Living in His Grace

It's all fun and games until....

2011-01-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

someone loses an eye! Sick, well unfortunately this popular saying became all too true to our little puppy Snoopy yesterday. In the morning Jorge was giving both him and Nike their food when Snoopy decided to sneak a peak at Nike's breakfast, (not a good idea, may I add) and Nike reacted in a vicious way by lashing out and biting poor little Snoops. The whole experience was pretty traumatizing for Snoopy and for Jorge and I as we were right there when it happened, and to be honest, in the moment, we didn't think Snoopy had even survived Nike's attack.. Thankfully, he did survive it though but was bleeding in two places, his cheek and his eye *gags* so gross, I know. Anyways, Snoopy's whole face was swollen yesterday and it looked soo bad, made me want to cry all day long, poor little thing. But Jorge took Snoopy to the vet for the second time today and she said that there is a good chance that he may not lose his eye and could live a normal, happy, puppy life. haha. The good thing is that today Snoopy was back to his normal self, running and playing with Nike and Siah, so the vet says that is a really good sign, and the fact that he can open his eye a tiny bit is also promising. Anyways, here is a pic..poor little guy, we are hoping he will get better soon! Uuuugh...animals...so nasty.

Feeling quite "shredded"

2010-12-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

Yes yes, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, I am now starting to REALLY feel the pain of the 30 day shred DVD that I am doing to lose some weight and get back into shape(and I am ONLY on Day 2!!!)! I realized this morning that I haven't done actual muscle building exercises for.....well, let's just say a REALLY looong time, hahaha. Sad but true. Anyways, I am glad to be getting back into it and hope it will show some results over the next month or so.

Anyways I have to admit that I almost gave up on my blog...I have been frustrated with myself for not being able to keep it up, but I just find the days flying by soo fast lately. But then I think to myself, well, you have time to go on facebook, so how come you don't have time update your blog? Grrrr, I know, I know, it's true. I think writing on the blog just demands a lot more thought and quiet for me to do it well...unlike some people (hmm hmm, Jorge;) I cannot write or read if there is any type of distraction or noise in the room, being music, tv or anything of the like. So that limits my blog time by...A LOT, lol, but owell, I am going to keep trying, so we shall see how it goes.

This past month has been really busy for us, I'm not going to go into great detail because I feel like there is just too much stuff to write..that and Levi is taking a nap and I will most likely have to stop writing when he wakes up, (which could be any moment, knowing him). I think what was the hardest for us in this month was we received a team of missionaries in the church in the first two weeks of November. It was a good time having them here, but it just demanded our every moment as we had four girls staying in our house and Jorge had to be with the team everyday, taking them to schools for evangelism etc. But God used them in a great way here and we are seeing some fruit of there time here, some youth and kids that have started attending the church, and that is exciting for us.

Tonight I have the ladies group in the church and I am excited about that. We have been doing a Study over the past few weeks called "A Woman of influence", where we are studying and talking about the 31st Proverb where it talks about the virtuous wife. The study has gone pretty good, I am trying to do new things and change up the class quite a bit. We meet now in the back dining area and put the benches in a big circle, so as to feel closer and more relaxed, and that has made a big difference on the ladies attitudes towards the classes. We usually have between 12 to 16 ladies so that is really encouraging for me, that more ladies are coming to the class. I still get nervous when leading it but I find myself every week feeling more and more comfortable, so that's a good thing..I have really established friendship with these ladies now so I truly enjoy the time that we have together, singing and praying and learning together. Jorge went to Concepcion today but should be back within the next hour or so so he will watch Josiah for me during the class and I will just take Levi..and PRAY that he sleeps while I need to talk, LOL.

Our little boys are growing so big, *sniff*. I can't get over how quickly Baby Guy seems to be growing. He is such a sweetheart and we are getting to know his little personality more and more everyday. He is definitely an observer...he watches everything so carefully and you can tell that his mind is just reeling, trying to figure everything out. He will sit for minutes on end and watch his hands or his ankles move, and he just watches and says "oooohhhhhhh!" Like he is analyzing every movement and taking note of how it all works. My little Levi. He sits up on his own now and will be crawling very soon I think. Now if we sit him on the floor he will move all over the place just by scooting his little bum back and forth by trying to reach for things, so he is already getting the idea of moving around. I have him eating lot's of vegetables now and I must say I am quite proud of myself for taking the time to make his foods in variety, freeze them and always have them handy. I didn't do that very much with Josiah, I often gave him the canned stuff and a lot of fruits more than anything...so I am trying to do the complete opposite with Levi. I have been giving him all kinds of veggies, like squash, peas, green beans, carrots, avocado and today I gave him chard (I never knew what it was called in English but then finally found out today), which is called "acelga" and the people here eat it a lot! It is actually pretty yummy and I have learned to make it in different ways.

Josiah is also growing super fast and turning into such a little man. He has had his terrible temper tantrums quite frequently lately, but I will not write anymore about that so as to not focus on the negative...I prefer to talk about the adorable, sweetness of my son as I realize that he is growing so fast and I want to enjoy every moment I have with my little blessing, whether it be good or bad. He is starting to talk a lot more in sentences now and is picking up more Spanish words, which is exciting for Jorge's family (they keep stressing out over the fact that he is talking so much English, LOL). But he is growing fast and has also started branching out and trying new foods, which is very exciting for Jorge and I! Since the beginning of November Siah started eating beef and now chicken, so it does my mother heart good to see my little boy getting chubbier and growing healthy :)

Well look at that, a whole post and Levi didn't wake up, how good is that?? Well hopefully I will be able to continue updating as much as I can on here..I have a lot of things I would love to write, so I will try to get around to them over the next couple of days.

Bye for now :)

Another quiet moment...

2010-10-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, After another week of trying, lol, I finally seem to have a moment of peace and quiet to sit down and write a little. Jorge just left to go rabbit hunting and I have both the boys sleeping..for now. I don't know how long it will last, but we will find out pretty soon!

This week has been pretty eventful for me and I feel so exhausted right now, but I also feel oddly refreshed, spiritually. So where to start??

Yesterday there was a ladies convention in Concepcion for the ladies in our denomination, it was held in a school near my In-laws church, Santa Rosa. There were almost five hundred women there and I went with a group of 16 ladies from our church, and we had a great time. Originally there were about 20 of us that were going to go, but for one reason or another, there were some ladies that were not able to make it, so 16 of us went. We had to arrive in Santa Rosa by 10:30am and the event was going to go until 6pm...so we had rented a bus that had 17 seats and that would take us for the whole day, stay there and then drive us back. Well you can imagine our surprise when the bus driver calls us Thursday night to say he can no longer take us and hopes we can find something else...gggrrrrr. Seriously?? If there is one thing that drives me absolutely nuts here is that things like that just "happen" all the time, and as there was nothing in writing saying that he would drive us, he could just back out of it. But no big deal, we ended up going in just a regular bus, and then when we arrived at the bus station we had three cars waiting to take us to the church, sent by my Mother-in-law. Once we arrived there the ladies were all given pins with different room numbers on them and then they headed out to the assigned classrooms for the morning, where they would have times of worship and then teachings. The Pastor's wives were able to choose whatever classroom that they wanted to sit in on, so I chose to go to a class with Mariela....of course, I had Levi with me and he was not as willing to sit in a classroom full of ladies and listen to someone talk, haha, so needless to say, I didn't get to listen to much of the teaching. I was in and out for a little while, then my Mother-in-law took him for a little while so I could sit in and listen. But then I ended up just sitting out in the hall with him or walking around pushing him in the stroller. He was much happier when moving, so move we did..lol. After the teaching everyone ate lunch in the classrooms, some brought their lunches and others purchased sandwiches or completos that they (the people hosting the event, from Santa Rosa) had made to sell. Anyways, I had a great time with Mariela and over lunch Carolina came and sat and chatted with us for a while..mostly to be closer to Levi as she tries to get in as much time with him as she can when we are together:)
After lunch all the ladies met out in the street (yes, almost 500 of them!!) and started walking to a gymnasium which was about 3 blocks away, where we would have a service for the afternoon, all together. It was a really great time, I really enjoyed the time I spent with the ladies from my church...I am truly starting to feel more "in family" with them and I think the feeling is mutual, which is very encouraging to me. The afternoon service was awesome...our the Deaconess of our denomination gave the sermon and it was very powerful, I know God used it to speak to my life and the life of many ladies there. We also had great times of prayer and worship! It was hard for me to concentrate at times because Baby guy is quite a demanding little dude, lol, he is teething lately and seems to be extra cranky. That and he ONLY falls asleep if he is nursing...literally, it is very difficult to get him to sleep any other way, like in the ring sling or the stroller etc. so that is at times difficult, but what can I do? I prayed for a baby that would nurse and that's what I got, LOL! No complaints here.

We ended up getting home around 8:15ish, as our bus left Concepcion at 7...by feet were killing me and I was definitely tired...as was Levi. But all in all it was a good day and I was thankful to God for the opportunity to have the day out with the ladies.

This morning we had Nelson and Marcela over at 11am for a time to talk and share with the two of them..it went really well and we had some good conversation and prayer with them. For the last few weeks Jorge and I have been talking about how to go about helping out the married couple and families in our church. We know that many of them are having "family issues" in the home, and we constantly talk about the importance of family and God has given us our family as our first ministry, that the faith needs to start in our homes. So as of last week we begun having 'counseling' times with the married couples of our congregation. We have only met with a few but we are trying to meet with at least 2 couples a week, and will try to continue to have regular meetings with them, to support them and try to be of some help to them and their families. For them this is very different, they have told us that they never had such times like this before with any past pastors or leaders (which blows my mind seeing as how some of them have been attending the church for YEARS and have SO MANY deep open wounds in their marriages and families, and they have never been offered any type of counseling or help). Jorge and I feel that God really wants us to be a help to these families so that they can grow and mature, not only in the church, but in their homes, that they can learn to love and respect one another in their marriages and be the example that Christ calls us to be as parents also. Jorge has even asked the Married couples, from the pulpit, to please, sit together during the church service....lol I know, sounds weird for us, doesn't it?? But this church has gone through a lot of traditional teachings in the past and one of those teachings was that the men and women could not sit together during the church service. In the olden days it was men on one side of the church and women on the other. Nowadays it is not so extreme, but in our congregation the couples often sit in different pews, or at least with two or three spaces between them. Now Jorge has asked the elders to make the effort to sit next to their wives, so as to be an example for others, so we are hoping that this trend will, let's say, catch on, haha. But anyways, our goal is to hopefully plan a weekend retreat for married couples within the next few months...it is something that is muchly needed for our congregation.

Anyways...today the church service was absolutely beautiful! There were quite a lot of people today, a few new people attended too, which is always exciting to see. Jorge gave such a great sermon called "Everything or nothing" He spoke about how our walk with Christ and how Jesus demands everything or nothing of our lives. That if we say we are going to serve Christ and if we want him to truly change our lives, then when we are humbled before Him and say "Here I am LORD, take me", He says, "Ok, but I want it ALL...I want ALL of you, it's either everything or nothing". This was a strong word for our church congregation, and I would say there wasn't a dry eye in the house. The past few weeks we have seen how God has used Jorge to truly speak to our congregation, He has been speaking about our foundations in Him. A few weeks ago Jorge spoke about "Growing down". He used the analogy of a bamboo tree and how it takes a few years for it's roots to grow underground, until it is solid and firm, and once it has done that, then it begins to grow up, physically. This is what we, as Christians must do also...we must work on our foundation, what do we believe? Why do we believe it? How is my relationship with God? Etc. After the sermon we had a time of worship, people were embracing each other and crying...God is really at work here, and for that, we are thankful.

Well, this was supposed to be a quick post but it turned out to be a novel..haha. Sorry if I bored you all, but as the kids haven't woken up I took advantage of the time that I had. I will write again soon, bye for now.

Five whole minutes, just for me!

2010-09-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

That is probably all I have to write this blog post! I just got Levi to sleep, for the second time in the last half hour, and Josiah has been sleeping for about 45 minutes already, which means he should be waking up pretty soon. Whew, so here I go, attempting to take advantage of the few minutes to myself that I may have...and may I add, the first few minutes that I have had to myself probably all week, haha.

Sigh. Life with two boys has really got me running lately, I think it must just be the stages that they are both at, at least, that is what I am hoping :) With trying to potty train Josiah and with Levi who has decided to actually be attached to me wherever I go and in whatever I do, I have found myself having no privacy at all...and that is even including my bathroom time! The other day I actually shut the bathroom door tight when I went in, so as to just have a moment to myself, LOL, (can't believe I am actually writing about my going to the bathroom, I guess as we have spent so much time in there the last few weeks I feel that it is my second home, lol) but within seconds Josiah was banging on the door yelling "MUMMY! WACHA DOIN??" that followed by a few bangs on the door which then startled Levi (who I had just put down sleeping in his crib) so then he started to cry, which then made Josiah start to cry, saying "no Baby guy, no cry! Mummy, Baby guy cry!" ..and there I was, just trying to have a moment to pee by myself, how silly of me. *sigh* I must admit, it made me smirk...I guess I am just at this stage in my life where privacy has flown completely out the window, so on with life I must go.

This past weekend I decided to try and do something new with Josiah, as he has been pretty bored being cooped up here in the house with me and Baby guy, and I made him some play dough. I thought that I needed some different things that I didn't have in order to make it, but then I found a recipe online that was really simple, just flour salt and warm water..sweet. I made it and was pretty impressed with how simple it was to make, should have done it sooner. I used some beet juice that I had to colour it, but it didn't work all that good, it made it more sticky, which was not a good idea...but in the end Josiah had a blast playing with it all afternoon. We must have made at least 12 planes and 10 "owies" (for those of you who forgot, "owie" is the tiny gecko Josiah and I found a few months back, he still remembers him and asks me often about owie and his mummy, LOL). Anyways, The next day, Sunday, I tried my first attempt at make Cinnamon buns! I had been craving them all week and couldn't wait any longer to give them a try. I really wanted to make the ones from a recipe that Shelagh gave me on FB but it had vanilla pudding mix in it, which I didn't have, and I wasn't sure if I could substitute it with something and still have them taste good, so I decided to go with another recipe that I found online. Well let me tell you, they may not have been cinnabon cinnamon buns, but they were pretty good, if I do say so myself. Granted, I didn't have as must yeast as I needed so they didn't come out too big and fluffy, but they were decent, and for someone who hasn't eaten one in I don't know how many months.. they were amazing, LOL. I took a picture of them to put on my blog here but now for some strange reason I cannot upload it, so I may have to try again later. I have been typing for almost 15 minutes now and neither of the boys have woken up, so I'm jut gonna keep going and not waist any of this precious time that I have, haha.

Nevermind, there goes Levi..guess this will have to wait until later..bye for now!

Life with the boys....

2010-09-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

Well I know it has been a long time since I last blogged...I have tried many times to sit down and type, but when I do something always seems to "come up", and I am not able to even begin typing. Sometimes I think it is a conspiracy, the boys can be relaxing, watching a movie and/or playing, being as good as gold... but as soon as they here me start to type, they act up or wake up or scream or something, anything to stop me from doing what I would actually like to do, lol. I remember Tanya once said that her kids did that when she would talk on the phone, they would be all calm and not doing anything and then as soon as she gets on the phone they start to cry or fight...Josiah now does the exact same thing! It's frustrating at times, but I guess they may see these things (computers and telephones) as something that takes your attention off of them, so maybe that is why they do it, who knows. Anyway, now I'm just rambling...

Today it is just me and the boys again. Jorge left yesterday morning at 5 am to drive Nelson, a young guy from our church to Pichilemu, as he is going to do his DTS there in YWAM. I was a little jealous, I have to admit, because I really wanted to go and see some of our old friends there, but with the two boys we couldn't all fit in the car...so I opted to stay home with the boys. It isn't as easy now either, for us to just pick up and go with the kids..Josiah doesn't enjoy long car rides much anymore and with the baby we have to stop ever little while for feedings, so it makes the trip a lot longer. We are hoping to go to Pichilemu though, in the last week of October as Lauren Cunningham is coming for YWAM's 50 anniversary here in Chile, so I am excited about that.

I was a little nervous about staying home by myself with the two boys overnight, so Digna came and stayed over last night, which was really nice of her. I felt kind of silly, but people have told us that there are people "watching" the house at times, and it appears that they may be planning once again to break in, whenever they get a chance, so I felt a little vulnerable staying here by myself. Unfortunately, this house is so big that it really calls the attention of the people here, especially because there is a "gringa" living in it, lol, which to them automatically means 'money'. lol if only they knew. Anyways, I felt a lot better having Digna here with me, we watched a movie and ate some chocolate before going to bed, lol, what could be better?? haha. I am feeling a lot more comfortable with her now, not just as a worker, but as a friend...and she is so great with Josiah and Levi, so I feel very blessed to have her here with us.

I talked to Jorge this morning and looks like they (he went with two other guys from the church too) will be back late this afternoon...they probably havent even left yet, and it is a six hour drive, so I'm guessing they will be home around 6ish or so. I don't have much planned out for the day...maybe I will take the boys out for a walk this afternoon as the sun is shining again today :)

Well I would love to keep writing, but I have a feeling something is going to suddenly come up, Levi is sleeping and will most likely wake up in the next few minutes or so. And Josiah is watching a movie but I need to try and lure him into the bathroom before he goes #2 in his pants....we are not having much luck with that yet. lol. But that is a whole other blog post for another day, ahhaha. Either way, I am back to blogging, I will do it when I can, I have a lot of things that I think about and always long to write them out on here, but I lack the time to do so. I guess this stage of my life is just going to be that way..at least until our kids are older and I have more time for such things. But until then, I will blog when I can :)

Sick as a dog...

2010-08-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

and NOT having the time of my life. My back has been a mess ever since Wednesday night...when I woke up at 1:30 in the morning with the worst back spasm I have ever had in my whole life. I was completely freaking out, pacing back and forth, hyperventilating, because I had NEVER ever experienced such excruciating pain. Jorge, of course, got up with me and was attempting to calm me down, which I eventually did, and my muscles were able to relax a little bit. We were very close to going into the emergency here in Yumbel, because the pain seemed out of control, but in the end Jorge gave me half of a muscle relaxant that he had and I layed down with a hot waterbottle on my back, and then eventually, cried myself to sleep...what a mess.

The next day we got up and drove into Concepcion, where we dropped Josiah off with Jorge's Mother, and then went to a doctor. He gave me some pills, one to take at night and one during the day, and said they are okay for me to take and are nursing safe. Basically he just said that my problem is my upper back muscles, carrying the baby too much and not having good posture...and I will need to strengthen my back muscles over the next few months so as to not have more of these same issues.

Well, I started taking these pills, but I am really starting to regret it and wonder if I should continue. I took one Thursday during the day and then Thursday at night before bed...and then Friday morning the fun began. I spent basically ALL of Friday in the bathroom...I was throwing up everything that I would try to eat..couldn't even keep water down, and then to make things even better I had the runs and man...and with the strength that I was having to use to vomit, my back muscles were tightening up more and more...to the point that it hurt, literally all day, to breath! I thought maybe I just got a bug or something while we were in Conce the day before, but then last night Jorge looked at the small print on the pills where it says "side affects"..."could produce vomiting..." Riiiigggghhhhht. I decided I would try to keep taking them for another day or two to see if things got better...but they havent improved that much. Today I havent thrown up and felt ok in the morning...but in the afternoon the pain came back strong, bringing me to tears once again...and I have been nauseous all evening. That AND my insides are all aching terribly!! I had this same pain yesterday, but I thought it was due to so much vomiting...but today has been no exception.

Anyways, I do ask for your prayers. I feel bad that this post has been just me complaining...but I really can't speak about anything positive, feeling the way I do. ok, one positive thing is Josiah...he has been such a sweetie, he knows that I am in a lot of pain and keeps coming up and hugging me saying "oohhh Mummy, a owie in the back?" lol. He is my little treasure, oh how I love him. This morning he walked into the kitchen all hunched over and says "Mummy, I a owie in my back", haha. Any time I am laying in bed or sitting with pillows behind my back he comes and sits beside me and pretends that he is experiencing the same pain that I have...in some ways, it makes me feel a bit better because it takes my mind off of the pain. Anyways, I ask for your prayers...this pain is really awful and am worried that it may never go away...but I know my Healer can do miracles, and I am praying for one right now.

Will write again soon.

Attempt #3

2010-07-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

Well we will give this another shot and see how it goes. I have both boys sleeping right now, but Josiah has been sleeping for almost an hour already and Levi is not settling very well today and seems to be waking up every couple of minutes..but he appears to be in a deep sleep now, so I will do my best to write a little bit about how things have been going.

Honestly, these past few weeks have been so busy for us that it is hard for me to point out the certain things that we did do and didn't do. I had a great birthday...as most of you saw on facebook. The ladies from the church prepared a nice supper for us here in my house and then on Sunday (my actual birthday) Jorge and I and the boys went out to a little restaurant in Yumbel for lunch. We had a really nice time and Josiah was excellent! This was a big surprise for both Jorge and I because for the last few months we have avoided taking him out to a restaurant because he would behave so badly and never eat the food we bought him. But this time he did the complete opposite, he was a little angel and ate almost a whole plate of food that we bought him, french fries and hot dogs...a meal fit for a king, haha. Anyways, then when we went to church they called me up to the front and brought a cake up to me and sang happy birthday, it was really sweet :)

On Monday we all went into Concepcion for the day and stopped in Cabrero to pick up our new Canadian friend, Esther for a day of shopping. Esther is going to get married to a Chilean who lives in Cabrero, his name is Alvaro, and his Mother is the teacher of a girl in our church, Katy...so we kind of got hooked up through her. Esther and Alvaro met in October of last year, when she came down here with a group of missionaries for a few weeks and they spent one weekend in Alvaro's parents church (his parents are the pastors of the Assembly of God church in Cabrero). After only seeing each other a few times she had to leave with her team and they exchanged emails and said they would keep in touch...and then they fell in love through skype and got engaged:) haha. He ended up going to Canada in February for three weeks to meet her family and now she came here to Chile for the month of July and stayed with his family and got to know them a little more also, and they will be getting married in Canada in January of next year. So it was cool for us to hook up...we actually became very good friends and I am excited for when she comes back to live here! We have a lot of things in common, both Christians from Christian, homeschooling families, both married to chileans, both enjoy scrapbooking haha. Esther LOVES scrapbooking and says in their new home that they have purchased in Concepcion, they have an extra room and she will make that her scrapbooking room and bring materials from Canada, YAY! I miss doing stuff like that with my Mum...even though I am not always good at focusing and actually DOING it, haha, but it is the relaxing time of just sitting and listening to a sermon or to music while cutting things out etc. So I am looking forward to her return. ANYWAYS, as I was saying, we went shopping for the day and she helped me pick out some new shoes and a couple of sweaters. This whole time here I had been still using my summer slim Merrel shoes and my feet were freezing .... so for my birthday gifts from Jorge's Dad and Jorge I got some shoes and a couple of sweaters. Esther and I had such a great time just walking around and window shopping...she was looking for things that they have here so she can know the things that you can and can't get here, so as to know what to bring from Canada when she comes. She is a great person to talk to and we had a lot of good conversations..I think she realized that I have really been longing to have someone to converse with in English, so I really took this time as a gift from God.

These past few weeks have been hard for me as I have really been homesick a lot. I cannot lie and say that everything has been happy and great when on the inside I have been struggling day in and day out. It was one thing being so far away from my family when it was the three of us, with Jorge and Josiah...but now with Levi growing and doing so many new things and Josiah growing also...I find myself just craving to be in the midst of my family, sharing these moments that will only happen once in their lifetimes. I have cried so much....many times during the day I will be doing something with Levi, taking pics of something he is doing and I come to the computer to see if anyone from my family is online...but no luck. That usually brings me to bursting into tears on the spot..and secretly praying, "LORD, please take me back to be closer to my family, please..." I don't know if that is the correct thing to be praying..I have struggled with it in my heart, because I do know that God told us to come here and trust Him, but there is a part of me that is just really struggling with the reality of that right now. But it comes and goes, I am still trying to enjoy every moment that I have with my boys and with Jorge, because I know that God is with us and that His will is exactly where we want to be. So if I must sacrifice being close to my family, I guess I must learn to do so with a thankful heart. But it is hard.

Anyways, back to things going on with us ....The construction in the church is now finished and the brothers that were working on it from Chillan left on Thursday, so we are thankful to have that finished...now we just have to pay for it *cringes*, but we are trusting that the LORD will bring that money in when we need it, so hopefully very soon! lol.

With the construction workers gone things are getting a bit back to normal around here. While they were here they were coming here for both lunch and afternoon tea, so we had Digna coming everyday to help me prepare lunch for them all...well, I say help, but the truth is, most days she just prepared everything, which was soo helpful! I am very thankful to have her working here with us. So now next week she will most likely go back to coming here two or three times per week. It still feels strange to me to have someone in the house, helping me clean, but it has been such a blessing, as I dont have time every day to clean the house thoroughly and prepare lunch and take care of both Josiah and Levi, so having her around allows me to at least focus mostly on the boys and not have to worry much about the housework and laundry etc.

Well Josiah is awake and I have him sitting on my lap, stroking my hair and begining to push it in front of my eyes so that I cannot see to keep typing, so I guess I should take that as a hint that he wants my attention and I should give it to him. Levi is beginning to stir also...so it looks like my moments of peace and solitude have officially come to an end. That's ok, at least I got to blog...mission accomplished.

busy times...

2010-07-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

sigh. Well I just got Levi to sleep and planned to sit down and post...but of course, guess who is suddenly stirring, as soon as he hears the typing? That's right...little Lee. Man, these past two weeks have been busy ones and I find myself just exhausted at the end of everyday, but I guess that is what life with two boys is like. Well I will see how far I can get with this post, but if the boy cries I may have to leave it and pick it up again later.

Levi has been...sigh. there he goes. rats, I tried. Looks like I will have to postpone this post once more..bye for now.

a promise to post...

2010-07-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know..it sounds funny..but I don't have time to post anything right now, but I WILL post tonight, that, I promise!! I have spent most of the day getting caught up with things that I needed to do on the computer, I FINALLY got out our newsletter and also wrote a long letter to a friend that I have been meaning to write to for the past two weeks! But I MUST blog and I will...just not right now, haha as Josiah just woke up from his nap and I have to make some wipes and do some other things around the house that just can't wait, and as I have Levi sleeping, I need to do them now.

So I will write again later....bye for now :)

Adventures with Owie...

2010-07-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

So it all began this morning around 11 o'clock while I was preparing lunch. I reached up on the window ledge to grab the dish soap and I saw these little webbed feet and the end of a tale sitting right in front of my eyes...*gasp*. I got a little closer to check it out and sure enough, there it was, a tiny little lizard sitting on our window. "crap" I thought, and made some type of grossed out sound, and without thinking said, "oh please don't move or jump!" Well I no sooner said that and Josiah came around the corner to see who I was talking to, lol. I asked him if he wanted to see the gross lizard and his answer was an excited "YEAH!" When I lifted him up to see it he got soo grossed out and we both started to scream and squeal as it started moving, little by little! Josiah was hilarious...he kept saying "oh GROSS!" and "Yucky!" and was making the most hilarious faces. So I grabbed the camera and decided to make a memory of the moment. When I asked Josiah if he wanted to name it he said "YEAH!" so I said "okay, what shall we name him?" And the answer that came back was "Owie". I should probably explain that lately his favorite word has been "owie". He has learned that people can get owies and even his "te-te's" have gotten owies as he breaks them and then they have to go in the garbage. So, Owie is the lizard's name. I was totally freaked out about having this little creature in my kitchen, especially as I knew that Jorge wouldn't be home for another hour or so, so Siah helped me keep an eye on him and make sure we didn't "lose" him, as that would really creep me out! At one point I had to run into the livingroom to check on Levi, and when I got back...gasp, Owie was gone! NOOOOOOOOO! I was afraid that he might spring off the wall at me somewhere or be hiding in my dish water or something *shudders*. I told Josiah that Owie was gone, and I didn't know where he was..as he came in looking for him a few minutes later. Well after maybe minutes or so Josiah suddenly started shouting "there's Owie Mummy!! There's Owie!" GASP, in the livingroom?! So I ran and Josiah was looking at the ground...I couldn't see him anywhere and kept asking Siah where he had spotted Owie, he then crouched down on the ground and pointed out a tiny little ant, LMBO "oh, there he go!" He says, all proud of himself, haha. Sigh. I don't think he gets it. "No, Josiah, that isn't Owie, that is an ant." "An egg?!" says Josiah...hahaha "Noooooo, an ant!" "ooohhhh", he says. Soo funny.

Anyways, after about half an hour Owie showed up again, still up by the window, just on the other side. By the time Jorge arrived home for lunch he had disappeared again and as soon as Jorge walked in the door Josiah yelled "Honey, OWIE!!" and pointed to the window. We then filled Jorge in on our story about our new little "friend" Owie and he moved some things around and sure enough, he found him! He then caught him in his hand...Josiah was in my arms..clutching to me and squealing..haha, which made Jorge mutter something that sounded a lot like "be a man." hahahahahaha! When Jorge took Owie outside to set him free that brought instant tears to Josiah's eyes and his little "No Owie, no go!" got to both of us, so we ended up grabbing a glass jar, and needless to say, we have little "owie" sitting on our diningroom table, in a jar with dirt and grass so that he feels a little more "at home". LOL. Josiah was getting ready to go for a nap and went to give Jorge and Levi a kiss and even threw a little kiss in Owie's direction and says "Bye a Owie!" Such a cutie that boy! Owie, welcome to the family.
Here are some pictures of our first meeting with Owie.

That's My King Dr. S.M. Lockridge - [OFFICIAL]

2010-07-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

A good day...and some more photos!

2010-07-13T16:05:00.001-07:00

Yeah, the title pretty much sums it up....today has just been one of those good days. I must admit I haven't been too many of those lately, especially as the last couple of days I have had really bad back pain. I slept ok last night, accept I did have some back pain, but nothing compared to how it was on Saturday and Sunday. And then I was rudely awakened by the house shaking back and forth from a pretty strong tremor, but thankfully it was a short one and although it did get my heart racing, I was able to fall back asleep a few minutes later.

Honestly we didn't do much today, just kind of hung around the house and did some cleaning etc. But I feel like I at least was able to accomplish a few things that I have wanted to do and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
We woke up around 8:30 and I got out of bed and took a shower, then had breakfast with Siah (Jorge had to go to the church with Nelson to do some work). After breakfast Levi decided to bless me with a lovely poopy diaper and he was given a quick bath (yes, it was one of those, lol). Then by the time I got them both dressed and the room cleaned up, it was time to get lunch ready. After lunch I got Levi down for a nap and attempted to do the same with Josiah, but it seems like lately he has been showing signs of giving up his afternoon nap (sniff, yes, that makes me sad!). So he refused to sleep but did lay in his bed for a while to watch a veggie tales, which gave me a little bit of "me" time, while the boys both rested. I sat down and read a bit of my Bible. Of course I didnt get to read too long before Levi woke up..but even the few minutes were nice to have. Once Levi woke up I changed him and decided to take him upstairs and "attempt" a photoshoot with him. I have been looking at photoshoots of babies and trying to figure out how to use the natural light and different props to get a good picture...so I thought I would post a few of those on here...some of them came out pretty cute, I think :) Of course, I am SOOO unbelievably far from being able to take "good" photos...but I want to begin to learn now and maybe one day I could take beautiful pictures of my kids, that is my goal :) Anyways, after the photoshoot I was able to hang out with both Levi and Josiah...Siah took out his crayons and we coloured and played for a while, while Levi sat in his chair and watched his toys light up on his chair. As long as he is close to us and can see us he is getting pretty happy sitting there and being entertained. Here are a few of the pictures that came out good. Enjoy!!

New discoveries...

2010-07-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, this weekend our little Levi has made a new discovery...he discovered his hands! On Saturday I noticed him holding his hands up in front of his face and trying soo hard to look down and focus on his hands. It is soo adorable to watch him! It's funny because Jorge and I never really noticed when Josiah first discovered his hands because he always kept his hands closed, in tight little fists. But Levi has started opening his little hands more and trying to grab things...he has also started teething, poor little guy, and for that reason is trying even more to chew on his hands. Here are a few photos of his "discovering" his little hands....

First he lifts his right hand up so he can see it....

Then he stares at it intently....

Then he successfully shoves it into his mouth...hehe he's a smart little cookie!

all is silent..

2010-07-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

in the house right now, so I figured it would be a good time to blog :) Jorge began working with some of the brothers today on the house that they are going to rebuild for a lady in our congregation, so he has been gone all morning, since about 8:30. He came home for lunch and then left again. After he left I got Josiah down for a nap and Levi has been sleeping actually for the last almost 3 hours. He woke up once to eat and then fell back asleep. Josiah decided to lay down with his "toot toot" today, which you would think would be Thomas, haha but no, it was with his Lego pieces that he pretends are little trains, haha so cute. This is his new thing..taking a toy to bed with him. We found that he was getting to dependent on always having one of us lay down with him and one night it dawned on Jorge to ask Josiah is he wanted Buzz to come and lay with him...well Josiah was all excited that Buzz got to go to sleep with him in his bed and Jorge left the door open a bit and that was it, after hearing buzz "talk" to Josiah for about 10 minutes ("to infinity and beyond!") he fell asleep. And it has been working for us ever since..with different toys every time.

Anyways, Josiah and Levi and I have just kind of been hanging around the house today, Levi has come down with a cold so I am not planning to take him to church tonight, we will just stay home and try to get him better. It has me a bit worried as here a lot of babies get really sick and a simple cold can turn into bronchitis and as their little bodies are so small it is hard for them to fight against it..so I am really trying to take care of him and keep him cozy here in the house.

This week we didn;t do too much, again, just kind of hung around the house most days, except for Monday and Tuesday, they were a little more eventful. I will try to go over a few things that we did in those days...

Monday is usually our "family day" aka, Jorge's day off...so we try to spend time together or do something together, even if it's just here in the house. Well Jorge has been trying all week to get wood and materials for rebuilding this lady's house, but it has been a lot more difficult than we had thought it would be...so all Monday morning he was running around, trying to find someone with a truck who could pick up the wood that they had purchased for the house. It didn't work out and he actually didnt end up getting it until yesterday (friday) morning. But in the afternoon we decided to drive to Los Angeles, which is about an hour away from here, to buy some boots for Josiah and take him to go see Toy Story 3. Josiah was so excited, even though I dont think he really understood where we were going...we told him that we were going to go see Buzz on a BIG screen, and that was enough to keep him chattering away in the car all the way there..lol. We had hoped he would nap in the car, as we left at 1 pm, but his excitment kind of took over and like I said, he was a little chatter box all the way there. talking about cows and elephants and buzz and car cars and buses...lol his conversations are getting so cute lately:)

We arrived at the mall in Los Angeles and went right away to get something to eat, then walked around and bought a pair or boots for Josiah...man, I WISH I would have brought those winter boots for him that I left at my parents house!! It is NOT easy to find warm winter boots for little boys here, go figure! Sooo weird. They sell all kinds of cute little winter boots for girls, but for boys, nothing...only older boys, like from ages 5 and up...frustrating, to say the least, but after going to like 5 different stores, we finally found him a pair. Once we got those we headed to the movie theatre and in to see Toy Story 3. Josiah was sooooo good! He was so excited when we first got in there that he started running up and down all the isles..lol that got me a little nervous because I said to Jorge, "what if he doesn't understand that he has to sit down for the whole thing!" But he did...and with no problems...well the only problem was that the seats were so big for his little bum that they would fold right up on him, haha. But we packed the seat with a few of Levi's blankets and Jorge's coat, and then Josiah sat on those and it worked just fine. He LOVED the movie and he sat there eating his popcorn and drinking his pop like a little angel. A few times he got a little scared and would say "OH NO!! MUMMY, BUZZ, OH NO WASSA WASSA BUZZ!!!!" In other words "Oh no, what is happening to Buzz", haha. But yeah he really loved it.

After the movie we went to one more store in the mall, where, unfortunately Josiah tripped and fell (as he was so tired) and he banged the side of his face and part of his ear on the side of a railing....leaving a big long bruise on the side of his cheek...poor little guy, he cried pretty bad and of course, Jorge and I felt terrible, it is so hard to see them cry and there is nothing you can do but hug them, and try to ease their pain. Anyways, after the whole incident we gave him a cookie and that quickly took his mind off the pain and allowed him to rest and sleep on the way home.

On Tuesday we got up in the morning and drove to Concepcion as we had a meeting in the afternoon with our Pastors and Mentors, the Grandons at 4 pm. So we left around 11 ish, and arrived there around 12. Jorge dropped me and Levi off at the hair salon and he took Josiah to his parents house. I had decided that I was going to cut my hair short...and so I did :) I also got streaks in it to make it a bit more blond...but I really wanted to get an easy hairstyle, so that I wouldnt have to spend so long doing my hair everyday, as I rarely find time to do so with the two boys now. Anyways, I was VERY afraid of what it would look like, but I really like it and although it is hard to get used to...I am glad that I did it. Jorge really likes it also, so that made me feel better about having it done:)

In the afternoon we went to this meeting, which we thought would just be us and our Pastors, and a counceling time...but it ended up being us and like 5 other couples....riiiiight....and we brought our two boys with us, hahaha. We brought Josiah because we thought, owell, with it just being us and them, he will just play with some toys and/or watch a movie on our portable DVD player....but with all these couples there??? Sigh. For those of you who don't know my son very well he is NOT sociable at all when around groups of people and usually puts on a huge show of crying and throwing things and throwing himself on the floor....and this time was no exception! Well, I cant say it was THAT bad....he did do better than I thought he would. Thankfully. But after about an hour and a half of us trying to deal with both kids and keep them happy while Jorge was with the pastors and I was with the pastors wives, we eventually excused ourselves as it was getting almost impossible to deal with both of them.

Anyways...I would like to keep writing, but Josiah just woke up and Levi is stirring...at least I got caught up on a bit of my blogging. LOL

Here is a pic of my new haircut...I have pics of when we went to the movie too but I havent put them on the computer yet..when I do I will put them on..

Happy 3 months sweet little Levi...

2010-07-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that my little boy is already 3 months old! He is getting so big and we are enjoying every minute of him...what a special blessing God has given us in our little Levi..

Here are some pictures that I took of him today, enjoy!

World Cup, Thomas, and all that jazz...

2010-06-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

On Monday we had some of the youth from the church over to our house to watch the soccer game, Chile vs Brazil. We everyone was there with their red shirts and hats and flags..but unfortunately the outcome wasn't as we had hoped :( Brazil won the game 3 to 0. Everyone was so tense that they didn't fully enjoy the yummy BBQ that we made, well we still enjoyed it but as Brazil was scoring goals people slowly seemed to lose their appetite, haha. Here people take the World Cup very seriously, and some even shed a few tears knowing that Chile would be coming home...but either way, most Chileans are still content with how far they got in the world cup, especially seeing as how it is the farthest they got in the past 48 years, and not to mention the fact that they were the team with the youngest players in this World Cup in South Africa. We were also able to connect on skype with Cassie and Mario who were in Brazil, and of course, cheering for their country! It was fun to be able to joke around with them and watch as our countries battled it out. Of course with a Brazilian on the computer the guys couldnt help do their Chile battle cheers the whole time, Mario just laughed and got a good kick out of it anyways.

Here is a picture of our time together watching the game..

*Note* Siah was sitting there reading his new Thomas the Tank Engine book that Mum sent him in the package that came the other day, he loves it!

Which brings me to my next part of the title of this post.. Thomas!! Oh dear Thomas..how Josiah longed so much to have you, and now here you are, being played over and over and over and over again, and we are so sick of your tooting around this house, hhahahaha! Just kidding. Yes, my Mum sent Josiah two thomas movies in the package and he was sooo excited and has not stopped watching them ever since. If they are not on for a little while he will suddenly come to either Jorge or I and say "Mummy, Honey, where's the Toot-toot?" lol. Such a cutie. We are just thankful that Mum sent two of them so that we can switch back and forth instead of seeing the same one over and over, lol. It was a great gift for him and he absolutely loves it! Thanks so much Mum :)

And here I sit, on my living room couch listening to my gift from Mumma that came in the package..yep, you guessed it, the Chicago soundtrack! I hadnt gotten a chance to listen to it and today I decided it was time to put it on...what can I say?? I just LOVE the music from that movie! Thanks Mum!!

Well I need to go eat lunch now..will write more soon.

pics from last post...

2010-06-28T08:33:00.001-07:00

my baby Levi, almost three months old!

another week gone by..

2010-06-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

and I still left my blogging for too long, lol. I always look at my blog and think, "I should write something," but then the baby cries or Josiah throws something or the doorbell rings...and I get distracted and then don't write for a whole week. Sigh, it happens.

Anyways, we have had an okay week. To be honest it has been quite uneventful as we have not really left the house much all week as it has been so cold and for most of the week it continued to rain and rain. But I am going to follow my Mum and do some point form of some things that happened this week, so that I don't start rambling about just anything, lol.

Wednesday - we had our ladies Bible Study and decided that we would celebrate one of the ladies Birthday's...her birthday was last Saturday, the 19th, but we bought her a little cake and sang happy birthday to her..it wasnt much but to her it meant a lot. While we were singing to her she was holding back trying not to cry. She had told one of the ladies before that she had never had anyone celebrate her birthday before...her first celebrated birthday was her 55th...she said that she was so surprised and couldn't stop thanking us for making it special for her.

Thursday - Josiah came down with a pretty bad cold...we didn't think much of it, seeing as how both Jorge and I had been showing signs of getting sick also..

Friday night - Josiah was up all night and was having trouble breathing as he was soo congested! Jorge and I were both really worried and considered taking him to the ER, but we knew that although it was hard for him, he WAS breathing alright as long as we held him upright, so that is what we did. We took turns sitting up with him and holding him upright on our chests while he slept...it was a loooong night. But thankfully Levi slept for many hours in a row and just woke up a few times to eat and then fell back asleep..so that made things a lot easier.

Saturday - we took Siah to Concepcion to go see his Pediatrician. Turns out he has bronchitis and laryngitis...poor baby boy. He was a mess in the doctor's office, screaming and crying as she had to have us take all his clothes off to weigh him and measure him etc. She said if he continued with a fever by tuesday we would have to put him on some antibiotics, but last night his fever stopped, so we are praying that from here on he only gets better. The doctor gave him an inhaler and some medicine and since he started taking it he has already improved a lot and gotten a bit better...so praise the LORD for that!
Jorge on the other hand is also very sick and is needing to use the inhaler also. Apparently this is very common for people to have bronchitis here during winter, due to the humidity mixed with the cold air and all the smoke from the wood stoves in the houses...makes sense, I guess. Anyways, I hope they both get better soon.

Photos - this week I decided that seeing as how I am no longer living closer to my sister *sniff* or mother *sniff sniff*, I should learn how to take better photos with my camera. We have a good camera that takes good pictures, I just dont know how to use it..lol and always use it on auto. Jorge used to be the camera person in our little family, so I never really bothered on learning because he loved taking the pics and I just figured he would learn..but now he doesnt find the time and I am the one who is always with the boys and always wanting to take pictures in the moment..so it looks like I will need to learn a few things . I'm trying to remember tips that I heard Tanya and Mum talk about all the time..lol, I should have taken notes. But I did have some "natural light" this morning and tried to take a few pics of Levi and capture his light coloured eyes...because in most pictures you cant tell but his eyes are still quite blue-ish.

I tried uploading a couple photos but they were taking forever and I am falling asleep..so maybe if I can I will try to put them on tomorrow...they are not that good anyways, lol.

goodnight for now.

Sweat, tears, a wedding AND a funeral...

2010-06-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

That sure sounds like a fun day all packed into one hey?? Well our day has been quite eventful here in the house just because of a certain two year old who was just, shall we say "off" all day. Sigh. Josiah was just a complete mess today, I don't even know how else to explain it...and this is the second day in a row that he is like this. It is literally impossible to please him, and trust me, we have tried. He has just been whiny and grumpy and irritated and there has really been no pleasing the boy. I think it hasn't helped that this whole week we have pretty much been cooped up in the house as it has been so cold and rainy everyday...so we only left the house twice this week, he went into town once with Jorge and then last night we were invited to someone's house for supper, but other than that, we have just been closed into the house together. So when I say "sweat and tears" I am not referring to Josiah, but rather to me, haha. I have been so emotional today and with both him and Levi who just wants to be held allllllll day long...I lost it a few times. By the time the evening had come around I was just done, and trying to get ready for the church service (I decided to go just to get out of the house and because there was a wedding afterward and Jorge was performing the ceremony). Josiah had both Jorge and I so stressed out and tired, and it kind of pushed us over the edge when we left him alone for two minutes, just to find him sitting at the table, pen in hand and Jorge's special ceremonies black book open....yes yes, he scribbled all over the pages. Jorge didn't even say anything, nor did I...it was one of those moments where we were both to the point of losing it, and that just last thing we needed. But the boy is just two and we are trying to remember that...it is just a phase. I hope.

Anyways, this evening was the first night that we met back in our church building! We have been meeting in the dining area behind the church for the past few months since the earthquake, but this week we had an engineer come and look at the church and assess how much actual damage had been done and whatnot....and he confirmed that we could still meet in the church and that the walls are repairable, without knocking down the whole building, so that is great news. But it is going to cost us probably about 4 thousand dollars to fix...so we are praying that God will provide that money when we need it. So we had our church service there tonight...and boy was it cold! LOL. The nice thing about where we were meeting was it was small and nice to be all huddled into a small warm place, but either way it was also nice to be back in the church with more space I guess. After the church service Jorge performed a wedding ceremony for a young couple, the daughter of one of the sisters in the church. It was his first time doing a wedding and he was a little nervous, but of course he did great.

Once the ceremony was over Jorge and a group of people from the church went to the wake(I don't know if that's how it's spelled) of a man who passed away, his name was Pedro, one of the neighbors of sister Luisa in our church. He had been dying from stomach cancer and Luisa had been going over to his house, praying for him and reading the Bible to him...at this time he was not yet a believer and actually didn't even want her to pray for him, but she insisted and told him that he needed to get his life straight before he died. After a few weeks he started calling her and asking if she would come and pray with him..and one day he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. These past two weeks Jorge started to go and visit him because he asked Luisa if she could bring her pastor to see him. And Jorge would pray with him and talk to him, he also lead him to repent before the Lord and explained to him that it wasn't enough to just "accept" the Lord, but rather that he had to repent from his old way of life (this man used to be a very grumpy angry man to his family, etc) and seek God. Well, Pedro began asking for forgiveness to his wife and children, and then almost everyday he would ask for Jorge to go and see him. On Thursday they knew that his time was coming soon and he wouldnt live much longer, and he asked for Jorge to go and see him again...when Jorge was with him Pedro told him that he knew that the Lord was calling him home. Yesterday Jorge went and saw him one more time, as the family all knew he would not last much longer, Jorge said he was not even able to speak, but he said that in his eyes you could see that he was ready to go. How amazing..this man repented and became a follower of Christ in his last weeks of life, and last night at 11 pm he went to be with our Lord, and stood before his Throne...just thinking about it gives me goosebumps. Anyways, Jorge went to his house tonight with a group of people from the church, and tomorrow morning is the funeral, which will be done by Jorge at Pedro's request.

So that brings our day to an end...and now here I sit, with a cute chunky baby in my arms, nursing, and a kissable little two year old with marker all over his face sitting next to me watching his "buzz". I am blessed. I am tired, but I am blessed.

Where to start??

2010-06-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's what I always do. I leave my blogging for too long and then I don't know where to start, lol. Last week was a crazy one what with Jorge's birthday, a day trip to Concepcion, and on Saturday a day trip to a place called Mulchen for a meeting with a group of pastors from our district. So I will just go over a few things that happened in those days, which were probably the most eventful of the week.

Wednesday - Jorge's Birthday. I had planned ahead of time that I wanted it to be a special day for my man, so I planned to make as many of his favorite foods that I could in the day. The weekend before I let the ladies know that Wednesday was Jorge's birthday, so they planned a special "once" (afternoon tea) for him and then invited him to attend after our class that took place at 3 pm. So the meals of the day went something like this.. 1) Breakfast = cheese omelet + gift and cards (I made a card from the boys to Jorge and Josiah coloured all the inside, he was so proud to give it to him:) 2) Lunch = Garlic Cheddar Chicken with mashed potatoes + apple pie for dessert. 3) Once = Completos + birthday cake . All the ladies of the church were there and we had a great time together in the afternoon, then sang happy birthday to him and were done around 6:30 pm. Jorge said that he really enjoyed his day so that is the most important thing...

On Thursday we went to Concepcion for the day as we had an appointment for Levi with a pediatrician at 6:30 pm. Here everyone takes their kids to pediatricians as there are so many of them, not like in Canada, where you can only get your child into see a pediatrician if they have a serious problem or health concern etc. So we went to Jorge's parents house in the late morning (his parents were in Villa Rica, the south of Chile for a pastors meeting), and had lunch there with his aunt and cousins. Josiah ran around the house and played so happily, he loves going to his abuelos house and always goes running to get his toys as soon as we get there. Jorge went downtown to run some errands and pick up Josiah's paperwork from the government building in the morning. We are soo happy that it has all finally worked out and Josiah is officially Chilean! But always Canadian first, hahaha ;) At least he can have dual citizenship with no problems. They even registered him with two last names, so on his Chilean birth certificate and any of his documents they will say Josiah Reuben Santana Barto. This is because everyone in Chile has to have two last names, but as I didn't keep my last name technically he should only have one or in the case of a single parent the child usually just has their one last name repeated. Meaning that Josiah should have been Santana Santana, but for some reason they decided they would just use my maiden name, which will be nice for both of our boys as they grow up here in Chile.

Anyways, while downtown Jorge met up with our friend Veronica and brought her back to the house for lunch...it was great to see her again and get caught up with her and her news. After lunch we all went to the mall to pick up a few items that we needed, and then after that went across the street to the clinic where the pediatrician's office is. We got there right at 6:30 and were called right in...the Doctor looked Levi over and confirmed that he is a healthy growing baby:) Which made Mummy very happy, as it confirmed that nursing is going as great as I thought it was and my baby is healthy and thriving on my milk, which is an important thing for me and an answer to prayer, Thank you LORD! Levi weighed 5.6 kg, which comes out to 12lbs, the weight of a normal 3 month old...and this was at his 2 month check-up, lol so I guess he is doing just fine :) There were only two concerns that the doctor did have, one was what she said sounded like a heart murmur, and the other was that one of his testicles has not come down yet. She said that heart murmur's can be common among babies but she wants him to see a cardiologist so that he can make sure all is well. Again, that is strange for me because just like seeing a pediatrician, in Canada you only go to a cardiologist if you are certainly having heart problems. So I was kind of scared when she recommended us to one, but after looking up some info on the net and getting some feedback from my friend Heather about what a heart murmur could be, I see that they are quite common in infants and so we trust in the LORD that he will be just fine and that it is nothing to be worried about. And about his testicle, the Doctor has recommended that we take him to get an x-ray done to see if it is pushed up or what the case is...so we ask for prayer about that. Other than that she just gave me some tips on what I should and shouldn't be eating, things that might give him tummy aches, etc. I wasn't all too fond of the doctor myself..she sort of appeared to be one of those "it's my way or the highway" type doctors, that is kind of pushy and I didn't really like that about her. Jorge and I are looking into seeing if there is another pediatrician that speaks english and spanish, so that I will not be confused if there are sudden medical terms that I don't understand (like heart murmur..which had me really worried because all I knew was she was saying he had "something" in his heart, and I was quite panicky until I got home and understood in my own language what that was all about).

Once we were done there we headed into the car and stopped by Jorge's sisters apartment to visit and have supper with her and her husband, Tito. We had a GREAT time with them and they really enjoyed spending the time with Josiah and Levi also. After our visit with them we got back in the car and drive home in the pouring rain, getting home pretty late, around 10:30 pm.

On Friday night the officials in the church and I planned a surprise dinner for Jorge for his birthday. It was two days late, but they had to do it Friday as some of them are away working all week and only get back Friday evenings...so we all went to brother Patricio's house and had a great time of sharing and eating together. It was really nice!

Saturday we had to get up early and drive to a city called Mulchen, which is about an hour drive away from Yumbel, for a Pastor's meeting, which is a group of pastors from our district, that we will always be meeting with, usually once every two months or so. We had to be there by 9:30 so we were up and leaving the house at 8:15, dropped Josiah off at sister Mariela's house (he spent the day there playing with her two kids, Paulina and Hector), and then headed out to Mulchen. The day was quite eventful, with lots of meetings and planning for different events. It was nice to connect with some of the Pastors wives again, that I had met in the conferences in Santiago..a few of them are new just like us and it is good to be able to connect with them on a certain level. Around 11am I had a great surprise from Levi when he decided to poop out everywhere, on all his clothes, socks, everything. Now, you must understand, that this NEVER happens with Levi! He has always been my non-pooping out, non-spitting up baby, so when I was planning on what to bring him for extra clothes, I just through in an extra onsie and pair of pants because "he never poops out." Rrriiiiiiggghhhhtttt..... Anyways, thankfully my mother in law was there and she helped wash all his clothes out, his nice cute handsome cothes that I had chose for him and planned on him wearing the entire day *sigh*, while I fed him. Actually, in the end she hung his clothes up by a stove to dry and they were dry by the late afternoon, so I was able to change him back into his cute little overalls and shoes before the church service which began at 6 pm. We stayed for the service in the church, it was really good but also very looong. Jorge and I were given an "opportunity" to share with the church, where they called us up and asked us to give our greetings and share a quick word, because we are the youngest couple pastoring in the denomination right now...so I guess that kind of peaks peoples interest, haha. Either way it was nice and we had a good time, we drove home around 9 pm and arrived to pick up Josiah around 10pm. He had a great time playing with Paulina and did not want to leave...so we ended up staying for a bite to eat with them and then heading home around 10:45.

So I would keep going but Levi is in his bouncy seat and starting to get fussy...maybe tomorrow I can catch up a bit more. Honestly the past few days have been very uneventful as it has been pouring rain and we I the kids and I have been cooped up in the house, trying to keep warm!

I will write again soon...

The desire within to blog...

2010-06-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is what I have...a desire to blog, lol. Will I be able to keep up with such a desire?? That is the question, but I do not yet know the answer.

I am doing better balancing out my days now that we are getting into a bit of a routine with the boys. Well, realistically, Levi isn't on much of a routine, but I am beginning to understand how he works a little better everyday and he has started having certain naps at certain times of the day, which help me try and work around him a little bit with Josiah etc. Having my Mum here for those three weeks was sooo helpful and now I feel like I am doing better and am feeling more "at home" with being the mother of a 2 year old and a 2 month old.

This week has flown by pretty fast, as I said earlier, my days have mainly been spent just trying to survive and figure out some type of schedule around here. It has, of course, been helpful also to have Digna come three times this week to clean the house, what would I do without her?? Have a messy house, I suppose. On Wednesday I went to the ladies Bible Study and we had a very nice time together! All of the ladies asked about my Mum, if she got home safely and were talking about how hard it must have been for her to say goodbye (yes, it was hard, I don't want to talk about it *sniff*). I gave the devotional that day, and spoke about Love and shared a bit about what God has been speaking to me about how I Love in my own life with my family, friends, etc. It sounds like a very simple thing, but after spending some time reading 1 Corinthians 13 I realized just how complex Love really is! While preparing for the class and analyzing my own life, I decided to give myself a test (bad idea!)...the test went something like this....

Love is patient - am I?
Love is kind - am I?
Love does not envy- Do I?
Love does not boast - Do I?
Love is not proud - Am I?
Love is not rude - Am I?
Love is not self-seeking - Am I?
Love is not easily angered - Am I?
Love keeps no record of wrongs - Do I?
Love rejoices with in truth - Do I?
Love always protects - Do I?
Love always trusts - Do I?
Love always hopes - Do I?
Love always perseveres - Do I?

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark! LOL. I scored myself ...and I'm not going to share my final mark though...it was a little humiliating, but God spoke to me through it and I learned that love is not something that you can just sum up and say "but I LOVE my family!" When you really have no patience and are easily angered, self - seeking, proud...the list goes on... In the end I shared how Love is a decision, not just an emotion or a feeling. So if I decide to love, then I must decide to have patience, decide to be kind, decide to not get easily angered...etc. The Lord used this teaching to speak to my life VERY much, and I am praying that He will help me put it into practice, especially with my little two yr old. I hope it also spoke to the lives of the ladies in our class.

Anyways, I should go get lunch started....will write more later :)

Enough stalling...

2010-03-21T07:32:00.001-07:00

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!

So much to say....

2010-02-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

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..

Where´s a MONO??

2010-02-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

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!

Getting back on track...again

2010-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

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!

Encouraged

2010-01-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Treasured moments

2010-01-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

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.

finally, back again...

2010-01-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

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:)

2009-12-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas service and supper that we had on Christmas Eve. I have been trying to upload them to facebook but for some reason it does not want to work..so I thought I would put a few on here.

too many days..

2009-12-28T09:01:00.001-08:00

without blogging! I have been meaning to sit down and write but every time I think about it I think "oh no, I have let it go too long" and then I just thing I will do it later...and now here I am, after eight days of not blogging so, of course, I have a lot to write about!

This past week has been good but busy for us. We spent Christmas Eve preparing for the church service that evening and the supper that we had prepared afterward. The day was full of cleaning, decorating, planning, but it was fun. We went to the church in the late afternoon and set up the tables and put up some decorations that I had got from my mother in law, she actually gave them to us for our home, but I took them all there are used them to decorate the dining area a little bit. I also made little Christmas candle decorations for the tables, with some help again from my mother in law as she bought me a little glue gun and helped me pick out some cheap ornaments and whatnot..in the end it looked really nice and I think the people appreciated the special touches.

The service started around 8 pm and only went for about 45 minutes. We had the service outside which was really nice, unfortunately as the evening went on the air got a bit cooler out though, and quite a few of the kids got colds the next day from the cool night air, but other than that, it went well. We had quite a few brothers and sisters show up for the service and then had our guests (people that were invited from the community) also show up for the service, they were our special guests for the supper, but it was great to have them come to the service as well! One of the guys was really surprised and shared with one of the brothers in the church that he didn't know how nice evangelicals (Christians) could be! He said normally the Catholics are the ones who do community events and they always thought that the people in this church were more strict and legalistic....so it was really good to get a chance to change the way that some people in the community see us, and to be able to bless them in this way.

The supper was really good, the ladies in the church were originally going to make it, but then a friend of one of the ladies heard what we were planning and she was so excited that we were doing something to bless the community that she volunteered to come and do all the cooking for the meal! She is not a Christian and doesn't attend the church, but it was so great to see her willing to get involved, and of course, the ladies from the church all helped out and we all did our share when it came to serving the food and whatnot.

During the supper the youth had made some movies of skits and funny things for the guests to enjoy so they had that playing on a big screen and that brought a lot of laughter to the tables as we ate together...they did a really good job! Once we had dessert and got everything cleared away and the dishes done it was probably about 11 oclock, so we headed. Josiah had been showing definite signs of being tired, but of course, once we were home he got his second wind and was very wide awake...with that said we allowed him to open his gifts that were under the tree. He had a gift from his grandparents (Jorge's parents) and one little one from us, then also one from a family in the church. The one that he loved the most was the one from Jorge's parents, which was some type of blocks/Lego pieces. We soon regretted letting him open them as it was so late and he, of course, wanted to sit up and play with them, lol. But around midnight he was getting tired again so we convinced him that he could play with them in the morning, and he reluctantly went to bed:)

Christmas day was spent here in the house...we didn't really do much at all. As I said, Josiah woke up with quite a chest cold..coughing quite a bit, and I had a splitting head ache all day. So we just hung out and relaxed together. In the evening our friend Danilo came over and we had a BBQ together, which was nice, Jorge had been long awaiting such a BBQ, haha. We also put some water in Josiah's new pool that he recently got and let him play outside for a bit..not too long though, as he did have a cold. The best part of my day was spent talking to family! I got to have a three-way call with KB and Tanya and the rest of the family...that meant a lot to me, I find myself missing everyone so much lately that is was good to just be able to sit and chat about nothing important, haha. Truth be told, those are the conversations I miss the most.

The last few days have been getting back into some kind of a routine...to be honest I haven't been feeling the greatest, I dont know if it is just hormones or what, but my emotions have been through the roof lately! I find myself having moments where I am so happy to be here and then moments later I just want to sit and cry, and close my eyes and be somewhere else when I open them. The first few weeks that I was here are so blurry for me as it was soo much to take in, that now that we are getting more "settled" I find myself being more and more sensitive and more aware(if that's the right word) of the situation that we are currently living in. I have moments where I feel so weak and feel I have nothing to offer these people. Then I have others where I remind myself that God is the one who brought us here, and although it's true, I have nothing to offer them, He DOES have something to offer them, and I need to allow Him to use me. It has been a constant battle of ups and downs...I have not been the most pleasant person to be around the last few days, and for that I feel awful. I am also having quite a bit of back pain and pelvic pain at times, as Josiah insists on being carried around still, and that is taking it's tole on me. But anyways, these are just details, small things that can get a person down, but I know that my GOD is bigger than these things and I am trying to focus on His Goodness and His Grace.

If you think about it maybe you could just pray for me...thanks to all and I will write again soon. I am going to go lay down now while Josiah is napping and try and get some rest myself.

Wonder of wonders...

2009-12-20T11:07:00.000-08:00

miracle of miracles...yes that's right, my son has finally began exploring new foods!! (applause applause) It is still a process that is taking quite a lot of time, but this past week there were two jaw dropping moments for Jorge and I as we watched our picky little eater eat things that he has never before tried and/or liked. The first was in the beginning of the week, I think it was Monday or Tuesday. We were sitting at the table eating breakfast, Jorge and I had made some fried eggs for ourselves and Josiah sudden;y pointed to my egg and said "Mummy, this?" So I said ok, gave him a little piece, expecting him to spit it out..and he ate it and asked for more! Well to make a long story short he ended up eating almost three fried eggs to himself...I shared and ate a little bit but he ate most of them. Weird. The second was yesterday while we were at a wedding of a girl from the church. They were serving some snacks and came out with small cheese empanadas and chips, and also small pieces of cheese cut into little bite sizes. Well Josiah took to the empanadas right away...surprising, and ate like 4 or 5 of them....then I offered him a piece of cheese and he ate it...and kept asking for more...he ate tons of cheese and empanadas and chips..not the healthiest foods in the world, haha but it was cool to see him trying new things again:)

On a side note: As I was writing the first paragraph, Jorge and I were sitting here on the bed and Josiah had been in the kitchen for a few minutes. Suddenly Jorge said "my son is too quiet", and I said "oh now, you're right.." Jorge peeked out the bedroom door and called me over to look. Lo and behold, we found Josiah standing in the kitchen with his face, hands and arms covered in cream, (kind of like whipping cream, but it is one that you put on deserts), spreading it evenly all over his body...HAHAHA! It was one of those moments that was so funny you couldnt even be bothered with getting upset. I grabbed my camera and we got some good pictures, as we walked into the kitchen towards him asking him what he was doing, he began calmly explaining to us (in his own language) what he was doing and why...it was sooo funny! He had a big smile on his face and was telling us (I think) how we should be proud of him because he was rubbing the cream in so well on his arms..haha. He was very proud of himself, that was quite clear. Anyways, that's my boy for ya!!

Well, today has been a day of some rest but mostly just organizing and doing housework. This morning I went to the church with Jorge and Josiah as we had the children's Sunday School. I taught them the song "Jesus loves me" with the actions and then had to come home as Josiah began to put on a show and freak out, crying...why he does we will never know, but there it is.

When I got back home I did some laundry, then cleaned up a bit and began making lunch. I made Dad's fried potatoes (and they came out really good this time:) and chicken, but then we also recieved some empanadas from a family in our church, so we had a wide variety for lunch.

After cleaning up and putting some spices in my fridge magnet spice holders, Jorge and I went through the items that were brought by the people of the church for their "first harvest" that they do every month. Every month the church has something called the "first harvest" where people bring a portion of their groceries and/or crops to the church and we put them all together and make a couple of bags for the families in the church who do not have much, or are struggling to make ends meet. This is something that is found in the Bible, in the old Testament. The people here are so faithful with this, they say that the first of everything that they receive is always for the LORD. To the point that many people bring us their first crops or a portion of their food from their gardens, eggs, etc. we are very blessed by this effort and it is a real testimony to me of how we, as Christians ought to live.

Anyways, I need to get going here, to get ready for church. Tomorrow is our day off and we will most likely be going to Concepcion for the day..so I may write again tomorrow night or in the next few days.. bye for now:)

Lots to do!

2009-12-17T03:21:00.001-08:00

Well today is thursday and I have a lot of things to do today. I am planning for my woman's tea that I am putting on for the ladies of the church here, I wanted to make it special for them so I am planning and doing the whole thing. The women here work really hard and always get together to plan and decorate for these things, but as it is the last meeting of the year I wanted to do this for them so that they could simply come and enjoy. I am a little nervous as I have never done anything like this before, and I have no idea how many ladies will be there, so I have to plan for around 18, but there are weeks when only 6 or 7 come...so we will see.

I enjoyed talking with Mum last night, even if it wasn't for long. and I think that I have figured out how to have a decent skype conversation, now that I know where the reception in the house is the best, lol, so thats good. I sure do miss the family lately. I had a pretty tough week, a lot of tears and missing home...it was the first time that everything really began to sink in for me. I had a good argument with God..letting Him know how I was truly feeling inside, but also sharing that with Him, knowing that I am where He wants me to be and still surrendering my life to Him. I think with the pregnancy and everything else too...I am a little emotional, haha. Josiah has also been a handful for me lately as I am the one who has to watch him most of the time in the church services and he only wants to be held all the time. With him getting bigger and bigger this is no longer an easy thing for me..lol I have just been feeling exhausted this week and overwhelmed with our new lifestyle...but on the other hand I am enjoying it and getting used to how things are little by little.

Last night I had a prayer meeting with two of the ladies from the church. There are three of them that I work with more than anyone, as they are the elders wives, and they help me plan events and handle finances etc. We decided to get together once a week and have prayer times together. To pray for the ladies in the church, the church as a family, our families and our husbands etc. It was the first that we have had and only two ladies were able to make it, but it went really well! We each had a turn to pray and the ladies really poured out their hearts before the LORD. In the end we were all crying and God really spoke to us about this being a new time for us all, "the beginning" of something for everyone. Afterwards we had a good time of sharing how we were all feeling and it was so good to hear how the two of them have felt in this whole transition of us taking on the pastorate here in the church. They both said that from the day I got here they felt instantly like I was family to them. With Jorge also, we have had the elders and their wives over for supper and they said that for them hey had never done that before and that they never felt so welcomed before in the pastors home..and so these things are really important for us and it was very encouraging for me to know how they are feeling. They both said that they believe that everything that has happened is God's doing and I believe that also...now we just need to continue to seek Him and His leading for us as a church family and I know He will do great things.

Anyways, it is 8:37 and I have Digna, a girl from the church coming over this morning to help us with some cleaning, so I should probably get up and moving here. I know Mum is probably laughing thinking, "you do have an hermana that comes and help you in the house!" well yeah we do. Her name is Digna, and she is such a sweet girl. She has no way of earning money so she takes on any jobs that she can cleaning and whatnot. With Jorge we decided as a way of helping her out we would ask her to come a few times a week and help me do cleaning and things around the house in the mornings. The houses here get so dirty and dusty so fast so she has been a huge help, even with organizing and ironing clothes etc. She is also someone who is really struggling in her relationship with God, so we are praying that God will begin a work in her life, and He already has begun doing so, as we have had some really good conversations with her already, which is exciting for us to see.

But I need to get running now..will write again soon:)

Things that make you go..

2009-12-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

hhhhhmmmmmm. First of all, I must say that the first part of this post is probably not one that will be of much interest to any males who may be reading this, but it's one of those things that must be shared. I have noticed every since I arrived in Chile that my leg hairs are growing slower!! I know, I know, totally weird right?? But so totally true! I usually always have to shave my leg every other day, if not everyday in the summer, because the next day they are always all prickly...my husband hates that, haha. And since I have been here I have only had to shave my legs every 4 to 5 days!! I shaved them on a Tuesday before I left Lethbridge, and then didn't have to shave them again until the Saturday! And it has been that way ever since....so weird. I was wondering if it could have to do with the pregnancy, but it seems to have only been since I have been here, because even in Canada I always noticed that I would shave one day and the next day I would have all the stubble. Hmmmmm, so very odd, but yet I am sooo thankful, because with this heat I need to wear either shorts or a skirt everyday, and it is so tiring to always be shaving your legs...so there ya go:)

Today was voting day here in Chile, so everything was pretty much closed all over the country. Due to that we didn't have church service as the people need to often travel to different parts of the city or towns where they live to vote...so we had a whole day of rest and just did things here in the house, which was nice. The three of us were all so tired from last night, when we had another church come and visit ours(...so the service was very long), that we all took long naps in the afternoon. Josiah actually was playing upstairs in his room and I gave him his "te-te" (aka "soother") and after about 20 minutes when I realized I hadn't heard from him, I went up to check on him and there he was, fast asleep on his bed. He is getting so big and is doing really well with sleeping in his own bed now...I am very proud of him, I thought it would be more difficult than it has been. Granted, last night and today were the first times that he went to sleep by himself in the bed, but we have only had it a week, so that is pretty good. Tonight I just sat on the end of the bed until he fell asleep, but it shows that he is getting more comfortable and at least now he hasn't been falling out of the bed anymore. The first night that we had him in the bed I piled up like 5 pillows on the side of him (the other side of the bed was pushed up against the wall) and even laid some out on the floor for if he rolled off. When I went in to check on him I looked in the bed and realized that he wasn't there...I thought maybe he had gotten up so I opened the door more and looked around for him. I couldn't see him anywhere! My heart started to race and I felt a certain panic rise within me...I ran into the room, and suddenly, I saw him...curled in a little ball in the far corner, a few feet away from the bed and the pillows, bum up in the air and fast asleep on the hard floor. Poor little guy. But since then he fell off only a few other times and now he seems to stay put, for the most part.

Anyways, I really need to go to bed, because it is 11:50 and I am really tired. I will write more tomorrow...because I know I have a lot of things that I need to write about...goodnight all!

2009-11-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

So today is Monday and we drove into Concepcion for the day as Jorge´s uncle said that we could use his car, which is a huge blessing and saves us an uncomfortable trip on the bus. Jorge dropped Josiah and I off at his paretns house and then went downtown to run some errands. He is trying to figure out the whole thing with my paperwrok, how to get me my residency here and also how to get Josiah and I covered with healthcare..so we are paying that everything will work out.

Last night we had a really nice church service. There were more people there as it is the main sevice of the week and the brothers and sisters were very kind and welcoming. I got a chance to share a bit of how our trip went and just said that we are happy to be with the church and that we are here to serve them..and that I hope we can get to know each other and enter into this process together, to see what God has in store for us. The people seem very open to grow and know more of Christ in their everyday lives.

I had a strange sensation last night as the service ended. Jorge spoke about patience, about learning to wait on God for His timing in ourlives...it was really good. And at the end he did an altar call and many people came forward, to pray and to be prayed for. I had Josiah, who was running around and whatnot, so I was trying to contain him in my arms and therefore, just stayed in my place, praying for the people. But at the end they all were hugging each other, blessing each other, and I realized something and felt kind of out of place. This church is a family. They have grown together, done life together, cried together, laughed together, worked together and played together. They know each other and have gone through a tough time together and are trying to get through it. Now here come Jorge and Josiah and I, to join this family, and it is hard to know where to fit in. This may sound strange, but I almost had the sensation that a step mother would have, coming into a family and taking over the position that the mother of the family always had...it is an ackward feeling, and I dont even know if I am describing it well, but I hope I am. Don´t get me wrong, I am excited to see what God is going to do and I know that this process will take time. The people will need time to get to know us as a family and we need to get to know them, but it will be a slow process, and we are prepared for that. But it just dawned on me that really, this is a very delicate situation and it must be handled with care.

I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer last night and he was talking about Busyness and spiritual discipline...wow, it was really what I needed to hear. He was saying that if you are workin in the ministry, you need to spend hours out of your day having your time alone with God, seeking God, because how can we know how to do His work if we are not spending every moment that we can with HIM!! It really hit me like a ton of bricks...espeically when I think about the work that I will do with the ladies in the church. I need to know where to start, what to share with them, different dynamics and activities that we can do together to get to know each other better, but I need the LORD to show me where to begin. If you think of me, please pray for me in that area...God is really working on both Jorge and I, and we need more and more of His Grace to get through each day.

Josiah is doing better...he has had a good couple of days. He began eating a bit more and has gone back to his usual jabbering self, talking and humming as he walks around the house and plays with his farm animals(Mum, I´m soooo glad I brought those with us!!). One of the biggest issues we are having with him is him hitting people and-or throwing things at them. A lot opf people think its funny so they are encouraging him to throw his toys at them and they say ¨we are just playing¨...sigh. The problem is, they dont know my son, and it is a little embarrasing when we are sitting at someones table, talking and sharing with them and my son comes up and whips a big lego blog right at the lady of the house...hhmmm, not my idea of good manners:( LOL but we are working on it...it may take some time. Today he went for a long walk outside with his great grandmother, and they had a great time, looking at all the puppies and sayin g hi to the neighbors as they went along their way...he is getting used to the family again and I know that it means a lot to them:)

Anyways, I must be going. We are going to go to the mall this afternoon and look into buying a highchair for Josiah...having him sit at the table is not working well as he can get off and on the chairs and its impossible to get him to sit still..

will write again soon!

A whole new world...

2009-11-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

and a brand new place I never knew...this is the song that I have in my head today, weird, I know. But everything is feeling very "new"to me right now and I am struggling a little bit with all of the emotions that I am feeling, and how I can put those into words. But I will most definitely try to do so.

The trip was long. I don't know what else to say about it. I sent out a letter letting people know how it went, so I'm not going to go into much detail, but to sum it up, the only word I can think of is "long". I knew before going that it would be challenging, but I don't think I realized how emotionally draining it would be for me. I tried to hold it all together for my son...and for the first plane ride I think I did quite well. I even gave myself a little pat on the back as I ran up to the gate of our second flight in Toronto, just in time for boarding, and I thought, "you're doing okay Mandy, everything is going quite well.." Riiiiiiight. Don't get me wrong, I was not depending on my own strength, I knew that God was giving me the strength and I was thankful for that, but I think at that point I thought, "one down, two to go...easy!" Hmmm, not as easy as I had thought. The second flight, the eleven hour flight, was the hardest eleven hours that I have had for a VERY long time. I don't want to exaggerate and make it out worse than it was...but it was very hard for me...emotionally and physically draining. Josiah hated all of the people sitting around him looking at him, and of course, that is what everybody did, haha. (But how can they resist right? I mean he is adorable:) Either way, he was completely attached to me...I could not even put him down to go to the bathroom...he would not get down and walk down the isles, I had to literally be holding him in my arms every second from the moment we took off to the moment we arrived. Some poeple would try to help by saying"come to me baby, come on", and of course, that would make Josiah ten times worse, he would throw himself backwards, and begin to cry and fight....yep, that's my son! Anyway, I did have about three breakdowns, where I just sat there and cried with him...the last was more of a meltdown, as I was getting off the plane. It had landed and all of the people were filing off, and Josiah began to scream, desperate to leave the plane...of course, I still had to pack up all of our stuff, get the bag out from the top compartment and make sure I had all of our documents and papers that I had to fill out and whatnot. So there he was, screaming, throwing himself all over the place, while I am crying, trying to pull this stupid bag out from the top compartment...in the end a few of the stewardess' came and helped me pack it up, looking at me like I'm an absolute nut case, as I am holding Josiah and bawling my eyes out...just wanting to run into a dark corner and hide...it was quite a humbling experience. But nevertheless, an experience it was;) Either way, we arrived here safely and that is all that matters...we got through it, God got us through it, only by His Grace.

These past few days here have been good. It is good to be here, good to be with my son and husband, the three of us together again. And it is good to finally be here in Yumbel, meeting the people that Jorge has already been working with for the past month. We stayed at Jorge's parents house in Concepcion the first night here and then the next day (yesterday afternoon) we came here in bus. In the morning before we left, I went into town with my mother in law and she blessed me so much with buying me things that Josiah and I needed. We went around from store to store, getting me skirts and shoes that I can use for church. Then she also bought Josiah a pair of cute little sandals that he can use, as it is very hot here in Yumbel. We got here around 5 pm yesterday and decided to stay home from the church service as Josiah and I were still so tired from the long trip.

The brothers and sisters from the church are so sweet and have been very welcoming! We have received gifts and big warm hugs....they are very simple people with a lot of love to give, and that makes me want to give them even more love back. Today I met with the ladies of the church, it seemed to really well. They asked me to give the message and I read a few verses from Psalms 40:1-3, and shared what God has done in my life, and a bit of my testimony, to share a bit of who I am with them. I shared how I have been praying for them and for the church, and how I feel that as the women of the church we need to make sure that God is the one who is Glorified through everything we do...to Him be the Glory forever, amen.

After the meeting the ladies had tea with all types of goodies and snacks prepared for Jorge and Josiah and me. It was really sweet, we all sat and ate together, sharing a bit more with them, laughing and getting to know each other. there were probably about 17 ladies there, which they said was the best turnout that they have ever had, normally only a few ladies come, so I encouraged them to come next week so that we can continue to get to know each other...I hope they keep coming. Unfortunately Josiah decided not to take a nap all day, so by this time(5 o'clock) he was pretty grumpy and tired. But the ladies understood that he is going through a tough time and were very sweet about it. He played for the most part with a little boy from the church named Gerson, who is seven years old...Josiah followed him around like a little puppy and they had a good time together.

Anyways, I should probably wrap this up as this post is getting very long...I hope I haven't already lost you at this point! There is so much happening that it is hard to write it all out, that and the fact that we cannot connect to internet that often as we are using his uncles internet until they leave, I can usually only come on at night, when no one else is using it. Next week, however, we will have our own telephone and internet in the house, so that will be nice..

I am feeling a little overwhelmed by everything going on. I feel, at times, confused about why we are here, and wonder what I have to offer these kind people of Yumbel. It is strange to hear the ladies call me their "Pastora", but they say it with so much love and respect, that it also makes me feel very humbled, that God would allow ME the privilege of coming and working alongside these women, I think I have a lot to learn from them.....

May His Name be Glorified here in Yumbel, this is the cry of my heart today...

My very first post...

2009-11-21T20:32:00.000-08:00

..on my very own blog!! That's right, I'm giving blogging another shot. I have always enjoyed taking time at the end of my day to sit down and write about the things that have gone on or whatnot, and I love reading my Mum's blog and both of my sisters' and friends' blogs..so I decided the other day that I should get back into blogging myself. The truth is, as a family we have always had some type of blog or website and I am usually the one who has to update on it. But it usually turns into a chore as I have to update people on what we are doing ministerial-wise, and then I post our newsletters and things like that. But I never used them as a place where I could just write daily, like a journal, and share my feelings, thoughts, prayer requests, frustrations, joys, sorrows etc. So, here it is. Not only is it my own personal blog, but I made it all pretty for myself (my cousin gave me an amazing site that has tons of backgrounds and fun things, thanks Cass:), and I intend to use it as a way of communicating more with family and friends while we are living down in Chile. As my son gets older and is starting to do and say new things everyday, I find myself wanting to write them out, or have some type of a place where I can share the funny things that he says and does with family and friends, so here it is. I hope that I will update it as much as I want to. It is hard for me, I won't lie, as I often say I am going to do things like this and then I just let them die and forget about them. But I would really like to keep this up, along with reading everyone's blogs. That way we can all be in touch more and share encouraging words, prayer requests, and just the everyday joys and struggles of life. In other words, let's do life together;)