Prayer requests – health concerns

Our end-of-month post for April is mostly a request for prayer for Ruth and Alex. The good news is that we’re in our new house! Unfortunately, about three weeks ago (the night we were scheduled to spend our first night in the new house), Ruth had a bicycle crash and besides being all bruised and scraped up, she also suffered a concussion. We assumed she’d recover in a couple week’s time, but it has now been a full three weeks, and she still gets headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea, which the doctors have said could take two to three months to fully resolve. The treatment includes vertigo medication, and instructions to rest and not do problem solving or critical thinking. Of course moving into a new house is almost constant problem solving and decision making about where things should go and how the house will operate, so that’s been really challenging.

At the same time, Alex has been weak and struggling with fatigue for the last couple months. We took him to a doctor before the move, but didn’t get a real clear picture of what was wrong, so in April we took him to a different doctor to get a second opinion and discovered he is anemic. He had an iron infusion (IV), and is following up with a regime of iron and other supplements, but just like Ruth, the process can take two to three months to resolve.

As if all that weren’t enough, the hot season in northern Thailand is also the “burning” season, when all the local farmers burn off their rice and sugar cane fields, which has made the air quality really bad for the past couple months. Micah has historically not done well with poor air quality, and that has been true this time around too (he’s had headache, cough, and very low energy for the past couple months). Thankfully, burning season is ending right now, and the air is already much better, and Micah has been really perking up.

In other news, since Josiah and I have been up and functional, he and I had the opportunity to volunteer at another orphanage in April. This one was a believer-run girls orphanage with girls ranging from age 5 to 18. We did games, taught some English, brought lunch, and just generally hung out and spent time with them. We’re both looking forward to going back again next month. I’ve put some photos here – though for the children’s safety and anonymity I’ve used photos where they’re wearing masks or I’ve blurred their faces.