Chapstick

In all of my spare time, I managed to come up with the idea of making my own chapstick with the intent of selling it to help raise money for our travels back to Uganda. The name of it is "Uganda love yo lips" which is slang for "your going to love your lips." (And malachi's cute picture is on it). 

I am selling them for $3 a piece. (They would make great stocking stuffers and gifts). If you would like to purchase 1 or more let me know. I can ship them, but I am not sure what shipping will cost but I can work that out on an individual basis. The ingredients are great! Avocado oil, coconut oil, beeswax, jojoba oil, castor oil and vanilla. Please email me at michaela.fulk@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing some. 

I would be willing to sell custom bulk orders of 100 or more. If you are interested I will let you choose a flavor and cap color of your own. Flavors I could do: Almond Biscotti, Asian Pear, Brown Sugar, Bubble Gum, Butter Pecan, Butterscotch, Buttery Toffee, Cappuccino, Cherry Berry, Cinnamon, Coconut Milk, Cotton Candy, Creme de Menthe, Danish Vanilla Custard, Dill Pickle, Fizzy Pop, French Toast, Gingerbread house, Gingersnap, Green Apple, Hazelnut Latte, Iced Pineapple and Tangerine, Lavender Vanilla, Lemon Cheesecake, Malted Milk ball, Mango Lassi, Mango Peach Fusion, Marshmallow, Mint truffle, Nutmeg and Carmel swirl, Ooey Gooey Carmel,  Orange Sherbet, Peanut Butter, Pink Frosting, Pink Lemonade, Pistachio, Popcorn, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Red Velvet Cake, Sangria, Snow Cone, Sugared Strawberries, Watermelon, White Chocolate, Wild Red Cherry Pie, and Zucchini Bread. Again email me if you are interested.

A New Update

Fall is undeniably in the air.  School, soccer, changing leaves (my favorite part), chilly nights, and the birds are flying south. How I wish I could fly with them. But that is for another blog that I will probably never get to.

We have been working hard to accomplish our 4 main goals while we are here. The one we have spent most of our time engaging in is the “getting healthy goal.” Of course we needed to catch up with dentist appointments, well checks, etc. And when you have 6 kids (a couple which have more medical needs), and are pregnant, it quickly becomes a sizable goal. Luckily we are at the end of the tunnel as the saying goes. However I will continue seeing my midwife, BTW we are having a boy. It took me a couple days to except it, as I was hoping for a girl, but hey it just goes to show that once again God is in control and I AM NOT! Can you believe I am already over 6 months pregnant? Already feeling quite large and wondering how big this baby is going to be!

As far as my health goes, I am mostly feeling better. The doctors suspect I have Celiac Disease so I am on a crazy diet. No gluten, grains, dairy, and limited meat. I also seem to have a nut sensitivity now. Basically I can eat beans and  brown rice....lol...not really. I have been feeling better eating this way however I have this infection that keeps coming back. You could pray for healing in that manner. I am extremely tired all the time too. Not something I am used to in the 2nd trimester.

The kids are all doing well and we are enjoying this year of school; I am really enjoying it too. They are all reading avidly (with the exception of Malachi and Eliana who enjoy playing “babies” while we do school), and we are all very appreciative of the access of countless books via the local library. Soccer is in full force for Samuel and Joshua. More so for Joshua who is playing on 2 teams. One being a Club Team in Denver. It has been very enjoyable to watch him him continue to excel as a forward. They won a tournament back in August and just recently won the State Tournament.

Speaking of soccer....I had one of those stellar mom moments when the local community bells where playing their hourly song (church hymns). As we were bird watching, on our nature walk “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” bellows beautifully on the bells (that was a lot of b’s), and all my kids started singing Manchester United’s song, “Glory, Glory, Man United.” Not sure many of you will even get this story, so it is probably not even funny to you. Maybe if you are a Williams then you will get it ;).


Hmmm....what else have we been doing?

I recently was able to attend a women’s retreat for the weekend and although the speaker was good, the thing that had the greatest impact on me was just spending time in quite meditation before God and in His word. He revealed some things to me that were really freeing and healing to my soul.

God has also been teaching me a lot about being obedient in the little things lately. Before we left Uganda I felt like He was ushering me to no to everything but ministering to my kids and my husband. Hard thing for me to swallow.  It seems easy to be obedient to the things that bear immediate fruit but the mundane every day “chores” can be daunting, especially without results. Welcome to parenting, and life.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:

Carter, always our animal lover

Eliana all ready for winter

Janaya (so grown up)

Malachi's beautiful smile

Samuel

Joshua's Club team after they won State.

The crew after a LONG hike up Hanging Lake. 10 years ago I remember it being easy. Ha! 

 

 

 

The Long Overdue News

I apologize for the lack of updates. Part of me has not really wanted to be on the internet much, and it works nice because we don't have internet at our house. However I do realize many of you have been praying for us and just want to know what is going on in our lives.

The Biggest News
Many of you already know this but about 9 weeks ago we found out that we are expecting our 7th child (The baby is due the end of December beginning of January). It was a surprise but we are very excited and blessed. This came shortly after our debriefing, where the staff advised us to stay longer than 6 months. After praying about it for some time and getting more counsel it was apparent that getting everything done in 6 months was not reasonable. And once we found out we were pregnant that was the icing on the cake. With that we have a goal to get back to Uganda in March.

What have we been up to?
The whole month of June we were traveling to see family, and friends. We also visited a couple churches. It was challenging to be constantly on the go but also encouraging in many ways. Other than that we are enjoying our summer off from school (me more than anyone). Cody has been busy with helping with different ministries in our area and is going to be helping with developing some simple church planting in our area.

I will be honest and say being here has been more of a struggle than I thought it would be but God has been teaching me so much, and growing me in more ways than I could ever imagine. I am hoping to put my thoughts together soon and share with you a theme God has been working in my life.

Update with Pictures

 Here are some pictures of what we have been doing. Soccer and school mostly :) Since I last posted we had our debriefing near Colorado Springs. It was really amazing, and we learned a lot, and made some great friendships with other missionaries. The information we learned is really going to help us to be better prepared for when we go back, and it was really helpful for the kids to learn about transitioning back and forth and also learning about being a Third Culture Kid.  The second day we talked about stress and the amount that missionaries are under. As a group we wrote down some of our daily hassles (pictured below). Some of them are pretty funny. We eventually ran out of room and couldn't add more. This day was a real eye opener to me about how much stress we were under and what it does to your body. Turns out a lot of my physical problems and illness was a result of stress :)

Janaya, Eliana, and Malachi, watching Samuel and Joshua play soccer.

Joshua playing soccer against Carbondale they won 9-1. Joshua scored 4 goals! Hooray!

Eliana playing peek-a-boo

Carter at the standing long jump

Samuel running the 100m dash

 Here are some videos of Joshua and Carter running track. Joshua made it to the finals and placed 2nd or 3rd (I can't remember). And the video of Carter is just hilarious. He was very intent about staying in his lane and trying to have "fast feet" that he forgot to really run.

And some announcements:

-We will be sharing about our time in Uganda at New Hope Church in New Castle, CO. The service is on Sunday, May 20th and begins at 10:00 a.m. and will be at the park in Apple Tree Park. We would love to see you there.

-We will also be in Boise City, OK at the end of June. Details to come.

We're Back

I have not posted in a long time. Partly because we don't have internet at our house and partly because there is not a lot to say. However I do want to let you know we are doing well.

We have been in the States for almost 3 weeks and are getting a little more use to life here. Although we know that this once again is a transition time before we go back to Uganda.
Joshua and Samuel have been enjoying playing soccer on an organized team. It is the same team they played on before so that has been a huge blessing for them. Janaya has enjoyed being around some of her friends again. Carter was excited to play with his toy guns again :), and Malachi doesn't remember much of our life here but he is gradually learning all about "Western"life. And Eliana is walking and turned 1 last week, which is hard for us to all believe.
As for Cody and I we are doing pretty good. We are now in New Castle and will be here for a while before traveling for the summer to visit family and friends. We are trying to focus on spending time together as a family. I have been busy with doing school with the kids but have enjoyed spending time with family and friends. Cody has been helping me with school and involving himself in different Bible Study groups, and activities around the Valley. 

After we are finished with school we are planning on traveling around the U.S. to see family and friends so we hope to see many of you.

Oh and just a side note. Our internet site is down. We are trying to change our provider and are having problems so we apologize for that! Hopefully we can get it up soon!

Eliana eating her birthday cake and doing her famous pirate smile.

Going to Hotchkiss from the Airport. Eliana got used to the car seat pretty quickly.

Just hours after being in the States.

God Never Sleeps

The last couple days in Kotido were somewhat hard for me. The goodbyes. I felt like so much was unfinished. God gave me a lot of encouragement during this time and I am grateful, something I will hold onto and remember.

Wednesday morning I got up early to pray and I was crying out to God. Asking Him if we made any difference for the kingdom. An hour later I open my front door and this is what I see......

Let me explain (sorry if it seems gruesome).

Go back about 4 weeks. A girl came to our gate, named Betty. She is about 16 or 17. She has epilepsy and while having a seizure she violently fell into a fire, burning her back. It was severely infected and no one was willing to help her. She was also having problems with her appetite and was loosing an incredible amount of weight. We decided she could live with us for the remainder of our time in Kotido.

The woman changing her bandage in the picture is Winnie. Remember Winnie is our house help that lives on our compound. She has been a huge help in the ministry especially with her help of fostering the babies.
When I opened the door and saw this, I walked out to investigate further and to offer assistance. I have never seen Winnie doing first aid. I was rather speechless and didn't know what to say. Winnie then told me that she has seen me doing first aid to many people and it has given her confidence to really do it on her own. WOW! After this we continued to talk about Betty's future. This picture is 4 weeks after her burn. It is healing very slowly, but it is healing. It has to be cleaned and a new bandage put on daily. Winnie said she will continue to care for her and to continue sharing the word of God with her.

Winnie later that day, poured her heart out to me and shared the impact our family had on them. There was even a particular action that our kids did, that changed her husband, Victor's, heart. There were things I didn't even realize that had such an impact on her and her family. I was so grateful that God works so much deeper than we even realize. That He never sleeps and is always at work, even when we don't always see it. He gets all the glory!!

Before I close I ask that you would pray for Betty. Pray that her parents would have a change of heart and see that she is a gift from God, and they would not ostracize her. Pray that she can gain weight, and above all pray that she will know the presence of God and follow Him all the days of her life.

-------------------------------------------

We are now in Jinja (Southern Uganda), and we fly out Thursday. I ask that you would pray for our family during this transition. It is difficult for some of our children (and for me (: ). Pray that all would go well on the plane and our luggage and such would not get lost. Pray that when we get to Colorado we can find a vehicle. We are looking at purchasing one, but we now need a 12 or 15 passenger van which is harder to find in our price range.

What has been going on around here for the past month

I haven't been very good at blogging lately. I have not been spending as much time on the internet. I have been struggling in different areas, so I have been trying to devote more time in the word and prayer.  As we prepare to leave my mind goes between being excited to come to the states for our furlough and being despondent about leaving our life here in Kotido. Many things I am not understanding but I just take each day a step at a time.

Here is what we have been doing for the past several weeks in picture:



We went to visit the twins and say goodbye. They are doing pretty well considering what they had gone through. Their mother is doing a great job taking care of them. 

 --------------------

We also went to say goodbye to Reema and Akiar. Reema is very healthy and is quite fat as you can see in the picture. Really refreshing to see since we have seen so many malnourished babies. Her family is doing an amazing job of taking care of her!! This is a picture with her and her aunt is holding her.

 -------------------------------------

This is a picture of Reema's and Akiar's grandmother. They don't really smile in pictures but this picture of Akiar's grandmother (the one on the right of me) is comical because she looks so angry. 

 ---------------------------------
Here is Akiar with his uncle. They too have done a great job. Akiar's grandmother doesn't have as much confidence about taking care of him without us but we assured her that it was not us helping but it was God. They too have done a great job taking care of him and he is very well attached to his family. Huge praises all around!!

 

 ---------------------------

Our friend Victor will continue checking on all the babies and their families. For the last several weeks he has been going there to share God's word with them. We are very thankful for this. 

---------------------------

One of our friends wanted to take us to Kidepo which is the closest game park. We drove there in the morning and just spent a couple hours there but we got to see all kinds of animals, before driving back home. Here are a few of our favorites. 

A game park guide helped us find these female lions who had just finished eating so they had no interest in us at all. We were about 12 feet away from them in our Land Cruiser and they didn't even care. It was amazing.  There were 6 total.

We saw about about 100 elephants during the time we were there. The babies are sooooo cute! This male was not excited about us when we stopped to take his picture. He trumpeted at us and flapped his ears to tell us how unhappy he was about our presence. 

--------------------

Janaya and Samuel mimicking a scene from a book we were reading about Native Americans with Neveah and Rikot Williams. It was very cute and I love seeing the things they have learned coming out in play :)

              

Janaya giving Eliana a ride in the wheel barrel. Too cute!

 -------------------------

Carter doing school with one of our baby ducks. Someone stole our ducks one night from the coup. One of the ducks had eggs that were days away from hatching. We managed to keep 4 alive with our makeshift incubator. They were so cute and followed us around everywhere because they thought we were their mother. Unfortunately they all died of some disease after about 2 weeks. The kids really enjoyed them. Especially our animal lover, Carter.

--------------------------

There are other things that we have been doing that we don't have pictures for. LIKE PACKING.... school (lots of it)......and sorting...and more packing. Fortunately we were able to find a place to store our things.

Malachi Update:
Malachi seems to be doing really well. He is even good at reminding me to give him his seizure medicine since I need to give it to him 3 times a day. We are hoping we can see a specialist when we are in the States to get their opinion about his seizures, but since being on the meds. he has not had any.

Please continue praying for us as we leave and go through more transition.  It has been quite stressful for me to get everything I need to get done while still not feeling the best.

An Important Annoucement

Several months ago I, Michaela, felt God saying, “Prepare to go home.” It was very confusing to me because although our lives are difficult at times I didn’t feel the need to go home for a respite.  I felt God giving me strength to move forward in our circumstances. During my times of silent prayer I kept hearing it. Now? Why? The timing didn’t make sense to me. I asked God to confirm it through Cody, and I waited. As Malachi and I’s health started to decline I was wondering and waiting for that confirmation thinking maybe it was time to go home for a break, but I didn’t want to be led by emotions. I wanted to make sure it was what God wanted. Right before Malachi and I left for Nairobi I was beginning to get much more weary emotionally and physically. Since Cody is the leader of our family I asked him what he thought of going home for an early furlough, and what God was saying to me. He said we should pray about it together and see what happens. After Cody picked me up in Kampala we spent 2 days in Jinja. During this time we sought the Lord fervently together and on the drive home to Kotido Cody said he felt like God released him to go. In that release Cody felt like God wanted him to take us home so we could have a time of rest, and reflection.

With that we are planning on taking a furlough for 6 months. We will arrive in Denver on March 23, and spend some time with our immediate family. It is our hope that after about 4 weeks of spending time with friends and family in New Castle we will be able to do some debriefing by a professional Christian group in Colorado Springs about our experiences, and struggles.  Our prayer is that this time will strengthen us for the next leg of ministry, and grow our marriage and family together. After that we have plans of traveling to see friends, family, and our supporting churches all over the country to share with them our hearts and what God did, and what He is doing before returning to the field.

You could be praying for us during this transition. Pray that the rest of our time here is fruitful. Pray for comfort as it is not easy to leave the life we have started here, and to be honest it hard for me to understand exactly what God is doing. Pray that our immune systems could have a break and become stronger than ever.

Malachi is doing much better

Things are going really well in Nairobi. Sorry this update is delayed. I don't have access to Blogger so Cody is having to help me post this. We were waiting on the results of more tests before we posted anything new. After having the MRI, awaiting the culture on the spinal fluid and some other tests it is looking more like he has viral menengitis. It doesn't really change anything because they were treating him for both menegitis and encephalitis because you don't want to wait with either one. The good news is that we caught it early so it wasn't so severe. It also looks like he will not have any permanent damage, but the neurologist did suggest him having signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. No big surprise for us there. His kidney and bladder ultrasound came back showing he had an infection of both so he is also on treatment for that as well. My big question I had was, "Is there something causing his immune system to be so suppressed?" The doctor doesn't seem to think that is the case, and just said he could have had a virus that he never could quite get over which then eventually caused the menegitis. They did do several tests to rule out Tuberculosis because it can present itself very different in children but all the tests for this came back negative.

Outwardly Malachi is definately feeling better and is running all over the room playing football with a balloon. We also have a nice playground right outside our room in the Children's ward. We will to be until Tuesday so they can finish the treatment, and after that it is looking like we will be able to return home.

As for Eliana and I, we are doing good. I seem to have a fever. Cabin Fever. Luckily I have been able to get out of the hospital here and there, thanks to some helpful missionaries living in Nairobi. I have not been sleeping very good because after all, we are in a hospital where nothing is quite, and breakfast is extremely early! They are taking good care of us though. I have enjoyed not having to cook or clean! Not quite the vacation I was looking for but I'm thankful Malachi is getting good care and feeling better.

Also a big thank you to those who helped us with the expenses. I got half of the bill today and about fell over (although it is much cheaper than the States). I looked in our bank account online to see a big deposit. PRAISE GOD!! I am not quite sure who it all came from yet but we are VERY grateful!!
Cody and the kids are doing good back home and Cody has even been doing school with them! He is a great substitute teacher.

We have a tentative diagnosis.

The doctors here in Kenya have been very good. They have performed many tests on Malachi so far and have begun to treat him for a disease called herpesviral encephalitis. It is a very serious viral infection that affects the central nervous system. They continue to look for other things and to find the extent of the damage from this disease. We have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow, which will hopefully bring some more answers.

Please pray for us as we have to remain in the hospital 10 days while Malachi receives treatment through an IV. Cody and I both know that God is good. He loves Malachi and his heart breaks for our little boy just as ours does. We seek comfort and strength from God as we move forward.

Malachi Update-Flying to Kenya Today

Many of you already know that we had plans for one of us to take Malachi to Nairobi, Kenya in the middle of February to meet the doctor we know from back home.

Malachi has been having a pattern of sickness that lasts for months. About every month or so he would get random fevers, sometimes associated by other symptoms. Last November after some alarming symptoms his blood work came back abnormal so we ran more tests but didn't find a result. Things started to resolve on their own and many were suggesting it could be just a virus and we should wait.

6 weeks later we repeated the lab work and in some ways it had resolved but there were still some things off, but they were not as alarming as before. During this time he had his normal bout of fever that lasted 2 days. About 2 weeks ago he didn't not have a fever but was throwing up and very lethargic. I once again took him to Kampala so that we could see a doctor and do some more tests. We ruled out some more illnesses but left with no answers.


This brings us to the present. Malachi came down with a fever Sunday night. Monday the fever got rather high reaching 104.2. We immediately cooled him down with a cold bath and have been alternating between tylenol and ibuprofen to keep his fever down. Yesterday he started vomiting and then had a bloody nose again. His fever broke and he said he wanted something to eat. He took a small bit of rice and within minutes vomited and there was blood in the vomit. We (myself, Malachi and Eliana) are flying to Nairboi, Kenya for further testing, instead of waiting until mid Feb.

I know many of you have been so faithful in praying for us, so I am very grateful for that. Here are some specific things you could be praying for:
-Healing for Malachi
-Strength and favor for my journey today (Pray that Eliana would be a great traveler today)
-For Cody and the kids in Kotido
-That we can get answers in Nairboi
-That God would provide all of our needs

Update on Malachi

Last Sunday night Joshua woke us up to tell us that Malachi had thrown up. Unforntunately Malachi has a difficult time telling when he has to throw up so it always ends up on him, his bed, or the furniture. I have been cleaning up a lot of throw up lately :). The next day he was feeling sick all day, and continued throwing up. Slept all day on the couch. This pattern went on for 2 days but after the 3rd he was showing some improvement and was able to get off the couch and play. He never had a fever so we never really treated him for anything. Of course we were concerned but there was not too much we could do in Kotido. Wednesday morning he threw up again, so I was feeling discouraged to say the least.

Meanwhile my symptoms had been coming back and had been following me for over a week at the point of Malachi's sickness. Wednesday morning I woke up and started having chest pain which quite frankly scared me. Cody and I decided that the most cost effective way to get to Kampala was just for Malachi, Eliana and I to go. We were miracously, and barely able to catch the MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) Wednesday morning flight. While on the extremely rough plane ride I was feeling sick and optimistic that just maybe we would find more answers. We were able to see a doctor that late afternoon where they ran more tests on Malachi and did some on myself.

We got the results yesterday afternoon, and unforntunatly we found out a whole lot of nothing on Malachi. We did rule out some more things which is helpful but I am starting to feel really discouraged. We did find out based on an antibody test that Malachi has never had malaria. That concerns me a little bit on several different levels.

The good news is that they found out what is wrong with me. I have a systematic yeast infection which by the way can cause pain in your sternum, hence the chest pain. I recieved some meds, so hopefully I will feel better soon. Apparently my immune system is not doing so well probably because of stress and living in Kotido.

So we continue the waiting game with Malachi. Remember we are planning on taking him to Nairobi, Kenya in Feb. but with him getting sick it makes things difficult, not to mention he is loosing weight. His stool sample did reveal that he is not absorbing fat but once again we don't know why. The other good news is that his anemia is looking better. Still not great but there were some improvements.

All of this means that whatever Malachi has could be nothing, or it could be something :) Helpful huh? That is what I get to hear all the time.

I know you are all praying for us already, but specifically pray for answers, pray for healing. pray for strength for our family. This is draining in all facets.

Pictures!!

Joshua and Eliana when we were in Kampala in November.

Janaya and Samuel helping me cook our impromptu Thanksgiving meal in Kampala.

Eliana and Malachi are good buddies.

Eliana loves no bake cookies just like me :)

This is Carter back in September when he lost so many teeth.

I took this picture in Lira a couple months ago. It is one of my favorites of my precious daughters.