Family at Church

• Wasn't it great having the family at church yesterday. Each of the kids were in Sunday School and Mu Gay Day was in the nursery. They were with their friends from Wheaton which was very handy to get the upcoming weeks schedule agreed on by all.
  
• Monday, Kerri V. is taking mom and kids to the CDH CCC to have the twins complete their blood tests.
• Tuesday, Jessica from World Relief is dropping by at 2 or 3PM to check in on them and view the volunteer log. Then at 5PM, Debb and Alexander Murphy are picking up Jeckie,Nali and Zolo for some serious trick-or-treating. Alexander is a piece of cheese while the last report from Debb was that Nali will be a Burmese Black Cat, Jeckie as Spiderman, and Zolo as Superman. Mom and Dad have candy at their house ready for any neighborhood tricksters - if you live close, drop by between 4 and 6PM and scare, I mean, greet them.
• Wednesday, Sarah and Cindy are working together to get Mom & the 3 school kids to CDH CCC after school in order to have special followup tests done. Also Zolo needs a CBC. CDH CCC has all thwork orders with doctor's directions. They will use translation services as needed at CDH CCC.

BTW on Tues night there is a segment on PBS Frontline, channel 11, regarding the military control of Burma. Thanks to Dan Starr for pointing this out. If you miss it you can watch it on the web at www.pbs.org after Tuesday.

When you visit make sure you check the thermostat - keep it at 68 or 70. When I saw them one morning, they had all slept downstairs because the upstairs was too cold - turns out the thermostat was set to 50!

On a more sensitive topic, the ladies at the church nursery mentioned that Mu Gay Day's diaper was very wet and he was not very tidy - can some ladies give Paw Kree a quick review of baby hygiene - I'll leave it at that.

All for now - how do you say Happy Halloween in K'ren?

Ben

Some Good News on Mu Day Gay

We were able to get Mu Gay Day's blood work done at the CDH Convenient Care Center on Foxfield Drive. The results will be sent to the KC Heath Department.
It maybe the case that we can get the other follow on medical work for the rest of the family there as well - we are waiting for some confirmation of this. This would be much easier than using Aunt Martha's in Aurora.

Old fashioned rabbit ears were hooked up to the TV and Channels 7, 9, and 11 came in respectably. Also Puday was given a wireless doorbell with 2 buttons which he will install at the house.

The children are not used to wearing socks - maybe the colder weather will force the issue.

Puday mentioned that the family went to an Asian food store in Chicago over the weekend with Yo Poe's family. They stocked up on their favorites and were able to use the Link Card.

Puday Bay & Paw Kree & children

Puday Bay Weather Report

Debb Murphy and Ben Adams shuttled the family today to the KC Health Dept.
The family received care from a caring and professional group - RN Kathy Swedburg
was so good with the family and new doctor Jennifer Kurka practiced true famly medicine. They linked up with a language translation service via telephone that provided English-to-Burmese translation - no translation was available in the family's native K'ren. Puday seemed to understand enough Burmese and conveyed it to Paw Kree so that they knew exactly what was being done and why.

All in the family were brave in the wave of inoculations that followed. There were some tears, quickly dried by parents and siblings.

On the way back, we realized it would be too late to get the kids back to school, so we stopped off at White Castle. As the kids started to poke at and analyze the bun, meat and pickle square set in front of them, I realized perhaps they are not
yet ready for the slider experience. I began to question my own feelings towards the unnatural shape before us.

When we returned to the house, Puday and I picked up another dryer, hauled it downstairs, and lo and behold - it would cycle but did not generate heat. We left it running for 20 minutes - but still only cool air in exhaust and no heat in the drum! We'll keep trying - fifth time is charm.

We then repaired some rotting steps of the back deck. We cut the new boards and nailed them in and realized we needed some sort of reinforcement for the center of the bottom step. Puday cut and appropriate sized board and when I started to nail it in, he stopped me and made a hand motion that indicated the board would split if I used the same nails as we used on the decking. He grabbed two pairs of pliers, and snapped the top of of one of the nails, popped the headless remnant in a drill, and used it to drill pilot holes - from there driving the nails did not split the board! He's a problem solver and has that can-do attitude.

We heard from Hailey at World Relief that another Burmese-Karen family is headed to our area around 11/7. WR has been in contact with Christ Community Church about possible church involvement with this new family of 4 - mother, older son and 2 younger children. Perhaps our friends at Batavia or Geneva UMC might be interested as well.

The family will be with their friends in Joliet over tonight and tomorrow celebrating a birthday - which reminds me, Paw Kree's is 11/5. They will be at church at the 10:30 service.

All for now, peace

ben

To the KC Health Office in Aurora

Cindy Schalk and Sarah Giachino took the whole family this morning to the KC Health Dept office in Aurora.

What I've heard from yesterday

Vic Temple took Puday on the Pace 802 bus route and went with him to the ESL class
at the Eglesia Baptiste in Aurora. Puday's teacher is Ruth, the same one that Sandra had in the lowest level class. Mauricio was in level 2 or 3.

Vic reports that Puday seems comfortable with the layout of the route and the 8 block walk from the Aurora Bus terminal on Rt. 25 to the church. He goes on his own today (Tuesday) but Vic will be with him when he gets on the bus right in front of Baker church and Vic will
meet up with him when he gets off at the STC Library. From now on, he should be independently travelling to ESL and back, Monday through Thursday.
The only wrinkle would be if he get off
early - the earliest bus coming back STC leaves at 2:40PM.

Kerri V. said that Paw Kree is doing much better and the kids were fine. No sign of others with sore throats. Kerri is checking on what it would take to get mom and young ones involved in STC Library programs. She has the letter from Pastor Ronni that acts like a "lease" - that and their I-94 refugee IDs should suffice. BTW church
member Carolyn Jones is involved with the library and may be able to help.

Our school district is providing some real TLC for Jeckie - there was a student assigned to Jeckie when he caught his bus and a student ambassador met him at school.
And Mrs. McPeak was to be with him all day! I have not heard how his day at school went.

A Saturday morning emergency

On Saturday morning, Paw Kree awoke with a headache and sore throat and possibly coughing up blood. She called
Tau, the daughter of Yo Poe in Joliet.
Tau, in turn, called me to ask for help. Our first instinct was to get her to the Delnor ER, but Kathy and I were about to head out to Wisconsin for a family wedding.

We called Cathie Ruth,and although she had work committments, she was able to take Paw Kree to Delnor. She was diagnosed with strep throat.
Cathie had to get to work, so Meg Bingham was able to stay with Paw Kree, pick up the prescription, and show her how to protect herself and her family from transmission of the infection.

A big thanks for Cathie and Meg and Sarah Giachino, who was on call if needed. I saw Paw Kree briefly this morning and she seems fine. I dropped off some liquid hand soap for each sink.