Induction is set for Sunday! So, we'll head back home tomorrow to have a day with the boys, then come back here for the delivery. Keep praying for a healthy baby!

Thank you for your prayers! We are here in Detroit now, and have been in to visit T & A. While they think that the baby will be here in the next two days, the nursing staff thinks that they can hold her off for another week. Obviously, another week in the oven would be best for the baby, but it could also be better to have her just come out, and get this process moving. Thankfully, it's God's decision to make. Pray for wisdom for us as to how long to stay here and wait. Tonight I'm going to get some one on one time with A and Nathan will get some one on one time with T. Pray for wise words and that we'd be able to show them the love of Christ.

BABY ON THE WAY!

I just wanted to ask you to pray! Last night we got a call from "T", the birth father of the baby we hope to adopt. The birth mother, "A", is in labor! Her water ruptured last night. This has totally caught us by surprise. She is only 33 1/2 weeks pregnant, so there is much need to pray that the baby's lungs are ready. The hospital is hoping to hold off her arrival until Saturday in the hopes of giving her more time to respond to the steroids and have mature(er) lungs. But, they don't know for sure they'll be able to stop her from coming before then. So, Sandy H. has our boys right now, and we're going to head over to the Dearborn (near Detroit) this morning to be with the birth parents, as we know baby girl's arrival is eminent.

-Please PRAY for a healthy baby.
-Please PRAY that her need to stay in the NICU would be very limited, especially since we live
on the opposite side of the state.
-Please PRAY for Nathan and I as we make decisions.
-Please PRAY for opportunities to share and model Christ to T&A!
-Please PRAY for our boys during this confusing time.

I'll keep you posted as I can!

Names?

We had a very encouraging meeting with the birth parents yesterday. God has answered so many specific prayers; we are in awe of how He is showing His hand and sovereignty in all of this. Here is a picture of baby girl. We are now taking suggestions on names that go with Elijah and Levi. Picking a girl names seems so much harder!

It's a GIRL!

We are humbled and amazed at the news that the birthparents still indeed want us to adopt their baby, and they appear to be carrying a healthy baby girl! God answers prayers! Lord willing we can meet with the birthparents next week. Thank you for praying for us.

It's been so fun watching Elijah delight in Christmas. From seeing his nativity set, to wanting to put the star on the tree, to squealing in delight at all the lights, it's been nothing but a delight to Him. For us it's nice that he's beginning to understand that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus birth (and Levi's...) He carried baby Jesus around all morning and was very careful with him.
Levi is growing like a weed. I can't believe he'll be 1 this month already. He wants so desperately to be big and do everything that Elijah does. I love watching them learn to be brothers. The love each other fiercely, but also can fight like none other!
Elijah actually seems to be enjoying the snow this year. Last year he was afraid to touch it, but now he'll at least stand in it and look at it without crying!


Elijah has also been wanting to pray more, and he ends up thanking God for the funniest things.

This morning after breakfast, Elijah said one of his memory verses by himself for the first time. In case you can't understand his dialect, he's saying Deuteronomy 13:4, "You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him."

104.5

No, that's not a radio station... it was Levi's temperature when I got him to urgent care last night. Ear infection and a bit of a bronchial infection.

Well, the birthmother's ultrasound was scheduled for Dec. 15th, so we've got three more weeks to wait before we learn much more about baby :-( But, I know waiting is good. It really challenges me to remain dependent upon Christ. I'm thankful that what remains unknown to me is fully known by HIM.

No News...

I wish no news was always good news. We didn't hear anything today about baby. I don't know what that means... except that God is keeping us waiting on HIM!

My Big Boy...

Elijah is officially in potty training. He hasn't worn a diaper (during the day) since Sunday! It's amazing what a sticker chart can do towards motivating success! I'm curious to hear from those of you who have already gone through potty training... how do you get them to go #2? He's clearly holding it in... And for those of you who are yet to come down this road, here's the one big lesson I've learned. DO NOT through poopy pants straight into the washer without wrinsing them out first. It smells.. er... spells disaster!

On the less grotesque side of things, Elijah has been so funny with the questions he's asking. He's our family happy-o-meter. Probably 20 times a day he asks each of us, "Are you happy, dad? Are you happy, mom?" He also asks, "Dad, are you home?" every few minutes while Nathan is home. I can tell he's feeling the crunch of the end of seminary for Nathan.

Here's a funny video of Elijah showing off his "big" muscles. I think he might have hurt something :-)

Prayer

Hi everyone. If you think of us tonight, please pray for opportunities to share with our new friends from Pakist... They are coming over for dinner tonight. We are looking forward to getting to know the husband as this is the first time we'll meet him. Pray that our lives paint a clear picture of Christ.

God's Ways are not Our Ways

So, we have some big news that we'd ask you all to pray about with us. A couple has asked us to adopt their baby which is due in February. While this may seem sudden, all I can say is, "God's ways are not our ways." And, he definitely has a sense of humor.

Two years ago we decided that we'd add to our family by adopting. We slowly waded through the home study paperwork and got on a waiting list over in Detroit. I desperately didn't want to get pregnant as I wanted to adopt... so we tried to prevent getting pregnant. Three weeks later we found out we were pregnant with Levi.

We stayed on the waiting list for the full year our homestudy was good for, yet no match ever happened. We considered updating our home study this Spring, but we were burried in paperwork trying to get on board with the missions agency, so we never did update. Now that we're looking to move overseas next year, we decided, "let's add to our family one more time by getting pregnant." Well, we haven't been successful, and I began to realize that God doesn't usually do things my way... so I wondered what he'd have happen.

Two weeks ago we found out that a couple from the agency in Detroit had picked us to adopt their baby. We were shocked since we thought we'd been taken off the list (we should have not been an option for them since our home study was expired). Yet, there it was. The birth mom is 24 weeks pregnant, and they don't know what they're having. In two weeks she has her first appointment, so hopefully we'll find out then. After her appointment, the social worker is going to setup a time for us to meet them.

Please be praying for us, as we begin walking through these doors. It's a hard yet good place of dependence as we won't know the outcome until February and all papers are signed. The birthparents could see the baby and change their mind. This also was not at all in our minds, nor anything that we were striving for, so we're thrilled that God so clearly has his hands in this. I could list several things only God could have done and many answers to specific prayers, but I'll save that for another post.

Here are specific prayer requets:
~For God's wisdom and guidance as we pursue this.
~That God would shut the door SOON if this isn't His will.
~That we'd trust him for the finances to adopt (especially as we begin raising support to go overseas too!)
~For the health and safety of this baby, that the birthmom will be making healthy decisions while pregnant.
~For an opportunity to share the gospel with this couple when we meet them.
~For God to be honored every step of the way in this process.

Stay tuned... (and in the mean time, here are some pics of Elijah and Levi)

New Friends

Hay Ride

Last Friday night some friends invited us over for their annual hay ride. It was so much fun to be out in the crisp fall air, taking in the brilliant fall colors (pictures of which will follow in a few days). The kids were encouraged to dress up, so it let us get the dust off of their old costumes.

Here are the kiddos... err... the fire-infatuated Pirate and Tigger the Fierce!

TEAM and Catch Up

Last week Nathan, the boys, and I were in Wheaton at Candidate School with TEAM. It was a refreshing and full time learning about the ins and outs of missions. It was encouraging being with several people all hoping to be on the field in the next year and hearing what God is doing in their ministry areas. It is becoming more real to us that moving to Tenerife is just around the corner, and our hearts are growing for the church and people that will soon be in our lives. We are now in "Phase 3" of this process... the support raising phase. I must say this is the hardest and most humbling, but I have a feeling it will also be the time that most shows us God's power and provision. We covet your prayers as we move forward. If you'd like to see a powerpoint of what's going on in Tenerife, just send me an email (my first and last name at yahoo).

On the home front, the boys are growing and changing every day. It's such a joy to have them in our lives, and it definately keeps us dependent!

Levi finally sprouted two teeth, and he's busy cruising around the furniture. Elijah has decided his favorite phrase is, "I'm too little!" which he uses in attempts to get out of whatever task he's been asked to accomplish ;-/

Here are pictures from the last week or so. After our week at TEAM, we swung through Chicago and visited Navy Pier, which was a ton of fun.

Lately Elijah has been very curious about Jesus dying on the cross. He talks about it several times a day. It's been so encouraging to my mommy heart that especially after he's disobeyed, he talks about Jesus dying for sins. I wonder just how much a 2 1/2 year old can understand spiritual things. I taught him Romans 3:23, and now when I'm talking to him about what he's done wrong, he says (unprompted) "fell short of the glory of God."

The other night, we came home a little after the boys bedtime on the one night we watch a tv show. We flipped it on and were getting the boys jammies on while watching the beginning "hook". Well, of course something scary had to happen... a woman hallucinated that someone was about to hit her in the head, and Elijah stood up, pointed at the screen, and yelled, "NO! Obey God!" That was the most profound statement he's ever made! I pray that all that he is learning will penetrate his heart.


In case you can't understand his toddler accent, he's saying Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

This week we spent two days at TEAM headquarters having our "placement consultation" which consisted of nine or so meetings with various ministry area coordinators with TEAM. It was nice to get to know the people there.

We had to take a language acquisition test that determines how well we learn a language and in what way we learn it. I was nervous as I hadn't taken a test since college 6 years ago! Nathan, on the other hand, was very at ease. Well, over the years, he's picked up some German, Pashtun, Swahili, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew.... so, my competitive self was afraid he'd cream me on the test and that I'd do so poorly that they'd send me to Costa Rica for a year before letting me on the field with Nathan. (Did I mention I must have test anxiety?)

Well, rule #1 is "Get good sleep before a test," right? Well, God apparently had other plans as Levi ended up crying ALL night long. He's never done that before, and he acted like he was on the brink of death. After a 4am drive and hours of rocking, playing, and soothing, he fell asleep at 5am on Nathan's lap. So, at 7am, I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed (NOT!) for our test.

The test covered 5 areas of language: auditory number learning (of the Tajik language), memorization, pronunciation (also Tajik), sentence structuring/parts of speech, and another part I can't describe as it fried too many synapses. It was all timed... and after one brief melt down, a few tears, and a compassionate husband, I finally finished.

Nathan faired better than me in all of the areas, but I managed to score in the 75 percentile (Nathan was in the 97th.) The funny thing is, the test didn't matter that much. It was more of an FYI on how we learn language. It turned out not to be pass or fail. Leave it to me to make a lot out of a little.

Here are a few pictures of the boys enjoying our creek.

Tenerife Update

For those of you who are wondering where we're at in the process of actually moving to Tenerife, here is where we're at:

We just learned this week that we are officially "Candidates" with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM). This means that they've reviewed our applications, references, physicals, psychiatric evaluations, and doctrinal beliefs and decided that they would like to partner with our church in sending us overseas. So, the next step is going to Wheaton next week to have our placement interviews. This will be two days of interviewing with various people at TEAM (including a language aptitude test... so pray for my Spanish!) Since I'm nursing, we'll be taking Levi, though they typically ask that no children come. Pray that he is content and flexible.

As far as our church goes, we had a nice dinner and question and answer time last wednesday with the Belches (missionaries) and our elders about the ministry in Tenerife. Our elders our hoping to decide conclusively in the next 6 weeks whether or not to send us.

TEAM has given us the go ahead to start raising funds, but we've not officially began that endeavor.

We'll keep you posted, and we covet your prayers!

Tenerife Slide Show

For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, so I'm having a slow day with the kiddos today.

Anyway, here are the boys playing in their new favorite toy... a red storage bin. Well, it was their favorite until Elijah fell over in it yesterday and sent his tooth through his lip :-(