I admit that since the earthquake I have really been stalling on blogging...I guess for the same reason that my Mum wrote on her blog the other day, I think about all that has happened and I find myself at a loss for words. So much has taken place in this past month that I don't even know what I should write about.
We have been so blessed with friends and family who care about us and have been constantly asking what our needs are and have been praying for us since day one of the earthquake, and for that we are soo thankful! We have seen God moving around us and providing for all of our needs and the needs of the people in our congregation, and although it is hard to understand why these things happen, we recognize that His thoughts are greater than ours and so are His ways....so who are we to ask God why He does what He does?
Our church family are all doing well...I think this experience has really brought us all closer and has put a desire to really draw closer to God and know Him more. We have been meeting in the dining hall behind the church as the church building itself is not in good conditions. Today we will have an engineer come and look at it and tell us what needs to be done, if it can be fixed or if we need to knock the walls down and start from scratch. We sent him some pictures of the cracks in the walls and then general conditions that it is in and he said that it is definitely not safe for us to be meeting in the church, because if there were to be another earthquake or strong tremor, it could cause the walls to break more and fall. So for now we are meeting in the dining hall and have everything set up there....today we are going to take some pictures and record the service so that people in Canada can see.
So yes, this will be our last Sunday here in the church before we fly out....it feels pretty weird, knowing that this time next week I will be in Canada, in another church, sharing with our family and friends. But obviously we are very excited to be able to go home for the birth of the baby and have a lot of peace about the trip. We went to the doctor last week and she told me that I should be in bedrest as much as possible this week before the trip, and so I have really not been doing anything! This has been hard for me as I have not gone to the church services all week and these last couple of days have just been trying to keep my feet up and lay down when I can. On Wednesday we had our ladies Bible study and as a goodbye treat we made completos...it was a really great time, but I over did it (as usual) and forgot that I was not supposed to be moving around so much, picking up Josiah etc...and that night I laid in bed with a lot of cramping and pain. So there ya go, that is why I have been taking it easy these past few days. Last night Jorge and I were watching a movie, (it was called Angles and Demons...REALLY good!) and I started to have a bit of cramping down in my pelvis area...I put my hand there, quite low down and could feel the baby's head moving around! That got me a little worried, because I know he is well in position and walking around and doing a lot of lifting and moving will most likely cause him to come earlier...so needless to say, I MUST take it easy so that I can get through the plane ride from here to Canada.
We leave Wednesday afternoon from Concepcion airport and will be driving to Concepcion tomorrow afternoon, so as I said, today will be our last night in the church. I hope I don't cry..lol. I am sad to leave my brothers and sisters here but of course, happy that we get the oppertunity to go and see our brothers and sisters in canada...but yeah, at this point my emotions are usually getting the better of me! lol.
Anyways, I should get going. We havent even started to pack anything yet..lol but that is because we are taking very little..basically just some clothes and nothing more. So we will get to doing some of that tonight and then tomorrow morning.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers, they are muchly appreciated!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
So much to say....
yet so little time to say it in...
I am somewhat frustrated because I have wanted to blog for these past couple of days and honestly just havent been able to have the time to sit down and write. Not that we have been super busy, although we have had quite a lot of activities, but also because my sister in law is staying with us and she seems to have a slight addiction to the computer, lol which makes it difficult for me to get on much at all. Don´t get me wrong, I love her very much...but she does spend way too much time on the computer and it is a bit frustrating as I often blog in my head and at night want to type it all out, but ahvent been able to.
Anyways, I am going to take a few minutes to go over a few things, but it is very late here and I can´t go for too long. We had a good weekend, on Saturday I spent the day with the ladies form the church, we went to a river that is close by here, got there at 10 am and stayed until about 9:30 pm...yup, the whole day! It was long but really nice and relaxing, most of the ladies took their kids or grandkids and the children had a blast in the river...it is a very shallow river so the little kids can just wade around in it and for the older kids there are also different areas where it is a bit deeper, so they spent most of the day in the water. Josiah fell asleep in the mei tai around 1 pm but only slept for about 15 minutes as I tried to take him out and lay him in a tent...and with all the ladies hovering around me trying to "help", HAHA he woke up and decided that that was his nap for the day...sigh. But for only napping 15 minutes he had a great day...he played with the kids in the river for a couple of hours straight and I sat there with him as he thre dirt at me..lol dont ask. There was so much mud and he got such a kick out of throwing it at all the kids, and they of course played along and encouraged the behavior, so there was nothing much that I could do about it. But anyways. Around 7:30 he finally fell asleep in my arms and slept for the last 2 hours at the park...which aloud me to sit for a while with the ladies and have tea and good conversation..there was about 13 of us and we had a really good time.
On Sunday I had a sister from the church come over, Luisa, who is also my assistant in the church, and we made "Zapallo italiano relleno", which is like "Stuffed Zucchini". Wow....it was amazingly good! Luisa and her family ahve a big garden in their backyard and they always give us tomatoes and zucchini´s...and these zucchinis are HUGE! I had never seen such big zucchinis in my whole life, but they are so tasty and although the dish did take us about 2 and a half hours to make (granted, we made it for 9 people!), it was sooo worth it. I am planning to make foods like that when my Mum and sister come, because these are things that we would never think to do with a zucchini, but they are so delicious!
After the lunch that we made Luisa helped me peel and cut a batch of peaches that were given to us and then boil them and she showed me how to make homemade jam...it turned out really good and I was quite proud of myself for that one:)
That evening we had our normal Sunday church service but this service was special, as we presented the projector that was given to the church, to the congregation. With the money that was left over, we also bought a drum set for the church, brand new...they had a drum set before that belonged to the Pastor´s son, but because of some unofrtunate, "problems", he stopped attending the church and took his drum set with him.. This was quite upsetting for some of the people in the church, 1) that he left, and 2) that he took the drums, as it is such a beautiful instrument in the worship team. Anyways, when the service began Jorge had the drums all set up, and then the projector we wrapped as a present and put it in front of the pulpit. After the second hymn, Jorge invited one of the sisters in the Some brothers and sisters shouted out "praise the LORD", " Thank you GOD!"....and then Jorge proceeded to share with them the story of how the projector came to us as a gift from our brothers and sisters in Canada, from many different churches. He then showed a video clip of Pastor Peter Coyne from E-Free church in Picture Butte and Kevin Wrighter(sp??) who is on the board of elders, Jorge did the video with subtitles on it, and for the brothers and sisters who cant read a few of us went and sat beside them to read to them what the words said. Everyone was very moved and we continued to worship the LORD and praise Him for the support that His Church Family is offering our little congregation here in Yumbel...what a blessing to know that others are praying for us and thinking of us. We then prayed for the body of Christ in Canada and blessed them for their generosity....it was a really great time. We took pictures and recorded it, so we will put those on facebook as soon as we can.
Well it is late and I cant continue on right now...I will have to continue this post over the next few days..as my tummy is as hard as a rock and I need to lay down and put my feet up ..before Josiah wakes up in a couple of hours...sigh...good night for now..
I am somewhat frustrated because I have wanted to blog for these past couple of days and honestly just havent been able to have the time to sit down and write. Not that we have been super busy, although we have had quite a lot of activities, but also because my sister in law is staying with us and she seems to have a slight addiction to the computer, lol which makes it difficult for me to get on much at all. Don´t get me wrong, I love her very much...but she does spend way too much time on the computer and it is a bit frustrating as I often blog in my head and at night want to type it all out, but ahvent been able to.
Anyways, I am going to take a few minutes to go over a few things, but it is very late here and I can´t go for too long. We had a good weekend, on Saturday I spent the day with the ladies form the church, we went to a river that is close by here, got there at 10 am and stayed until about 9:30 pm...yup, the whole day! It was long but really nice and relaxing, most of the ladies took their kids or grandkids and the children had a blast in the river...it is a very shallow river so the little kids can just wade around in it and for the older kids there are also different areas where it is a bit deeper, so they spent most of the day in the water. Josiah fell asleep in the mei tai around 1 pm but only slept for about 15 minutes as I tried to take him out and lay him in a tent...and with all the ladies hovering around me trying to "help", HAHA he woke up and decided that that was his nap for the day...sigh. But for only napping 15 minutes he had a great day...he played with the kids in the river for a couple of hours straight and I sat there with him as he thre dirt at me..lol dont ask. There was so much mud and he got such a kick out of throwing it at all the kids, and they of course played along and encouraged the behavior, so there was nothing much that I could do about it. But anyways. Around 7:30 he finally fell asleep in my arms and slept for the last 2 hours at the park...which aloud me to sit for a while with the ladies and have tea and good conversation..there was about 13 of us and we had a really good time.
On Sunday I had a sister from the church come over, Luisa, who is also my assistant in the church, and we made "Zapallo italiano relleno", which is like "Stuffed Zucchini". Wow....it was amazingly good! Luisa and her family ahve a big garden in their backyard and they always give us tomatoes and zucchini´s...and these zucchinis are HUGE! I had never seen such big zucchinis in my whole life, but they are so tasty and although the dish did take us about 2 and a half hours to make (granted, we made it for 9 people!), it was sooo worth it. I am planning to make foods like that when my Mum and sister come, because these are things that we would never think to do with a zucchini, but they are so delicious!
After the lunch that we made Luisa helped me peel and cut a batch of peaches that were given to us and then boil them and she showed me how to make homemade jam...it turned out really good and I was quite proud of myself for that one:)
That evening we had our normal Sunday church service but this service was special, as we presented the projector that was given to the church, to the congregation. With the money that was left over, we also bought a drum set for the church, brand new...they had a drum set before that belonged to the Pastor´s son, but because of some unofrtunate, "problems", he stopped attending the church and took his drum set with him.. This was quite upsetting for some of the people in the church, 1) that he left, and 2) that he took the drums, as it is such a beautiful instrument in the worship team. Anyways, when the service began Jorge had the drums all set up, and then the projector we wrapped as a present and put it in front of the pulpit. After the second hymn, Jorge invited one of the sisters in the Some brothers and sisters shouted out "praise the LORD", " Thank you GOD!"....and then Jorge proceeded to share with them the story of how the projector came to us as a gift from our brothers and sisters in Canada, from many different churches. He then showed a video clip of Pastor Peter Coyne from E-Free church in Picture Butte and Kevin Wrighter(sp??) who is on the board of elders, Jorge did the video with subtitles on it, and for the brothers and sisters who cant read a few of us went and sat beside them to read to them what the words said. Everyone was very moved and we continued to worship the LORD and praise Him for the support that His Church Family is offering our little congregation here in Yumbel...what a blessing to know that others are praying for us and thinking of us. We then prayed for the body of Christ in Canada and blessed them for their generosity....it was a really great time. We took pictures and recorded it, so we will put those on facebook as soon as we can.
Well it is late and I cant continue on right now...I will have to continue this post over the next few days..as my tummy is as hard as a rock and I need to lay down and put my feet up ..before Josiah wakes up in a couple of hours...sigh...good night for now..
Friday, February 12, 2010
Where´s a MONO??
I know, it is a wierd question. Especially wierd when your 21 month old asks you constantly, haha and this has been the case with Josiah. In Spanish "mono" means "monkey", and though we have not really taught him the word we have said it every now and then when we are teaching him "what the monkey says" etc. But he has started using this word for everything....including people! On Thursday him and Jorge were playing hide and go seek...well, Jorge was hiding from Josiah and Josiah was only interested in doing the seeking, lol. After looking for Jorge in the bedroom and bathroom Josiah came running out to me, shrugged his shoulders up and down and said, "Mummy, where´s the mono?" LMBO I just looked at him and said, "he is not a "mono" son, he is your Father, but I dont know where he is", hahahaha. Jorge and I both got a pretty good laugh out of that...he has also started to sing the word quite a lot, which he does when he finds a new word that he really enjoys using. He begins in a high tone and then allows his voice to fluctuate from high to low singing "mono, mono, mono, mono...." He also sings this song for other words such as "Mummy", "Nana"(banana), and "Puppies". haha he is quite the character and lately we are having so many laughs with the things he comes up with. Today we were watching I Love Lucy and he thought Ricky´s reaction to whatever it was that Lucy did (I cant remember now which episode it was), was hilarious and he put his hand on his forhead and said "OH NO!!! Aye ay ay ay ay ay!!" HAHA it was pretty funny...
Well, it is 12:55 am and Jorge went out rabbit hunting with "the boys", and I expect that he won´t get back for another hour or so, so I thought I would take the time to write a little bit so that I dont get into my slump of not writing on my blog again. Tomorrow (or should I say today!) we have the ladies picnic, there will be about 12 of us ladies from the church going to the river for the day with our kids, to have a fun relaxing day. We will be leaving early in the morning, about 9 am and then going and getting a bunch of picnic tables and having breakfast there, then we will spend the day just hanging out and visiting...I am really looking forward to it. Paulina came back to Yumbel with Jorge today when he went to Concepcion so she will come with me and Josiah tomorrow and she is excited about that, she has really enjoyed spending time here in Yumbel for most of her summer vacations and we have enjoyed having her!
Well, I guess I should be off to bed...my son will most likely be waking up soon and begin his usual call for "Mummy!" which will then lead me to either go lay in his bed or bring him down to ours...for lack of strength and desire to be climbing up and down the stairs more than once in the night.
Anyways, I am off to sleep now...will write again soon!
Well, it is 12:55 am and Jorge went out rabbit hunting with "the boys", and I expect that he won´t get back for another hour or so, so I thought I would take the time to write a little bit so that I dont get into my slump of not writing on my blog again. Tomorrow (or should I say today!) we have the ladies picnic, there will be about 12 of us ladies from the church going to the river for the day with our kids, to have a fun relaxing day. We will be leaving early in the morning, about 9 am and then going and getting a bunch of picnic tables and having breakfast there, then we will spend the day just hanging out and visiting...I am really looking forward to it. Paulina came back to Yumbel with Jorge today when he went to Concepcion so she will come with me and Josiah tomorrow and she is excited about that, she has really enjoyed spending time here in Yumbel for most of her summer vacations and we have enjoyed having her!
Well, I guess I should be off to bed...my son will most likely be waking up soon and begin his usual call for "Mummy!" which will then lead me to either go lay in his bed or bring him down to ours...for lack of strength and desire to be climbing up and down the stairs more than once in the night.
Anyways, I am off to sleep now...will write again soon!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Getting back on track...again
ok here I go again, my third attempt at blogging in the last two days. I began writing the other day and then my laptop shut off..which it does quite often due to it not having a battery(don`t ask!). I thought I had lost everything that I had written but it turns out that it was saved in my drafts...unfortunately, I am not the type of person who can just pick up where I left off, because I am now writing two days later and have other things to say, so therefore, I errased the whole thing and am starting once again. I attempted again to come on and blog last night and (of course) as soon as I opened the internet the computer decided once again that it had had enough for the day, and off it went. Needless to say, I pulled at my hair with a sharp inward scream and then decided to just call it a night and go to bed myself..haha not much I can do about this computer right now. It is frustrating as we have not been able to be online much at all lately, but I must be thankful for the communication that we have at least, so I will try to keep my complaints limited.
So where do I start?? Oh mygoodness, there are so many things going on here that I honestly don`t know where to start. HHmmmm. My ladies group in the church...that is where I will start. We have had some really good times with the ladies these past couple of weeks. We have changed our meetings to Wednesday afternoons at 3pm and for the first few weeks it was difficult as no one was showing up. Granted, it is summer time here too, so that plays a big role in the whole thing. A lot of ladies have family visiting or they go and visit family for a few weeks etc. >For the past few weeks there have only been about 3 or 4 of us who actually attend the meetings, due to this, I decided to suspend the actual "classes" that we usually have and make the time more of a special "summer visiting" time. I decided that for the next few weeks, until school starts again and everything gets back to "normal" we will continue to meet on Wednesday evenings, but instead of having an actual Bible study with a lesson and whatnot, we will take the oppertunities to go and visit sisters in the church, and then have a special tea time together. The idea is to have the ladies feel comfortable and when we were meeting in the church and there were only 3 or 4 of us, I could tell that the ladies were not that comfortable. For the first few classes I brought the ladies to my house for tea..and we had some really good discussions of what God had been doing in our lives lately etc. This past wednesday we had a bigger turnout, about 8 ladies came and we all went to visit a young girl that I had met during an evangelism that we did last weekend. She has a little baby who has had to be operated on 3 times and he is only 8 months old..poor baby. Anyways, we went and visited her, prayed with her and then all came to our house for some Sopaipilla(its like deep fried dough...sooo good!) and tea. Jorge was also here with Josiah and we all had a great visit and it was really cool to see how the ladies were so relaxed open with us. For the ladies here the whole idea of having tea at the Pastors house is a big thing...as their former pastors never really ever let people into their house, but Jorge and I have told them that for us, we enjoy sharing with people and we really do love having people over! Anyways, we are also planning an outing for all of the women in the church for this saturday. we will be going to the river and spending the whole day there, to just get away and relax, so I am really excited about that.
These past few weeks have been good for us, and for the church I think. There is still a lot of hurt and pain that has been caused in the people and we have come to the realization that no matter how eager we all are to "keep moving forward", we also see that we are still in "the desert", still going through this hard time, still in the middle of everything that took place almost 4 months ago and what we need now, more than anything is to seek God and His Presence, because He is the only one who will get us through this. Jorge and I were talking these past few days and we have noticed that if there is one thing that the church is strong in, it is relationships...they are a tight family who love each other, but they are still greiving the loss of their other "family members" who left the church and it will take time for these wounds to heal. I am so proud of Jorge and the work that he is doing here. God is really using him and speaking through him and I can see how the LORD is at work in his life daily. He has been spending so much time in prayer and seeking God, and yesterday the LORD gave him a very powerful word from Zachariah to share in the church...everyone was broken and crying...and I could just feel the LORD saying "these are my people, and I will not let them go...but they MUST desire nothing but ME!" And this is the desire that the LORD is putting in the hearts of my brothers and sisters here...they are desiring GOD, nothing else. We have had so many tell us that all they want is to meet with GOD, to know Him more, to see Him. If you think of our church family, please pray for us...in this area.
In all that has been going on around us me and baby are doing well. I have been feeling a lot better physically this past week and emotionally also. Honestly about two weeks ago I was struggling so much, up and down with my emotions (or maybe my hormones!), crying and then laughing, laughing too hard and then I would start to bawl..lol I was a mess. I would have certain days when I would wake up and want to be anywhere but here...and then others where I would wake up and be so excited to be here with my family. But no matter what I feel...I know that we are where the LORD has called us to be and that gives me peace. I havent been having as much cramping or pain as I was last week either and I am very thankful for that! My baby has been moving around constantly so I have no doubt at all in my mind that he is happy and well. LOL. My tummy, on the other hand, is HUGE and seems to be growing more and more everyday. I am at 30 weeks now and am starting to get REALLY nervous about the birth, but at this point there is not much I can do but face the music, haha so I am just trying not to think too much about it and take life as it comes.
Josiah has been keeping me VERY busy lately and honestly, the thought of having two of him scares the bujeebers out of me, LOL! But it is also so fun to watch him grow and see him do new things and say new words everyday. Last week he started going "pee pee" in the toilet, everytime I would change him I would hold him over the toilet and he would go...but this week the novelty kind of wore off and now he says "no pee pee!" uh oh...that worries me a little bit. Especially as I was getting all ready to potty train him in the upcoming weeks! (yes, I bought big boy underwear, a plastic diaper cover and everything LOL. But we will see what that brings about. He has also started saying funny things like "uuummmmmm" when you ask him what he would like and "huh?" if he doesnt understand you or if you call him. Today I said "what are you doing son?" and he looks at me and goes "huh?!" and when I said the same thing but in spanish he then began jabbering on, finishing his sentence with ".....and with the puppies!" LOL I think he was talking about how he wanted to play with the puppies but they were sleeping, but it was funny that he didnt seem to want to respond to the question when it was in english.lol. He is a funny little dude.
But I think this post has gotten long enough and although there is so much more to write about I will have to continute to do so in the next few days. I know I have been lazy with my writing, but I will try to keep it up more often...and hopefully in a few weeks we will have a more reliable computer also, which should make my writing experiences a whole lot less complicated:)
Will write again soon...bye for now!
So where do I start?? Oh mygoodness, there are so many things going on here that I honestly don`t know where to start. HHmmmm. My ladies group in the church...that is where I will start. We have had some really good times with the ladies these past couple of weeks. We have changed our meetings to Wednesday afternoons at 3pm and for the first few weeks it was difficult as no one was showing up. Granted, it is summer time here too, so that plays a big role in the whole thing. A lot of ladies have family visiting or they go and visit family for a few weeks etc. >For the past few weeks there have only been about 3 or 4 of us who actually attend the meetings, due to this, I decided to suspend the actual "classes" that we usually have and make the time more of a special "summer visiting" time. I decided that for the next few weeks, until school starts again and everything gets back to "normal" we will continue to meet on Wednesday evenings, but instead of having an actual Bible study with a lesson and whatnot, we will take the oppertunities to go and visit sisters in the church, and then have a special tea time together. The idea is to have the ladies feel comfortable and when we were meeting in the church and there were only 3 or 4 of us, I could tell that the ladies were not that comfortable. For the first few classes I brought the ladies to my house for tea..and we had some really good discussions of what God had been doing in our lives lately etc. This past wednesday we had a bigger turnout, about 8 ladies came and we all went to visit a young girl that I had met during an evangelism that we did last weekend. She has a little baby who has had to be operated on 3 times and he is only 8 months old..poor baby. Anyways, we went and visited her, prayed with her and then all came to our house for some Sopaipilla(its like deep fried dough...sooo good!) and tea. Jorge was also here with Josiah and we all had a great visit and it was really cool to see how the ladies were so relaxed open with us. For the ladies here the whole idea of having tea at the Pastors house is a big thing...as their former pastors never really ever let people into their house, but Jorge and I have told them that for us, we enjoy sharing with people and we really do love having people over! Anyways, we are also planning an outing for all of the women in the church for this saturday. we will be going to the river and spending the whole day there, to just get away and relax, so I am really excited about that.
These past few weeks have been good for us, and for the church I think. There is still a lot of hurt and pain that has been caused in the people and we have come to the realization that no matter how eager we all are to "keep moving forward", we also see that we are still in "the desert", still going through this hard time, still in the middle of everything that took place almost 4 months ago and what we need now, more than anything is to seek God and His Presence, because He is the only one who will get us through this. Jorge and I were talking these past few days and we have noticed that if there is one thing that the church is strong in, it is relationships...they are a tight family who love each other, but they are still greiving the loss of their other "family members" who left the church and it will take time for these wounds to heal. I am so proud of Jorge and the work that he is doing here. God is really using him and speaking through him and I can see how the LORD is at work in his life daily. He has been spending so much time in prayer and seeking God, and yesterday the LORD gave him a very powerful word from Zachariah to share in the church...everyone was broken and crying...and I could just feel the LORD saying "these are my people, and I will not let them go...but they MUST desire nothing but ME!" And this is the desire that the LORD is putting in the hearts of my brothers and sisters here...they are desiring GOD, nothing else. We have had so many tell us that all they want is to meet with GOD, to know Him more, to see Him. If you think of our church family, please pray for us...in this area.
In all that has been going on around us me and baby are doing well. I have been feeling a lot better physically this past week and emotionally also. Honestly about two weeks ago I was struggling so much, up and down with my emotions (or maybe my hormones!), crying and then laughing, laughing too hard and then I would start to bawl..lol I was a mess. I would have certain days when I would wake up and want to be anywhere but here...and then others where I would wake up and be so excited to be here with my family. But no matter what I feel...I know that we are where the LORD has called us to be and that gives me peace. I havent been having as much cramping or pain as I was last week either and I am very thankful for that! My baby has been moving around constantly so I have no doubt at all in my mind that he is happy and well. LOL. My tummy, on the other hand, is HUGE and seems to be growing more and more everyday. I am at 30 weeks now and am starting to get REALLY nervous about the birth, but at this point there is not much I can do but face the music, haha so I am just trying not to think too much about it and take life as it comes.
Josiah has been keeping me VERY busy lately and honestly, the thought of having two of him scares the bujeebers out of me, LOL! But it is also so fun to watch him grow and see him do new things and say new words everyday. Last week he started going "pee pee" in the toilet, everytime I would change him I would hold him over the toilet and he would go...but this week the novelty kind of wore off and now he says "no pee pee!" uh oh...that worries me a little bit. Especially as I was getting all ready to potty train him in the upcoming weeks! (yes, I bought big boy underwear, a plastic diaper cover and everything LOL. But we will see what that brings about. He has also started saying funny things like "uuummmmmm" when you ask him what he would like and "huh?" if he doesnt understand you or if you call him. Today I said "what are you doing son?" and he looks at me and goes "huh?!" and when I said the same thing but in spanish he then began jabbering on, finishing his sentence with ".....and with the puppies!" LOL I think he was talking about how he wanted to play with the puppies but they were sleeping, but it was funny that he didnt seem to want to respond to the question when it was in english.lol. He is a funny little dude.
But I think this post has gotten long enough and although there is so much more to write about I will have to continute to do so in the next few days. I know I have been lazy with my writing, but I will try to keep it up more often...and hopefully in a few weeks we will have a more reliable computer also, which should make my writing experiences a whole lot less complicated:)
Will write again soon...bye for now!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Encouraged
That is the word that sums up how I am feeling at this moment. Since I am quite pregnant my emotions have been playing around with me a lot lately and I have one moment felt encouraged and the next, discouraged..but looking back over these past few days and seeing everything that God is doing around us is a definite reason to be encouraged!
This past week I was so nervous as I had a lot of things to plan for and did not feel prepared to do so. I sought God, cried out to Him, put my weaknesses and fears before Him and He, once again, brought me through it all,ichis Glory, and not my own. Last week Jorge asked me if I would preach in the church on Sunday, and I agreed, knowing that this is something that he would like me to do at least once a month, so as to encourage the ladies in the church to get more involved in ministry and to see that God can also use women in the ministry. But I was so nervous as not only did I have to plan for that sermon, but I also had to think about the English class that we were starting on Tuesday and then our ladies meeting which we were starting off on Wednesday. On top of all that, I had also been having a lot of pain in my lower abdomen throughout last week, and was a bit worried about what that was all about. But really, the LORD gave me His Grace and taught me a lot about how I need to come back to the basics of trusting in Him to put the words in my mouth when I need them, and to seek Him first, above all else. I read a book that was given to me by our Pastors wife and a good friend of mine, Mary Coyne, before I left Canada called, ¨Breaking the Mold¨( I can´t remember the author´s name right now and I´m two lazy to go downstairs and look, lol). But she said something that really made me think. She speaks about our duty as Christians, how we are ALL called to serve God and ALL called to the ¨ministry¨. She made a comment about how it is funny how some Christians say they are called to ¨full-time ministry¨, and then she says ¨aren´t we all??¨ She then goes on to say how as Pastor´s wives, we shouldn´t look at everything that we have to do and say, ¨oh, I have to do that because I am the Pastor´s wife..¨ she says ¨no, you have to do it because you are a Christian and God has called us all to serve Him.¨ This may be something that is not all that new to some people, but for me, it really made me think.
So I gave my sermon on Sunday and spoke on Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 and spoke about prayer and the importance of knowing when to be silent before the LORD. Then last night (Tuesday) we had our first English class and had 27 people come! We were really excited about that, especially as 12 of them are relatives of church members and are not actually attending the church themselves, so we are hoping to be able to get to know them better and share Christ with them. The classes went great, Jorge gave a great introduction and then we taught the ABC´s and some numbers. Jorge and I had a lot of fun translating back and fourth as we want the students to hear english as much as they can. It is exciting for us to see the people excited and encouraged about learning, especially because normally if someone wanted to study english they have to pay a lot of money to take a course, and to know that we are helping these people who would normally never get the chance to do this...it´s pretty neat. We have said that the only thing that they have to pay for is for the photocopying of the book, which comes to about 8 dollars, but a few people, we have found, don´t even have that much...so we have told them that whatever they can give is fine and we will see how we can cover the rest. The people here have so little but their hearts are so big, and they are thankful for what we are doing..so for me, that is reward enough.
This afternoon I also had the ladies meeting at the church and though few came, we had a really good time, so I am glad about that. There were only 6 of us, but that is to be expected as we changed the day and time from when they have had it for a long time...so it will take some ladies time to get used to that. But either way it went really well and I am thankful that the LORD is doing great things among us. I must go now as I have been writing while uploading pictures onto facebook (YEAH!) and now I need to get ready for our guests that are coming over tonight...will write again soon.
This past week I was so nervous as I had a lot of things to plan for and did not feel prepared to do so. I sought God, cried out to Him, put my weaknesses and fears before Him and He, once again, brought me through it all,ichis Glory, and not my own. Last week Jorge asked me if I would preach in the church on Sunday, and I agreed, knowing that this is something that he would like me to do at least once a month, so as to encourage the ladies in the church to get more involved in ministry and to see that God can also use women in the ministry. But I was so nervous as not only did I have to plan for that sermon, but I also had to think about the English class that we were starting on Tuesday and then our ladies meeting which we were starting off on Wednesday. On top of all that, I had also been having a lot of pain in my lower abdomen throughout last week, and was a bit worried about what that was all about. But really, the LORD gave me His Grace and taught me a lot about how I need to come back to the basics of trusting in Him to put the words in my mouth when I need them, and to seek Him first, above all else. I read a book that was given to me by our Pastors wife and a good friend of mine, Mary Coyne, before I left Canada called, ¨Breaking the Mold¨( I can´t remember the author´s name right now and I´m two lazy to go downstairs and look, lol). But she said something that really made me think. She speaks about our duty as Christians, how we are ALL called to serve God and ALL called to the ¨ministry¨. She made a comment about how it is funny how some Christians say they are called to ¨full-time ministry¨, and then she says ¨aren´t we all??¨ She then goes on to say how as Pastor´s wives, we shouldn´t look at everything that we have to do and say, ¨oh, I have to do that because I am the Pastor´s wife..¨ she says ¨no, you have to do it because you are a Christian and God has called us all to serve Him.¨ This may be something that is not all that new to some people, but for me, it really made me think.
So I gave my sermon on Sunday and spoke on Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 and spoke about prayer and the importance of knowing when to be silent before the LORD. Then last night (Tuesday) we had our first English class and had 27 people come! We were really excited about that, especially as 12 of them are relatives of church members and are not actually attending the church themselves, so we are hoping to be able to get to know them better and share Christ with them. The classes went great, Jorge gave a great introduction and then we taught the ABC´s and some numbers. Jorge and I had a lot of fun translating back and fourth as we want the students to hear english as much as they can. It is exciting for us to see the people excited and encouraged about learning, especially because normally if someone wanted to study english they have to pay a lot of money to take a course, and to know that we are helping these people who would normally never get the chance to do this...it´s pretty neat. We have said that the only thing that they have to pay for is for the photocopying of the book, which comes to about 8 dollars, but a few people, we have found, don´t even have that much...so we have told them that whatever they can give is fine and we will see how we can cover the rest. The people here have so little but their hearts are so big, and they are thankful for what we are doing..so for me, that is reward enough.
This afternoon I also had the ladies meeting at the church and though few came, we had a really good time, so I am glad about that. There were only 6 of us, but that is to be expected as we changed the day and time from when they have had it for a long time...so it will take some ladies time to get used to that. But either way it went really well and I am thankful that the LORD is doing great things among us. I must go now as I have been writing while uploading pictures onto facebook (YEAH!) and now I need to get ready for our guests that are coming over tonight...will write again soon.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Treasured moments
everynight since Josiah has been in his big boy bed, he usually always wakes up in the middle of the night and calls out ¨Mummy!¨ and Jorge and I take turns going and laying with him, one night I will go and the next night he will go. But the last couple of times that I have gone and laid down beside Josiah in bed he wraps his little arms around my neck, hugs me as tight as he can and sweetly says ¨oh, Mummy...¨ then he falls asleep with his arms around me. What a way to make a mother´s heart melt. The other night as I was laying with him and he had his little arms wrapped around my neck I just laid there looking at him...feeling his breath on my cheek, and all I could do was thank the LORD for my little prince. I just laid there and treasured every moment of having him so close to me, holding me so tight, knowing that with his Mummy there with him, he was safe and loved. Those are the moments that a mother treasures..and I believe they are ones I will never forget.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
finally, back again...
it feels like is has been a long time since I blogged...and I guess it has! These past few weeks have been rather busy ones, what with the robbery and all, and I have honestly not spent a lot of time online at all. Last week my Father-in-law lent us his laptop and Jorge was able to go and get another modem for the internet(as ours was stolen), but I still didn´t spend a lot of time online, mostly just to chat every now and then with my parents, etc.
We had a good New Years here in the house, all things considering...my sister in law, Paulina came and spent a few days with us which was really nice for Josiah and her, she LOVES spending time with him and he enjoys playing with her also:) It was really comforting to have her here with us, especially the night that we arrived (when we found that our house had been broken into)..because Jorge and his Dad were involved in calling the police and whatnot and Paulina was dedicated to helping me with Josiah, holding my hand and asking how I was doing. She is such a sweetheart! When we first came in and saw that someone had broken into the house she right away was by my side asking if I was alright...I was a bit shakin up but not for very long. After about fifteen minutes or so, we were all standing outside the house and I thought, I just need to go inside and pray. I walked into our bedroom where all of our drawers were open and our clothes and things everywhere, and there was Paulina, kneeling beside our bed, praying. I just knelt beside her and we held each other, cried and prayed together. We prayed for peace, and for the poeple who broke into the house, and really, after that, all of my fears or jitters that I felt were gone...and Jorge and I both felt a lot of peace about the whole situation.
New Years Eve we had a church service and it went really well. The main focus was to give thanks to God for everything that He has done in this past year (or last year now..2009), and quite a few brothers and sisters were given the oppertunity to share the things that God has done in their lives in this past year . It was encouraging to hear how they have seen God working, even with everything that the church has gone through, and how they are excited to see what He has in store for this New Year that we are entering into.
So, I began writing this post almost two days ago and then had to save the draft...and now I am back with some more good news, and that is that yesterday Jorge was able to buy us a car! He went to Concepcion for the day and after meeting with his Dad and some people at a few dealerships he found the perfect car for us..it is a Chevrolet Corsa (I think this is a model that you can only get in South America because I never saw one in Canada) and it is just what we needed:) So we are very thankful that we do not have to take the bus anymore when traveling to and from the city etc. So we are so Thankful that the LORD continues to provide for our needs!
Josiah is doing well and is changing soo much! Everyday he seems to do something cute and say something new and he is at a really fun age. He is getting very comfortable with the brothers and sisters in the church and even runs to a few of them with open arms when he sees them! What?? Josiah, run to someone´s arms?? haha I know, it is very different for us to see also..but as he is getting older he is also learning to be more independant and understands that Jorge and I will not go anywhere for a while if he goes and plays with other people..and that gives us a nice break at times too! He has really been paying attention to the way that things are done in the church, and today in the service he did so many cute things, bless his little heart. The costum in the church is that when one enters the temple you kneel at one of the benches and pray...so he has observed us do this and at times came and held our hands and prayed with us. Today when we walked in he ran to the bench and right away bowed his little head and folded his hands...ogosh, it was so cute! After that he went up to one of the little boys in the church and kindly extended his hand to greet him..lol granted the little boy just laughed and walked away, so poor little Siah was left with his little hand out, and after waiting for a few minutes and realizing that he wasn´t coming back, he just shrugged it off and went about his business. Later on in the service Jorge and I were running out of ideas of how to entertain him (Jorge usually sits up front but today he sat with me on the bench), so Jorge gave him a coin to play with. Josiah looked at it looked up at the brother sitting at his desk in front of the stage,(who also collects the offering) and went over and held out the coin to him. The brother smiled and said, ¨your offering?¨ then held out the offering plate to him and Josiah threw his coin in...he was so proud of himself and it is so fun to watch how he tries to imitate everything we do.
Anyways, this post is getting very long and it is getting very late so I need to stop for now. I will try to write more often now...it is harder when I get behind as I am constantly thinking of things that I should write about, but then I get too caught up in the daily activities and dont find the time to sit and write it down. But I will try harder over the next little while. Blessings to you all and good night:)
We had a good New Years here in the house, all things considering...my sister in law, Paulina came and spent a few days with us which was really nice for Josiah and her, she LOVES spending time with him and he enjoys playing with her also:) It was really comforting to have her here with us, especially the night that we arrived (when we found that our house had been broken into)..because Jorge and his Dad were involved in calling the police and whatnot and Paulina was dedicated to helping me with Josiah, holding my hand and asking how I was doing. She is such a sweetheart! When we first came in and saw that someone had broken into the house she right away was by my side asking if I was alright...I was a bit shakin up but not for very long. After about fifteen minutes or so, we were all standing outside the house and I thought, I just need to go inside and pray. I walked into our bedroom where all of our drawers were open and our clothes and things everywhere, and there was Paulina, kneeling beside our bed, praying. I just knelt beside her and we held each other, cried and prayed together. We prayed for peace, and for the poeple who broke into the house, and really, after that, all of my fears or jitters that I felt were gone...and Jorge and I both felt a lot of peace about the whole situation.
New Years Eve we had a church service and it went really well. The main focus was to give thanks to God for everything that He has done in this past year (or last year now..2009), and quite a few brothers and sisters were given the oppertunity to share the things that God has done in their lives in this past year . It was encouraging to hear how they have seen God working, even with everything that the church has gone through, and how they are excited to see what He has in store for this New Year that we are entering into.
So, I began writing this post almost two days ago and then had to save the draft...and now I am back with some more good news, and that is that yesterday Jorge was able to buy us a car! He went to Concepcion for the day and after meeting with his Dad and some people at a few dealerships he found the perfect car for us..it is a Chevrolet Corsa (I think this is a model that you can only get in South America because I never saw one in Canada) and it is just what we needed:) So we are very thankful that we do not have to take the bus anymore when traveling to and from the city etc. So we are so Thankful that the LORD continues to provide for our needs!
Josiah is doing well and is changing soo much! Everyday he seems to do something cute and say something new and he is at a really fun age. He is getting very comfortable with the brothers and sisters in the church and even runs to a few of them with open arms when he sees them! What?? Josiah, run to someone´s arms?? haha I know, it is very different for us to see also..but as he is getting older he is also learning to be more independant and understands that Jorge and I will not go anywhere for a while if he goes and plays with other people..and that gives us a nice break at times too! He has really been paying attention to the way that things are done in the church, and today in the service he did so many cute things, bless his little heart. The costum in the church is that when one enters the temple you kneel at one of the benches and pray...so he has observed us do this and at times came and held our hands and prayed with us. Today when we walked in he ran to the bench and right away bowed his little head and folded his hands...ogosh, it was so cute! After that he went up to one of the little boys in the church and kindly extended his hand to greet him..lol granted the little boy just laughed and walked away, so poor little Siah was left with his little hand out, and after waiting for a few minutes and realizing that he wasn´t coming back, he just shrugged it off and went about his business. Later on in the service Jorge and I were running out of ideas of how to entertain him (Jorge usually sits up front but today he sat with me on the bench), so Jorge gave him a coin to play with. Josiah looked at it looked up at the brother sitting at his desk in front of the stage,(who also collects the offering) and went over and held out the coin to him. The brother smiled and said, ¨your offering?¨ then held out the offering plate to him and Josiah threw his coin in...he was so proud of himself and it is so fun to watch how he tries to imitate everything we do.
Anyways, this post is getting very long and it is getting very late so I need to stop for now. I will try to write more often now...it is harder when I get behind as I am constantly thinking of things that I should write about, but then I get too caught up in the daily activities and dont find the time to sit and write it down. But I will try harder over the next little while. Blessings to you all and good night:)
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