My Ever Changing Life

I'm at that point in my life again. I don't like change, when things are going just so so in my life I don't want it to be any different. Today as I was sitting on my sofa watching my precious Jasmine sleep in the baby monitor and at the same time thinking of my sweet little two year old Evie sleeping in her bed. I was thinking of how blessed I was!

   

     Tears burned my eyes, as I remembered a Sunday night long ago when I was just a 15 year old teenager. I was on the balcony ledge right outside our house. I was talking to a preacher friend of ours.  As we were talking you could hear the pleasant racket coming from inside, it was full of friends and family from our old Baptist church there in Mexico.They were all laughing, joking, singing off key, playing Nerf ping pong, and drinking chamomile tea, munching on sweet bread while talking about the preaching, the Bible, or just ...life. I was smiling and happy as I looked through the window of our house at the hustle and bustle going on in there, it was a warm and inviting atmosphere. I was happy, and content with my life.

 

This is the patio ledge, and me when I was 15 with my Dad

   

     My friend must have notice the glow on my face and read my mind, because out of the blue he just said: "Andrea, things are going to change. They are not always going to be like this."

     I looked at him sadly and tears started to burn my eyes, I didn't like what he said but I knew it was true. Things always did change, that is the way God planned it. I didn't want it to change, I wanted life to be the same as it was that day.

    And after that, the years rolled by. As I left home to go to college, I thought of that night and those words my friend had said to me. For I left my Mom crying at the top of the stairs saying good by to me as I hopped down two steps at a time I looked longingly back at my Mom. I did not want to leave, I wanted to stay with my parents forever. But I had to go, Dad was waiting for me in the car and it was time. I left, I closed the metal door behind me and got into our old white Suburban. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I looked longingly back.

 

    When I would wake up in the morning to go to school or work in my early twenties I would think of how my life had changed so much. I missed Mexico, my Mom, my Dad the warm sweet chamomile nights. I'd cry, wishing my life wouldn't have changed so much.

   

    A few more years later when my sister called me to tell me Dad had fallen off a latter and had broken his legs, I cried. I didn't like the way life was changing. Two weeks later and just 2 months before I got married my Daddy passed away unexpectedly. I cried bitterly for a very long time.

    

     Life not only was changing but it also was not going the way I had planned it. As time went by I kept on recalling that day, that night when my preacher friend said to me. "Andrea, things are going to change, they are not always going to be like this." It has stuck in my head and in my heart throughout the years that have flown by. My life is so different now, but God has worked it out. God knows what is best for me, and as I sat on the sofa today with tears stinging my eyes once more, I cried, but this time because I was happy, again I am content that the change in my life has worked out so beautifully, the Lord has blessed me so much with the most thoughtful and kind husband, two precious healthy daughters and even though I know that my little girls are growing and changing as I write this. It will be OK. If the Lord tarries, and I stay in His will, someday I will look at my life and be happy and be content with whatever God has done with it.  I have so much more to learn, I have so much yet to do, I want to be wiser. I want to be a better wife and mother. I want to to be a better friend and witness to others. I just thank the Lord for holding my hand, helping me and always being there as I grow older, as the time changes and my years fly by.  Tears may always come to my eyes when I hear that old sentence again and again in my past, reminding me of my ever changing present, and my unknown future. But now I have learned to trust my Lord with my life.

 

  May my life be a glory to my Lord always. For the Lord is good and His mercies endures FOREVER

My First Experience With a Newborn

  

When I first was considering starting this blog I was thinking about so many memories I have from when I was growing up that I did not want to loose. Also, how so many things that happened to me way back then was preparing me for later on in life, as life’s trials usually do. I wanted to write down my memories and my blessings now before more time passed by and they would become foggier. 

   This has absolutely nothing to do with what I am getting ready to write about, but I just had to squeeze it in.  Just a little while ago I had a blue cup on the dinning room table with just a little bit of Jasmine's food (breast milk) in it and I left it on there for a second to go wash my hands in the restroom. Meantime, Nubun was sitting down at the dinning room table checking his work e-mail and drinking Sprite out of a 'blue cup', well, my sweet little Evie switched cups on him and he got a big sip of Jasmines liquid gold. I could  hear him hollering from the restroom!  I smiled as he told me the warm sweet 'stuff' instantly gave him a headache! Ok ok, now back to my story.

   I have two little ones and in the past 3 years I have been thinking a lot about babies, and the beautiful miracle of birth, and as I look back on my past I remember the first birthing experience I had. (actually, it was right after the birth)

     It was so different down there in Chilpancingo, so far from the comforts, conveniences and luxuries of the American way. The one I have in mind, even so, was still a beautiful time.

  

   I was 18 years old and I had no experience with a newborn, no knowledge on birth. I was soon to learn. It was August of 1998 Mom was up here in the States, Dad and Nathan were in Acapulco at the mission there. That day I was alone with my 10 month old little sister. Moises and Lulu, missionaries from our church were at the General Hospital in town having their first baby. He called me at my house to tell me she was about ready to have the baby.

 

    It was early in the morning, I quickly got myself and Sarah dressed and headed on down there through public transportation. I had to walk several blocks holding a chubby, bouncy baby along with our lunch and diaper bag. When I got there I found Brother Moises walking the halls. She was in labor but down there they wouldn’t let anybody, including the husband in the room with her. So we waited, and waited and waited for ten long hours. I would sneak in every once in a while, to the nurses station to try to find out how she was doing because they were not informative at all.  The nurses would get on to me every time they’d see me sneak in, and most of the time they were so angry at me for asking that they wouldn’t give me information about Lulu at all. It was a very long day.

        Finally I went home, put Sarah to bed and waited for Dad and Nathan to come back from Acapulco . ( Acapulco is only about an hour away, but I had no way of getting a hold of them).  About the same time they got back, Moises called and said Lulu had their little baby boy, he was healthy and a tad bit over 3 kilos. And they needed my help. It was late, after 11pm, but I went back down there. They wouldn’t let a man stay in the recovery room with Lulu because it was a shared room, and she was very weak and needed help. Moises asked me to stay with her. 

     As I walked into the hot dark room I was heart broken when I saw her. She was pale and tired and could barely hold her eyes open. The hospital did not supply a nursery for the babies so she had to keep the baby with her, even though she was too weak to even lift him up. She was in labor for over 24 hours and they wouldn’t let her eat or DRINK anything during labor! No ice chips down there! So she was also very dehydrated.  She had already fainted once trying to sit up so they wouldn’t let her get up after that.

  I was talking to Lulu and holding the baby when he started choking on his own mucus, he was trying to cough. Lulu panicked, and so did I. I didn’t know what to do.

    “LIFT HIM UP!! LIFT HIS HEAD UP!!” She yelled weakly at me. I quickly tilted his head up and put him on my shoulder and patted his little back. I walked quickly down the hall looking for a nurse. I saw one and blurted out “He’s choking!!”

  The sour faced woman gave me a disgusted impatient look. “Why do you say that he is choking?”

  “Well…”

  “Go take him back to his Mom!” And before I could open my mouth to explain she yelled at me. “GO TAKE HIM BACK TO HIS MOM” 

    I was confused, she didn’t help me but went about her business and so I took little Joshua back to his Mom. He quit choking and was OK but I was upset. Minutes later the sour faced nurse came in and pumped his nose and mouth out with the pear shaped rubber bulb. Then she looked at Lulu with the same impatient look she had given me. “Why did you say that he was choking?”  Lulu said that that was how he was acting. I made up my mind there I didn’t like that nurse! Little did I know what was going to come up next!!

   I changed his first diaper, and down there they don’t supply squat for the babies needs, you better bring them yourself or do without. I had bought some diapers, but that was all we had.  It was a poopy diaper; I had just taken his dirty diaper off and was getting ready to put a new one on when he started going again. There was no diaper on him yet so I quickly shoved my hand under there. It was a weird sort of poop (At the time I had never even heard of meconium) it was like an odorless molasses, and I was wondering what was the matter with the kid. We had no baby wipes, no water so I used what I had, some tissue paper and lotion (out of my purse) to wash my hands. Some Purel would have come in handy….

  It was around 2am and I had just searched the hospital for some water to drink. There was only one plastic cup, and four ladies to share it with, myself, Lulu, and two other ladies in the room that had just had their babies also, and no friend or family member to help them. I would give one a drink then walk back down the hall to get some more for the next. Every time I would fill up the cup I would drink some then fill it up again and give another a drink. They were all thirsty, there was no ventilation at all in that room so we were also all hot.

  One of the ladies had just delivered a still born baby, he came out with half of his face missing, it had never developed. Poor poor lady! She slept some but cried quietly most of the night. I helped her all I could but wouldn’t talk much to her because I knew she wanted to be left alone. Once she woke up hot, trembling and sweaty trying desperately to fan herself with a sorry excuse for a sheet. I asked her if she wanted me to wash her face with some water and she eagerly accepted. I had absolutely no rags or anything to wet so I just poured a little water in my hand and patted her with the tips of my fingers, and fanned her with my hands until she fell back to sleep.  The same I did for Lulu and I also did her feet. She not only was hot but also had a fever.

   At around 3:00, I sat down on the cool cement floor Indian style and leaned my head up against the wall, I was exhausted.  I started to doze off a bit when in the quiet of the night I heard a loud, bone chilling scream. I stood up and walked over to the door. They were wheeling in somebody in and they were in a rush. I couldn’t see much, and I was very frightened because the animal type screams kept coming and coming. It was a teenage girl that had been severely burned, by landing on the electric lines on top of the roof of her house. I got a glance of what hell would sound like; my heart was breaking for more reasons then one. For the poor girl, and for all the lost souls going to hell without hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She screamed for many hours.

    Nobody in that room, nobody in that hospital could sleep, I was pretty sure. I was miserable and yet I wanted to be there, I wanted to help, instead of being in my quiet comfortable room at home. The time crept by and the sour faced nurse came in to check on the ladies. I wondered if she had been chewing on sour pickles all day. She didn’t take any vital signs she just asked how they were doing.

   I got up the nerve and asked her about the girl that had been electrocuted. And she told me about her then started talking to me, needless to say I was a little surprised because I didn’t think she liked me.  I immediately realized she wanted somebody to talk to so I pulled up a couple of chairs and we sat down. So we talked, I was glad at first to have a time passer but after talking to her for a while I noticed she was just a young lady who needed Jesus. She talked about her daughter for a while, about her husband abandoning her, and then she told me all her life problems. She laid her burdens down, and cried. Finally she told me she would do anything to have peace with God, and I got my golden ticket to witness to her.  Her name was Sixta and she listened to me hungrily, she even prayed, but did not pray the sinner’s prayer. Sixta promised to go to church and asked me to go visit her. We exchanged addresses and she brought me a pallet to lie on and an extra robe to use as a pillow. Bless her!

   I looked at my watch when she was gone and we had been talking over an hour! And I had said I didn’t like her…

    Lulu could not sleep because she was so hot, so we talked quietly as I kept on bathing her face and feet with water. Around 4am she told me she needed to go to the bathroom. I helped her get up, and she walked to the bathroom herself. I walked beside her. We passed Sixta in the hallway and she told me to ‘Be Careful’.

  I thought I was. Lulu and I chatted like long lost friends as she was in the bathroom stall I was primping in front of the bathroom mirror. 

   “ANDREA!! COME HERE!!”

  I walked over to the stall. “What is the matter?”

  “COME HERE!!” She yelled again. I quickly opened the stall and grabbed her arm but I could not get a better grip of her because she was straddling the toilet and the stall was so small the door hit the middle of the toilet.

   She fainted.                             

   I grabbed her desperately but I had to get a better grip! She was going down and I could not hold her with one hand. I was afraid to pull on her that I would hurt her.  I wouldn’t let her fall! I wouldn’t! Finally I managed to get her close enough to me that her limp weight was up against my body and I hugged her for dear life. She was as limp as a rag doll. I tried to drag her out of there but she was heavy and she was bleeding. So I stopped.  I resorted to screaming for help.

  “Nurse!! Nurse!! Somebody help! HEEEEEEEEELP!!” But there was no one around. I kept hollering for help. “Somebody please! She fainted!! Help!!”

  A lady passed by and heard me and got help. Three nurses and a male doctor came in and helped put her in a wheel chair and wheeled her back to her room. One nurse looked at me and said:

    “Did you get scared?”

Huh? WAS I SCARED???! What kind of a question was that! I was scared out of my mind. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see how pale I was. I had always read in books about people getting so scared their face turned white as a ghost. Well, I always thought it was just a saying, or exaggeration. I found out right then that it WAS TRUE. I had lost all color.  White as a spring ghost.

    Later on Lulu was better and I helped her nurse the baby, she knew nothing about nursing a baby. Obviously, neither did I. So I had to timidly ask the lady in the bed on the other side of Lulu how, she had been nursing her baby off and on all night. She showed me how and I told Lulu. She was still so weak that I had to hold the baby up to her to get her started. He latched on right away and ate like he was starved. Little Joshua nursed and it was a beautiful moment. God’s miracle of life, and the sweet bonding of a Mother and her new born baby is comparable to nothing else.

   I went home the next morning having slept nothing at all, yet I felt refreshed and alive. It wasn’t an easy night that night but it was a blessing to me. I learned so much, and it seemed like I had lived a lifetime in the short 11 hours I was in that hospital.

   That was 12 years ago, Moises and Lulu have four sons now and they are still missionaries to Atoyac in Mexico . Their ministry is growing and lives are being changed.  I got to see them again three years ago, it was a wonderful and tearful reunion. Neither one of us will forget that night.

Here is a picture of Moises and Lulu around 3 years ago with three of their four kids. They are standing in front of their church.

 

  I never saw Sixta again. I went to the address that she had given me, several times, hoping to see her but never did. Sometimes I wonder about her ‘Did she ever get saved?’ and I pray for her.  I was saddened that she didn’t at the time. I was not in the delivery room when Lulu had her baby, and I was hoping to be in the Heavenly delivery room as Sixta would be born again but she wasn’t, and I wondered if she ever would. Then I would remember a Scripture verse God placed in my heart that night and I would have peace in my heart: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isaiah 55:11 KJV

Expecting My First Baby

     My First Pregnancy

  I just stood there in the bathroom staring at the stick. I couldn’t believe it! Me! Me! I was pregnant! A little baby was forming in my tummy, how is that possible? I couldn’t feel anything, yet everything at once. I was numb from shock, yet in my head I was too excited for understandable words. I stepped out of the bathroom, it was early in the morning and Nubun was still asleep. My throat was dry and my voice was squeaky as

I blurted out his name.

“Nuuuubun!”  It may have been the tone in my voice, or maybe it was his ‘man’ intuition, maybe it was just his imagination, but before his eyes popped open~ he knew. Yeah. He knew what I was Nubun-ing him about. He smiled real big as I showed him my stick with two pink stripes, I waved it in the air back and forth like a well earned trophy.

    Nubun, jumped out of bed and after looking at it, he grabbed my hand and led me into the living room where we bowed down on our knees in front of the couch and thanked the Lord for His amazing little blessing.

   The following 38 weeks was a lifetime lived in a few short months. My first symptom was this awful metallic taste in my mouth that lasted about 2 weeks. I had to constantly be eating something to mask the horrible taste in my mouth. Then I started getting tired, and then the dreaded nausea came. There is no way to describe it but like this. If you have ever been on a boat and got sea sick, you can come close to understanding. I was on a boat in Thailand once, got nauseated and threw up again and again in the wet little moving toilet. I was miserable, but at least loosing my lunch helped a little with the nausea but I was glad to land on shore and get off the floating misery. I dreaded getting on that boat again, just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.  Well, my pregnancy was so many more times worse then that, in so many different levels that it is too hard to explain without sounding like I am exaggerating! Around 5 to 6 weeks into the pregnancy I started throwing up, if I went anywhere I would usually have to stop and use the ‘utilities’ at a gas station or Whataburger or so. The throwing up was bad enough but unlike when I was sea sick it did not relieve my nausea. I was ‘sea sick’ 24 hours a day for almost 7 months. There was NO RELIEF AT ALL. There were around three months where I only ate boiled potatoes, cheerios, and Ramon noodles and bland starches like that. Although I would throw them up, too, at least I could keep them down for 30 minutes or more and get some nutrition out of them. Everything else would come up even before they landed in my stomach. I couldn’t drink anything but Gatorade, and boy did I drink it! Around 2 to 3 gallons a day!!

   During and after I ate my meals I would have to sit very still and concentrate on not gagging. I tried hard to keep my food in for as long as I could because my baby and I needed a little more nutrition other then sports drink.  I couldn’t read books, magazines; my Bible or anything, reading made me more nauseated!  When Nubun would leave to go to work, I would cry every single time. I was left alone. I was lonely, alone and nobody came to visit. That, in part may have been my fault because I was vain. My house was a mess, I didn’t feel like cleaning it up and I didn’t invite anybody over because I was ashamed of the mess. But I missed human contact. I didn’t talk much on the phone, first of all I was so unimaginably miserable I didn’t FEEL like being cheerful and talking like a normal person, and when people would call and ask how I was doing all I wanted to do was cry and blurt my misery out on them. Someone even said that I wasn’t sounding very grateful to be pregnant because I wasn’t very happy. That hurt and cut me deeply.

  Tell somebody who is sick at sea, as they are hanging their head over the side of a boat with stomach acid propelling out of their mouth every time a wave hits. “You don’t look very happy” And see what their response is.

   I would brush my teeth, and that would gag me and make me throw up. So I would vomit, brush my teeth and vomit again. It was a vicious cycle, that didn’t last long. I was throwing up around 20-30 times a day. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING! I counted a few days just to see. I couldn’t brush my teeth that much so I constantly had that stomach acid taste in my mouth. And it DID hurt my teeth; the acid ate away at the enamel of my 8 front teeth. They got de-calcified, with ugly yellow holes in them.  I was constantly drinking sweet Gatorade which also didn’t help my pearly whites, yet that is what saved me from getting dehydrated.

   We were not doing very good financially at that time either, we were going through a very very rough time. I no longer worked and Nubun's over time got eliminated at that time. So we went down to 25% of our usual income. We could barely even afford the Gatorade. Nubun didn’t say much, never complained, but a couple of times he did mention selling our RX300, which was the only family friendly car we had. I would get really down in the dumps; I would even say I was in a dark place in my life. I was excited to be pregnant but the first half of my pregnancy I didn’t FEEL pregnant I only felt sick, so I had trouble BELIEVING it. I know that sounds strange but it was true. The Lord was my strength, and Nubun was by my side as much as he could. He would hold my hair back as I would be bent over the toilet. He would clean up the mess when I didn’t quite make it to the bathroom. He always listened to my vocal sobs. He was my best friend, my companion, my nurse maid. He would sneak out at night while I was sleeping and go to Wal Mart to get me a variety of different foods to try and find something my tummy could handle. I, to this day, still thank the Lord for my husbands help and understanding during those rough months.

   When I was growing up my Mother had intestine problems. Sometimes I would lie in bed crying helplessly as I would hear her moan all night long suffering from nausea and intestine pain. Several times during the night Daddy would help her to the bathroom where she would throw up again and again until she would have nothing but painful dry heaves left. She told me several times afterwards that she would most always prefer pain over nausea. I didn’t understand then. But later on as my belly grew bigger and bigger, and I would find myself looking at the inside of the toilet more often then not. I understood. And just as my Mom, my tummy would be empty and have nothing left to give but painful dry heaves. When that would happen I would reach over with a trembling hand for my jug of water and I would gulp down as much water as I could so that I would have ‘something’ to throw up besides dry heaves. When I would get through with a round I would sit back on my heels and breathe, then I’d pull my hair back and clean the toilet. Then I would stand up and rinse my mouth out with water wishing I could brush my teeth but not daring. Sometimes I would just lie down on the bathroom floor waiting for the strength to get up; sometimes it wouldn’t come so I would crawl back to my bed or the couch.

    There was a point where my tears would dry up, I had cried them all, my misery was too much for me to handle, and there was not a break in my morning sickness. I couldn’t lie down, I couldn’t lean to the side, because it felt as if my lungs were collapsing, and I couldn’t breath.  My chest was burning to the touch; I had to keep ice packs on my chest to calm down the fever. And what got me the most, more then anything is that I didn’t have a friend to get through this with, a girlfriend, and one that had similar symptoms that could truly and whole heartily understand. I felt alone. To this day I don’t think anybody could understand what I went through those long hard months, and sometimes I long to hear somebody tell me they understand, they went through the same thing, it is OK! Yes, Evie is 2 and a half and I still long to hear somebody say that. Not that I have to have somebody’s approval but maybe just their understanding? Maybe just an:  “I was there I know how you felt”

      Our Baby Shower

What we sent out as thank you notes for the gifts from the baby shower

 

   One day when I was around 6 months pregnant I woke up and I felt, nothing. As I am writing this I have tears in my eyes thinking of that morning. I felt NOTHING, no nausea, no chest burns and pain, no lung collapsing feeling, I felt ….normal. I jumped up out of bed and over on Nubun.

  “Nubun! I feel good, I FEEL GOOD! Get up! Let’s DO SOMETHING before the ole MS comes back! Come on!!” I was smiling and dragging him out of bed. I put on a pretty maternity outfit and we went to the Botanical Gardens where he took cute pictures of me. I was so happy! Even when ole morning sickness started calling I was in a rosy mood. We were in the rose garden when it hit me and I told Nubun, he helped me up, I had trouble walking, and even though I was nauseated again, I couldn’t quit smiling. What a beautiful gift God had given me that day, the gift of RELIEF. 

   I had a healthy pregnancy, all my morning sickness was not a bad thing. For some women it is just something they have to go through. If you are a woman and have been pregnant before with no or very little morning sickness, be thankful. And me, I am thankful for being able to get pregnant and have healthy kids.

   My pregnancy was not all bad, it was also wonderful and awe inspiring. When I could start reading books and started looking at all the pregnancy information out there I was so excited! We would go shopping and buy little baby clothes, it was such a precious time in our life. When we first heard her little heart beat, mine would start beating a little faster with the growing excitement. And I would look at the pictures of how my baby looked like that week and I couldn’t wait till one more week so she would look more and more human and less alien, and every week on Friday I would be proud of myself that I was a week further in my pregnancy, and my baby was a week older. And when I started feeling her move and kick, around the 17^th week I finally FELT pregnant!  At week 21 I found out we were having a baby girl and there is no feeling in the world like that! And when I saw her little face in that black and white sonogram I felt like a mother, finally!

  Something funny, when I was around 7 months pregnant I could finally drink milk. And BOY did I!! I drank (and have a picture to prove it!) a gallon of whole milk a day, EVERYDAY for a very long while. Yep. I gained 9 pounds that month. One time in my third trimester I was in the kitchen getting ready to blend up something in the blender, and when I turned it on Evie jumped in my tummy at the loud noise! I turned the blender off and looked at my tummy. Really? I couldn't believe it so I called Nubun and he came in there and put his hand on my tummy and I turned the blender on again and she jumped again! We got a kick out of that, and till the day she was born she would jump at any loud noise, so I would try to shield her from loud noises I didn't want her coming out all nerve racked!
   On December 6th, we went to go get a sonogram to see what gender my baby was and we got it all on video. It was so wonderful the feeling I got when I found out she was a girl! And she looked so cute in that sonogram! And then as an added bonus that evening after the sonogram, Nubun felt her for the first time! It was such a sweet time and so very euphoric!

  It was very fun and entertaining to have a moving, living, growing being inside me! I remember the first time Evie got the hiccups; I wasn’t sure what it was for a while but after a few days I figured it out and it was so cute! I would lie down in my bathtub as well as I could, because my tub was small and I would just stare at my hiccup ping tummy and smile. Then as she was getting bigger I felt like I had a watermelon inside me that kept on deforming my middle, it was weird for me, it cracked me up every time I’d look down at my biggie sized bellybutton. There were times of the day she was more active then others and when she would start getting active I would sit down on the sofa, uncover my belly and just watch it move as Evie got her ‘exercise’ in. It was very entertaining! Nubun would call me from work and ask how I was doing and I would say: “I’m sitting on the couch watching the greatest show on earth! And Evie is doing gymnastics!” and then it would usually follow with a “Well, she just did some jumping jacks on my bladder so I got to go…”

    What a blessing, right before I had Evie, God answered our prayers and Nubun got a raise at work, for us it was a rather large one and all in God’s timing. Praise the Lord! He took care of us!

   A lot of times I would talk to other women about their pregnancies and many of them had perfectly breezy pregnancies, No morning sickness, (or just the first three months) no mind boggling, ever ending nausea, no feverish chest pains, or any of that. They could sleep lying down like a normal person. (I had to sleep sitting up from 6 weeks on) They could carry on with their life as usual, some would even say that the only thing different about them was their big belly. This would always get me down emotionally, and even though I had no control over it sometimes I felt as if something was the matter with me. Like if I was the only one in the world that suffered like that while with child. And in turn it would make me lonely. My first pregnancy brought me to my knees, it humbled me, it amazed me, and it frustrated me. But God had a reason for letting me go through all that, and now I know, as I look back, I understand, I learned to rely on Him, I needed to learn that. I also learned to be more understanding for others suffering, God tenderized my heart, now I can see people suffering and I can truly FEEL for them, especially now, a lot more then before. I have a more tender heart because of it.

 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Psalms 127:3

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. Psalms 139:14

   ....thou art my God from my mother's belly.

 

Missionary

    It was easy to be a missionary ‘kid’. I was born there in Mexico, raised down there and didn’t know any better. But it is not easy to be a ‘missionary’. I am talking about friends and family that I know of and have talked to, who are missionaries to foreign countries. It is hard to grow up in the luxuries and comforts that America provides and to have to leave all that, leave your family, friends and church that you love to go to a place that is different and far, especially if you can’t speak the language and have totally different customs and way of life. God provides for their needs, emotionally, physically and spiritually, but it still is not a piece of cake.  

   It wasn’t easy for my Mom to leave her family and go to a foreign country of the which she couldn’t even speak the language. Perhaps it was even a little harder on her then what it was on my Dad. But they both obeyed, they went. As so many other missionaries around the world have, and still are. For some missionaries it is easier then others, each case is different. For Mom and Dad it was a blessed time on the mission field, even fun sometimes, but more then anything it was a laboring time. There are very few people I have higher respect for and appreciation for- then missionaries.

   I want to be a blessing to the missionaries I know, and maybe to those I only know of. When I was a kid growing up on the mission field every once in a while we would get a package in the mail with gifts inside for the whole family. It was so wonderful! Such a blessing! That probably wasn’t too hard of a task to do for the people up here who’d send it, or maybe it was, but all I know is that it would bless us, bless my Mom and Dad beyond your wildest imagination!  Sometimes, my parents funds would get low and we wouldn’t know where our next meal would come from or how we’d pay rent or utilities. But God would use a dear soul up hear in the States, or a church, and we would receive a love offering that would supply our needs just in the nick of time. Such a blessing! We never missed a meal and we never got kicked out our home from not paying the bills, and we never had to borrow. God supplied our needs. 

   Remember it is not easy being a missionary and my point in writing all this is do not forget your missionaries during these difficult times. The American economy will affect them just as well, or even more then it does you. Pick one or more of the missionaries you know and pray for them daily, and also open up your wallet and your heart and give. You never know how much of a blessing you could be to them and in return how God will bless you.

  Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7

  

A Mothers Fuel

  My last blog got hacked into so I started a new one. I don't have time to do a whole bunch to this, like adding pictures and such so I am just beginning again as I find the time.

   I was just thinking about what fuels a Mommy, what keeps her going? That is actually an easy answer. I was thinking of all I did, and what all Mommy's do around the world. I don't dig ditches for a living or roof houses, but at night I am very tired.
Last night after I put my kids to bed, I was thinking about what all I do as a Mommy, I work as a maid, a baby sitter, a cook, a maid, a referee, a trainer (of potty that is), a maid, a go-for, a comforter, a councilor, a play mate, a maid, a nurse, a handyman, a story teller, a body guard, a cow, a coach, and last but not least...a servant.  At least 12 hours a day, plus on call duty all night. And I get up with a crying kid at least twice a night every-night. Usually more. What fuels a Mommy to keep going like that? I wouldn't put up with those kind of hours at any other job.
  I smile thinking of the answer to that question.
-Because it is FUN! Yes, I said fun. It is wonderful! It's rewarding and at bed times when I drop in bed exhausted,  I am happy, content. Why? A continual job that never ends? No sick days? Like yesterday, I had a tummy bug and weak all day. Yet, I love my job. Because this job is different then any other job in the world,
 The answer to that is,  it's a LABOR of LOVE And there is no love like a Mothers love. Today I am thankful to have the privilege to be a Mommy. Being a Mother is, well, there are no words for it! It is a gift from God. A precious blessing.
                                                                    My Babies
 

                                                      Jasmine Joy  December 1, 2010

  
                                              Evelyn (Evie) Cassandra April 22, 2008