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Just popping in to say…we have a baby! Our new addition was born Wednesday, Sept.12 at 11:54 pm. It was a fast labor and delivery, and she was born at a healthy 7 lbs 11 oz. We were both doing so well that we came home from the hospital Thursday evening, though my mother-in-law stayed to help out till Friday night. I was so thankful for how it all worked out so well with our younger kids…originally the plan was to take them to the hospital with us when I was in labor and have A.’s mom meet us there, but as it turned out I knew I was in early labor already on Wednesday afternoon so she had time to come to our house instead. That was a much better plan and so much less stressful for the kids – thanks God!
So far things are going well – it certainly is busy with three little ones, but other than being tired I am coping ok. I am learning to manage my time very precisely, and not waste a minute of precious “downtime” when all of them are sleeping or otherwise occupied. I need to co-ordinate in advance just to get the dishes done or a load of laundry washed – everything takes so much planning! I know it will get easier, because I remember feeling this same way when my second baby was born – but for now it’s all about juggling everyone’s routines! I hope I can keep this up.
That’s all for now…I’m going to go rest for a while. I’ll try to write again soon. 
This Sunday at church, our 3-yr-old was eagerly waiting for the offering basket to be passed by so that he could put in “his” money. This is our weekly tradition and, I think, his favorite part of sitting in the service with us. I handed him a loonie and said, “Here, you can put this in the offering for Jesus.”
He turned around and excitedly scrutinized the usher holding the offering basket. “Is that Jesus?”
Of course we laughed, and I told him No, Jesus is in heaven. But I was struck by the inadequacy of this reply. I felt like I ought to explain, to say that Jesus is always with us, that he’s in our hearts, but we can’t see him. Something like this I did add, but it all seemed ridiculous from the concrete perspective of my son. How can he be in heaven, and with us, and in our hearts (and what’s a heart, anyways?) all at the same time?
Now that he is starting to get to the age of asking questions about God and church, I am struggling with how to explain anything at all about the Bible and what we believe. It seems inevitable, no matter how much explaining I do, that for several years to come his perception of who God is will be skewed, reduced to an important person whom we like to sing to a lot but never get to see. I don’t want him to think that God is far away, but I don’t know how to make him understand his presence. I want him to love God and trust him, but how does that look in real life when you’re 3?
Can anybody tell me how to explain Jesus in 10 words or less?
(BTW – No baby yet. Still waiting)
Well, I guess it’s about time that I posted a little update, just to let you all know that I’m still alive and have not totally given up on this whole blogging thing. The past couple of months have been full of changes for our family…since the beginning of June, we have left Korea, spent a month with my in-laws, moved into our new townhouse, started learning our way around a new city, had a visit from my parents, completed the first semester of my husband A.’s 1-yr BEd program, started attending a new church…I guess that’s about all . And, of course, I’m still pregnant with baby #3, due next Saturday or thereabouts, so there have been preparations for that, too.
It’s not really the busyness, though, that has kept me from writing. It’s my attitude. I have been struggling a lot with emotional ups and downs in regards to my spiritual life, at times feeling so incredibly grateful for all that God has done for us and brought us through in the past few months, and at other times feeling miserably depressed and hopeless, especially in the face of all the challenges that having a new baby will bring. Some days I haven’t felt up to living my life, let alone writing about it. But I want to keep on sharing about what I am learning and the journey that God is taking me on, not only because it helps me process it but because I hope that, in some small way, someone will be encouraged by reading about God’s faithfulness to me.
So, a few of the highlights of my life from June to August 2007:
1) I was totally blown away by how God blessed us on our trip home from Korea. I was so worried about the plane ride with the kids, and the travelling to Seoul before that, and really wanted to be able to be calm and patient with them (the exact opposite of the frantic, angry, exhausted person that I was on the trip out) – and God was so good! Everything – and I mean every single detail, from being picked up by A.’s co-worker and taken to the bus station, to the timing of bathroom trips, to the finding of a free children’s playroom/nursery in the Seoul airport, to the kids sleeping on the plane – EVERYTHING was perfect. I couldn’t have asked for an easier trip with two kids under 3.
2) The same day we arrived home, we found out that a place had opened up in student family housing at the university that A. would be attending, and we had to decide to take it or not within 24 hrs. Although the timing seemed bad at first (we had just gotten off the plane, pretty much, and would have to drive an hour from A.’s parent’s place to go and see it), we quickly realized that this was just another incidence of God’s amazing provision for us. The place was nice, with 2 big bedrooms and a large living room for the kids to play in, and best of all, it was only a 15-minute walk to A.’s classes. It was just within our price range, and would save us all the hassle of trying to find someplace on our own during the next month. So we agreed to take it, and we have not regretted it. After we moved in at the beginning of July, we realized even more how great this place is, and how we would never have been able to find anything this nice so close to campus on our own.
3) The moving of all our furniture out from storage was another big “stress” that God took care of so nicely for us! Since it was stored in a different city, I was worried about finding a mover and whether everything would arrive safely. But God used a good friend of mine to help us find an excellent “moving man” for almost $2000 less than what we were expecting to pay…which managed to cover the unexpected surgery that A. needed in June to remove his wisdom teeth! (of course, with no insurance we had to pay out of pocket, but at least the money was there!) And even the surgery was a blessing, (though the week before, when A. was waking up every night with terrible jaw pain, it didn’t seem like it) because he was able to get it over with before school started, and before the new baby, and we were still at his parent’s house so they could help me with the kids while he recovered. It’s just amazing to me how the timing of everything has been working out so wonderfully.
4) Finding a doctor for my pregnancy was yet another “burden” on my mind that I needn’t have carried…after calling around to several clinics and being told that none of them were taking new patients, I finally called the women’s hospital, who recommended a family clinic right here on the university campus – about a 10 minute walk from our house! The doctor is wonderful, and the convenience of having it so close by is just another blessing, among many. Though I have had to pay for my visits up until now, our 3-month waiting period was over as of Sept. 1 (Hooray!), so any further visits, and the birth of the baby, will be covered. God is good.
5) Last but not least, I tested negative for Group B strep, which means that I won’t need antibiotics in labor to prevent baby from getting sick! With my last pregnancy, I tested positive, and it was such a stress – my labor was too fast for them to give me the drugs, so they had to keep my daughter in the NICU for 24 hrs and give them to her instead. But since she wasn’t really “sick”, they didn’t pay much attention to her, and I had a hard time getting them to let me feed her when I wanted to, etc. So it is a big relief that this time around I won’t have to deal with any of that, especially since I’ll be giving birth in a new hospital with different policies.
With all of these blessings, you might wonder how it is that I could have felt too discouraged to write during the past few months. I wonder that too. In terms of our circumstances, things are going really great for us. I think my main struggle is simply the fear that God will stop providing…that his blessings will run out and we’ll run out of money, or that I won’t be able to keep up with 3 children and that I’ll have a nervous breakdown, or that I won’t make any friends here this year and I’ll be lonely and exhausted. It’s all these future fears – when I look at the present and the recent past, I have no reason to feel worried or sad at all. So I guess that’s the big lesson that I’m learning…keep my eyes on what God is doing now, and trust that he will still be just as present, just as loving and just as faithful, when the now is 10 months from now.
Or a week from now, when I might be giving birth to baby #3…
