Orin's First Movie

One of Orin's friends recently had a birthday party at a movie theater. It was a great idea. It was early in the morning - at least for us - so all of the kids wore their pajamas. The theater wasn't open to the public yet, so we had bagels and fruit and decorated their popcorn bags in the lobby. When the movie started (it was Charlotte's web) Orin sat in his seat and just stared at the screen. He sat completely still except for bringing his hand to his mouth to eat the popcorn. Unfortunately, all of this lasted for only about 15 minutes. Oh, well. That was actually longer that we had expected :-) He then proceeded to run around the theater climbing in all of the chairs. Luckily, the theater was only for the party so many of the other children were running around. Somehow he kept getting stuck between the seat. After about 40 minutes of that he was tired and watched the last 20 minutes of the movie in his seat. Micaiah had fun too!

Read more...

Poor, Sick Micaiah

About a week and a half ago we brought Micaiah to the doctor with a croupy cough, congestion, low-grade fever, etc... He didn't have an ear infection or any wheezing or strep throat, so the Doctor did a culture of his mucus (he stuck a q-tip up his nose) ;-) Micaiah has still be pretty under the weather since then. Well, the Doctor called yesterday and the culture came back positive for two different types of bacteria :-( Poor baby. So he's now on antibiotics and hopefully he'll get better soon. He's such a sweet little boy. We can tell he feels bad but he is still all smiles!

Read more...

"It's a God Thing"

Ok, I've always thought that was a silly saying. And I still think so. But sometimes things happen and they only thing you can say is "Wow, that was totally God!" We've been spending LOTS of time (hours and hours) working on our first newsletter. We will be using the layout for every newsletter so we want to make sure it's just the way we want it. When we went to have Wycliffe print them out, we found out that they couldn't print ours the way it was designed - it doesn't have any margins and only special printers can print without margins. Of course, we didn't realize this while we were designing it but after spending so much time we didn't want to change it. So we starting calling around to professional printers as well as looking into buying our own printer. We ended up having our letter printed by a printing company, but when they printed it the colors just weren't quite right. we tried to fix it some, but we just couldn't keep going back and forth with them. And after tons of searching we couldn't find a printer that would meet our needs. Well, two weeks ago Damien began training a new volunteer (his name is Oral) to work in the Media ministry. Oral said that he works at a print shop so Damien mentioned the newsletter and asked him a few questions. Well, instead of just answering his questions, Oral offered to print all of our letters (and all future letters) for free!! It totally amazes us that we've never needed anything printed before, and never met someone who works at a print shop before, but somehow both happen at the same time. The only explanation is God!

Read more...

Just Sold!

As I write I'm laying in bed in our living room (I'll talk more about that in another post). Yep, we've moved! Our house is sold and we would be homeless if not for the incredible gracious friends (the Wilsons) who have taken us in. When we decided that we are going to be moving to work with Wycliffe we decided that we should sell our Condo. The market in our area continues to decline and we really didn't want to have our support raised and be ready to take our assignment and have to wait around for months for our house to sell. I must admit, the entire process of selling was 10x worse than I had excepted. We put the house on the market about 3 weeks after Micaiah was born which didn't help. Having to keep the house pretty much spotless and ready to show in about 20 minutes notices wasn't easy. But in December we got a contract and we were thrilled to be done with it. As we got closer to the closing date we got busier and busier trying to pack and get everything done and I had very little time to contemplate the fact that we were actually leaving a house that we had lived in for three and a half years. And although that's not an incredibly long period of time so much had happened while we were there...namely, the birth of two beautiful boys. Not to mention the blood, sweat, and tears we put into three years of renovation. The business of packing and moving kept me from thinking about it, but as we drove home from the closing last week, I found myself crying in the car. It was the first time I was able to think about the fact that I'd never see the fire place that we put the carseats in front of both times we brought the babies home from the hospital. I would never cook in my kitchen again or put Orin down to bed in his room. Damien and Orin would never chase each other around the living room and kitchen. But I definitely have no regreats. Our memories are not special because of "where" they occured but because of the people associated with those memories. And I haven't to remember that moment we have with these speicial people that God put into our lives is a moment we should cherish. The best part about moving is that I get to take my family with me!

Read more...

The Amazingly Adaptable Orin

Orin is giong to be a great MK. One thing we learned in training camp regarding MKs was that the children who had the easiest times moving around and living in different cultures were the ones that were adaptable. Orin has taken the last month of incredible change in our lives with a grain of salt. He went from two weeks of very little very little attention while we packed, to a week of living at our old house while it was empty (where he had to sleep in a pack-in-play) to sleeping in a new house. He endured days with no naps and days of going to bed at midnight. But no matter what, 99% of the time he had a smile on his face.

I really do hope that he'll feel at home soon here. When we were going back and forth between our new and old place, we'd spend the day here and then get back to the townhouse late. But as soon as we walked in to the old place Orin would get so excited, have a huge smile on his face and run around...he was at home. But he's just fallen into routine here. He hasn't once put up a fight when going down for a nap or to bed at night. He still calls it "Joshua's House" when we pull up but we are trying to remind him that we are home.

Read more...

Changes

The last year has brought some incredible changes in the direction that my life is heading. Obviously, the biggest would be our decision to become full time missionaries. I do find it rather amusing when people, including Christian's, give us the "are you crazy" look. Especially when we tell them that we have to raise our own living expenses...from people! "Aren't you scared..don't you worry that you won't have money to pay the bills," many ask? Of course, in this day and age most missionaries aren't struggling so much that they worry about basic necessities, but it certainly comes with difficulties. My answer is simple. As I felt God pressing the issue on me more and more, I felt more scarred NOT to do it. I looked toward my life 20 years down the road and was terrified of looking back with regret - regret of not having giving EVERYTHING I could to serve God. Yeah, I go to Church every week, tithe, attend multiple Bible studies, serve in various ministries...but I had to ask myself was I giving everything. The answer was a big whopping "NO". Of course, becoming a missionary won't mean that I'm doing that either. But is the next step in my journey to being willing to sacrifice all that I own, all that I love, to submit to God's command to make Him Lord of my life. I'm not there yet and have a long way to go...but I pray that I'm headed in the right direction.

Read more...

Beginnings

I guess I've given in. I've been putting this off for over a year and it's time. To be honest, I'm doing this mostly for me. I enjoy sending emails to friends and family updated on what is going on in our lives, and I think this will be much easier than constantly sending out emails. And with all of the changes going on in my life right now, this is as good of a time as any. I hope to post at least one a week or more. I'm already looking forward to five years down the road and being able to come to one place to remember the past (as opposed to searching through my sent mail). So here goes...

Read more...