Oh, say can you see....

 I am having a distorted view of the world this morning. Like literally. Somehow, someway, I managed to run out of contacts:( I found a few for my one eye, but I'm not sure if this is better or worse. Anyway, since I'm short on time and my vision is blurred, I am going to pull a story out of the dusty files of my blog, one I had typed up awhile ago but never published. Coincidentally, it has to do with an eye doctor trip down here....

Once upon a time I had the brilliant idea of taking Kaylah to the eye doctor down here, instead of when we are home for a visit, thus gaining myself approximately two more whole hours of social time.
  The date was set, the appointment was made, and the directions were halfish gotten. It's kinda hard to get real directions when there are no addresses. They went something like this.....
 "From the bus terminal in town go towards market hill, then ask someone around there."
 So that's what we did. Unfortunately, no one that we talked to at market hill really seemed to know  where the eye doctor was located. I knew the receptionist had said something about a bank so we headed in that direction and asked again.
 The lady we asked around there also didn't know, but directed us to a man nearby selling newspapers, whom she thought would have that kind of knowledge.
 He jokingly teased her, "What? You don't know where the eye doctor is!?....and you lived here how many years?" And then he proceeded to shared his wealth of knowledge with us.
"You go down this street, make a right, go to where RBTT bank is, and right across from there is a sign showing where the eye doctor is at."
 That all sounded good and well....but..
"Uh, sir, aren't we standing right at RBTT bank?"
He takes a second glance at his surroundings and admits, "Oh, yes! Yes! I meant the Republic bank!"
Ok, so that means we are headed back, almost to square one, the bus terminal. We must have walked right past it.
We headed down in that direction and sure enough, there was a sign hanging, Grenada Optical.
We went in and sat down and waited for a few minutes. Everyone seemed to be busy with other people. I had this nagging feeling that, how do we know we are in the right office? I looked everywhere for a sign, plaque, or even a piece of paper that would have the eye doctor's name on it. There was none to be found.
 Finally, the receptionist got off the phone and I asked her if this is Dr. McGuires office.
"Oh no, it's not!" she said. "He is located at the bottom of market hill. You know, the road that goes straight up."
"Ah, yes!" now I know what she's talking about.
 Embarrassed, I tucked my tail between my legs and headed off to their competitor's office.
This time we walked right to the correct eye doctor.
We didn't wait long till he called us back and began to ask Kaylah the standard "eye doctor" questions.
"What brings you here?
"Well, my eyes kinda hurt," she said.
"How long have they been hurting? Months, weeks, days?"
"Oh," she didn't know. "Maybe months?"
I assumed he would read between the lines and figure out her tired eyes might be the result of needing a stronger prescription for her lenses.
  I have this habit of answering for her which annoys her to no end, so this time I thought I will let her be the young lady she wants to be, and answer the questions for herself.
He asked a few more questions and I managed to keep my lips sealed, except for a occasional word or two that slipped out.
 "Well, lets see whats going on here," and with that a got a bottle of yellow gunk and put a few drops in each eye. She frantically blinked and twitched, but managed to be pretty lady like about the whole thing. After that, we were ushered out to the waiting room to wait till her pupils enlarge to twice the size. (Ugg, hate that feeling!) After about a half hour wait, we were summoned back to the examination room again, where he proceeded with the "bright light in the eyeball" examination.
Pleased with what he saw, he sat back and announced the wonderful news.
"Well, Kaylah, good news! There seems to be no sign of infection in your eyes!"
I was happy to hear that, but truthfully, the thought of an infection had never even crossed my mind.
We really were there to get new glasses because a certain young lady had left her's on the floor and the dog had gotten ahold of them and used them for a chew toy.
"So did her prescription stay the same?" I wondered.
The doctor looked at me strangely.
"Yeah, her lenses. Did they stay the same or does she need stronger ones," I further explained.
"Oh, I didn't do that kind of examination and I can't now because her pupils are dilated. You'll need to come back for that. You should have told me that's what you wanted," he looked at me reprovingly.
"I'm sorry for my foreign ignorance, but I just thought that's what eye doctors do, without being told", I thought silently to myself.
"Well, that's why we came, because she needed new glasses," I said.
"Well, I didn't know that," he explained. "First and foremost, I am an eye DOCTOR. Secondly, I prescribe glasses, lastly is contact lenses.
 Oh, so there's different "levels" of being an eye doctor? 
He picked up her glasses, purple frames, complete with bite marks, scratches and all.
 I don't know if looking through the scratched up lenses caused him to pity her, or the fact that I was still sitting there trying to comprehend this latest turn of events, but he said, "Well, by looking through them I should be able to get a good, close idea of what her prescription should be. He held them up toward the eye chart and squinted and looked through one lens, wrote a few numbers down, squinted and scowled and looked through the other lens and wrote a few more numbers down.
  Now I was becoming seriously concerned. So you're gonna just look through my daughter's scratched lenses and give her a prescription of what you think will work for her? I was regretting my brilliant idea of more social time back home and was beginning to think two more hours of social time is not worth poor eye sight for my daughter.
 He then proceeded to hold some lens up to her eyes, which by now were only a sliver of blue showing around her massive, dark pupils.
 "Can you see better with #1 or #2?"
By now, I was wishing we would have just left, because I remember that feeling of dilated pupils. That painful straining to just hold your eyes open. There is no way she is going to see right with #1, #2, #3 or #4! He wrote down more numbers and told us to pick a pair of frames and to come back tomorrow to pick them up. It wasn't hard to pick frames with the small selection but we did find one that will work.
The next day we headed down to town again. We arrived there only to discover he won't be in for another hour. We walked around town to waste time, then went back again. This time he confirmed the prescription (thankfully) and told us the glasses will be ready by tomorrow, sometime after 3:00.
We still didn't get them though because they called and said they are not ready yet, but should be by Monday....we'll see. I won't hold my breathe...
Ok, now that you heard my long story, I do want to say, I don't want to put all the blame on the eye doctor. He was a nice chap and I guess it was just a misunderstanding that caused the confusion.


And now, forgive me, as I unload a month's worth of pics on my blog....

                                                        Kaylah at the eye doctor

 Paying their last respects...even Frisky joined the solemn occasion. Seems about every other blog post includes the death of another dog. This time Princess met her fate on the road, much to the children's dismay. Christi really like this dog & she didn't want to attend the burial, for fear of nightmares. I asked Chris why we go through so many dogs, when down here dogs act like they own the roads. There are alot around and you'll find them walking all over the road and even taking a midday snooze on the road. Drivers generally look out for them and I think the dogs know that. We concluded it's because we live along a busier road, at a turn in the road and a wall blocks the driver's sight.

     Brother's Camp....the menfolk church members go camping once year as a way to have fun and
      get to know each other better. Here Sammy Mapson is cutting up peppers to make fried rice.

                                       Just chilling....not literally, just a figure of speech...

                        The boys had so much fun fishing....quite unsuccessfully, but fun anyway

 Some of us ladies took the children to the beach while the men were camping. I don't too often have beach pictures because I don't like to take my camera out there because of all the sand. I snapped this one with my phone and was surprised how clear it got. These men are pulling in a net of fish.

 And since the men got to hang out, we thought maybe we ladies could sneak away too:) We roped Pastor John in as our taxi driver and tour guide one Saturday. He took us on a little tour around the island. Their date to leave is coming up fast, so we are trying to glean as much info from this storehouse of information. Seems he knows everything there is to know about Grenada!
The pic above is some of the ladies from Grenada Mennonite Churches...was disappointed it didn't suit more of the Grenadian ladies. 

                       Too much weight to make it up a hill, so we unloaded and walked up...

And that it was!:)....see the view from the bathroom in the picture below. No wonder everyone took so  long in there!

                                                             

                          Junior Youth Night...they love when we take them to the beach
                          and play games with them. Here they are playing "Jump the River."

Some scary faces:)...taken at youth night in the dark, so excuse the glare

This bottle rocket launcher has been entertaining the children! They fill a bottle about half full with water, clamp it in to the apparatus, use the air compressor to fill it with air, then pull the pin and the bottle goes flying! Some fly about 60' in the air and one went flying across the road and into our neighbors drive. Not good. We told them to aim them a different direction:)

                                                                      Up, up and away!

 

  We had the privilege to take Duane & Dawn Bergey and their 2 daughters on a little tour of the island. They are from the Lansdale Mennonite Church in Pa. They were here for a week for board deputation. A board member comes 3 times a year to interview and visit with the staff and to see how things are going.

 Chris & Duane chatting at Anondale Falls

 A beautiful sunset! If you look close at the large cloud, you will see it is a rain

cloud and is dropping it's water somewhere out in the ocean. I should use this 

     picture for an advertising campaign for visitors!:) Aren't you tired of winter yet???

Doing dishes is so much more exciting when you find a baby frog in the sink!

 Pizza! Pizza! No, I'm not starting my own pizza shop, but prepping for hot lunch at school. They have hot lunch every Thursday, and Ginger and I take turns making it. With the extra Laura students this year, the numbers of orders have rose and it is almost too much to make the pizza all in one morning, so I made the crusts ahead of time.

 And then sometimes my kitchen looks like this when I'm preparing for hot lunch. I boiled the water, threw the noodles in, put the lid on, and all was good and well.....until I opened the lid and a volcano of noodles erupted:( I didn't even have time to clean it up before I left so I came home to a dried noodle mess. No ones fault but my own....but it sure would have been nice to be able to blame it on someone else! haha

Church attenders picnic...and a little farewell for John & Rachel....just a little one though:) They didn't want a big fuss:)

                                      The men and boys played "football" (aka soccer)

                                         

 Ahhh, there's more than one way to get housecleaning done, although that really was not the point of this chart....the children were falling into this bad habit, to the point, I believe, they almost thought it's mandatory to let out a sigh, grumble, snarl or snort every time I told them to do something. Now the choice is theirs...complain and pick a chore or don't complain and don't pick a chore. It's very simple. In theory. Is it working? Depends how you look at it....my cleaning is getting done:)

        Yea, we are getting some cleaning done....and Chris even got a shoulder rub out of the deal. Carter misread the paper and thought "Scrub Dad & Mom's shower" said, "Rub Dad & Mom's shoulders." He went up to Chris and started rubbing his shoulders. When Chris asked him what he is doing, he said, "Well, the paper says I have to do this!":)

 The children have been spending hours behind our house in the jungle. Or the bush, as it is called down here. They found this foundation of an old house and fixed it up for a clubhouse. The floor was so covered with dirt, they didn't even know it was concrete underneath till they got to sweeping. And sweeping. And sweeping. I fixed them a little picnic lunch to eat back there.They would LOVE if you would pay them a visit. If nothing else, to be their laughing stock for the day...

What appears to be an innocent branch on a tree is, in reality, nothing of the sort. It is intentionally hung there as a way to distract you as you push it aside, so you won't notice the line strung across the path, just waiting to trip the unsuspecting trespasser...

                                   Just innocent vines, you think? Not so. Sinisterly lurking underneath
                                 is a string, stretched taut, quietly beckoning you to fall flat on your face.

                         You're almost there, you pick up your pace. Not a good idea though.
                         These vines are strategically laid in such a way as to cause you
                          to get your feet tangled in their loopy masses.

               And then, this is probably what will greet you. A bunch of cackling children,
        congratulating themselves on the success of their booby traps. (Yea, the traps DO work!)

                 What is the code? Will that open the automatic garage door? Or maybe the cast
                iron gate guarding the property? Or the padlocked front door? Or is it just a threat?

                                     A small, flexible tree, that has been cut off a few feet from
                                         the ground, serves as a launching pad for missiles.

  

               And this is the reason for our late suppers recently. He is repairing the frame on
              the truck. It was cracked and in extremely bad shape. He has been working at this
               alot and likes to work on it till dark, so as to make good use of the daylight hours.

                                 "Mom! This is sooo good! Dad made me unfrozen ice cream!"
                                     My curiosity is piqued. "Oh? So how did he make that?"
                                             "He mixed powdered milk, vanilla and sugar
                                               and it tastes right like unfrozen icecream!"
                                                 Oh, the power of proper wording!.....lol

                                  It's hard not to love your children when you find them all in
                                    your shower, scrubbing away, wanting to surprise mom...:)

                                Carter said," You should have seen that muddy water!" Ok, I
                                 know it was bad, but I don't think it was quite THAT bad!

           In honor of children's month in October, we planned a special Wednesday night service
            geared toward the children. We sang children's songs, played Bible baseball and had snack.

                               A typical Sunday morning at LaBorie Mennonite Church.

                     This angel baby is beyond cute! I wish you could see her head of thick black hair!
          A lady that occasionally attends our church wanted us to have a baby dedication for her son.

       "Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let Thy glory be above all the earth". Psalms 57:5

We had an excellent message at church yesterday challenging us on our view of God. How much do we tap in to all that He offers us? Do we pray fully believing He can do what we are asking of Him?
 The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much! We again want to thank you all so much for praying. Sometimes its hard to convey in words how much that means to us. Thank you for your prayers on behalf of our health. We are feeling much better and are soo thankful for that! We are hoping it lasts through our visit home. We are planning to leave for a visit home next Wednesday and return Dec 3. To say we're excited would be an understatement:) Can't wait to see our friends and family again! I believe Kaylah's getting a little nervous...she said, I'm afraid my friends won't like me anymore. I told her I don't think she'll need to worry about that.:)

Prayer requests:
The need for pastors...John & Rachel are planning to leave November 19, leaving only one pastor at this location.

Our children...they are battling some fears, probably irrational, but based on an intrusion of privacy

Grenada Mennonite Churches...that the devil wouldn't defeat us and that we can be an effective witness to those around us

Our family...that we can have a safe trip, stay healthy and have an enjoyable time reconnecting with friends and family, and feel refreshed and renewed to come serve again. I will admit, as excited as I am to see everyone, I'm not looking to forward to the inevitable goodbyes again. This past year went fast though, and its hard to sum it up in a few words. It has been a stretching year but certainly not without its share of blessings and good times!

This blog will probably remain dormant now for at least a month, as blogging is not going to be on my list of priorities during our visit home:)