Just some pictures…

Have grace today.

I want to share a story with you. A story to illustrate what grace is.

A few weeks ago Reese was going for daily blood draws. Being that he was a brand new baby they would make a small cut on his heel and then milk it for blood. This seemed as painful as it sounds. It had gotten to the point where Reese would give a pitiful little cry when anyone would touch his little feet. He had bandaids and little cuts in different stages of healing all over his feet. It was a difficult time for us to go through. (Even now we are not done with the whole Jaundice thing. Reese had blood drawn from his neck last week to check his liver function since he is still a buttery shade of yellow, please be in prayer for that)

When he was 6 days old we were told that he was in the all clear and that he would not need another blood draw, but when we went to the dr. for out post postpartum check up the dr. decided that he was still too yellow and we would need ANOTHER blood draw.
We packed him in the car and as he sat there content and unaware of the coming pain I just felt so lost. I was still in a lot of pain from the c-section, and David and I were both exhausted from our first week with a new born. Seeing that Reese was also a preemie, we were told to not have anyone near him for at least 8 weeks because his immune system was non-existent.  This in itself caused a lot of stress. I would stay up at night to make sure that his lungs stayed open, I was terrified they would relapse and he would need to go back to the NICU and back on the CPAPP machine. I also knew that the outcome of this blood draw may mean that Reese would be admitted in the hospital again. That was my biggest fear.

When we got Pathcare a car stopped at the same time as us and an elderly couple got out. I could tell the lady was having trouble walking, she seemed to be in a lot of pain. I am not proud of this, but instead of helping them, or letting them go ahead of us, I raced to the door to be first. This is not at all how I would normally act. After we were checked in we sat down to wait and the old lady was checked in. She told the nurse in broken English that standing up from sitting was excruciating for her so they needed to let her sit in the waiting room and the person would come out to draw her blood.

When I was our turn they took Reese and started to rub his foot, I ran from the room. I ran all the way outside where I stood and cried like a fool. When I turned around this old lady was standing behind me. She followed me out. She was German, so I have no idea what she was saying but she was talking to me in German, and she embraced me. I needed that hug, that comfort on that day more than ever. She had no idea what we were going through. That I was in pain, exhausted and all that. All she knew about me wast that I was the rude person who made sure to jump in front of her. But she had grace with me. She stood up from her chair, even thought it hurt her, (and I did not deserve it!) to come and comfort me.

We know from the New Testament that grace from God  is the blessings, love and forgiveness He gives us even though we don’t deserve it. Have grace with people today, you never know what they are going through.

Mark jinxed me.

In my last post I mentioned how Mark had noted the lack of bugs in my recent posts. Not long after that comment this “little” guy was spotted in our house. He has been spotted in each room now.

 

Thanks Mark!

What we are up to.

Forgive me for not updating sooner. Mark pointed out yesterday that we have not posted pictures of any bugs in a while so before I give an update on where we are now I would like to point you to THIS post so you can remember the creepy crawlies we have here in Nam.

 Now I will give you a minute to get over the shock…

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Now what we have been up to!
I have been staying home with Reese. I never thought I would be a stay at home mother, but I am finding that being a mother is something I was born to do. I love spending time with Reese. I feel like I am still in some kind of honeymoon phase with him. Everything he does amazes me. I look at him sleeping next to me right now and I am again overwhelmed with the huge blessing that he is. I get out of the house on Sunday for church, on Tuesday for a YWAM family meeting and Wednesday nights we attend a cell group. We try to have a date night on Thursdays too. I also try to keep up with anything I can do from home to help with what goes on outside of the house 🙂

David spent the first part of January hiring new teachers and staff members for CHS. A big part of that was searching for someone to replace him. He found that person a few weeks ago and he has been spending the last two weeks training her. He also is getting things at school in order so that our transition out of there and into our own ministry will be smooth. So lots of paper work and meetings!

In other news we are busy getting everything together for my visa application so that we can visit the USA in May-July this year. We will have limited time in Colorado and Missouri, but if you would like to visit with us we would love to see you, just let us know! A huge part of our furlough this year will be raising support and spreading the news on our ministry here in Namibia. We will also be looking for potential recruits to join our team out here. Look for more info on here, and in our upcoming newsletter. If you don’t get the newsletter then you can just leave a comment on here and we will get that straightened out!

So there you have it, a vintage bug and news on us. We cannot wait to see you all in the summer!

At two months!

Doors.

On Tuesday night we attended the YWAM family evening. A family meeting is when all the people from the different YWAM ministries get together to sing, pray, and listen to a message by the speaker for the DTS school that week. This week’s speaker was Stefan Hugo, he is the head of YWAM Southern Africa. He shared a basic but significant, and importnat, message about judgement and grace.
I want to focus on something that he said before the message though.
When we walked in, we were 5 minutes late, Stefan was sitting in the back taking notes. I noticed him looking at us several times. When the singing portion on the evening was done Stefan said that he had some “words” he wanted to share with some people in the room. He felt that God had a specific thing to say. He came over to us and shared a short a simple word with two people in the room and then he came over to us. What he had to say was spot on. Keep in mind that this is the first night that we met him, and he knows nothing about us.
He said that he felt God was saying that He is closing some doors to us, but opening others. That there are some doors we thought would be open, and they were open, but now they were closing and God was opening a new door for us. He is closing the wrong doors and opening the right ones. He said that He felt God lay Revelation 3:8 on his heart for us. It says: