Bratislava

Well, we've arrived! Ben and I are on location with Bryan Missions Interns this summer. I'll be in Bratislava, Slovakia through the beginning of August, helping with some ESL training and various tasks at a school here-- Bratislava Educational Resource Center (BERC). Ben will have Bratislava as a home base, visiting the student interns working with ministries in Rwanda, Kenya and in Asia at different points.

We (Ben, me and baby, too) arrived on Tuesday afternoon, a bit travel-weary, but in pretty good shape overall. We slept well both Tuesday night and Wednesday night, which is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Ben, by the way, provided me with a delightful surprise by lifting from his luggage my currently-most-prized material possesion... my body pillow! How he stuffed it in there, I don't know, but I love him for this act of care and thoughtfulness, as well as for many other reasons.

Other good news-- Ashlee passed her NCLEX (nursing board exams) on Monday! Pretty wonderful!

Prayer requests for us:

• for Ben, as he travels to Africa this weekend for about a week


• for me as he is away (Anyone else remember how I used to traipse off to foreign countries on my own and do just fine? I'm not so independent anymore...)


• for the interns here in Slovakia and elsewhere to grow, learn and serve well


• for the ESL training next week

We'll try to blog regularly-- keep us email-updated on your lives, too!

Northward-Ho!

Well, tomorrow morning we depart for MSP once again-- this time to celebrate Micah's wedding and enjoy some fun times with the Norquist clan. I will be staying up that direction until the following weekend, when Miss Mel gets married in Sioux Falls! Ben is in a wedding down south, but we are very excited for her and Tim, and for Ben's friend Bryce and his soon-to-be-wife Esther. And we are very excited to see our dear family and friends over these next few days!

Things That Go "Bump" in the Night

Soooo... last night when I went out onto our porch in the midst of a roaring thunderstorm to make a phone call (the only area with semi-reliable cell reception), I noticed a branch hanging down from the porch roof. Oh, wait. That is actually a snake. I didn't hang around to make a positive ID on the variety. Don't know if it was a bad snake or a good snake (Okay, are there really good snakes? Don't comment on that.) It was a snake, though. Maybe 2-2 1/2 feet long, an inch and a half around or so? Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Later in the evening I heard it fall (jump?) off and land on the porch. That was actually a relief, because I didn't want it to climb into our attic and make itself at home or something. Ew, ew, ew. Ben was teaching last evening, so he didn't get to see it. He says that if he finds it in the future, he will weed-whack it if it is a copperhead or the like. Weed-whack it? That is more than I can handle. Personally, I think it might be time to get a shotgun. By the way, this is the second snake that I have had the pleasure to encounter on our property. Ben has yet to make the acquaintance of any at all. Why is that? Not that I want him to see one, or whack one, I just don't want to see them any more! Ew.

Faculty-Award Winner in Our Hearts

We are up in fair St. Paul this weekend to celebrate Ashee's graduation from Bethel and from Nursing School. She has worked so hard and had so much success! It is clear, too, the work God has done in and through her. He is a gentle protector and provider, and has indeed worked things together for good. Yesterday we attended the pinning ceremony (a tradition in the nursing profession since like 830AD or something). I was hoping Ashlee would win the Faculty Award. She didn't. I still think that she should have! I don't need to elaborate on that to the whole world, but you all understand the loyalty and love for your own kin-folk, right? I just can't imagine another living soul who could possibly deserve it more than her. So I have awarded it to her in my own heart. See above. HA!

Afterwards, Ben and I took my grandma out for supper while the rest of the fam attended a banquet. They had dried-up chicken, and we had fabuous Chinese at Pei-Wei. That was Grandma's choice, believe it or not. Afterward, I found out that she has never had Chinese before, so I think that she actually chose it by accident or misunderstanding, but she happily ate her Sweet and Sour Pork anyway, so good for her. We also mined her for family names. It was fun to listen to her remember who is who and related to whom. She even elaborated on how to say some of the names in German, which is pretty neat.

This morning we're up before everybody else since we're working on TN time, so here I am blogging. After everyone else awakes, we will head off to Key's Cafe for breakfast. You might think that the highlight of the weekend for me is the food. That is a highlight, but also it has been fantastic to be with the fam.

Last night we watched video footage from Ashlee's trip to Uganda last January, and our ultrasound video while eatng strawberry sundaes and drnking root bear floats. Food again. Good times. Everyone has felt the baby kick by now, too, which is fabulous!

Window Screens

Our house came without window screens. I realize that most of the world makes it without window screens, or even the option of A/C, but I was really getting tired of the situation. After pricing out (expensive) relplacement screens, we found a nifty screen making kit at Wal-Mart. Ben crafted perfect-fitting screens for each window in the house, installing the last one yesterday afternoon. We were in heaven! There was a light rain outside, and the breeze was refreshing and bug-free. Last night, perhaps around 11, when we were falling asleep in our newly ventilated bedroom, we heard furious scratching UP THE SIDE OF OUR HOUSE and clawing onto the screen in our bedroom. The CAT, whom we do not officially own, but who lives on our property, had torn a hole in the 6-hour old screen in an effort to socialize. Maybe this is why there were no screens on any of the windows. Ugh.

Something Like Christmas

Well, last night we were invited over to dinner by another Bryan staff couple. We had yummy, yummy brats with the fixin's, followed by a shopping spree!
This family has two boys, the youngest of whom is three years old, and they have a lot of baby boy clothes up to size 2T that they don't need anymore... So they gave us our pick!
We got some really nice items in all sizes and seasons. Even better, their boys were born about the same time of year as ours will be, so the seasons and sizes should line up fairly well.
Then, their next-door-neighbor gave us a really nice high chair.
What generosity. It really is a big blessing-- saving not only the money that would be involved in buying these items (even at garage sales or whatever), but also the time.
Just wanted to brag on a generous, generous family...
Hopefully we can pass things along to someone else someday-- that's the idea, right?

It's a Boy!

Well, another point for women's intuition. Every woman who ventured a guess (at least, those who told me about it) thought it would be a boy, and sure enough...

Tech: "Now, you want to know what it is?"

Us: "Yeah!"

Tech: "See that? There's no doubt about it. Those are boy parts."

Let's Pray for the People of Burma

On Saturday Cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Burma preceded by a tidal wave 12 feet high that claimed whole villages. As of this morning, 22, 464 people have been confirmed dead. Another 41,000 people are still missing. That means that the death tole will rise. But for thousands of families, the fate of their loved one(s) will remain unresolved--their names will never be removed from the missing list. Let's pray for the people of Burma as they move through this tragedy.



Read more about the cyclone: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7385662.stm

Subscribing to Posts

Okay, this post is mostly for Ashlee, who keeps asking me how to subscribe to blogs.... For Blogger, anyway, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "Subscribe: Posts [atom]". You have to have a gmail account to subscribe, though.

The Loooong Weekend

Have you ever had a weekend that seemed TOO long?

It seemed like forever in longness. We had a short and yucky camping experience. We couldn't find our destination. I was hungry (when pregnant= cranky, then weepy). It stormed. I didn't sleep. It was dark most of the time we were there. We didn't hike, go to the Sequoyah museum or take the drive on the Cherohala skyway to NC as planned. We did eat breakfast at a cute diner, though. Ben will tell you it was a great birthday present, though, and that he had a great time (I love my husband. He is sooooooooooooo good for and to me!)
Then, on Sunday morning, Ben woke up with the stomach flu. He was miserable.
He is still home sick today-- keeping food and fluids down, now, but still pretty dehydrated and weak feeling.

We have been thanking God for the safe, quiet, sheltered bedroom in which we sleep well and healthfully most nights. Really, I am taking that much less for-granted now.

Onto the week at hand...this afternoon our life enters a new realm of knowledge-- we find out if freckle is a frecklo or a freckla! I've been thinking it is a boy for quite a while (an ultrasound we had a while back showed the little one bouncing all over the place with little-boy-like levels of energy. Maybe this is a sexist conclusion, but I needed something to go on...), but the Internet predicts a girl... Ben has not guessed. What do you think-- boy or girl?

Our birthing class last week was uneventful and not that interesting-- except for the"fetal bonding" time, in which we were supposed to imagine ourselves floating in the uterus with our baby, sharing the bond of love, while listening to the rhythm of ocean waves in the background. We couldn't stop laughing. Of course we were sitting right up front, where everyone could see our lack of composure. I felt immature, very self-aware and quite embarrassed, which made me more giggly, unfortunately. I hope that we don't have to do this every week.