prayer

I know that many of you have been aware of what has been going on and have been praying for us. Thank you so much for your prayers! Please continue to join with us in prayer about our little girl.

Praise God for...

- the blessing of this little life forming in me!
- stopping the preterm labor and for maintaining this pregnancy the past several weeks
- our kind doctor who seems to be knowledgeable, caring, and wise in the decisions he makes
- so many people helping us out during this time

Please intercede in prayer for us, asking for...

- physical strength after 3 weeks of bed rest; my energy level is very low right now
- rest and patience for Dan as he has most of my responsibilites to take care of as well as his own
- the strong, regular contractions to subside until I'm truly in labor
- Timmy; it's hard to not have his mommy as available to him as he's used to!
- our little girl to born safely and fully developed at God's appointed time
- my heart to be at peace

what's been going on with us...

I think that this is the first time I've posted a photo of a room in our house, but that seems fitting since I've spent a lot of time in this room lately. In fact, I have been laying in that bed for the past three weeks.
About 3 and a half weeks ago, I went into preterm labor (at 32 weeks). I had been having painful contractions every five minutes for about four hours by the time we reached the hospital. After monitoring me and checking me, I was admitted and put on IV meds to slow the contractions. Thankfully, the meds started working after a couple of hours. We are so thankful that our doctor was able to figure out how to stop the progression of labor!

After being hospitalized for a night and a day, and after getting a steroid shot for the baby's lungs, I was sent home on meds to slow contractions and on total bed rest. I was on bed rest with Timmy for 3 months, so it wasn't new to me, but it was hard to adjust to laying in bed while Dan and other people took care of Timmy, did the laundry, cooked meals, etc. My mom came and was such a huge blessing taking care of Timmy, me and our house for two weeks. I really don't know how we could have managed without her! Plus, the medicine I was on made me feel shaky and gross and I was still having a lot of contractions, so it was just really nice to have my mama with me! (By the way, all these contraction are due to a medical condition that's actual name is "irritable uterus"... it's definitely irritating!).

When my mom left, our team and church friends stepped in, made meals for us, and helped take care of Timmy several mornings so that Dan could work. Because of the service of my mom, my husband, and our friends, I have been able to stay laying down most of the time. When I sit up or walk around, the contractions pick up, so to be able to really submit to total bed rest has kept our little girl safe and developing inside of me longer. I am so thankful!

At yesterday's doctor's appointment, the doctor decided to take me off the medicine and the bed rest, as long as I take it easy and lay down when I start having contractions.  I will be 36 weeks along tomorrow.  The doctor *predicts* that she will come sometime in the next two weeks!  I won't be surprised if she does since I start contracting whenever I'm up and now don't have the medicine to slow them down. We'll see!

Dan is home!

Dan was in Honduras all last week leading a team of engineers and architects who were designing a school campus for a children's home in the small town of Talanga.  He was really impressed by this locally staffed and supported ministry, and is already thinking about when he go back to help with more design for their site! 

Throughout the week, I was able to hear about his work there through emails and skype.  The highlight for me was the night that I recieved a skype call from him and started the video and saw my wonderful husband surrounded by about 15 cute Honduran kids, on his lap and standing all around him, waving and yelling "HOLA!"  How fun to get to "meet" the kids he was serving that week!  I've been enjoying hearing more stories and seeing his pictures since he returned on Sunday night.  I'm hoping he'll be able to share his experience with you all here soon!

Photo Friday: a sloth!

We were so surprised to see this sloth hanging from a tree by the side of the street when we walked out of church last week.  We'd seen sloths in a national park here, but never here in Atenas!



el Día de los Niños

Last week, we celebrated a fun Costa Rican holiday, el Día de los Niños (Children's Day).  On this day, children receive gifts, get special treats and are able to participate in fun activities at school, around town, or at church.  Our church had a Children's Day party.  There was a performance, singing, games, and lots of treats (more than we let Timmy eat!).  It was really fun to watch the kids having a blast.  These photos will give you a bit of an idea of what the celebration looked like:

Our friend, Marifer, leading a game...

... singing and dancing with streamers...

... watching a performance...

... playing games...

... Timmy enjoying his first ice cream cone...

Introducing our new interns!

"Meet" our new interns:

From left to right: Alfonso, from Mexico (now Texas), Jess from Washington (now Florida), David from Georgia, Bethany from Arizona, and Erika from Minnesota

It's hard to believe that our new interns have already been here for a month!  They went through a week of orientation with us when they first got here, then really enjoyed their two weeks of language school, have gotten settled into life with their host families, and are now going on their project trips.  David and Erika are getting back from Guatemala today, Alfonso will go to Honduras with Dan next week, and Bethany and Jess (a long-term volunteer who went through orientation with the interns) will be going to Honduras the following week.

We started up this term's Bible study last week.  It is such a joy to have the interns in our home each week to study the Word together and to hold each other accountable to the applications we make through our study.  This term we will be studying John 13-17, and I'm really looking forward to focusing on these words of Christ over the next couple of months.  Please pray for Dan to have wisdom as he facilitates this study, and pray for all of us to have our hearts molded more into Christ's likeness through what we learn.