Calle 5 #14-32
La Mesa, Colombia
aaronlaurak@gmail.com
One Year Anniversary
Dear friends and family,
Today marks one year of living and serving in Colombia. We rejoice in the many friendships we’ve made, and in the work God has done—sometimes through us, many times in spite of us. As we reflected today on our first impressions and feelings one year ago, we realize just how far we have come. Colombia truly feels like home sometimes, which was not something we could say even a few months ago.
Another Sad September 11th
However we also recognize that this past week has been one of the saddest in our lives. Many of you did not know this, but Laura was pregnant, expecting a baby in April. We were just getting ready to send out an e-mail to let all of you know, when tragedy struck. Laura had a miscarriage on Monday, September 11th.
She began bleeding on Sunday afternoon, and spent the night at the hospital under observation. Monday morning, the ultrasound revealed that the embryo had the size of a six-week pregnancy, rather than eight weeks, and there was no heartbeat. The bleeding continued, and later that day, after Laura was transferred to another hospital, the miscarriage ran its course. The doctors performed a D&C to remove any tissue from her womb, and she stayed in the hospital until Tuesday afternoon.
It was hard being so far from our family and friends back home during this ordeal. However, we felt very supported by the many people who wrote us e-mails and kept us in their prayers. Martin and Elsy, pastors at the La Mesa Mennonite Church, were especially caring and supportive. They visited us in the hospital, took care of Abby, made us meals, prayed for us, and shed tears with us. People at school were also very understanding, giving Aaron plenty of time to be home while Laura recovered.
Laura is doing well. Physically, she feels back to normal, though the emotional healing will take much more time. Aaron finds it is difficult to keep her off her feet, and needs to remind her often to let him take care of the cooking and cleaning.
It was challenging for Aaron to take care of Abby on his own, especially at night. Up until this week, Abby still depended heavily on nursing to fall asleep. During Laura's hospital stay, Abby would wake up many times at night, crying for Mommy. There were actually some humorous moments in this emotionally draining, physical exhausting experience. The first night, as Abby lay half-asleep next to her Daddy, she began to pull up his shirt in order to nurse. Then her little hand would crawl all over Daddy's face looking to stroke Mommy's hair. Aaron couldn't help but laugh. The next night, acutely missing her Mommy, Abby sobbed uncontrollably for so long that eventually Daddy joined her. She was so startled, she stopped to watch him. When he stopped crying, she began again, until once again Daddy took over, while Abby watched. It was a little chorus of sobs.
We've continued the weaning process since Laura's release from the hospital, which, combined with the loss Aaron and Laura have felt, has made for an emotionally volatile Kauffman household. We've struggled with our toddler's crankiness during the day, and with getting her to sleep at night. However, there is hope. Thursday night Abby finally slept the whole night in her crib, without waking up and begging Mommy to nurse.
We want to express our deep thanks and appreciation to those of you who prayed for us and wrote us e-mails. We trust that many of you will continue to lift us up in prayer as we go through the grieving process.
Bread and Peace: Celebrating a Week for Peace at Colegio Americano
Meanwhile, life continues to go on at school. This week we had our second meeting finalizing events for Peace Week, September 18-22. It's been exciting to see students get involved in planning and promoting the week's events.
Monday we plan to have a time in which students from different grades pair up to work on decorating the school. We hope that having the older students work together with the younger ones will help put us in the frame of mind to collaborate and promote a peaceful school environment.
Tuesday we will be showing the film, "Romero," about a Salvadoran priest who promoted nonviolence during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s. We hope to have some follow-up discussion activities that help students reflect on Colombia's own history of violence, and how Jesus' way of peace can make an impact.
For Thursday we've planned one of the main events, a forum on how to promote peace at school. The older students will be involved in a number of activities to discern, explain, and look for solutions to the problems we have.
Friday, we will have a celebration called Bread and Peace, an event commemorated by numerous churches and institutions across Colombia, recognizing that economic justice and peace go hand in hand. Each grade will share a song, drama, or poem about peace, followed by a snack time in which groups of four will get together to share their food and reflect on the week. Then at the parents' meeting in the afternoon the school conciliation team will talk about the ideas that came up during the week's events.
When we began the planning, we had hoped to do some joint activities with other schools in La Mesa. Principal Guillermo Vargas had a meeting with other principals in town, and it turns out that they would like to do a much larger, extended project to promote peace in our schools. They suggested that we begin with the teachers, who unfortunately do not always model the kinds of peaceful relationships we want to see among the students. So Aaron will be helping with a meeting at the end of this month in which a forum for teachers will be planned for October. The hope is that the teachers can then brainstorm practical ways to solve conflicts, prevent violence and make our schools havens of peace. It's exciting to see the
Please pray for all of these events and for Aaron as he helps the conciliation team successfully carry them out next week. Pray also for Laura as she returns to school and continues to recover.
In Christ,
Aaron, Laura & Abigail