Happy 2nd birthday to Anna Grace! We love our sweet little bundle of mischief. Anna loves to play and laugh and she has quite a sense of humor. She loves growling at people and attacking Isaiah. She’s quite the talker and her vocabulary is growing.

For several days before her birthday Anna denied it was going to be her birthday. Said she didn’t want a party, or cake, or presents. She didn’t even like people singing happy birthday to her. After I got her presents out, she decided she wanted presents and she was pretty pleased with the cake, once it was in front of her.

We did a double birthday party for Anna and Josh (since on Josh’s birthday we were driving all day), but it ended up being more focused on Anna, so we had another party the next night for Josh. Our meal was a buffalo roast, and our team leaders’ family joined us for dinner. (It is a very busy week for us, since our helper is gone for Khmer New Year’s.)

A very happy 35th birthday to Josh! Delighted that he chose me to be his wife and accompany him on this adventure. He’s a wonderful husband and daddy and we’re blessed to have him!

One month has flown by with being in Bangkok and coming back to Cambodia. Clara has adjusted well to Ban Lung and is keeping a good schedule. She’s a pretty happy girl and smiles and is starting to coo.

Three Weeks: Anna spent her 3-week birthday riding in a car-seat for two days. She did great!

Four Weeks:

Last Saturday we started our two-day trip home from Bangkok. We are really thankful for the place God provided us to stay in Bangkok during Clara’s birth (The Alliance Guest Home). Our kids loved the freedom of being able to run around the small campus and make friends with the staff there. The maintenance man was a special friend: Uncle David brought them candy and treats almost every day. The Guest Home was a great fit for our family. (Pictures below are from the playground at the Children’s Museum, which wasn’t too far from the guesthouse.)

One thing we won’t miss is riding taxis everywhere. (We kept track of the many different colored taxis we saw: yellow/green, yellow, green, red, pink, purple, white, blue, and orange.) We had some interesting adventures: the taxi that experienced radiator failure and dropped us off on the side of the road, the taxi driver that took us in the opposite direction from home for a while and then dropped us off and said he had to go home and didn’t have time to take us that far, the few that had no idea where they were going, and the many, many times taxis didn’t want our business since our home was too far away.

While in Bangkok, we took a trip to the zoo. We enjoyed seeing the animals – the zebra and monkeys were a favorite. For some reason the WWII bomb shelter there was also a big highlight for the kids…at least that’s what they told us afterwards. We were able to see a seal show and a Kenyan acrobatics show.

A week before Clara was born, Josh and I went out on a date to a nice restaurant that was walking distance from our apartment. The food was delicious, especially to a pregnant mama (yes – I ate the whole steak!). Afterwards we went to a coffee shop for dessert and took some fun pictures.

The Tuesday and Wednesday before we left, we got together with two of Josh’s former Thai students from University of Texas in Arlington. It was fun to be able to visit with them in their own country. The last time we saw them was in 2012.

There’s a lot I won’t miss about Bangkok: the traffic, the taxis, not being able to speak the language. There’s a lot that was nice: rarely saw any ants, no red dust (I was so clean!), not needing a helper. But I think the one thing we enjoyed the most was all the extra time we got with Josh. It was really special to have him around so much and to have lots of evenings without commitments or loads of work to be accomplished.

A huge thank you to Miss Saeeda for coming to Bangkok from Phnom Penh to watch our kids when Clara was born. Saeeda’s original ticket had her staying with us for a week and a half. When Clara didn’t show up during that time we extended Saeeda’s ticket four more days, since we had promised that Saeeda would be home for Holy Week. We were so thankful that God allowed Clara to be born before Saeeda had to return home.

The kids loved playing with Miss Saeeda and had a lot of outside adventures with her. We were grateful to know our kids were in good hands when we were in the hospital with Clara. Thanks, Miss Saeeda, for giving up two weeks and helping us all.

Before Clara came we took a few field-trips with Miss Saeeda. We went back to the children’s museum and made it inside (instead of just enjoying the outside play). The kids had a blast!

We also went to Funarium – an indoor playground which the kids loved. Anna fell asleep on the taxi ride home (very unusual for her!).

We also took a trip to IKEA – a first for Josh and me. We were able to buy bunk-beds for the kids and ship them (rather complicated) to our home in Cambodia.

Happy 2-week birthday, Clara Grace! Of all your siblings, you’ve done the most in your first two weeks of life: shopping trips, a day at the zoo, an Easter egg hunt and Walk with Jesus children’s event, a trip to the American Embassy, and doctors visits. We love you, sweet girl!

We had a good Resurrection weekend. A local international church had an event Saturday morning. Our kids enjoyed an egg hunt at a park near the church. Each of our kids were in their own age group for collecting eggs. Anna ended up with the most eggs since her group was so slow picking them up. Afterwards we went to the church for snacks while we waited for our group to be called to start the Walk with Jesus (based on the Stations of the Cross).  There were eight different stations depicting events during the passion week. We all enjoyed it.

This is Clara’s birth story with some extra details. She was born unexpectedly fast on Sunday, March 13, 2016, at 5:30 AM in the bathroom of the apartment we are staying in while in Bangkok.

Birth Plan: Two months before Clara was born my doula (Mandy Smith) asked if I had a birth plan. I was a bit stumped. Writing a birth plan was new to me. With our first three children, labor and birth just sort of happened to me, but never as I had expected: Becca’s premature birth at 27 weeks, Isaiah’s scheduled C-section instead of the VBAC I’d hoped for, Anna’s unexpected VBAC instead of the scheduled C-section. My initial thoughts were this:

• Most Important: A healthy baby—whether it’s a VBAC or not.
• Would LOVE:  A VBAC delivery without pain medications. (My body does not respond well to pain meds. They usually make me nauseated.)
• Ideally: We hope to check into a hotel near the hospital and try to do most of my laboring there. I’d love to have a birth without pain medications. I’d love to hold the baby as soon as possible after he/she is born. I’ve never had immediate skin to skin contact with any of our children after they were born.

The top picture in the collage below shows the beautiful labor and delivery room I was planning to have Clara in. The bottom picture shows the tiny bathroom where it all actually took place.

Doula or Not? When we arrived in Bangkok, I met with my doula to discuss labor and delivery. I was supposed to write out a birth plan to discuss with my doctor, but I never had the heart to do it. I should back up and say it took me about four months to decide if I wanted to have a doula or not. I went back and forth on whether I really wanted someone extra, someone I didn’t know, to assist with my labor. After reading Ina May’s Guide to Natural Childbirth and considering that it would be nice to have someone who knew the Thai hospital system already that could advocate for us, I decided to ask Mandy Smith to be my doula when we arrived in Bangkok. I’m so glad we did, since Mandy was who we called when I was in labor and she was the one who helped me when we arrived at the hospital after the birth.

StrepB One other detail: At my second appointment with my doctor in Bangkok, I found out that I had strepB and would have to have IV antibiotics at least four hours before Clara was delivered. If I didn’t start the antibiotics in time (four hours before delivery), the doctors would immediately take Clara away for observation. This was crushing to me because I really wanted to hold Clara right after she was born. My doctor put me on oral antibiotics so that if I went another week without delivering she could retest me to see if the bacteria had cleared up. I was torn—wanting to deliver soon, while our friend was here to watch the kids and before the Embassy appointment we’d made—and wanting to wait until I could be retested so wouldn’t have to worry about timing the antibiotics and lose the chance to hold Clara as soon as she was born.

Saturday: The day before Clara came I had some contractions in the morning, but nothing in the afternoon or evening. I took a 40-minute walk with Becca in the afternoon and did an 45-minute walk with Josh that evening to eat ice cream at Swenson’s, all with no contractions. Right before we went to bed I told Josh I had meant to show him a video of what to do if the baby was born in the taxi…oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Sunday Morning: I started having contractions sometime after 3AM, though I didn’t look at the time until 3:35AM. I wasn’t sure if this was similar to the contractions I’d had earlier in the week, so I tried to ignore them and sleep.  I was up and down several time to use the bathroom and finally left the bedroom not to return around 4:45 since I found that laying down kept the contractions coming. After a few more good contractions I decided I’d better start putting our toiletries together to head to the hospital. Again, I didn’t think there was a big rush, since the timing was very similar to Anna’s birth, and it had been hours from the time that contractions started until Anna was finally born. However, I also didn’t know how bad the pain would get, since with Anna the doctor put me on an epidural once I arrived at the hospital.

Getting ready  was slow going, since I had to stop for contractions, and I also stopped to pluck a few eyebrow hairs (hey—I wanted to be put together for the labor!). I decided before waking Josh up I would take a shower, since I was extremely sweaty. Around 5:07 AM I heard the bathroom door open and hoped desperately it was Josh and not one of the kids. It was Josh.

When Josh found me contracting, he started getting ready to go while I tried to do things between contractions. I did my laboring on my hands and knees while Josh rubbed my back. Josh called our doula at 5:14 and started to time contractions. I was having contractions lasting about a minute with less than a minute break between. I told Josh I didn’t think I could have a baby. (I expected the pain to get much, much worse and go on for hours and didn’t know how I could do it…little did I know I was almost done!) Mandy (our doula) told us over the phone to get in a taxi and head to the hospital. Josh called our apartment managers (who just happened to be awake with their grandchildren) and asked them to call a taxi for us.

So there I was contracting on my hands and knees, while Josh was telling me I had to walk and get into a taxi. I felt that burning I’d read about and pressure. I was trying to decide when it would be appropriate to tell Josh that I was not going anywhere and that we were not going to make it to the hospital. Josh, for his part, could only think one thing: We need to get in a taxi soon! I did apologize to him several times after telling him we were not going to make it to the hospital. I noticed blood dripping and saw my mucus plug come out.  A few moments later my water broke. It had meconium in it and my first thought was: I just went to the bathroom all over my husband. I looked and saw what looked to me like my entire insides coming out of me—this was not a comforting sight. My first worry was that the placenta was coming out first. I gave about 3-4 pushes (I hardly knew what I was doing—it was all just instinct) before Clara’s head appeared. Both Josh and I caught her as she came out and then she was in my arms. It was 5:30 AM.

Josh rushed out to get our apartment manager’s wife (Kerri) who is a nurse. I held Clara. She was completely blue. Though it was only seconds, it seemed forever as I worried about her breathing. I checked to make sure the cord wasn’t wrapped around her neck and began hitting her back (a technique I learned from watching Sarah Plain and Tall when I was a kid). She let out a little squeak and began to turn pink. Then I checked to see if we had a boy or girl. Surprise! GIRL! Then I held her—talk about skin to skin contact right at birth. She nursed right away.

By now, Josh had returned with Kerri. We cleaned Clara up a bit (she had the meconium on her) and prepared to get into the taxi. Josh held Clara while I tried to wash off a bit, which was a little tricky  since the placenta was still inside and the cord was short. Josh called our doula again, and she told us to leave the cord alone, since it was still pulsing; so I carried Clara, who was still attached, and walked to the taxi to go to the nearest hospital.

Mandy (our doula) met us at the hospital. This was not the hospital we were planning to deliver at, but the closest one to our guest home apartment. At first the emergency room staff did not realize I was holding a newborn still attached. Once they saw her cord they moved into action. I ended up having to spend a lot of time in the delivery room while the placenta came out. (Also receiving IV antibiotics and a tetanus shot because of where I delivered Clara.)  Mandy stayed with me while Josh went with Clara for evaluation in the nursery. Mandy was a great help. Even though she doesn’t speak Thai, she was able to tell me what was going on while they worked to get some extra pieces of the placenta out and did a small repair. I compare my time in the delivery room to being in a torture chamber—it was painful and seemed so long and the staff did not speak English. I cannot imagine how awful it would have been if Mandy hadn’t been there to explain things for me. She held my hand, encouraged me, and kept in contact with Josh so we could know what was happening to Clara.

It took a few hours before we were settled in a hospital room. All was well. And every once in awhile I would start smiling really big to think I’d just had a baby in our bathroom.

So I had my ideal  birth: a surgery-free, intervention free birth. AND I got to hold Clara right away. God answered our specific prayer requests in an unexpected way and we’re thankful for His protection.  Very thankful that I was able to finish the antibiotics before Clara was born so that StrepB was not an issue with her being born at home. Thanks be to God.

Endnotes:

Josh wonders what I would have done if he hadn’t woken up on his own. I was planning to get him. If I had to shout, I might have woken up the kids who were sleeping in the room right next to the bathroom. Thankfully, the kids slept through the whole things and didn’t wake up until after we left. They were banned from the bathroom until it was cleaned up.

Josh says that next time I must wake him up right away and that we will buy doubles of everything so there will be no need to pack toiletries or snacks—they’ll all be ready ahead of time.

So I had another unexpected delivery. I didn’t get to use my Labor and Delivery music playlist during labor or my oils. Didn’t use the beautiful labor room room at the hospital or get to hang out in a hotel during the early stages of labor with Josh.  Didn’t get to eat all my snacks (the doctor said I could eat and drink during labor—so different from U.S. hospitals). Clara just popped out!

I had been drinking raspberry leaf tea to help with the labor. It’s supposed to strengthen contractions and speed up the labor process. Maybe next time I won’t……

Later in the week I went back to my original doctor for a check-up. She did an ultrasound and said everything looked great. I also found out that my StrepB test had come back negative—thanks be to God.

I wasn’t planning to deliver at home. I really thought, based on Anna’s birth, that I had several more hours before Clara would come. I expected the pain to get much worse—yikes! So glad it didn’t.

Of all my deliveries, Clara’s has been the easiest to recover from. No side effects from pain medications and minimal stitches. I was up out of bed faster than with any of our other kids.

When recounting to our kids their birth stories, I realized that all our girls have had exciting, unplanned deliveries in one way or other. There wasn’t much to tell Isaiah.

I too was born at home. My parents couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough and hoped the the rescue squad would take my mom to the hospital. The rescue squad arrived and delivered me in our living room.

Clara Grace Jensen

Sunday, March 13, 2016, at 5:30am

Weight: 6.95 lbs.; Length; 19.25 in.; Head circumference: 13.35 in.

Born faster than expected and was delivered/caught in our bathroom by Josh and Amy. (More details to follow later, once I can sort them out myself.)

So thankful for the many prayers God answered in Clara’s birth: a surgery-free, intervention free birth. I’d even prayed for a quick labor. 🙂

All siblings are smitten with her. Isaiah said he loves her name and asked me, “Mommy, did you know I would love Clara’s name?” I replied, “I hoped you would.” Isaiah: “You hoped right!”

Anna really enjoys holding Clara.

Thanks be to God!

Last week we visited Bangkok’s SEA LIFE Ocean World and it was a simply perfect day for us all. We took a taxi and arrived at the  mall where the aquarium takes up two basement floors. After finding out that our tickets didn’t allow reentry, we first had lunch at McDonald’s (we haven’t been to McDonald’s since we left the States).

(These next three photos are from the wall mural at the entrance. The rest of the photos after these are real sea creatures.)

The kids (and adults) absolutely loved the aquarium. It wasn’t very crowded and had enough exhibits to be interesting but not overwhelming. Becca kept talking about how it got better and better. Some highlights at the beginning were the spider crabs and octopus.

The shark walk was a bit nerve-wracking at first. But by the end of our time there the kids were willing to “walk” on the sharks. Later it was neat to walk under those same sharks in the ocean tunnel.

The kids also loved seeing the Gentoo penguins. One of them made a friend with Becca. She had a fruit snack wrapper in her hand that the penguin really wanted. He would follow it up and down the glass, wherever Becca would move it. He even came back after being fed fish to try to get it again.

We spent a little over four hours in the aquarium. Anna was a little worn out, but Becca and Isaiah could have stayed longer. When we got to the end, we actually went back to the beginning so they could see the octopus and a few other things again before we left. After we exited we all had Dairy Queen ice cream.

After bedtime I deemed the day a perfect day. Our kids loved it. No one complained. No one got bored (Anna doesn’t count). When we got home no one had a meltdown (including the pregnant mama). The kids even went to bed happy after a day full of walking. It was a gift from God to allow our children to see an aquarium and to have a lovely day as a family of 5 before we become 6. But maybe our baby will hold off so we can have a few more adventures first.

Friday, February 19th, we left Ban Lung and drove to the Cambodian/Thai boarder. We spent the night on the Cambodian side and the next morning we crossed into Thailand. Crossing the boarder was a bit complicated: Josh had to take our car to one place and do paperwork, and I had to take all the kids to another place and fill out our paperwork.

Thankfully, they allowed Josh to come back after doing to car and assist me (I was still filling out our departure cards and the kids were doing great at the moment, eating fruit snacks). There was a long line after that (some sort of holiday) and Anna would only let me hold her–and was crying. It was a blessing to have Josh with us. Thankfully while in the very long line a Thai official took pity on us, took us all out of the line, and ushered us up to a desk at the front where I could sit and they checked all our passports. Thanking God.

We arrived in Bangkok Saturday. We parked our car at the guesthouse and have been using taxis since then to get around. I was a little nervous about being in a big city…had to scrub the red dirt off my feet first and find some non-red-stained clothes to wear. Hi, we live in Ratanakiri, Cambodia…I’m sure you can tell by our feet and clothes. What?! You have 7/11’s here and Starbucks? Culture shock!

So far it’s been great. The guesthouse we’re at has a playground right outside our door that the kids just love. Anna loves the slide. It’s been neat to meet other missionary families passing through. Our apartment fits our needs. Becca and I have been on a few afternoon walking adventures. We discovered a great free Children’s Museum not far from where we are. The first time we went we enjoyed the water-play and playground and didn’t even make it inside, there was so much to do outside.

I had my initial doctor’s appointment our first Tuesday here. We were there a lot longer than expected–we had to do a maternity ward tour, and fill out all the paper work…AND do all the blood-work and other tests. I had to do the 1-hour glucose test (hospital policy) and failed (normal for me), so I had to go back the next morning for the 3-hour test…I passed.

I wanted to post recent “baby-bump” pictures. As you can see I’m huge…ok, maybe not. (I’m just hitting 111lbs.) This little one loves to move and I don’t remember ever seeing so much little leg action from our other children.

I’m getting excited about meeting our new little one. We’re thanking God for His protection on this little life the past 40 weeks.

I’m very thankful for the friends who have sent things for me and/or the baby: new PJs for the hospital, cute little sleepers (I had none…why would I bring warm sleepers to Cambodia?), socks, oils, etc. With every package, this mama felt very loved. Once I got my new PJs I knew I was ready to have the baby.

We’re praying that our baby arrives before our appointment at the American Embassy mid-March. (Otherwise we’ll have to reschedule, which could set us back quite a bit, if they don’t have any appointments available.) Praying that our baby will be born without complications. Would love to have a surgery-free, intervention-free birth. Praying that God will give us grace to wait and trust His timing in all things.

The Friday before St. Valentines’s Day we had a little family Valentine’s party. A few weeks before, Becca (being more on top of things than myself) had already made valentines for everyone in the family. Isaiah was a wee bit behind Becca, but finished all of his before our party. We were impressed with their creativity.

For supper, we made heart-shaped pizzas and had chocolate pudding for dessert.

After dinner we exchanged valentines, played a new game Becca made up, and read the books we gave to the kids. It was really sweet to see how excited the older kids were about giving everyone their valentines.

I’m so thankful for the Valentine God has given me in my husband. So grateful for the wee little Valentines He has blessed us with together. (Check out those imported roses from Thailand.)

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to go to a Krung village (about an hour’s drive away) for the baptism of one of our teammates’ daughters. We saw five Krung young people get baptized as well.

We sat near the creek for the service and baptism, and afterward we celebrated the Lord’s Supper. It was a blessing to see these young people baptized and to see our teammate working among the Krung people.

A personal note about the trip: After a very bumpy, dusty drive to the village (about 2/3 of the trip was on dusty roads), we had a 15-20 minute walk downhill to the creek where the baptism was held, followed by the walk back up the hill. We left our house at 8:20 and arrived home around 2:30. Then we had lunch. We were so thankful that the Lord helped our older kids be content and be willing to plow through. Anna was unhappy about half of the time. Our little one decided to pay me back for all the bumpy roads by bouncing around in the womb the whole night. I think s/he was saying, “Hey Mommy, this is what you put me through today!” Ouch!

For over a year I’ve wanted to blog about our loose daily routines, so our family and friends have an idea of a typical day, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. (Besides the fact that our daily routine seems to change every three months or so!) This week I’ll give it a go, before everything changes again with the coming of Jensen #6.

Each morning Josh and I pray together before starting our day (ok – I cheat and get ready and start breakfast before we pray – Josh does his Bible reading while I’m doing that). I’m so glad we started this is a tradition early in marriage. It now includes our kids; sometimes sitting with us, sometimes interrupting with questions, and sometimes but very rarely sleeping through it. Around 7, I dish up the oatmeal and peel the boiled eggs. Ideally, everyone is done with breakfast by 8, but this fluctuates.

Some mornings the older kids choose to go to the market with Chanthu. If not, we head straight upstairs to learn together. Currently I’m using very little curriculum with the kids; my hope is to instill in them a love of learning, before we get bogged down with all the material. This year we’ve begun starting our learning time with Becca reading a Bible verse, which we then discuss, before praying together. (I recently read Noel Piper’s book Treasuring God in Our Traditions. In it she talks about establishing, even before our children can read, a daily time for them to have their devos. It was a great encouragement to me.) Afterwards we work on Becca’s reading and then do some other learning activity, depending on what the current need is. I’m finding that if we don’t start our learning right after breakfast, our kids struggle with being motivated and our learning time usually turns out to be a flop.

Josh tries to leave the house by 7:45 so he can study his vocabulary before he leaves to meet with his tutor at 9. His whole morning is usually filled with studying with Om Lim, so before leaving for Lim’s house, he tries to get some extra time to go through his Khmer vocabulary flashcards. When Josh returns we have lunch and put the younger kids down for naps…and snatch some time to chat. In the afternoons when I study with my tutor, Josh studies Khmer or works on his Kachok project, then he takes some time to make popcorn and read with the kids. Once I’m done studying, Josh heads back to the office to continue his work until supper. On weeks the Kachok men are with us, Josh works with them the whole day, except for lunch and the 1-hour rest time they take in the afternoons.

Our evenings are short. We usually try to go upstairs to get ready for bed by 8:30. We’re tired and have found that our spirits suffer if we don’t regularly get in bed early. One thing I really appreciate about Josh is that on nights he/we don’t have evening commitments, he typically stops his work around 8, makes popcorn and sits on the couch with me before we go to bed. It’s a precious time where we can talk without the kids or anyone else, and it allows us each to unwind (though sometimes I’m the one who does most the talking, because I need it).

There you go. There’s a little glimpse of what we try to do each day. Nothing that exciting. Things are always changing – sometimes Anna naps long and sometimes short,  people show up and have needs, my helper needs to talk about something – we adjust. It’s not that different from our friends in the States – we all have full lives. God gives all the grace we need to accomplish the tasks He’s given us as we faithfully do His work.

Note – I can’t seem to get a photo showing the true color of Anna’s hair. She has light brown hair, but the flash/sunlight always makes it looks like it’s blonde. She’s nowhere’s near what Isaiah used to look like.

Maybe you’ve wondered why we don’t post more photographs of the Cambodian and tribal peoples we interact with here. There are two reasons:

Moms with small children don’t have extra arms for carrying cameras. Between carrying water, diapers, toilet paper, etc., I don’t really have room to carry my camera. And if I did, I wouldn’t have time to pull out my camera and take pictures when out and about. Typically our children or others need all my attention when I’m out of our home.

Expats with cameras can arouse suspicion. Up in this province, and even in the country’s capital, there have been ministries that come in, do a little work, take a lot of pictures, and then send those pictures back to the States to obtain more funds. (Or at least, that’s the impression that the local Christians have.) For this reason even the Christians here can potentially be suspicious of missionaries who take a lot of pictures.

So if you’ve been wondering where all our native pictures are, now you know. It’s a mommy who can’t manage child #4 (i.e. the camera) and it’s a protection from arousing unnecessary suspicions. Someday when we’re established in a village and people know who we are, this won’t be such an issue. And by that time, our kids will be taking the pictures!

The music started Christmas Eve but stopped around 9PM. I was hoping it was just a simple party. However, 4:45 AM Christmas day the monks began testing the sound system to begin their 5 AM funeral chant. The sound system was working fine, and the volume inside our house was louder than anything we can play on our own speakers. By 5:15 AM both older kids were in our bed, as we listened to two monks chant very loudly. Merry Christmas.

We found out later that the elderly man who lived across the street from us had died four days before, and the two-day funeral process had begun. All Christmas day and the day afterwards we listened to monks chanting or gongs playing. Everything was blasted through a loud speaker. This made the Christmas atmosphere a little difficult. Apart from the soundtrack, however, everything else was perfect. Saturday morning the chanting resumed at 5AM. By 11AM I was going crazy, not so much because of the chanting and gongs, but because of its volume in our house. Saturday night Josh went to the cremation. The wealthy family paid to have a portable crematory constructed in their yard. When they began the cremation, they set off fireworks right outside our fence.

Sad to think that while we were celebrating the birth of Jesus who had come to save the world, our neighbors were spending large amounts of money for religious practices that would amount to nothing for the deceased man’s soul.

Besides our soundtrack, we had a lovely Christmas Day. While Josh and I had our morning prayer time, our kids happily played together with blocks they had received a few Christmas ago. They were so happy playing, they didn’t even ask about breakfast or presents. Our meals were: cinnamon rolls and quiche for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and a buffalo crock-pot roast for supper with Josh’s pumpkin pie. The kids also enjoyed eating their large gingerbread men.

After we acted out the Christmas story and sang carols we did some of the gifts. Our main focus with the gifts on Christmas day is the ones that the kids have picked out for other family members. It’s so fun to see how excited they get about giving gifts.

Around lunch time we visited one of our neighbors — who is also one of the pastors at our church — and took the family a whole chicken and some Christmas cookies. Later in the afternoon Becca did a Christmas play for us, and the kids opened the rest of their gifts. Their big gift to each other was bouncy reindeer. Everyone is delighted with theirs.

Josh gave me a cool gift, which he spent weeks working on. He had a local craftsman make an ancient Scandinavian chess game, called Cyning Tafl. We’ve enjoyed playing a few times and are looking forward to learning more strategies to beat each other.

The week after Christmas we attended three different church Christmas celebrations. This is a very special time for the people here; typically, local Christians don’t celebrate Christmas apart from what their church plans.

On Sunday morning our Khmer church had their celebration, consisting of different groups singing, a play, songs, a sermon, and a meal.

Sunday evening we attended a Krung village church Christmas celebration (no pictures). They had a meal, songs, sermon, play, testimonies, and a shadow puppet show. This is a church that has OMF (Missions to East Asia’s People) missionaries working with them.

Tuesday morning we drove to a Kachok village (one that sends their men to work with Josh) for their Christmas celebration. This celebration combined several Kachok village churches.  It was an hour-long drive plus ferrying our car (and us) over the river. We left our house around 8AM and returned around 4PM. We had a packed car both ways (10 of us going one way, 12 coming back).

Their celebration consisted of several different singing groups, congregational songs, and a sermon. When we arrived, Josh was also asked to share something from the Word. It was a joy to see the Kachok people worshiping Christ for Christmas. Afterwards there was a meal.

We did not make it to any Jarai village Christmas celebrations. I did help one village write a Christmas play, but we weren’t able to attend, since it was a hour away and they planned to begin at 8AM Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas from our family! We’ve been celebrating Advent all month and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas Day as a family. We started our Advent celebration with our Christmas countdown calendar. Each day the kids get special surprises as we count down to Christmas (new books, baking cookies, special movie, crafts, etc). Last year I put away all our Christmas books to save for this month. It’s been really fun to read a “new” one each night, especially for Isaiah who doesn’t remember any of the stories from last year.

We’ve been baking Christmas cookies and will decorate them as part of our Christmas Eve celebration. One of our new books was Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Baby,  so this year we made real gingerbread cookies. We did a large gingerbread for each kid to decorate along with the small ones.

Last Friday during our family night we made our own pizzas, which were a special treat. It was actually chilly for two nights and the kids enjoyed wearing footie pjs…with the windows open and their fans running. (Our Jesse Tree is filling up!)

Along with most parents this time of year, we’re fighting greediness in our kids. Christmas day we’ll put the focus on the gifts they give to each other, and we usually do gifts from other people on different days (which helps them remember who gave them what and enjoy their gifts instead of just piling them up). The kids are excited about the gifts they bought for each other.  (Anna currently enjoys getting her picture taken.)

Today (Christmas Eve) I taught our helper how to make cinnamon rolls. She was so excited to learn. It gets a little complicated when the Khmer use the same word for dough and bread. Then we decorated Christmas cookies. Tonight we’ll have our traditional Christmas Eve party.

Three days before Christmas Becca finished Level 2 of her All About Reading Program. I was planning to finish after Christmas or sometime in January, but Becca really wanted to finish before Christmas and pushed through to get extra lessons done. Isaiah also completed his Thumb Chart and now no longer sucks his thumb at night. (He requested a shovel on his chart.) We’ll have a party to celebrate both accomplishments the week after Christmas.

If you’ve read this far, I’ll let you in on a pre-Christmas secret…for Christmas we’re eating buffalo from India. It was cheaper to buy than beef from Cambodia. 🙂 We’ll see how a buffalo roast tastes!

November 2014 –we’d been in Cambodia over four months and things were going well. Our entire family had adjusted beautifully to our new country and life was going on as normal, except for the occasional tears over missing Chick-fil-A, Costco, and a certain tree in Texas.  After a full year of traveling for partnership development, we were finally able to have a normal family schedule, and I found myself in the routine of taking care of our family and trying to learn a new language.

Somewhere along the way I found that I was really enjoying killing mosquitoes with our electric tennis racket. There was a certain thrill from killing 5 in one swing – almost like using a punching bag or running hard on the track. Then one night when the kids asked me to chase them around their room before bed, I had an unusual burst of pre-bed-time energy, which they loved. But later I realized that it was not energy fueled by fun but energy fueled by anger. I had no idea what I was angry about, but I had no time to evaluate my situation, and I put the matter aside until later.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with another missionary wife, one who had been in the country longer than I had, that I started to understand my situation. My friend talked about struggling with bitterness when learning Khmer — bitter that every night she had to sit down and study, and every day she had to take time away from her family to learn vocabulary and review grammar. Among all her other roles, she didn’t have time to enjoy being a mommy.

The light went on for me as I thought: me too! Though I was really enjoying learning a new language (isn’t that what tons of people write for a New Year’s resolution and here I was getting to do it), I found that I was angry at the time it took away from being a wife and mommy. I felt pressure to spend all my spare time studying. I was trying to study while watching the kids in the mornings and afternoons. I was rushing through the kids’ bedtime routine so I could study at night. I realized I hated the constant feeling that I had to go because I needed to study. I hated the feeling that I had to keep up with Josh’s language learning. I hated worrying about how people in the States were evaluating my language progress. I hated knowing that I had the ability to make fast progress but knowing that my primary roles of wife and mommy hindered me from doing that.

Studying a new language as a wife and mommy often means you have to sacrifice something: maybe it’s sleep, maybe time with your spouse or kids, maybe a clean house, or maybe just the feeling of being normal person — you name it. You can’t fulfill all your roles 100%: wife, mommy, language learner, human, etc.: something suffers.

So what did I do? – I chose to let my study time go. I still met with my tutor as normally scheduled, but if putting the kids to bed took too long and I didn’t have time to study afterwards, it was ok. I took to heart what one of our colleagues had told me: don’t stress about keeping up with language learning, you’ll get it in time. And with that small change my language-learning anger subsided.

Reflections: As I think about the pressure I felt with language learning (and sometimes still feel) I realize that much of it came from comments I heard back in the States: people sharing their impressions about other missionaries’ failures to learn the language or to be diligent enough in their study, people asking me if I was keeping up with Josh, people comparing missionary wives to each other, people sharing their model missionary stories. Talking to my missionary friend made me realize how much people on the other side of the ocean don’t know. Being here I realize that we have to be so careful when evaluating the progress of missionary wives unless we’ve been in their shoes; and even then we must be cautious in sharing our thoughts with others. Even I, who am currently wearing language-learning shoes, can’t sit and think something like, That women only has one kid, and a teenager at that! She should have no problem learning the language! I have no idea what is going on inside the home or heart of other women, and I need to be careful about evaluating situations I’m not in.

So for those on the home-front: be wise in your conversations with future or current missionaries, especially when talking about your perception of the others’ experiences. You never know the unintentional impressions or pressures you’re leaving with that person. For you moms in ministry: seek the Lord concerning your primary roles and stick to them. Don’t live with missionary-mommy guilt when you’re doing the work God has called you to. Do your best with language-learning and trust God to bless the seeds you’re planting. (Also: here’s a great blog post written by the husband of a friend of mine. )

Language learning progress comes and goes with me. Yes — I speak Khmer a lot everyday. But there’s still a lot I don’t catch and don’t know. There are some weeks I feel like I’ve made great progress. There are some weeks when I think I’ve forgotten everything and am pronouncing everything wrong (can I use pregnancy as an excuse!?). I can chose to be discouraged or I can chose to continue running the race God has put before me. I can’t put everything I have into language learning right now: it’s not my primary calling. But I can use the time God has given me to continue growing in my Khmer.

This Advent season our family is creating a Jesse Tree.  I had wanted to do one last year, but with everything else that was going on I didn’t have enough time to prepare. In November I colored, cut, glued, and had laminated 25 ornaments to use during our Advent celebration. (You can find these printable ornaments at these links – small, medium, or full coloring pages.) It took several hours to complete the coloring.

Josh cut a huge palm branch down for our tree and we put some lights on it.  Each night Josh talks about the Bible story for the day and the kids put their ornaments on the tree. The kids are making a variety of ornaments – some we’ve made with salt dough, some we’ve sewn (forbidden fruit & the serpent), some we’ve painted. Some we’ve built, and some we’ve just colored (additional copies from the set I’ve colored). I come up with most of my ornament ideas the day we make them, so we’ll see what else we make in the next 15 days.

The kids are enjoying making ornaments each day and we’re enjoying preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ.

We enjoy reading Frog and Toad books. This week we got to have a Snake and Toad adventure. One morning I spied a large toad in one of our pots. After checking with our helper that is wasn’t poisonous (it’s only poisonous if you eat its eggs), I caught it and let the kids play with it. They had a blast.

 I was very proud of Isaiah for overcoming his usual caution about touching unfamiliar animals. Anna was interested, but she kept her distance.

Saturday morning our helper asked for assistance when she found a snake in the box for turning the outside hose on and off. Josh used a stick to smash the snake’s head, then beheaded it. Our helper thought the snake was poisonous, but we’re finding that in general, Khmer people are about as good at identifying poisonous snakes as most Americans are — so we’re unsure whether the snake was harmful or not.

In the span of one week we’ve had two different friends pack up their families on very short notice and return to the States for medical reason. Both families lived in different parts of the world. Both families were faithfully ministering where God had directed them and were content to remain where they were until God moved them.

Typically when we talk about families or individuals returning from overseas the following formula is used: they had to return because of (fill in the blank). Though not intentional, there is often a sense of failure involved when speaking of the return. The unspoken: they just couldn’t cope so they had to come back. No one would say this and most wouldn’t even consciously think it, but I wonder what this kind of speech is reflecting to others?

Thinking about this I’ve been challenged to change the way I talk to reflect what I believe about God. I claim to embrace the sovereignty of God, yet when I speak about circumstances, I often leave Him out of my words. The truth is when people return to the States or leave a place of ministry because of illness or repentance from sin, it is GOD who is at work. They have received clear direction from God for what He wants them to do.

What would it teach our hearts, friends, children, and unbelievers, if we changed our speech to reflect what we believe about the sovereignty of God, if we made God the central character: They had to go back to the States. God used an illness in the family to transition them back to the States. They had to step down from their ministry because of personal sin. God used repentance from sin to remove them from their place of ministry and revive their walk with God. They’re still single/don’t have kids. God hasn’t given them a spouse/children yet. The examples could go on.

Our family had been memorizing the hymn: What God Ordains is Always Right. Can I challenge you to take these truths and let them flow into your speech? Will you come along with me and seek to change the way you speak about events to reflect God’s work and not chance or blind forces? Godly responses to what God ordains is not failure or defeat – it is always right, even if it looks like defeat.

What God Ordains Is Always Right

What God ordains is always right; His will is just and holy. He holds us in His perfect might; in Christ our lives are godly. He is our God and all we need, the Father who preserves us still; to Him we bend each heart and will.

What God ordains is always right; and He will not deceive us. He leads us in the way of light and will not ever leave us. In Him we rest, who makes the best of all the stumbling turns we take and loves us for His mercy’s sake.

What God ordains is always right; all that He does is for us. He heals our souls and gives us sight and puts no ill before us. Our God is true; He makes us new; our lives are built upon His rock, our cornerstone and building block.

What God ordains is always right; He guides our joy and sadness. He is our life and blessed light; in Him alone is gladness. We see His face, the way of grace; He holds us in His mighty arm and keeps us safe from ev’ry harm.

Samuel Rodigast, 1649-1708 trans. Gracia Gastorius, b. 1943, alt.