We don’t start the big Lake2Lake ride for 24 hours, but we’re already starting to get butterflies.  Pray for us that we make it and that we have a lot of fun.  The weather is supposed to be pretty brutal, but oh well, it’s bound to be an adventure.  Better adventure, better story!

The BBQ fundraiser was a smashing success — over $1100 profit thanks to so many generous friends in our community!  Over the past two weeks, we’ve also managed to get Wellspring some PR on the web (this blog), in the newspaper, on the radio, and we even did a TV interview with Shaw Cable yesterday afternoon.  Hopefully, it all pays off with more and more people finding out about an organization that we believe in so much.

We’ll send out an update later next week to let you know how we did.

Tags: Lake2Lake

Four members of our Williams Lake riding team (from left - Dave Dickson, Tracey, our sister, Tamara Smith, and Mark). Not pictured are Ken Brown and my dad, Elmer Thiessen.

Nine days to go until the big ride. As we get closer to the date, we are excited, nervous, and just ready for it to be over all at the same time.  We have trained hard over the last few months, but it has become difficult to put in the necessary training hours to prepare properly for a 220-kilometre ride over two days.  Unless one wants to say goodbye to the kids for most of a Saturday, it’s almost impossible to do the required number of kilometres.

We have been so grateful to many family members and friends who have already donated to The Wellspring Foundation for Education through our Lake2Lake fundraising, but we’re not quite done yet!

If you’d like to support us, you can do that in one of two ways:

1.  Click here and then click on “Support a Rider”.  There, you’ll find our names or pictures, and you can support us directly.

2.  You are welcome to attend our fundraiser BBQ and silent auction this Sunday from 12:30-2:00pm at our house (631 Gibbon Street in Williams Lake).  We’ll be serving hamburgers, hot dogs and pop and everything will be “by donation”.  We’ll also have a silent auction with some great stuff up for grabs.  At present, we’ve lined up some Rwandan crafts, a quilted wall hanging made by my mom, a beautiful framed Trevor Linden photo donated by Erik Zwiers of Papyrus Printing, and some of Sandra Dickson’s famous baked goods.  All proceeds will go towards our Wellspring fundraising.  Please drop in and pick up some food even if you can only stay long enough to grab a burger and run.

If you’d like to read more about what we’re up to, you can also read today’s article in the Williams Lake Tribune by clicking here.  If you aren’t able to join us for the BBQ, keep us in your thoughts and prayers next weekend (October 1 & 2) as we conquer the two-day trek!

Tags: bike, fundraiser, Lake2Lake

It’s been over four months since we last wrote a blog entry, so I thought I’d give you a quick family update and also tell you about a Wellspring fundraiser Tracey and I are participating in.

Tracey started working as a casual on the maternity ward at the hospital in mid-June. She is averaging about a shift a week which is exactly how much she would like to work. It has taken her a bit to feel comfortable again since a lot can change over a two-year absence, but she’s starting to get her groove back.

I worked as a substitute teacher and acting principal for the last three months of the school year. It was good to get back to work, and I especially enjoyed my longer stints as principal of two schools when my colleagues were off on medical leaves. In a couple of weeks, I will be heading back to the classroom as a Grade 6 teacher. There were no administrative positions available in Williams Lake, so I have chosen to teach for the time being. It will be the first time in twelve years that I have had my own classroom, so I am excited and nervous at the same time. As a bonus, I will be teaching at a school where all three of my sons will be attending, and I have family and friends on staff, so it should prove to be a lot of work and a lot fun!

I’ve written three paragraphs already and have not even mentioned my eye.  Your curiosity must be killing you.  (In fact, your curiosity may not be killing you at all, but a question about my eye is almost always the first topic of conversation when I meet a friend out in the community.)  In reality, there’s not a lot to talk about, but that’s probably a good thing.  For the most part, my eye has stabilized and hasn’t changed much in the last few months.  A scar on my cornea will likely cause a permanent blur, but it is something that no longer impacts my quality of life much except for the fact that I may never be allowed to wear contact lenses again.  The positive is that the vision in my left eye around the scar continues to improve, and both my optometrist and my ophthalmologist have been amazed at the progress in that area.  I still take drops (only eight drops a day for the last few months) and regularly visit my specialist in Vancouver (about every six weeks).  The next appointment with my specialist is next week, so I will get the latest info then.

As for the family, we have pretty much adjusted back to life in Canada.  We still miss our friends in Rwanda terribly, and there are often days when we wish we could just give them a call and get together.  Alas, that’s the “joy” of making such good friends that now live halfway around the world.

The summer months have seen three of the kids spend some significant time at camp.  Brooklyn spent three weeks on staff at Camp Likely, about a two-hour drive from our home.  Jonah and Sam each spent a week there as campers, and I was the camp speaker for two of the weeks in July.  While the weather was poor for much of July, all of us very much enjoyed our camp experiences.

Brooklyn and friends, Alex and Sarah Dickens, at camp after being "dunked" by buckets of "leftover smoothies"!

Since camp, we have spent time in the Kootenays at Panorama Mountain Resort near Invermere at a Thiessen family reunion, in Kelowna for a week of beautiful weather and lying around near the water, and in Canmore for a cousin’s wedding in the heart of the stunning Rocky Mountains.  For these last few weeks before school, Tracey will work more and I will begin to prepare for school.

Jonah and Eli create a "Mermaid Sammy" on the beach at Okanagan Lake

These weeks at the end of a northern summer that always seems too short also sees Tracey and I training again.  For those of you who have followed our story over the last couple of years, you will remember that is was about fifteen months ago that we trained for and participated in a half-marathon in Kigali.  This time, we are training on bikes which I happen to prefer a great deal.  On October 1st and 2nd, we will be participating in Wellspring’s Lake2Lake fundraising ride, a two-day venture which will see us cover 220 kilometres over the weekend.  For the most part, the training has been pretty fun and also helped prepare us for a four-day cycling trip around the Gulf Islands we thoroughly enjoyed with our great friends, Aaron and Angela Whitehouse, at the beginning of July.

Mark & Tracey with loaded bikes in Ganges on Saltspring Island at the beginning of July

You can learn more about the ride if you click here, but the long and short of it is that we are raising money for the teacher training program we worked for while in Rwanda.  When you know all of the people personally and have worked alongside them for eighteen months, it’s pretty easy to be passionate about the cause!  On Saturday, we completed our second 50 kilometre ride, so we are starting to increase our distances.

Over the next six weeks or so, we will give the odd update through our blog as to how the training and fundraising are going before the big weekend.  We are blessed to have my Dad, sister, and friend from Williams Lake join us for the training, fundraising, and the ride.  If you would like to financially support any of us, you can click on the link above and then click on “Support A Rider”.  From there, you will find our photos or scroll down to find our names in the menu (Mark & Tracey Thiessen, Elmer Thiessen, Tamara Smith, or Dave Dickson).

For all of our Williams Lake friends, you can also support us by attending a BBQ at 12:30 on Sunday, September 25th at our house (631 Gibbon Street).  All of the proceeds will go directly towards our Lake2Lake fundraising.

Many of you who read our blog have supported us and Wellspring over the last two years, and we are so grateful for all of your contributions.

For those of you who don’t know, we are now using a new e-mail address (thiessengang@gmail.com). Please change our address on your list of contacts if you haven’t done so already.

Until next time!

This coming Sunday evening, April 17th, at 7pm, we are hosting an evening at Cariboo Bethel Church. If you would like to hear some of our story over the last two years and you live in the Williams Lake area, we would love to have you join us.

Some of the focus areas for the evening:
- Our family adventures during our time in Africa
- Tracey’s experiences in a volunteer nursing capacity in Rwanda
- Mark’s work with teacher training as a team member of The Wellspring Foundation
- The joys and challenges of working and living overseas with a family of six
- Lots of pictures and a couple of videos

*NOTE: We are well aware that this evening coincides with Game 3 of the Canucks-Blackhawks series.  The game starts at 5pm our time, so if you choose to watch the game instead, please join us after the game is over.  Anyway, that’s what the PVR machine is for!

It’s been almost four months now since I woke up with incredible pain in my left eye. A lot has changed in those four months. Through it all, God has been faithful to me, my family, and to Wellspring as our course took a 180 degree turn upon diagnosis in early January.

I have been somewhat reticent to blog about my condition over the past couple of months as I wanted the focus to shift away from me and shift toward the well-being of my family as they first prepared to leave Rwanda and then as we all have transitioned back to life in Canada. Still, wherever we go, whenever we open an e-mail, or when we answer the phone, the first question asked is, “How is Mark’s eye?” We have been consistently in awe as to how many people have followed our story over the last eighteen months, generally either through directly or indirectly the blog. The power of social media has not been lost on us, and it has worked to our advantage as so many people have kept us and, more specifically, my eye, in their prayers. So much so, that I’m thinking about setting up a Twitter account and tweeting daily eye updates (okay, not really).

It’s high time our blog readers got a bit more of a detailed description of what exactly is going on inside my eye. As you read this, keep in my mind that I am not a corneal specialist (although my new best friend is one) and the information I am passing along is based on my understanding of what I have been told at my doctor’s appointments and also on my own internet research.

The acanthamoeba parasite is a single-celled organism that normally feeds on bacteria and yeast. It does not usually need a host, but if it finds one, its appetite becomes voracious. Lucky for my parasitic friend, I was the perfect host. First, living in Rwanda, I likely gave the parasite many chances to stop by for a visit. Unclean water is generally where the parasite hangs out, so we could easily have had our first blind date (pun intended) in our bathroom shower, swimming in Lake Kivu, standing under the brown waterfall (photos seen on earlier blog entry), or even swimming at local hotel swimming pool.

After that initial meeting, I remained very hospitable to my guest. Substandard contact lens care – wearing my daily wear lenses for too many days and not completely changing my solution everyday – allowed the parasite to create a comfortable home for itself. For good measure, once the intense pain and light sensitivity arrived on that fateful November morning, I made him feel even more at home by wearing my air travel blindfold, thereby ensuring my visitor had a warm, moist and cozy existence.

Acanthamoeba was first established as a cause of human disease in the 1970s, and the parasite can cause three clinical syndromes, based on how the parasite gains entry into the human body: granulomatous amebic encephalitis or GAE (the brain), disseminated granulomatous amoebic disease (skin, sinus, and pulmonary infections), and acanthamoeba keratitis (the eye). Fortunately for me, the acanthamoeba parasite entered door number three. While acanthamoeba keratitis can be vision threatening, GAE is usually fatal (nearly 100% of the time). In none of my research have I found that the acanthamoeba in my eye could eat its way through my eye and into my brain, so rest assured I shouldn’t be pushing up daisies anytime soon.

As for now, my last appointment with my corneal specialist was on February 21st. Overall, he continues to use words and phrases like good progress, ahead of schedule, and the body of a world-class athlete (well, maybe not the last one). The parasite has moved from the active stage (trophozoite) where it was mobile and consuming bacteria – let’s call this the “turkey dinner with all the fixins” stage – to the cyst stage where the trophozoites go into dormancy and form double walled cysts which are incredibly resistant to methods of eradication – let’s call this the “long nap after turkey dinner” stage. The disturbing part of the dormancy stage is that the acanthamoeba parasite may live in my cornea for a very long time, if not forever. Any amount of freezing, heating, and irradiation will not make it go away, and would do more damage to my eye than good. A complete corneal transplant could offer more hope of a “Bon Voyage” party but is far more invasive and is a last resort, according to my specialist.

As the parasite encases itself into these cysts, it leaves scarring, and as we all know, scars usually stick around for life. As the parasite has transitioned between phases and the scarring has been happening, the amount of vision in my eye has bounced all over the map. One week, I feel like my vision has improved substantially, and the next week, I feel like it has taken two steps back. To avoid as much long-term damage as possible, I am taking steroid drops to slow down the inflammation while also continuing to take my other drops to attack the parasite. It’s one big balancing act. The positive news is that I’m now down to fourteen drops a day and only two drops in the middle of the night as I am slowly being weaned off the drops so that the doctors can see how the parasite reacts. Still, the reality is that I may be on one or more of the drops for a long time to keep the parasite sleepy and inactive.

To get a two-minute snapshot of my unwelcome guest, you can click here to watch a short two-minute video.

As for life in general, I am feeling very healthy otherwise. The only symptom remains blurriness in the eye which causes the odd headache. For those of who you remember me walking around with my eye closed for months, the constant winking is likely in the past. I present like a fairly normal person now (insert own joke here), and if someone doesn’t know about my condition, they are unlikely to notice anything is amiss. (On a side note, I recently watched an old Seinfeld episode where George gets some citrus pulp in his eye and can’t stop winking at people, so no one believes anything he is saying. Crazy hijinks ensue!)

I started driving again a couple of weeks ago. So far, it’s only been short trips in town, but I’m gaining confidence as the days go by. I’m also hoping to start working after the school district’s spring break. For now, it will be filling in for administrators or substitute teaching. I am very much looking forward to getting back into schools again, and Tracey likely wouldn’t mind having me out of the house once in awhile. In the meantime, I have been doing a bit of work for Wellspring from afar.  At first, we thought we’d be making weekly sojourns to Vancouver, but for now, they have been extended to monthly appointments, so that has been an answer to prayer as we try to regain some regular routines in our lives.

My spirits are good, and while I still question why God would allow a one-celled organism to turn our lives upside down, I don’t have any lingering bitterness or regrets. As others are doing, we continue to pray for full healing and full vision to return, but we also trust God that He will use the wisdom of my doctors to bring about my recovery.

We are so grateful for your continued prayers and ask you to keep praying for a miracle.

Tags: acanthamoeba, eye, God

Initial thoughts on returning to Canada…

-Warm water comes out of the taps, so nice, especially with this cold weather.

-Saran Wrap (cling wrap) actually rolls out of the box and covers the food item I need to wrap, every time!  For making lunches every day for the kids, this is a relief.

-Toilet paper is SO soft, and has squares that are perforated so the paper tears off when you want it to.  Sorry to mention this one, but it is true.  My friends in Rwanda will appreciate this one.

Our friend and colleague, Kirsten

-Driving is so simple, even on winter roads.  I am not dodging other crazy drivers on narrow, curving roads.   I can even get a coffee in a drive-thru Tim Horton’s and enjoy it WHILE driving.

-No speed bumps, or “Sleeping Policemen” (as we call them in Rwanda).  Actually, there is one speed bump that I have driven over in the local grocery store parking lot, but it is so small I hardly notice it.  I don’t even slow down. Plus, the roads are all so smooth and free of massive holes and hazards.

-CHEESE and MILK.  We have commented often already that our milk doesn’t taste like we are licking a cow.  I also don’t spend hours every week pasteurizing milk or making yogurt and cottage cheese…sigh

The Bible study girls (l-r Jodi with James, Jocelyn with Johannes, Michelle and Jessica)

-Whole Wheat flour…amazing!  I have also bought whole wheat bread and the white bread I have tried doesn’t taste like cardboard, nor does it turn dry and crispy in 24 hours.

-being able to talk on the phone to loved ones and even skype in Canada with little or no delays.  Internet is so fast!

-not having to light my oven or stove with a match, and matches that actually light.

Our friends, Annet and Innocent, generously present our family with gifts a few days before our departure

-drinking water from the tap and not having to haul filtered water up the hill to our house for drinking every 36 hours.

-electricity that is dependable.

-uninterrupted sleep…no Muslim call  for prayer in the wee hours of the morning every day.

These are a few of the wonderful things I have re-discovered upon my return to Canada, since arriving Feb 5th.  Of course, it has been great seeing family and friends again too. This really goes without saying.

Kerry, Kristen & Jocelyn took me on an overnight getaway to a tea plantation

It has been just over four weeks now since we flew into Vancouver and were re-united with Mark.  It had been six weeks since we kissed him goodbye at the Kigali airport.  At that time, none of us entertained the thought that we would not see Mark again in Rwanda.  We all figured he would be back in a few weeks.  I was happy to send Mark off to Canada for a diagnosis and treatment because it had been a difficult number of weeks watching him suffer in pain at home in Kigali and frustrating dealing with the poor medical system.  It wasn’t easy being on my own with the kids, but we have wonderful friends in Rwanda, who are like family to us.  They were all SO supportive.

When Mark and I received the diagnosis that his eye problem was in fact very serious and would prevent his return to Africa, we were stunned to say the least.  We really didn’t know what to do, plus we were also expecting Mark’s parents to arrive in a week for a pre-planned visit.  We decided to pray for one week and than make a decision about going back to Canada.  We were praying for a miracle healing so that Mark could come back.  Neither of us, nor the kids were wanting to cut short our time in Rwanda.  At the one week deadline, and on the same day that Mark’s parents flew into Kigali, Mark and I made the gut-wrenching decision to have the kids and I return to Canada.  What a strange turn of events, having Mark’s parents come to visit at the same time we would be preparing our exit…and yet this was also a God planned time for us all.  What a gift to have Mark’s parents be with the kids and I for our last three weeks in Rwanda.  Though we were (and are) heart-broken about having to end our journey to Africa early, there are so many ways in which God has answered prayers for us.  Mark’ parents were a big support to me and the kids.  They also encouraged me to spend as much time as possible with friends and made sure I was able to see a few more sights before leaving.  The kids and I had some meaningful time with friends and I took the kids and their grandparents to a few favorite spots in our last weeks.  I know that Mark was also very thankful that his Mom and Dad were standing in the gap for him, as he felt sick that he could not help in the huge task of moving back.

Pastor Elmer and Sherry Komant and other friends took the family out for a goodbye lunch

So, now after this first month has gone by, we find that the reality of our sudden departure is starting to sink in.  What a whirlwind of emotions these weeks have been.  You know, we could spend a lot of time asking why this has happened, what the purpose is in all of this, and also wondering if Mark will see again out of his eye and be completely healed.  We are not spending much time on these questions, though we do have moments when we wish we could understand it all.

What we do know is that we set out on a journey two years ago, knowing deep within our hearts that God was taking us on a mission.  God has been with us and we have learned so many things over the last 18 months in Rwanda.  Our family has been greatly impacted by this experience, in so many ways.  What a privilege to serve others.  I could fill a page of all the ways that God has been with us and has answered prayers in big and small ways.  We are so sad to leave this country that we grew to love, before we felt ready, but we have peace because we trust in God and know that He is with us.  Though it is hard to let Rwanda go, we now choose to embrace this next part in the journey.  We focus on settling our family and on dealing with this crazy parasite in Mark’s eye.  As a family we talk lots about life in Africa, thinking fondly on that chapter in our life.  We also wonder and dream about what might be in store for us in the future.

Jodi, our next-door neighbor and good friend, taught us so much about how to live in Rwanda

As you think of us, pray that we transition well back into life here.  The kids are all in school and though for the most part are adjusting, they too are struggling at times to fit back into life here.  They are also missing their school and friends back home in Rwanda, not unlike us.  Mark and I are so thankful to be able to already be moved into our house and we are in the process of unpacking boxes.  I will admit that I am freezing cold most of the time still and wonder if I will ever be warm again.  I am a bit of a baby with this winter weather. Ha!  Those in relationship to me in Williams Lake can attest to this, I am sure.  Please also pray for complete healing for Mark.

In the midst of all the challenges life throws us, God is good ALL the time.

Isaiah 26:3   “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!”

I hope this second attempt at writing will work.  Blessings to each of you.    Love, Tracey

If you have tried to access Tracey’s blog from Friday entitled “Simple Pleasures”, you only got the chance to read it if you saw it in the first few hours after it was posted. We are aware that it has not been accessible for most of you due to server issues. We will re-post it as soon as we can. We apologize for this interruption. Please return to your regularly scheduled program.

Today in Williams Lake, it is -21 degrees Celsius. With the wind chill, the Weather Network says it feels like -30 degrees Celsius. For our American friends, that’s a very chilly -22 degrees Fahrenheit. Did I mention it’s snowing too? Tracey is cold ALL the time. She often laments the fact that an unscheduled early return to Canada meant a February arrival as opposed to a June arrival in Canada.

The family reunion began two weeks ago today as Tracey, the kids, and my Mom & Dad landed in Vancouver thirty minutes late after thirty hours of traveling. We were so blessed to have Tracey and the kids get flights aligned with Mom & Dad to ease the burden or traveling home from Africa solo with four kids.

Saying goodbye to Jeff, Jodi & James

As always, flying with young kids is an adventure. Sam threw up just before the first flight landed in Brussels. As his older brother filled his barf bag, Eli followed suit seconds later with Tracey doing her best to catch it all. A tad unsuccessful, Tracey was forced to change Eli into new clothes but only had spare underwear and pants, predicting only the other kind of accident. Thus, as the family disembarked the plane and entered the Brussels airport, Eli sported a t-shirt smelling strongly of vomit. A partial solution was soon at hand as a duty-free store offered cologne samples. For the rest of the flights, Eli bragged to those who cared that he was wearing “man’s perfume”, not completely understanding that the smell of puke mixed with cologne was only slightly better than puke alone. It reminded Tracey of the days in the mini-van when a child’s vomiting was soon followed by a stop at a gas station for a new pine-scented air freshener. The remainder of the voyage would always smell like a forest threw up in the van.

The remainder of the trip home to Canada was fairly uneventful. My sister Tamara and her daughter Kira drove down to Vancouver from Williams Lake to help transport people, suitcases, and action packers. We were able to fit our African lives into her suburban and Mom & Dad’s Yukon. After a night at Dale & Maddaline’s (where I could reintroduce my former family to my new temporary Canadian family), we hit the road to Williams Lake on Saturday morning.

During many suppertime discussions in Kigali, we had often gone around the table with each family member indicating which restaurant would be their first choice to visit upon our return to Canada. Olive Garden was often mentioned as it is usually the restaurant of choice when we visit Vancouver once a year or so. We fulfilled the dream when we stopped for lunch at Olive Garden in Langley. Like other experiences we will have in the months to come, the meal probably didn’t completely live up to expectations because there is no way it could have. Tracey enjoyed the salad and the breadsticks more than the pasta as the richness of the food was more than our stomachs were used to after eighteen months in Rwanda.

School in Canada

Two weeks later, we are still fully in the throngs of transition.  The kids all started school last week, with three of them in brand new schools.  All are missing their friends and teachers back at Kigali International Community School.  Brooklyn has been welcomed back into the fold with her friends from church as she walks down the halls of a Canadian high school for the first time.  Jonah has gone to a new elementary school because he agreed with us that he’d be better off in an English program after academic success in Rwanda and missing two very essential years of French Immersion here in Canada.  His outgoing social nature will be important as he makes new friends.  Sam was more nervous than any of the others as he entered a Grade 4 French Immersion class.  He believed he’d forgotten every ounce of French he’d ever learned.  It will take him some time, but we are hopeful that he will be handle what almost feels like a completely foreign language to him at this point.  His advantage is that he rejoins his old school friends.

Eli’s transition to Canada has been the most interesting to watch.  He remembers little of Canada as Kigali is the only home he knows well.  Though certain memories do come back to him at times, so much is new.  Winter, snow, and extremely cold temperatures are new principles.  He takes his socks off as soon as he possibly can when he enters the house.  When we first arrived back home in Williams Lake, he refused to wear a jacket on one of our first ventures outside.  “It’s really cold outside – I think you’ll want to wear a jacket,” Tracey mentioned to him.  He ignored the advice and opened the outside door.  Quickly closing the door, he turned back to his Mom and echoed, “It IS really cold outside!”  He has not refused his jacket again.  At another point, his mittens kept falling off while we were sledding down Grandma and Grandpa’s driveway.  When he didn’t want to wear them anymore, I told him about the dangers of frostbite and that people sometime need to have their hands amputated after a severe bout.  He took me quite seriously, has worn his mitts religiously ever since, and asks anyone who is not wearing theirs why exactly they do want to keep their hands.

One other quick Eli story.  After asking Tracey for a drink, he followed her into the kitchen for a glass.  When she pulled the glass out of the dishwasher, he asked her why she was taking a glass out of the oven.  The kid couldn’t remember ever seeing a dishwasher before!

Eli is starting to make some friends in his French Immersion Kindergarten class.  On one of his first school days, he came home and said that the boys in his class did not want to play with him that day but that they would be willing to play with him on “the other day”.  Such a statement tugs at the heart strings of his parents, but in the days that have followed, he has been regularly included in the games of tag at lunchtime.  Yesterday, he came home from school and confidently counted en français from one to ten.

We are very proud of all four kids.  They have handled a very difficult time as well as we could have expected, but we know there will be undoubtedly be some bumpy roads ahead.

As for Tracey and me, we were so fortunate to be able to gain possession of our house this past Monday.  We have gradually moved some of our stuff back in and yesterday had our phone, internet, and TV hooked back up.  Tomorrow, friends will help us move the rest of our possessions back in, and we will likely lament the fact that we have far too many things.  Though we rid ourselves of a lot when we moved out in the summer of 2009, we are already realizing there is more that we do not need.

The benefits of returning to Canada in the winter!

"What's snow?"

Tags: Canada, flights, home, KICS, reunion, school, winter

It has been a five-week countdown, but Tracey and the kids finally touch down in Canada on Friday afternoon.

It has been a very strange month for us as we have lived very separate lives. When you are accustomed to making decisions and emotionally processing everything together as a couple, it is a very different experience to do that separately, even if it is only for a short time.

My landing back in western culture has been a rather gentle one. While staying in Vancouver for the last month, I have been able to be rather anonymous as I make my almost-daily pilgrimage to the Ladner Pharmasave and now-weekly trips into the city for my doctor’s appointments. No one has stopped me on the sidewalk or leaned over to me on the bus to ask me how Africa was or why my left eye is constantly closed. Meanwhile, many dinners out with friends have provided me with a chance to reconnect with people on a deeper level while enjoying a lot of great western cuisine.

As for my eye, the doctors are telling me they are seeing good signs of improvement, but I don’t notice any obvious improvements in my symptoms. There are still some long months ahead, but the doctors are encouraged by the progress only they can see at this point.

Last week, my corneal specialist repeated something to me he had originally uttered during one of my initial appointments. “I’m sorry that you will not be able to go back to your calling in Rwanda,” he said just before I left the examination chair, chin rest, and slit lamp I have become so accustomed to over the last five weeks.

“It’s okay,” I responded, much more matter-of-factly than I did when he first empathized with my plight. “I’m already a lot less sad than I was a few weeks ago.”

I hadn’t really thought about in those terms before I said it out loud to my doctor, but it was and is true. I am already a month into the grieving process.

Make no mistake – it is 100% a grieving process. We have left so many new friends, a number of which we may never see again. In that way, it feels much different than when we left Williams Lake because we knew we would return there in a couple of years. Kigali has become our home over the eighteen months. We were very intentional in delving into new friendships while there, and we knew the price of that would be a move away from the city that would be more difficult.

Wouldn’t change a thing, but since I started this grieving process a month ago, I am now five weeks ahead of the rest of the family. Until now, we have experienced all of these changes together, so it has been with much reluctance that I have gone through so many of these things by myself.

Before we left for Rwanda, I often said to people that even if things didn’t go well in Rwanda, at least it would bring our family closer together. Upon initial reflection, things did go very well in Rwanda AND the adventure brought our family closer together. Now it will be interesting as the family returns and we adjust back to life in Williams Lake.

As for the family blog, it will live on for a few months at least. We have a few entries from the family’s last few weeks in Rwanda that will be posted once we have some time over the next few weeks. We also expect that some of our friends in Rwanda and Canada will want to know how we are adjusting to life back in our home and native land.

As for you, faithful readers, you have always had the choice to change the channel if you weren’t interested. We’ll keep writing entries and posting photos for awhile, and you can decide if it’s worth your time.

As for me, I am now counting down the hours to the family reunion at the Vancouver Airport Friday afternoon. Tears will definitely be shed, and I will most certainly blame any of mine on the parasite in my eye!

Tags: eye, family, grieving, Vancouver

As we have learned many times over the last two years, the electronic age has brought with it many advantages to those living overseas and apart from loved ones. For the Thiessen family, over the last two weeks, that has meant at least daily skype calls and e-mails, sometimes two skype calls per day during the times we are all awake.

Technically, I guess, the rest of the family and I are only one ocean apart, but it feels like we are galaxies apart as we come to the reality of all that the last few weeks have brought into our lives.

This past Monday, when it became clear that God would not be providing an instant miracle, we made the decision that the entire family will be returning to Canada. Flights have been booked for the first week of February meaning that Tracey and the kids will fly home on the same flights as Mom & Dad.

For those of you not aware, my Mom & Dad flew to Rwanda this last Sunday for a previously scheduled trip. This weekend, Mom & Dad, Tracey and the kids will visit Kibuye on Lake Kivu. If you are a regular blog reader, you will remember Bat Island which they will all get to experience this time. In the next couple of weeks, they will also venture into Volcanoes National Park in northern Rwanda. Our good friend, Kirsten, will hang out with kids, while Mom, Dad, and Tracey will trek into the mountains to see the gorillas, Rwanda’s most popular tourist attraction. I will be sad to miss it but am so excited that they will get the chance to do it. I’m sure we will be able to post some great photos after their trip.

It is a huge blessing that Mom & Dad are in Rwanda for this time. While it certainly seemed strange when I was along for the ride to drop THEM off at the Vancouver airport while I stayed here in Canada, in many ways the timing could not be better as they will be able to fill in for me in many ways as Tracey has so much on her plate in packing up and closing off so many things in Kigali.

The kids will attend school at KICS for the next couple of weeks. They will all be very sad to leave their school, their teachers, and so many wonderful friends. Still, they are excited to come home too. Unless you have experienced it yourselves, it may be difficult to understand that through this course of events, we all could be very sad and very happy at the same time.

We have all made such wonderful friends in Kigali, and it just seems that we are being taken away from them a little too soon. I will let Tracey describe what is like in another blog entry. Because I am now here, I already am experiencing life a little differently from the rest of the family. I miss them so much and wish I could be there with them. A dad and husband really wants to be with his family when they go through hard stuff like this, so being apart from them is probably the most difficult part of it all. I kind of feel like I’m not doing my job, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I can be somewhat at peace with that knowledge.

As for me, I have now been on my regimen of 35 eye drops a day (spaced at least ten minutes apart) for a week now. I am starting to get used to scheduling my days and sleeping hours around eye drops. Compared to so many other people who have much worse afflictions than I do, my life is not so terrible.

This is not a common side effect of the eye drop regimen!

In the past ten days, I have visited my corneal specialist five times. Dr. Holland saw progress with my eye yesterday. He says the “satellite lesions” are starting to clear up. (I think “Satellite Lesions” would be a cool name for a band and am hoping my boys use it when they get their rock band going in high school.) I now don’t have an appointment for a week, so that’s also a good sign that he is spreading out my appointments already. As for my days outside of appointments, I have been booking flights, registering our four kids in three different Williams Lake schools, and doing general preparation for a return to Canada, at least whatever I can do from afar. As well, I will do what I can to help Wellspring transition into the new phase.

I have been so blessed to be able to stay with my uncle and aunt, Dale & Maddaline Enns, in Ladner. They have given me their guest room and have treated me like a king. I have received phone calls and e-mails from many friends and family, and I am feeling very loved. From Dale & Maddaline’s, it takes less than an hour to get to my doctor’s appointments on public transit, and even though my mother is a bit worried that I am more likely to be hit by a car due to having vision in only one eye, I have been safe thus far.

I have had a chance to hang out with extended family back in Canada

Please continue to pray for Tracey, the kids, and Mom & Dad in Rwanda. Please pray that they will not only survive these last three weeks but will actually flourish in the midst of difficult times. My wife is an incredible woman, and I am continually proud of the way she handles absolutely everything that is thrown her way. If it had been her that had come home early to Canada, I would have had to pack up the kids and move home the next day! Please also pray that my eye will continue to show good progress. I am so thankful to have a wonderful specialist who is giving me the best care I could imagine. We are so grateful to God for his goodness and will continue to believe that He has planned this all from the beginning.

Great to see Grandpa & Grandma Enns, even if only with one eye

Tags: Canada, Dr. Holland, eye, Kibuye, Mom & Dad, Tracey