At what point does your child warrant their own blog post chronicling their random injuries? Perhaps when they start bleeding from the head, as our precious third-born did last Tuesday.

One of the kids’ favorite activities is to go waswas long solwara or–in English–go swim in the ocean. Every other afternoon–until the aforementioned incident–Matt would take the kids on the ten minute walk to the ocean. But last Tuesday, Onesimus didn’t walk back; he was carried back what with his injuries.

The culprit?

The reef.

You’ll note that Matt and Ness are both wearing shoes as all of our kids but Susanna do. That is because this reef is brutally sharp, nevermind that most of the Papua New Guniea kids and adults who hang out on it are barefoot.

During last Tuesday’s trip, Ness tripped and fell on the reef. Once we got all the blood cleared away, we were able to see the total damage.

I know people say that head wounds bleed a ton, but there was a ridiculous amount of blood for the size of these cuts.

When I first saw Ness, there was blood all down his face and shirt–really, one of those ‘What-happened-to-my-sweet-child-and-am-I-going-to-need-that-suture-kit-in-my-bathroom-this-soon’ moments. The source of mostly all of that blood were these two cuts on his head and two other small scratches.

He bruised the left side of his body as you can see and got a bit of road rash on his left arm, as well. All in all, it looked like he had been in a fight much more than it looked like he fell down on the reef.

We all learned some valuable lessons that day:

Lesson #1: We can’t supervise Onesimus as cavalierly as we did in the States. In the States, things are either smooth concrete or soft sand or–worst case scenario–asphalt. Here, things are slightly more unkempt. Broken sidewalks and jagged reefs, etc. With his love of exploring all things dangerous and fledgling degree of common sense (something I’m learning is taught–not inate), we have to watch him more carefully here.

Lesson #2: Cuts on the head bleed profusely.

Lesson #3: Respect the reef.

To summarize Onesmius’ injuries/maladies in the past eight weeks, he has:

• been attacked by a animal
• had a fever over 104 degrees for a brief period of time
• lost a pretty much one-sided battle with the reef
• and–most recently–contracted ringworm. A fungal infection that has nothing to do with worms.

This kid.

Our lives are infinitely more blessed because of him. As in many seasons of parenting, we are also constantly re-evaluating how to best parent him/protect him/prepare him and, most of all, love him.

As a side note: something that has made these various injuries and illnesses significantly more bearable and often kept me from panicking has been the readily available help and counsel from our dear, sweet friends back home with excellent medical know-how. Thank you for responding to our emails/texts/phone calls so quickly and letting us know that we are not on our own here! You are God’s provision for us in many ways and we praise God for you.