure she was okay. 

         I then had the opportunity to spend all of Friday in the hospital with Oliver, while the nurses continued to give her medicine through her IV.  I taught her Tic Tac Toe, we went on I Spy walks around the hospital grounds, I let her play games on my phone, and we watched movies on my laptop.  (This was my first time to spend an entire day in the hospital- they really are boring, but vitally important, places!).  

         Oliver ended up staying two nights total in the hospital and came back ready to play with her friends last Saturday. Many of the other Cornerstone children had expressed concern that Oliver wasn’t ever coming back, so seeing her allayed their fears.  The other kids showered her with attention and there wasn’t any shortage of smiles or laughter that afternoon.  It was great to see our Cornerstone family reunited after such a scary illness took Oliver away for a few days.  I am happy to be able to write that Oliver is fine now. :)

Moses' newest breakthrough

Moses has learned another great skill this week!  Since he is the “baby” in the Cornerstone family, and because of his age, he likes to throw temper tantrums.  Often his tantrums are a result of his inability to adequately communicate what he needs or wants, and in the end, everyone wants to stop him from crying, so they figure out what he wants and give it to him. 

         Knowing all of this, I have been working with him on expressing himself using words and sign language, not screams and tears, to communicate.  Maybe I’m spoiling him further, but there is one thing that I’ve discovered motivates him well in this endeavor: sugar.  Each time he’s in our kitchen and sees our container of sugar, he points to it excitedly.  I decided he should learn to say and sign the word “sugar.”  I helped this vocabulary term along by giving him some sugar granules in his hand each time he asked for sugar with his words.  For the last few weeks, I have said, “What do you want?  Use your words,” but I have always had to first give the response, “Sugar please” for him to say it back to me.

         But yesterday, after he pointed at the sugar, I again said, “Moses, what do you want?  Use your words.”  And he said, “Sugar please,” while using the sign language I taught him, all without me first prodding him with the answer.  I was so excited!  And of course, I gave him some sugar in his hand as a reward.  So he’s learned to communicate what he wants (which is almost always sugar now) but now my dilemma is: When do I stop giving him sugar as a reward for communicating? Whose really training who here?

         Thought I would share this great next step in Moses’ development.  And by the way, he is walking everywhere these days.  There’s no leaving him behind anymore, whether it’s a game, meal time, or whatever- he follows the children and gets involved.  Every day, his gait is strengthening and he can walk farther without stopping to rest.  Yeah, Moses!

Love you all,

Abby

Highlights from the week ;)

Hey friends!  It has been a good week here at Cornerstone.  Here are some of the challenging, fun and interesting stories from this week:

o   Last Sunday, I was teaching the children’s class at church and we were looking at the Battle of Jericho and the wall falling down.  Two things happened during the class: I had the kids doing tower-building competitions with plastic communion cups and my interpreter left to go and teach the youngest children (babies-age 3).  I was left with 60 kids, 184 cups, and 45 minutes to teach a skill I soon realized nobody had ever learned (except for me).  Note for next time: first show how to stack cups to build a tower, and try to find a smooth surface (our floor is made of chipped cement, and so most of the towers that the kids were able to make fell over after a few seconds).  Well, one lesson learned…

o   Moses is scared of other white people: On Tuesday, Pastor Rogers, my mom and I took Moses to see a physiotherapist in Mbale.  We got to ride in a car for the 30-minute drive and all of that was very exciting for him.  However, upon reaching the doctor’s office, Moses saw his doctor for the first time and started screaming.  He didn’t calm down until after I took him outside, and even when we came back in, he cried every time she even tried to touch him.  I never knew bazungu (white people) were so scary!

o   A while back I had written about trying to teach the kids about being good sports when playing games.  I have continued to remind them not to have a “bad attitude” but have been wondering if they really picked up on the message.  But this week I have decided: They were really listening!  I went in to say goodnight and pray for one of the rooms of boys on Thursday and I chose to start with Dovico.  As I sat down next to him on the bed, I heard Johnson say, “But Tr. Abby, you always start with Dovico!” (a fact which I can definitively say, is not true, but that’s beside the point).    Ronald, the oldest boy in the room, immediately looked at Johnson and said, “Johnson, stop!  You’re doing ‘bad attitude!’”  They really got the lesson.  Victory is sweet.

Well, there’s a bit of my life this week.  Thank you for the thoughts, prayers, financial support- I appreciate what all of you do so that these kids continue to have a great home and I get to be here with them.  And as always, I would love to hear from you!

A picture of Moses saying "Hi!"