new life growing in my belly...

Jesus, eres nuestra respirar...

Before I break the news to you all, let me first note that I have not looked at the BBC updates on my email in a month and a half, but I did today. The first thing I saw? KILLER SPACE ROCKS THREATEN EARTH?! Where have I been...

This week has been full of all sorts of new life.

There are these really interesting birds that hang their nests from trees in tall, tall trees here in the cuenca. They are called orupendola (black and yellow, close to an oriole, beautiful). The campamento has several fallen nests as decoration in various places, and they are incredible. They hang like narrow, long baskets and the birds somehow go in and out of them. The other day, my friend Alfredo found a fallen orupendola nest on the ground with a baby inside! We have been taking care of it for four days now. We feed him wet dog food (what the internet said...it must be true?). The nest hangs in the kitchen and I go to check on it every once in a while. The little baby bird seems so fragile, but we think he is getting better. Only time will tell. It reminds me of freshman year of college when I kept saying I wanted to be a "lion tamer" and take care of hurt animals. I hope that wherever I live, people bring me hurt animals like they bring Larry and Allison. They have a kinkachoo (raccoon monkey thing--honey bear in english) that lost it's mother four years ago that doesn't know he is a kinkachoo. The other day someone brought another one that was dying (it died). It's just interesting to see the things and problems people bring to Larry and Allison. I have really enjoyed taking care of this little bird, as well as the chickens and now the donkey that Larry bought last week. They are always an adventure.

Now onto the bigger news. Now, don't be disappointed in me everyone, but there is new life growing inside me. Worms!!! My ear has been hurting for the past two weeks and I thought it was because I didn't get all the water out after swimming in the river with Karla. Well, it seemed to go away for a few days until this weekend when my ear started to hurt really bad, inside and out. Since Monday was Larry and Allison's wedding anniversary, they were going to the clinic up the road to see their baby (Allison's about 3 months pregnant) on the ultrasound. I went with them and Dr. Martin (another missionary) checked out my ear. He said I have the cleanest right ear "this side of the Mississippi" but a pretty yucky infection in the left. While we were waiting in the line to be seen, Allison and I were joking about this memory I have from elementary school where my friend told me about this insect that gets inside your ear and you don't know until it's eating your brain! Every once in a while I feel a stabbing pain in my ear, so we were joking that these are the times when the bug must be hungry!! We just thought it was an infection until Dr. Martin looked into my ear and told me that I actually have worms! Allison's face was priceless when I told her, because she thought the whole insect-eating-my-brain joke was silly. Pure shock.

I've been on the internet for too long now, so this blog post is not as full as I had hoped, nor is it proof-read. As it is, though, I hope it finds you in the mood to laugh.

Worms and all,
Alex

P.S. bird name suggestions and prayer requests being accepted lexideSosa@hotmail.com


...gracias por la vida en nuestros pulmones. Permitenos entender cada dia como un regalo de ti. Porque cada dia es. Amen.