36 Years

Amy

Last month I celebrated my 36th birthday (note – this is second time I’ve been pregnant on my birthday. Most of our children have been born before my birthday). It was Friday and I had made plans to meet with my Jarai ladies at church to go over their lessons with them. It was the last time I would be meeting with them before heading to Thailand, and I told them I would try to get through as much of John 14, 15, and 16 as I could to leave them with enough material to cover their lessons while we were out of the country.

Ok, I’ll be honest…I did not want to spend my late afternoon teaching John in Khmer. I didn’t feel ready to tackle those chapters. I was still tired from our Phnom Penh trip. But I went. The kids were glad I was going, since it gave them a chance to decorate for my birthday meal. Josh dropped me off at church (I’m still not a good stick-shift driver, especially with a pregnant belly!) and I walked up to meet with the ladies. And there they were, preparing lots of different fruits for us to snack on. They had no idea it was my birthday, but they wanted something special for my last meeting with them before we headed to Thailand. I was so touched by their thoughtfulness and kindness. Our friends don’t have much. But they had spent their money buying fruit at the market. After we finished the lessons, we enjoyed the fruit together. When Josh and the kids came to pick me up, they joined us, and we stayed an extra hour eating fruit.

The kids did a great job decorating the house with streamers a friend had just sent. We had a lovely meal of grilled chicken kabobs, salad (minus the lettuce), and potatoes. Becca made cherry bars for dessert. Then the kids all gave me cards and gifts they had made. Josh had a special wooden cross candle holder made for our Passion Week celebration. I’m looking forward to using it.

So now I’m 36. Is this where I imagined myself as 36? Can’t answer that, since I’ve never really been the kind of person who pictures the future. I’ve been married 10 years to my man. We have 4 – almost 5 – children (one preemie C-section, one regular C-section, one surprise VBAC, and one bathroom baby). I’ve been living in Cambodia 4 years. I feel way out of touch with life in America. I’m not a very cautious mommy (I figure our kids do all this dangerous stuff when I’m not watching them outside, so why should I restrain them when I’m watching them?). And currently I’m dealing with the aches of being close to having our 5th child. Wow, zow – this one is a mover and shaker and seems to always be trying to punch a hole so he/she can escape. This little one knows just the nerves to put pressure on to make his/her mommy yelp.

36 years. And still lots to learn. Yards to grow. Tons to be sanctified. 36 years and thankful for the many gifts God blesses me with each day.

We Made it to Thailand! (2018)

Cambodian Adventures, Pregnancy

Last Thursday afternoon we left our home in Oyadao and headed for Ban Lung to begin our trip to Thailand. Our plan was to have a good part of Thursday to close up our house and then drive to our team leaders’ house (45 mins away) to spend the night.

Friday morning (6:10), we left Ban Lung, stopped for breakfast at friends, and arrived in Siem Real around 2.

Saturday morning we left Siem Reap at 5:40am and arrived at the Thai boarder a little after 8am. Thankfully a friend wanted to borrow our car, so he dropped us off at the boarder. The kids were troopers and there wasn’t much boarder traffic at the exit and entry buildings. We made it to the Thailand side of the boarder in about 1.5 hours. We had pre-arranged a taxi van and we’re soon on our way to Bangkok. We arrived at our guesthouse in Bangkok around 2.

We’re very thankful for the smooth trip God provided us. Thankful we made it. And now to start thinking about having a baby…I mean, I’ve been kinda busy lately.

 

 

A Visit From the Farmers

Cambodian Adventures

Two days before we left for our Phnom Penh trip, our friends the Farmers came to visit with us. They also left Isa and Eden off with us to play with our kids. So, the girls got to join us for our time in Phnom Penh and watched the kids when we did our testing for our driver’s licenses.

Two weeks later Abi and Gloria came to spend several days with us. They were a great help playing with the kids while I got ready to travel to Thailand (packing and preparing our house). The girls brought lots of crafts for the kids to work on.

Today we start our journey to Thailand. We should arrive in Bangkok on Saturday.

10-Year Cambodian Driver’s Licenses

Cambodian Adventures

Last week we took a quick trip to Phnom Penh to get our 10-year Cambodian driver’s licenses. We were hoping to do this trip back in June (when our licenses expired), but were unable to because our passports were occupied getting 1-year visas. So…we’ve been in waiting mode until our passports were released from the visa office. Monday a week ago we got the call that our passports were available. We booked our seats on a taxi van (since we couldn’t drive) and headed down to Phnom Penh on Wednesday to attempt to get our licenses.

Cambodia offers a 1-year license based on your home-country license, which you have to go down and renew every year. This time we decided to try for the 10-year Cambodian license which requires a written test and a driving test. The written test was in English – but had many, many translation mistakes so we had to study lots of weird questions and answers (“how long does a healthy driver need?” “1 minute, 2 minutes, or 3 minutes.”)

We were planning on the process taking a few days, based on the experiences of other people we know. There is only one office where foreigners can apply for their 10-year license. This office also services Khmer and any foreinger applying for a 1-year license. Thankfully – by God’s grace – we were able to do everything in one day (it literally took us all day). Both Josh and I passed the tests and now have 10-year driver’s licenses.  We were able to pick them up last Friday.

We then spent a few extra days in Phnom Penh. We had two MKs with us for the week before we knew we were going to do this trip. They came along with us and were a great help watching our kids while we did all the driving tests. (We took Clara with us in the morning for the written test and left her with friends in the afternoon.)

Saturday we did some fun stuff: the girls got their toenails painted, we had pizza, and went to Swensens’s Ice Cream. Sunday we went to English-speaking church and we were able to visit with some friends. Of course, since we were in Phnom Penh we had sickness too. Isaiah jumped on a plastic toy at the guesthouse we were staying at and ended up getting a badly infected foot. Anna got a fever and was sick for two days. Thankfully all are better now. We traveled home on Monday and are now getting ready to head to Thailand in several days. This definiately wasn’t the schedule I was hoping on – but we know that we can trust God’s hand and timing. Life is an adventure!

Cambodia Olympics 2018

Uncategorized

 

A few weeks ago while studying ancient Greece, we decided to hold our own Olympics. The kids each made their own flags to represent their countries (Becca – Unicorn Land, Isaiah – Zebra Land, Anna & Clara – Panda Land).

We had an opening and closing ceremony and had two days of events with medal ceremonies after each event (the kids made gold, silver, bronze, and “Clara” medals).

Celebrating Four Years in Cambodia on July 4th

Cambodian Adventures

July 4th marked our 4th year in Cambodia! So thankful for God’s steadfast faithfulness to us all during our past four years here. We’ve learned so much and have grown in so many ways. Thanks be to God!

We combined our anniversary celebration with our 4th of July celebration. We had hotdogs, potato salad, salad (minus the lettuce), and homemade hotdog rolls. When it got dark enough we went downstairs and enjoyed sparklers. Clara was very happy to sing Happy Birthday Cambodia….she did ok with changing to America!

Happy Father’s Day 2018

Josh

We’re all so thankful for Josh and the wonderful Daddy he is to our 4 (soon 5) children. Thankful he values our kids. Thankful for the time he spends with us. Thankful to parent with him. Thankful he’s my man to journey with when all our kids have flown.

Several days back I had a tea party with the kids. The girls all dressed up and Isaiah got to play with hair gel. Fun times!

I’ll close by posting a video of another Jarai Bible verse we worked on (Proverbs 22:6). Josh worked on the translation with several Jarai men and women and I wrote the tune. Thankful I get to train up children with him.

Romans 5:8 in Jarai

Uncategorized

One of the things I love to do is write tunes for Bible verses to help Khmer and Jarai children memorize Scripture. So far we’ve put together 14 new verse songs and written two original Jarai songs. Anything I’ve done with Khmer is easy, since I just use a Khmer Bible translation. Anything we do in Jarai we translate first – Josh works with the Jarai Bible translators to translate the verse.

Above is our Jarai Romans 5:8, song by a group of young people who came to our house to learn the song.

2! 4! 6! 8!

Anna, Becca, Clara, Isaiah

Since Isaiah turned six this month, we now have 2, 4, 6, 8 in our home! Life is full of excitement! For Isaiah’s birthday, we bought sports outfits and had them lettered for our little team.

We’re in the midst of rainy season – which means…lots of rain and mud. They other day, during a sunny spell, some kids filled a pit with water and turned it into a mud pool. Anna came in before I got out to take pictures. Clara just watched, but had mud splattered on her. Lots of fun! I’m very thankful we have a washing machine!!

Happy 6th Birthday Isaiah!

Isaiah

Happy 6th Birthday to Isaiah! We started off his birthday week the Friday before with his birthday countdown calendar. One of the special activities on the calendar was making strawberry jello. After eating the jello, all our children declared it was yucky and that they didn’t like jello. I laughed.

 

This year Isaiah wanted a Land Cruiser cake modeled after our car. I’m not sure what happened, but with the heat and whatever I must have done with the frosting, it was hard to keep to frosting solid. This Mommy was very disappointed with how it turned out, however Isaiah thought it was great and I’m glad that’s what really matters.

As far as birthdays go, Isaiah is pretty easy to please. Josh and I decorated his door the night before his birthday. We took a break from school and did whatever fun activities Isaiah wanted to do. Josh took Isaiah out to breakfast. We did a special craft sent by a friend: masks for the girls and a pirate hate for Isaiah. Isaiah wanted tacos for supper with guacamole – a meal loved by all.

Isaiah got a basketball hoop for his birthday (the kind that hangs over the door). We put it up that night and everybody enjoyed making baskets – crazy, exciting times!

 

Two things Isaiah loves doing are climbing trees and making fires. He’s gotten really good at climbing high (sometimes it’s better for us not to watch). We’re really proud at how brave Isaiah has become in the past year.

Building fires is always fun. Recently we bought Isaiah a long lighter so he can burn the trash by himself. He’s also good at using a normal lighter. We can now send Isaiah out to burn the trash. So fun!

Isaiah loves math and seems to have a knack for figuring in things out. He recently figured out how to do basic division. He’s progressing nicely with his reading in All About Reading Level 1.

We’re thankful for the son God has gifted our family with. He is loved by all and is a good brother and plays well with others. He’s really hoping for a baby brother, but we’ll see. He always prays for two baby brothers and one baby sister. Happy Birthday, Isaiah! We love you!

 

Friends – The Carsons

Cambodian Adventures

Last Sunday, our friends the Carsons joined us for lunch. The Carsons are SIL missionaries working on the Tampuan Bible Translation. They come out our way every Sunday to meet with a Tampuan church. Both Andrew and Tanuja have been an encouragement to Josh and me: Andrew to Josh with his years of experience in Bible translation, and Tanuja in the ways she’s always checks up on how I’m doing.

Our children especially enjoy playing with the three Carson girls, who have always been very kind to our kids. We all had an enjoyable time, so much so that by the time the Carsons left it was time for dinner. The Carsons leave in a few weeks for a year back in their home country. We’ll miss our interactions with them.

A Week Without Daddy

Amy, Anna, Becca, Clara, Isaiah

Last week Josh was away at the Pastor’s Bible School in Ban Lung for five and a half days, from Sunday afternoon until Friday evening. We’re thankful for the smooth week we had without him (minus the toilet getting backed up from an accidental discarded spoon going down it). Each of the three old children got to have a special sleep-over with me on the nights Josh was away (I took Monday and Thursday nights off).

Each child got to plan his/her special evening. Becca wanted to do mineral face masks and play Monopoly. Anna wanted to paint our toenails, eat popcorn, and read books. Isaiah wanted to make a number chart on the computer, drink decaf coffee (we added whipped cream and Hershey’s chocolate syrup0, and read books. Clara didn’t need a special sleep-over, as she got up every morning before 5:30 (sometimes before 5!) to spend extra time with me. It was a busy and full week!

I’m just a sinner trying to point other little sinners to love Jesus…

Amy

I love being a mommy – each life we’ve been given is a gift and is full of blessings. Joy. Laughter. Love. There are only a few things I value more than the gift of motherhood. But I’ll be honest…it’s not all joy, love, and laughter. Being a mommy is one of the toughest jobs I have. Why? Because I’m just a sinner saved by Jesus trying to lead other little sinners to know and love Jesus.

Yeah. Motherhood would be easy, if I were sinless. If I consistently loved like Jesus. If I didn’t want my love-tank to be filled by my children saying what a wonderful mommy I am. If I always returned good for evil. If I didn’t struggle with anger, impatience, selfishness, and pride (to name a few of my sins). If I didn’t have thoughts like how can you treat me like this after all I’ve done for you ALL day?!? If I didn’t struggle with those I just want to have fun with you – not disciple you thoughts.

I tell our children all the time, Mommy is just a sinner like you, trying to learn to be like Jesus…I just know how to sin in culturally acceptable ways and don’t throw fits. I speaking these words is important. It’s important for our children to know that I – Mommy – know I’m a sinner and that I need Jesus’ help just like they do. One reason is because I desire someday as adults, our children feel comfortable joining me in that journey of fighting sin and becoming more like Jesus. So someday when our daughters struggle as adults with anger, impatience, selfishness, and pride they don’t feel like they have a mom who doesn’t get it. No – she’s been there all along – a sinner trying to be more like Jesus and failing plenty of times. I want them to know that we are all in this battle together and that we can be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I need Jesus. Everyday I fail and sin. Living with children 24/7 prevents me from deceiving myself into thinking I’m ok. When I preach to my children – I’m preaching to myself (wow – I can give some pretty convicting sermons!). I’m a sinner, saved by Jesus, and I desperately need His help everyday to fight my flesh.

Motherhood is a wonderful gift. We all love and cherish our children. But maybe one of the most important gifts it gives us is another opportunity to see how sinful we are and how desperately we need Jesus to help us turn from our sin and cling to Him.

Anna’s New Bike

Anna, Becca

Last week Anna got a new big bike as a reward for quitting her night-time thumb sucking. We’re so proud of her! Anna was thrilled to ride her new bike and it’s so fun to watch her. The bike came with a cushioned seat in the back, a basket, and a bell – everything that Anna wanted.

Last week we also had a young sparrow visit us for several hours. His nest had fallen from a tree and some kids brought him to our house. He was quite friendly and loved sitting on Becca’s shoulder. After a night of rest, he flew out the window and we haven’t seen him since then.

Visa Trip to Laos 2018

Cambodian Adventures

This week we took a quick trip to Laos to change our Cambodian visa type. The Laos border is about 4 hours from our home and it was the easiest way to leave Cambodia and reenter to obtain new visas. This was our first time to Laos and since we had to buy Laos visas we decided to spend a full day in the country.

Both the first (Monday) and third (Wednesday) days of our three day trip were taken up with travel and crossing the border. On the way to Laos we ran several errands in Ban Lung and had lunch with our team members in Stung Treng. It took us over an hour to cross the border and then we had over a 2 hour drive to Pakse, Laos. We arrived after dark. Our hotel was right along the Mekong River.

Tuesday was our fun day without any border crossing. In the morning Josh and Clara walked around the hotel and had coffee, while everyone else slept in until 7. We had a great breakfast at our hotel and headed out to see some waterfalls in the area. The first was neat to see, but we couldn’t get very close.

The second waterfall was more kid-friendly and the kids enjoyed climbing behind the waterfall with Josh and riding a raft up to the falls.  After a very late lunch, we enjoyed the hotel pool until we took baths ( the kids loved having a real bathtub!), ate supper in our room, and ended the evening with watching Toby Tyler (an old Disney movie I enjoyed as a kid).

On our way back to Cambodia, we were delayed over two hours at the border. Border crossings take time, especially with multiple kids. However on the Cambodian side of the border we ran into a snag when the officials didn’t want to issue us the new (NGO) type of visa, since our old visas don’t run out until August. The reason we were doing this early is because our other option for getting the new type of visa was to wait until we were in Thailand for the birth of our new baby. That would require us to wait for the baby’s passport number before we could start the initial paperwork and could possibly keep us in Thailand 5+ weeks after the baby is born. It took quite some time to explain that we needed to make the change now, but finally the officials agreed. Thanks be to God.

We arrived home Wednesday night after dark. We’re so thankful for the safety God gave us on our travels and for the success in getting our new visas.  We’re thankful for the extra vacation day we could have as a family enjoying doing fun things without errands or other things to take care of. Thanks be to God.

10 Year Wedding Anniversary Getaway!

Uncategorized

This June we will celebrate our 10th year wedding anniversary, what better way to celebrate than a two-day night getaway. (Thought we better before I have another nursing baby again.)

Josh and I left Thursday late morning and came home Saturday morning. We enjoyed lots of uninterrupted talking together. We also took a trip to a waterfall that our family enjoys. It was fun to be able to get into the water together, rather than playing tag-team while watching kids. Thankful for the time away we had together – thankful for the gift of marriage.

Happy 4th Birthday Anna Grace

Anna
–

Last week we celebrated Anna’s 4th birthday. This year she was pretty excited about her birthday. We started off with a week countdown calendar including gifts, snacks, and a movie night. For movie night we watched Disney’s Snow White. Snow White is a favorite book in our house for the little girls and it was a blast sitting with Clara while we watched the movie, since she was very involved in the story, repeating phrases and saying “I found her!” whenever she saw Snow White.

Anna’s cake order was a bit complicated. She went between wanting a Mymy (her small stuffed panda) cake, a flower cake, and a butterfly cake. Then she settled on wanting a round cake with a picture of Anna, Mymy, and Mymy’s Little Sister in a stroller. Then it got more complicated and she also wanted Anna making a cake and Anna in a house included on the cake. I told her that I could only draw one Anna on the cake, and that was hard enough, since my smallest tip is still too big for tiny detail. The result was tasty, and Anna was pleased.

Taking Anna’s birthday picture this year was a breeze and she kept asking me if she could do different poses. That was quite a change from the years I begged her to look at the camera.

Anna had big plans for her birthday morning. She wanted to get up really early and put on a pretty dress. All the kids ended up getting up early and getting dressed up. They then played Legos together before breakfast. We had decorated Anna’s door the night before, so she got to see that first thing in the morning.  For Anna’s birthday we went swimming in Ban Lung and had a pizza and French fries lunch at the pool we swam. Then for supper Anna ordered hotdogs and macaroni & cheese.

Gifts were pretty easy for Anna – she wanted a new mosquito net, a backpack, and some Little People princesses. Her siblings enjoyed buying/making gifts for her.

Four is a really fun age and Anna is one very bright and fun little girl. She can talk non-stop about the things her dolls are doing and she’s full of expression as she tells you every little detail about her dolls. I just love her hand gestures that go along with her stories. As our middle child, she did get lost in the cracks with her nighttime thumb sucking. A few weeks ago we started working on that and we’re so proud that she has, as far as I know, dropped sucking her thumb altogether. Anna also stopped taking a afternoon nap and has joined her older siblings during afternoon rest time, where they hang out on the porch and do projects and listen to books on the iPod. Our little girl is growing up.

Anna is pretty excited about having a new sibling and is praying for a baby sister. Before we told the kids we were expecting another baby, she told me we were going to get a baby on our trip (last March) to Phnom Penh.

We had a great time celebrating Anna’s birthday. She’s such a bright part of our family. We’re so thankful to have been gifted with her to our family.

The last picture makes me laugh. I told everyone to make grumpy faces and Anna who is usually my straight faced girl is pictures smiles while everyone else masters their grumpy look!

Happy 37th Birthday Josh!

Uncategorized

Last week we celebrated Josh’s 37th birthday. All the kids got dressed up for the celebration. Our day consisted of special food and extra time with the birthday man. Early in the morning, Becca and Isaiah secretly decorated Josh’s office while we were praying.

Becca made Josh oatmeal cookies. The most amazing thing was that Becca patiently allowed all her siblings to help with the mixing process (a hard thing for even an adult to do!).

For dinner we had grilled chicken and buffalo kabobs and had homemade mac&cheese, salt and garlic potatoes, and salad. For dessert we had strawberry cake with raspberry frosting To finished the evening we had a special show in honor of Daddy with original songs, performances, and a play done by family members. Happy Birthday Josh!

  

Holy Week 2018

Holiday

We enjoyed celebrating Holy Week this year. It was very similar to last’s years celebration, except I took less pictures. We really enjoyed reading though Piper’s Lenten Lights each night. You start out the day before Palm Sunday with seven candles and blow out a successive one each night until the last one is blown out on Good Friday. Then on Easter you relight all the candles. The visual element makes the readings more meaningful.

Palm Sunday we decorated our Resurrection Tree and reenacted the story of Palm Sunday. The tree is just a dead branch Becca chose from outside. The ornaments are all handmade.

Monday we reenacted the story of Jesus clearing the Temple. We also started our Resurrection Countdown Calendar, which had a extra treat for each day counting down to Easter.

Wednesday we had a family outing and went to Ban Lung and spent several hours and a pool that has watersides. It’s one of the nicest pools we’ve been to for little kids, since there are two large shallow areas for children  and three different sets of slides varying in height.

Thursday we had a Maundy Thursday service, with feet washing and a reenactment of the Last Supper. Friday we had a Good Friday service with readings and singing.

Saturday was craft day and an Easter egg hunt. Clara was especially excited about finding eggs, it was adorable. I’m so thankful for the plastic eggs we got when in Bangkok when Clara was born.

Sunday afternoon we visited a young widow who recently lost her unsaved father. Nee is one of the people who is training to work on the Jarai Bible translation. After we returned, we had a dinner of buffalo roast, mashed potatoes, salad, and bread. Then we reenacted the Easter story and watched a few clips of the resurrection from different movie. Then we exchanged gifts. The kids are always so pleased with their gifts and with giving gifts. Afterwards we had apple pie and did our last Lenten Lights reading.

Thankful for the Holy Week we were able to have – thankful that our lives are changed because Jesus is Alive!

Hammurabi’s Code

Uncategorized

For history we’re using Susan Wise Bauer’s The Story of the World Vol 1. We recently ready about Hammurabi and the start Babylonian Empire. I combined our weekly art class with our history lesson and all created our own Law Codes.

   

I tried to provide an example modeled after Hammurabi’s Code….Isaiah used Bible verses.