July 20 I celebrated my 41st birthday. We were wondering if Maria would arrive on my birthday, but she decided to wait, which was my preference. (I do so much for my kids’ birthdays – I was not sure I wanted to be exhausted on my birthday every year! 🙂
Josh and the kids had a lovely breakfast ready for me in the morning, complete with a watermelon fruit basket, bacon, eggs, and croissants. Afterwards we went to a pool and spent most of the day swimming and eating lunch. It was a very relaxing way to spend the day with our family. And I did a lot of swimming, which felt good.
We came home later afternoon and the kids made a pound cake. We had subs for supper, pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. Then we did gifts and a slide show of my life. 🙂 It was a lovely day and my family made me feel very special. And all that swimming did not coax Maria to arrive, even the next day.
Last week and this week, Josh has been assisting an SIL Grammar Workshop, right where we’re staying. This workshop has been scheduled for 3 years, and it ends up the timing worked perfectly with Maria’s birth. The workshop is for SIL Bible translators who are working on a grammar for the language they are currently or going to translate. There are nine translators from four different countries here for the workshop. Josh is a mentor to two of the participants. Every morning there are intense lectures by Dr. Paul Kroeger (from Texas) and every afternoon Josh works with his two mentees (both missionaries in Cambodia). It’s a 10-day workshop with a weekend break in-between. They finish this Friday and in the evening we’ll all go out on a dinner boat ride on the river.
Dr. Kroeger was one of Josh’s linguistics professors at UTA and was on his dissertation committee. When SIL was setting up the workshop, Paul especially requested that Josh be involved. It’s been a thrill for us to spend extra time with Dr. Kroeger and for Josh to be able to work with him.
Our kids have enjoyed baking snacks for the grammar participants and eating lunch with them and hearing different stories from their home and host countries. We’re the only family/kids here, since that was part of Josh’s conditions in agreeing to participate in the workshop. He didn’t want to leave us for over two weeks. It’s been a great experience for our kids.