A little project.

We took some pictures of Reese last Sunday, and then yesterday David put it to music. This song can calm a crying baby down very quickly, we thought it would be fun to be able to show this to him some day too.
Enjoy!

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:

Still here!

We are still here! Just busy with the new year at school and our new baby 😉 Things are going really well. I will write a proper update later this week…

At one month.

I think today I can return to the land of the living long enough to update this blog 😉

It is difficult to believe that Reese is over a months old already. I cried last night when I was feeding him. I know he is going to grow up and leave us. I am trying to cling onto every moment right now. He is already heavier and taller than he was. He is changing every day. I am so happy that he is thriving and growing and all that, but I just want time to slow down a little bit. It has been great having the Christmas break time off, David was able to spend almost four full weeks with us before having to get back to school. God really blessed us with the time together 🙂 Now it is back to school for David as he finishes up our commitment with CHS before we move on to our own church planting and community development ministry in the community.

Weight: At one moth Reese weighs 7 pounds! Up from  5.4 when we left the hospital. He was born at 6.3. He is at least an inch taller too. He is filling out his premature clothes now and I am sure we will soon be able to move to newborn! He is still in size one diapers, he still goes through at least 8 a day, and they are finally beginning to fit properly.

Sleep: Reese loves to sleep in his crib, he takes two loooong naps during the day. He also loves to sleep on my or David’s chest. He needs to be swaddled to sleep soundly, the tighter the better. David is the king of getting the perfect swaddle. At night he sleeps well-ish. He is out from 7-11 and then from 12-2 from 2-6 it can either be a nice long sleep or a few hours of awake time of fussy time. Right now he still sleeps in our room, but in his crib during the day.

Food: He likes to eat every two to three hours and only cries when he is hungry. We have been lucky enough that breast feeding has come naturally to both of us. When he is done eating he smack his lips loudly and then drifts off into a milk coma. It is the sweetest this ever. David is the king of burping him too
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Loves: Reese loves to be bathed. When his little body touches the water his whole body relaxes and he gets this goofy “aaaaaah” look on his face. I can see a lot of tub time in this little guy’s future. He also loves his seahorse soother, when he is fussy we just turn it on and he immediately relaxes and then dozes off. And then his soothie pacifier calms him down and helps him to fall asleep he loves it! And then we both love the Moby wrap. When I wear Reese in it he immediately falls asleep and will stay that way the whole time. I love having him so close to my heart.

Jaundice update: We came home from the hospital on Sunday the 11th of Dec, but we were back in the hospital for Jaundice by the Thursday after that. Reese stayed under the lights for three days. He did ok in there, he did become dehydrated at one time and we had to fight with the nurses to believe us. He had not peed for over 6 hours, but the nurse said that it is impossible to become dehydrated when you are not passing urine. We insisted and the pead was called, she prescribed 60ml of electrolytes. After that he was much better. His bili levels decreased from 291 to 130 and we were sent home with orders to keep him in the sun. We kept doing that until the heat wave hit. It was up past 106 degrees each day, and the sun was wilting things within minutes. We went for his two week appointment and the dr. ordered another bili test. By now our little trooper had blood drawn from his little feet more times than I like to count. His numbers were back up to 190 but the dr. said not to worry. A week later we took him back up for another test and it was up to 191. The Dr. said this meant his numbers were slowing down enough that the jaundice was not progressing and would soon be out. A week later we went to the dr. for some post-op complications for me and Reese had spent the previous night throwing up. The dr. said he was not worried about the vomiting, to give Reese water between feeds because of the heat and then he made a big deal about our baby’s colour. His legs and torso are pink, but his arms, face and eyes are still pretty yellow. Dr. B referred us to the pediatrician to have a liver function test done. But he warned us that this test needs a lot of blood and that they would probably draw it from his neck. At that point I was ready to put Reese in the car and drive away from doctors and needles. The next day we saw Dr. Puper. She looked at him and checked his liver and concluded that he probably has breast milk jaundice or something called toxissomethingorother but that there is no treatment for either, but since Reese is thriving we should just wait it out. At his six week appointment she will reevaluate and see if he needs the test then.  So in a nut shell he is thriving, but he is still pretty jaundiced.

We are doing well, thank you so much for all the prayers and messages that we have received in the last month. I honestly don’t think there is any way we will ever know how many people have prayed for us since I fell and went into the hospital last month. And we cannot wait to get to America in a few months so you all can meet our miracle baby face to face!

Happy new year!