Cheap ear piercings...

The other night, while all blissfully sleeping, a young boy cried out

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

This woke his parents up.

Unbeknownst to them, something had happened. Thinking he was scared and perhaps had pinned his ear under in his sleep, he was given his special blanket and sent back to sleep. And the hall light was turned on.

The next morning, happening to be a flight day, dad was off early. That left mom to greet the kids upon waking up.

The young boy came to give his mommy a hug. His ear was crusted over with blood. hmmm...not normal.

Cleaning the ear, the mom found his upper ear had been completely pierced thru, in what looked like a bite. After consulting and looking, it was determined to be a rat bite.

Facts about rat bites:
Rats rarely carry rabies (bonus)
Most people are bitten by rats in their sleep
Most bites occur between midnight and 6 AM
Mostly children are bitten by rats
While rare, rat bites can cause rat bite fever (clever name)

So, the boy was watched, the family waited. No fever, no infection. Good news, indeed.

The offending rat was caught and taken care of...




And the boy was told he could not have his ear pierced...

Rainy Season

Here's some video clips of our rainy season. We've currently had a low pressure system in the area. Who knew that I would know what in the world that meant! For us, it means that rainy, cloudy weather moves in fast, and sometimes just as fast, moves on. (on a sidenote, it also means it is blissfully cooler for awhile, which is greatly appreciated by this very pregnant woman!)
While trying to get our missionaries supplied and transported, we've encountered lots of weather this week. On Monday, Ben was weathered in a couple hours up north for the night. He was able to get back to Puerto the next morning, come home long enough for a shower and a meal, and then he was off again to fly another day!

Avionics

Two full weeks of installation and two full weeks of paperwork. At the end of the month, we were able to get the inspector down here from Manila to check it all out and he approved it for flying in the Philippines. Yeah! Meaning: We were back online. Double Yeah! We had to cancel and/or postpone two weeks sprinkled with flights because of it.

Here's some pictures of the before and after of one of the airplanes that he and another guy did (Thanks Alvin!)

And now Ben has been flying almost everyday to supply and transport our missionaries in the bush before we take a wee break for the new baby.