And Then There Were Three....Not Four: The Arrival of Jonathan Milo Leal

Yes, the arrival of one baby, not two, was the next big happening in our lives. From Mexico we returned to Santa Barbara to await his birth. It was good to have my mother, the nurse, not far from our apartment. And God provided a place to live when we traded locations with Bob and Jan Mugele. They were going to Jungle Camp and had an apartment to let out and we had some jungle camp supplies no longer needed. We didn't have much furniture, but it was home and it wasn't in a jungle.

We waited for the due date, March 31. It came and went. Days went by. But still my labor didn't move forward. Soon two weeks had gone by. I began to wonder if I was really pregnant. I had one false labor and then finally felt something stronger begin to happen on April 15. We were looking forward to a natural delivery and had practiced the exercises. After waiting 24 hours at home for contractions to be closer, we went ahead in to the hospital. We were part of a county plan for those with very low income, so had to wait for the doctor on call. And that night, it was very busy with babies seeming to being born every hour. The doctors were busy catching THOSE babies, not ours.

After 16 hours in hospital, they broke my waters. Still no baby.  By this time I was so exhausted and felt close to being delirious. I have no idea how many contractions I had, and hard ones after the water broke. We were most grateful to have a doctor friend in his residency working that night. Dr. Steve and Karen Lynip were friends from church, and future Wycliffe missionaries to the Philippines, and they were looking out for us and our baby. 

When the doctors took an x-ray, they found that Jonathan's head was too large to fit through. We also learned then that he was just one baby! After 28 hours in the hospital, they finally took me to surgery for a C-Section. So at 7:58, on April 16, 1970, Jonathan Milo came into our lives. He weighed 8 pounds and 3½ ounces and was 22½ inches long. And he was really cute!

I remember when they were wheeling me out of surgery and told me I had a little boy, I was thrilled. When they brought him to me, it was love at first sight. I'm not sure I forgot the pain, but I knew the joy was much greater. I spent the next ten days in the hospital, recovering. That was a normal time back in those days. But it was a good time for Jonathan and I and Bill to all get acquainted before the move home. 

After his arrival, Grandma Munroe/Martin was there to help, and Grandma and Grandpa Leal arrived very soon to meet their newest grandson, and the only one with the Leal last name. Now Grandma Leal had magic hands. She could calm him down when he was crying and when nothing or no one else could. I know they prayed a lot for Jonathan.

Jonathan turned out to be a really good baby. He slept the night by the time he was one month and also took long afternoon naps. But when he was awake he was really awake and oh, so active! He babbled a lot and I, the burgeoning linguist, recorded every sound I heard him make! 

• First week, all vowels 
• Next two weeks vowels plus g and k
• 4th week ngu which sounded like Agnew 
• 5th week laterals and r and babbles 1/2 hours at a time
• By 2 months he was putting two syllables together as "gugu" and mimics "ank-you." 
• He tried out Da-ty and Mama at nine months and liked to sing and hum up and down the scale. 
• At 10 months he said "Hi" and lifted his hand in the air. 
• At 11 months he did the local greeting of "Namaste," putting his hands together. His biggest word was "iture" which meant picture. He was fascinated by pictures on the wall and used his index finger to point to everything on the wall, 100 times a day.

When he was about three months old, we took him to church to dedicate him to the Lord. It was a special time of releasing him from us to Him for His purposes and plan. We continue to trust Him for His best for Jonathan today, dearly beloved son.

At 12 months he and Daddy invented their first game. Bill said Jon to him one day, and he said Da with the same intonation. Bill said Jon, Jon and he said, Da, da, then on to Jon, Jon, Jon and Da, da, da. He was quite clever with patterns, and rhymes and he picked up just as much Nepali as English in his early years. By 18 months he was talking in sentences such as "wanna see it."  At 20 months he started combinging Nepali and English sentences such as "duita cars" meaning two cars and "hummy sidhiyo" meaning our bunny died, is finished (we were raising rabbits for food). At two years he loved nursery rhymes and learned several new ones a day. He also liked to tease Daddy by calling him "Bill."

In his first year of life he had many firsts: walked at 7 months, said his first word at 8 months (voiceless "cookie" which meant graham cracker), and moved to Nepal at 8 months. He was walking up and down the aisles of the plane as we traveled and the airline stewardesses loved to watch him and play with him. He quickly adjusted to Nepali food and loved daal bhaat (rice and lentils) and buffalo milk from an early age. When he was 11 months he took the spoon from me and insisted on feed himself from then on. Sure wish we had digital cameras back then too! But for now, here is a picture of Jonathan Milo Leal, the wonder baby--and his first birthday! You can see he was more interested in the candle and fire than the cake!

Psalm 127:3-4: Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. (And we were definitely rewarded AND in our youth at 22 and 24 years old.)

Jonathan's favorite song as a young child was, Father, I Just Thank You for Making Me, Me: The Butterfly Song

OK, I'm ahead of our move to Nepal, so that's all until the next blog!

Jungle Survival was the Name of the Game: Advanced Base

During the next ten weeks of our Jungle Camp experience, the adventure went deeper. After arriving at Advanced Base, we had to build our own champa and furniture to live in. Bill did really well working with a local man as he put up thin walls and a thatch roof. It looked something like the photo here, with plastic on top of the thatch roof.

Bill built a bed for our sleeping bags and a table and chairs for eating. I wish we had a picture of this eating arrangement as one chair was way too high and one way too low (you might recall the previous experience of him with the block and plane) . Here we played card games of Rook and drank lemon grass tea fresh from the jungle with our neighbors, and good-friends, Carl and Sharon Kotapish. When I told Grandson Ethan this story, he did a water color of our champa in the jungle with the table and two sizes of chairs! He put in a pond too, which wasn't there (artist's license?)!

One unexpected thing we encountered here was army ants. One day while we were resting we "heard" them coming. Thousands of ants all marching toward our champa. We moved out of their way as quickly as we could, watching in fascination as they climbed up and down our walls and took whatever bugs they could find. We watched them spin and take one very large spider. It all happened within an hour and they were gone, on to the next champa. If you've never seen army ants in action, you need to watch this brief National Geographic video: Army ants in action

We also encountered a lot of jungle animals during this stay. One day I was walking down the trail and met a possum. I stopped. He stopped. I looked him in the eye and he rolled over and played, well, dead like a possum! I quietly stepped away and got Bill and another camper who came back and killed the possum for us to cook and share. First we marinated it, then we pressure cooked it. Finally it was ready for the feast. However, when it sat on the table ready to be eaten, all I could think of were his eyes--his doleful eyes. I couldn't eat a bite, though some meat would have been nice.

Learning to build and use a raft from local materials was also one of the challenges needed for survival, as you can see below.

Then there was the survival hike. At some point during Advanced Base each person was taken away from their "home" to go on a "survival hike." You had to be READY at all times. All you could take with you was what you had on you (always a machete and water jug), so you learned to have as much on you as you could for such a time as this, typically a three day trip away. Husbands and wives went at different times.

Bill had an exciting time. He had been carrying lots of stuff for many days and hadn't yet been called. But when his time finally came, he didn't have a lot on him. He was stuck out there in the jungle with scant supplies.

He heard that a local fern called cheeb was edible and he tried eating it. Later, as he dealt with his nausea, a swarm of army ants came through the area. He moved off to the side and let them go through. He said it was the only time he's seen a spider jump, and even bounce, trying to get away from the ants.

After a day or two the staff divided the group into "survivors" and "searchers". He was among the searchers and they decided on a code word to call out to identify other members of his group. The word they chose was bodega which means storehouse, thinking about food, of which we had not had enough. As it turned out the other group had chosen the same tactic and the same word, bodega. As people with group sounded the cry and heard others, they had no idea they had actually found each other until one from each group saw each other. In the photo you can see him beginning to cross the bridge, returning from his survival experience.

They had a special survival hike for pregnant women (there were four of us) and took us all together. We each were taken out to the jungle and had to construct a make-shift tent in which to sleep for the night. The weather was not good, much rain that season, and the Jungle Camp directors had mercy on us. Unexpectedly they came and collected the expectant moms after dark so we didn't have to sleep there. When I got back, Bill was feeling low and missing his wife. He had let the fire in our stove go out, so I returned to a dark and cold champa. I,  tired and worn out and very pregnant, was hungry, uncomfortable, and not pleased! Bill eventually got the fire going and we ate and felt better.

In the end, the small plane came to pick us up a few of us at a time--if the weather was clear. We waited three days at the airstrip before it was clear enough for it to land. They allowed the VERY pregnant women and the families to return to civilization after Advanced Base, while others went on to some extended village living.

Jonathan was due to arrive the end of March and it was mid January when we returned, so I was about 7 months pregnant at the end. We were ready to head home, but had come to love God in new ways for how He had prepared us for the next stage of the journey.

Wycliffe's Theme Song: … is available at http://youtu.be/Tkzu_sz3EGQ 

Faith, Mighty Faith, the promise sees and looks to God alone.

Laughs at impossibilities, and shouts it shall be done. And shouts, and shouts "It shall be done!"

And shouts, and shouts "It shall be done!" Laughs at impossibilities, and shouts it shall be done.