And the Verdict Is....

We have been officially accepted into the EMC Missions. So nothing much changes how things are going, except that it all feels so much more real now. We now wait till beginning of December sometime, to hear more information about what is expected for our internship, which will be sometime in spring. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers.

3 Months Left

For those of you who don't see us very often, we thought we should take a couple pictures of my growing stomach. So here is me, 6 months pregnant. Carrying totally different than I did with Brooklyn.

Uncle AJ and Me

I was saying earlier that Brooklyn had a blast this past weekend. Here is a video showing one part of this weekend, playing with her Uncle AJ. The laughter and voices you hear in the background would be my parents and Lisa. There is sound on this video because it was taken with their camera. Hope you can giggle along with us as you watch.

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

Our Wonderful Weekend

What a weekend we had. All three of us. Brooklyn had such a blast at Grandma and Grandpa Reimer's house and definitely was treated like their special girl. She got to watch my sister play volleyball all day Saturday and found it hilarious whenever the fans cheered for another point scored. She even went on her first date without us. Okay, with grandma and grandpa, but it sure sounded like fun. It's always fun when you get gifts from someone else right? This time it was Duplo. I'm so amazed at how much she seemed to grow up over the weekend. She learned to say nap and highchair, and now knows what a monkey does (she puts her hands by her armpits and acts a little like a monkey). Unfortunately she has had a bad cold since we dropped her off Friday, but thankfully she is still quite cheerful. We will see how she is tomorrow when we start potty training. AHHHHH!!

LeRoy and I had a wonderful QUIET weekend in the Whiteshell. It was so quiet it has actually been really weird hearing cars drive by today. We spent lots of time just relaxing, talking, hanging out, and spending time with God. So with all of that came lots of tears from me, thinking about our future and all the fears involved. It is good to be home, mostly for the fact that I could see Brooklyn again.

Our meeting on Friday morning went really well. It was definitely shorter than we had expected, only 25 minutes. We answered only 3 questions, but were encouraged by the others who have been on the mission field in the past. We will hear this week sometime if we are officially accepted or not. So once we have heard, we will let you all know.

One More Sleep

Tomorrow is big day for us. Scary, but mostly exciting. 10:00 tomorrow morning we are meeting with EMC's Board of Missions for our official interview. I think we are nervous, we haven't thought of it too much really, but we were told it wouldn't be as intense as a meeting we had a couple weeks ago, which is a bit reassuring. Please pray that we will have clear minds to be able to communicate what our hearts and minds are telling us.

The exciting part about tomorrow will begin shortly after lunch. We are dropping Brooklyn off at my (Faith's) parents and then taking off to Barrier Bay Resort in the Whiteshell. We are taking this weekend to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It is early as our anniversary is only in February, but we figured that isn't the best time to go anywhere since we'll have a newborn at that time. So we are very excited to have a weekend to ourselves. I will find 3 nights away from Brooklyn long, and we will miss her tons. But it will be a weekend needed to reflect, dream, and relax.

New Pictures

I have finally added some new pictures of the last couple months. Just click on the link to the right and enjoy.

Boxes can be so much fun

Here's a picture and video of Brooklyn of just recently. She got this box for her birthday from friends of ours, and she absolutely loves it. It's very cute. Sorry we don't have sound on our video. Just click on each smaller picture and it'll get bigger. Enjoy.

Make your own slide shows and scrapbooks

New Site

Just so you all know and aren't confused, we have a new site for our pictures. The link is still to the right, so you just have to click on it. Hope it isn't too confusing for you all, and you can still enjoy watching our family grow.

Silly Moment

Have you ever tried sitting on the floor with a container and orange pieces, and continually fill the container and empty them? I haven't, but right now Brooklyn is making it look like lots of fun. She had orange pieces for breakfast but didn't quite finish. So I left them out in case she'd want a snack throughout the morning. She decided they'd be much more fun as a toy or challenge, I guess. She got out a container and lid, matching ones even, and is filling her container, emptying it, oh she just found another bigger container. It is so fun to watch. Why do we even bother with all these other toys? Her game is now over since she decided to sit on her oranges. Better go change her. Hope you are all having a great week seeing the little joys of life like we are.

Encouraging Words

Last night we had another meeting in regards to our Missions Application process. We met with Ken Zacharias once again, as well as with Tim Dyck. He is new at the EMC Office and wanted to get to know us as we will be working a little with him as well in the future. It was intense, and a few times I had to fight tears. We talked about so many different aspects of leaving here, and starting somewhere new. Family, friends, marriage, kids, our calling, our lives growing up, and a lot more. It is definitely an emotional process planning to leave to go to a country you've never been to, leaving everything you are familiar with, especially family. When you are used to seeing people a few times a week, or at least once a week, it is extremely hard to imagine and even think of not seeing them for who knows how long. Oh boy, here come the tears.

While it is so hard to think about, we are still excited to know we are going with faith to where we feel God is calling us. Since we made the decision of planning to go, God has not stopped our path, which we feel is another sign that God is calling us. Some people have a specific time of calling, a specific story of how God called their name. We don't. We realized that our calling has coming slowly over the past 7 years. First while we were single, and got stronger as we got married. When LeRoy first took the job he's at, 4 1/2 years ago, we said that after 3-5 years we would look at where we were at, and where God was at in our lives. So 3 years later we began to think a lot more of what God had been doing in our lives. Our passion for cross cultural missions only seemed to be getting stronger, so we took this as part of God calling us to this ministry. That's when we made our decision to follow God's leading in this way, and picked up our application. And God has not yet to stop us.

Here are a few passages that we have found encouraging many times, and I hope that they can be encouraging to you too.

"So we have continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you a complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives, and we ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will have all the patience and endurance you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father, who has enabled you to share the inheritance that belongs to God's holy people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son. God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins." Colossians 1:9-14

"And the LORD replied, "I will personally go with you, Moses. I will give you rest-- everything will be fine for you". Then Moses said, "If you don't go with us personally, don't let us move a step from this place." Exodus 33:14-15

The second passage is great for putting your own name in as a prayer. "And the LORD replied "I will personally go with you, LeRoy and Faith. I will give you rest--everything will be fine for you." Then we said, "If you don't go with us personally, don't let us move a step from this place." Thankfully God will be with us every step of the way.

How far did we get?

So we actually almost finished Brooklyn's new room this past weekend. Thanks to LeRoy who did most of the work. He drywalled a bit, mudded and taped. Oh yeah, that's when I had to quickly rinse out Brooklyn's mouth from the mud she got into. Now we can laugh about it, but at the time it sure was not funny. Then LeRoy did lots of sanding and painting. LeRoy is also building Brooklyn a new bed, I might have mentioned that already. Once the bed is complete, I will varnish it and add that to the room. So when the bed is in the room we will take a picture of our finished product. We will then post a couple pictures of our before and after.

Hooray for another project done.

Thanksgiving

I try to continually remember things I am thankful for daily, but there is more thinking to it when it comes to Thanksgiving weekend. We all have so much we take for granted for everyday. For example we have beds to sleep in, TVs and stereos to keep us updated on our world, lots and lots of food, family and friends wherever they may be in this world, and we live in a country where we are not persecuted for our faith to the extremes of other countries. I have LeRoy who works so hard with hardly any complaining. I have Brooklyn who lights up our lives in new ways every day and who lets me get lots of sleep. I have another baby on the way, kicking me more everyday. What more could I ask for?

This weekend we will be busy, but mostly at home. We are going to attempt to start and hopefully be close to finishing Brooklyn's new room. For those of you who know our house, that little room upstairs that was our office? That will be her new room. LeRoy even built a little bed for her and brought it home yesterday. She was quite excited. Now we just need a mattress. Anyone have a good crib size mattress they want to get rid of? So we will be busy doing a little hammering, and then some mud and taping, and lots of painting and staining. Don't worry, with whatever I will be helping with I will be wearing a mask so baby will be okay. Sunday we will go to my parents for the day and hopefully enjoy some time outside on the farm.

So since it is Thanksgiving time of year, here is a question for you. WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR? Leave us a comment and share with us.

Bubbles

Here is a picture thing I created to try something new. I thought it was kind of cute since Brooklyn's nickname around home here is Bubbles.

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

So many new things

Brooklyn has grown up so much in the last couple weeks. She is now 16 months and says probably close to 25 words. Some being more, on, stairs, side(outside), please, ball, hot, cheese, eyes, ears and many more. It's exciting to hear all these first words and knowing she's making sense of things in her head.

Brooklyn also has become a little more of a girl in the last two weeks. She wants clips in her hair almost everyday, and loves playing pretend with her cabbage patch doll. I don't know if it is a girl thing or just a general kid thing, but she loves to help with whatever we let her help with. Dishes, laundry, raking leaves, etc. Everything. It's a lot of fun watching her learn new things, as we teach her the best we know how.




She also got her third eye tooth this weekend so we only have 5 more teeth to go. Brooklyn is now also officially done with her bottle. We had tried taking it away a couple weeks ago but it just ended up in too many tantrums. This past week we were gone almost every evening and it just worked out easiest for to have her sippy cup. She didn't argue this time around so the bottle is no more.

I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of so I will update you far away family and friends once I can remember some other things.