Overdue thanks.

When I logged onto this site it said that my last blog post was Sept. 11.  Geez, time has flown by.  I have a third quarter year resolution of writing more posts.  I have tons to write about it is just difficult to find time and Internet access.  My stick is broken again so I have to use Andrew's computer at night.  Anyway enough with the excuses and to the meat. 
I have desperately wanted to post some amazing, eloquently written thank you note to everyone who has been a part of our lives and our vision for Sierra Leone.  However, each thing I think up just seems so short of the depth our family feels.  Please know that my lack of saying something awesome is not because of a lack of gratitude but rather an inability to express it.  
I also thought that my plane ride back to SL would be the perfect time to type this perfection of print but as I have mentioned in previous post I am slow.  I was flanked on both sides by children in seats the size of  match boxes trying to keep them from kicking the seat in front of them or dropping red sauce all over their own seats.  Really Brussels Airlines!?!  You thought red sauce was a good menu item on a flight?  With kids and turbulence? And, just let me be American here and complain about  a minor item in life.  Ivey's screen didn't work.  That was annoying.  Here I am choosing to say 'that' instead of 'her' even though she was the one mentioning it every 2 seconds.  The darn Lorax was on and she was really upset about it so we had to do this whole shuffle around to swap seats.  So we get it resolved and she was asleep in 10 minutes.  I hate Murphy.
We made it home just fine and here I am 2 months later never having thanked the many many people and businesses who treated us so kindly.  I know it sounds like I have won a Grammy or something but first I would like to thank God.  Really.  He layed out our days in a symphony of events that were really quite amazing.  I'll tell one of my favorites.  We had received treatment for Ivey's staff infection and unfortunately it came back so we had to do a second round.  Because of that, I wanted to stay longer than anticipated to make sure that it was really gone before we came back.  I woke up one morning and had a long list of calls to make.  One was to our church pastor to respond to a question he had.  When I called he was not available so I left my number for him to call me.  I went on with my list and called the travel agent to ask if it was possible to change dates and got a huge shock.  I found out that it was going to cost us $1200 to do that even though we had changeable tickets (here I would like to insert that I feel that is ridiculous, bogus, and unethical). So, then I had to make a decision.  Do I take the 3 year old with the bubonic plague back to the foreign country where there is no one who can treat it before I feel sure she is well, or do I spend $1200 on plane tickets?  I told the agent I would call back after talking to my husband and I paced the floors a few times.  Then I launched the emergency procedure and called the troops to the living room floor.  Levi, Ivey and I got on our knees with our faces to the floor and prayed for God to help us to know which one to choose.  We got up and I regrouped.  I walked over to the computer that had not worked all morning to just check one more time.  It worked.  I messaged Andrew to see what he would have us do and saw that our pastor from Harpeth had asked me to call him.  I knew that he was wanting to ask about anointing Ivey's head with oil so I called with my times lined up.  He wasn't calling about that though.  He was wanting to tell me that the church wanted to help us with our emergency fund expenses while we were in America.   Now since they already gave us a huge amount of money just 7 months before to buy a car, I must say that I was totally taken aback.  I was just so flabbergasted that we had just prayed and then here was the answer so plainly and so quickly. Harpeth thank you so much for that!  Thank you for anointing Iveys head with oil and issuing such sweet prayers on Ivey's behalf.  Thank you for being a church that loves well. 
I won't list out everyone who helped us because as surely as the sun rises in the east I would forget to mention someone or something and feelings would be hurt.  I would never want that so I'll leave that to personal thank you notes.  Our friends and family housed us with the utmost hospitality.  We just couldn't have been more blessed.
I have mentioned before that we have been very blessed by our doctors and here I will say again that I would highly recommend both Brentwood Childrens Clinic and CoolSprings Allergy Associates.
Also, I want to mention Enterprise rent a car on Germantown Parkway in Cordova, Tn.   I was really impressed and decided I would tell everyone I know how great they treated me.  I felt that they really worked hard to accommodate me, gave me a great price and were extremely courteous.  Totally recommend them if you need a vehicle in Memphis.
I am working on getting the photo's of the container arriving and of Isatu and Albert's birthday parties up soon!
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