1 Week

It's hard to imagine that in 7 days and 12 hours we will be in a plane over the Eastern US on our way to London and then ultimately to Mumbai. How do you pack for a 5 month visit? There are so many things I could take, but do we really need it all? The question is what do we need. The true answer is that outside of God we don't need anything. Sure, material things are great and all, but generally not necessary. So, I am trying to strike the balance between packing simply and packing in anticipation of a thousand different scenarios. I guess that's the mom in me. The biggest question for me is what do we bring for Josiah? I know that Jeneson and I can do without many things and can survive/thrive with very little and Lydia is only 3 months old, so outside of me and my breasts and a few toys what else does she need. Like I mentioned before, I am trying to gather some preschool curriculum materials and art supplies. That along with some familiar toys is going to take up one suitcase (good thing we are allowed 6 checked bags). I really need to start writing down some of the many lists that I have going in my head of things we need to do before the plane takes off.

CHRISTmas

What a peaceful Christmas morning. After a good night's sleep, I nursed our daughter in the peaceful silence of 5:30am and laid her back in her bed before reading the story of Jesus' birth. As I mentioned in my last post, we attended Christmas Eve service at church last night and I heard a beautiful song for the first time, Labor of Love by Andrew Peterson. (Link to a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjYi4tYvXu ) I cannot imagine how Mary was feeling that first year. Here was a teenage girl about to be married who suddenly finds herself pregnant. Then she has to travel to Bethlehem with her new husband while very pregnant. To top it all off, she goes into labor in a town she is unfamiliar with and her mother is not there with her (or any other relatives), no birth attendant or midwife. Does she know what to do? And what about the Jesus finally does arrive, will she get the hang of breast feeding? Who besides her husband can she lean and rely upon. (Hint: GOD) What a perfect set up for somebody to learn how to fully rely on GOD. If only we could have that same complete and total trust in and reliance upon GOD.

Josiah got to do something special for Jesus' birthday this morning, he ate cake for breakfast!! This is the kids who we usually don't let have refined sugar in this manner as he has enough energy already without exponentially increasing it. He was a little crazy today, but not too bad.

We topped the day off with a visit to my folks house and spent some time with them along with my sister and bro-in-law. It's crazy to think that we won't be seeing them for the next six months, at least not in person. This is the family that I would see on at least a monthly basis and talk with at least on a weekly basis. Thank God for technology and the information age; we got my Dad a webcam for Christmas and plan to Skype (if you've never heard of it, check it out at www.skype.com) each other on a regular basis. My head is starting to spin thinking of some of the changes that will be happening the next six months, so time to go pray and sleep.

CHRISTmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, we just returned from a lovely Christmas Eve service at church, watched a Christmas video and put both munchkins to bed. It is amazing that it is 9:30pm and both the kids are asleep and Jeneson and I are both awake. Usually by this time at least one of us is asleep on the couch. Jeneson and I have never been much into gift giving and even more so once we had kids. We want the focus for the season to be on the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, not on getting presents. Josiah does not even know who Santa is as we are teaching him that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth. How do you try to explain this to the rest of the world? Right now since Josiah is so young we just kind of brush off the 'what is Santa bringing you for Christmas?' question. Do we respond that we don't do the Santa thing or what?

Only 2 more weeks until we leave for India. With the weather lately, we have definitely been praying for good weather on Jan 7th. We have also been busy getting together with friends and family for one more time before we leave. I have been ambitious in trying to get some sort of preschool curriculum ready for Josiah for India. I am suspecting that we won't have much structure to our days, so I am trying to figure out some sort of routine for him. I found a great theme-based preschool curriculum book at the local teacher store and have spent the last 4 days, cutting out little objects, making copies, getting things laminated and making a list of craft supplies to try to get before leaving. This book is great with lots of detailed ideas and seeing as I am not all that imaginative I need the details. Now I just need to go over this stuff with the expert in the family, my sister the preschool/kindergarten teacher.

3 weeks and counting

Well, three weeks from now we will all be in India, pleasantly warm India. I have to say that I am looking forward to the warmer weather. After going through several snow storms and below zero windchills, 80 degree temps and warm breezes look awfully inviting. So,what does one do in the the last several weeks before leaving the country for 5 months? How about: caring for 2 children, rushing around to get an infant her passport, get an error on her birth certificate corrected, get a visa or two (for both Lydia & Jeneson), change banks, get wills and powers of attorney drawn up, try to donate a truck to charity, getting Lydia to finally take a bottle and try her out on formula, work on potty training a 2 year old, make multiple internal lists of what to pack for each of us, try to get together with many friends for a final time before we leave, explain to a 2 year old that we will soon be flying.... OK, I have to stop now because anxiety is starting to set in. In short, run around, lots of thinking and worrying.
That has been my struggle - worry. I am, by nature a planner and list maker and like to know not only what the next step will be, but also what the next 5 steps are. I am constantly reminding myself what Matthew 6:34 states: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." As always, God is right. I have plenty to worry about and be anxious about today, I don't need to weigh myself down with more details than necessary.
On a lighter note, things have been getting better with Lydia. She is no longer having 3 hour long crying sessions and is sleeping and eating well. Praise God! I was even able to get our Christmas letters/cards out today, so hopefully they will reach their intended addresses before Christmas.

World News

We are so American-centric here in the United States. The recent news coverage of the attacks in Mumbai just exemplified this notion. We don't have cable, therefore don't get CNN, FOX News, or the millions of other news channels, however, we were visiting my parents during those days. The Mumbai attacks were being constantly covered. My theory is that the reason for this is the targeting of Americans and Britons by the attackers. Where was the recent coverage on the regular (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks on the recent deaths of more than 400 people during clashes between Christians and Muslims after local elections in Jos, Nigeria? What about the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that has claimed over 500 lives? The mismanagement by Mugabe with astronomical inflation and almost half of the country needing emergency food aid is essentially not covered in the news. The only way I keep updated about international issues such as these (outside the internet) is BBC news on either the radio or PBS.

Our American-centricity starts out early. Our schools do a dismal job of teaching world history (the world includes more that the US and Europe) and geography (I dare you to find Nigeria or Zimbabwe on the map). I was not always so up on international news. I think having a husband who was born in India, helped to open my eyes. I realized that there is a bigger world outside of the United States and that I really know very little about it's history. I challenge everybody reading this blog to make a concerted effort to at least read some world news headlines from the internet everyday in order to broaden your 'world view.'

Yes, still going

This has been the response to the most frequent question that we have been asked the past several days, especially by my parents. We are scheduled to fly to Mumbai (Bombay) on January 7th for a 5 month visit with Jeneson's family. Given the recent events in Mumbai, my parents, rightly so, are concerned with our safety. There are a number of reason why we are still going.

First off, God is just as sovereign over there as he is right here in the good ole US of A. If you truly believe what you say you believe you have to step out in faith.

Also, we did not spend thousands of dollars and give notice to our jobs to have a dozen extremists ruin our visit with family. On a practical note, while it is the same city, where we will be staying will be almost a world away, not only in distance, but in surroundings. I gave this analogy to my Dad and it seemed to placate him. This will make sense to those familiar with Chicago, if not, Google map it. It would be like turmoil happening up on the north shore by Lincoln Park zoo and us living on the far southwest side by Midway airport. While, yes, they are both in the same city, more than distance differentiates the two.

While in Mumbai we will be staying in a calm, relatively poor neighborhood with no other Americans (at least not that I have seen in past visits), or Caucasians for that matter. Not exactly the high impact, high profile target it appears these men were after.

I am really more concerned with my sanity than safety while in India. What am I going to do with an active 2 year old and 3 month old infant in a small flat in the middle of Bombay?

India for 5 months!!

Yes, as the title indicates we will soon be travelling to India to visit family. We leave the beginning of January and return the end of May. This will be a great opportunity for Josiah and Lydia to get to know their grandparents. It will be great to be in India and while I am excited about the trip I am also a little nervous. It all sounds great and exotic on the surface until you start to look at the details.....like living with the in-laws in the middle of Bombay in a small 2 bedroom flat with an active 2 1/2 year old son and 3 month old infant.......................................
sorry - hyperventilating and having a slight panic attack!!

No really, it will be great, especially for Josiah. He is such a smart boy (just a little biased) and loves to talk, so I am looking forward to seeing how he picks up Hindi. There is also a daycare next to Dad's clinic and we are thinking of having him attend 2 days a week. This would be a great opportunity for him to play with other kids and pick up more of the language.

So, this means that Jeneson would have to quit work. He was quite anxious to talk to his boss about this last week, but God obviously was in control of the situation. His practice was quite understanding and offered to let him take a 6 month leave instead of quitting. This just continued to solidify the notion that this is the path that God wants us to take at this time.

What about the condo you ask? More about this next time!

Perspective

It is amazing how as a first time mother, you are greatly disturbed by any crying your child does. Along comes the second one and it is not as grating on your nerves. However, this is not so when your child is crying in distress. Lydia has been having great problems with intestinal gas that only flares up in the evening/night. Unfortunately over the counter and prescription medications are about as useful as water. It is so sad to see her little face contorted in discomfort and know that all that you are able to do is not enough to help her.

With this it seems that Lydia's pre-set bedtime is 1am. She just will not calm down and go to sleep before then. Which when she falls asleep at 1am, then gets up between 4 & 5am to eat again, and you have a 2 year old that reliably gets up between 6:30 & 7am, it just makes for a short night's sleep!!

I think that God blesses mothers with amnesia about part of the first couple of months. While I remember Josiah being fussy and having gas, I don't remember him having it this bad or with such a sleep schedule. I think this is God's method to keep the human race going generation after generation, because if not, society would be full of only children!

Jeneson has helped me put this into perspective and now I am hoping that she does not learn to sleep through the night. I can hear all the mothers out there crying out "WHAT!?!?" at this point. But there really is a rationale for this. We leave for India in January and they are about 11 hours ahead of us. So I may have some better nights sleep while we are still here, but then once we get over to India, she will completely have her days and nights mixed up! So for now, we are just going to go with her flow.

More on the India trip next...

Mission Conference

I know, I know, I have been very bad at keeping this thing updated.

This last weekend was great, Jeneson and I went to our annual medical mission conference down in Louisville, KY. I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in short or long term medical missions (https://www.medicalmissions.com/). We listened to some great speakers. And as always were inspired by all the work for Christ that people are carrying out through the world. One emphasis that we took away from the sessions is the importance of community health education and the different ways to go about that and more importantly how to incorporate evangelism into the education to tell other of Christ. Since, after all, that is the main goal of mission, to tell others of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

While we took Lydia (she did great during the day, not so much during the night), Josiah had a great time with Grandpa.They went to the library, sang, danced, and tried to rake leaves. While at the conference we were able to meet people from the mission organization that we have applied with to go over to Africa. The staff from Global Outreach Mission (http://www.missiongo.org/) were excited to see us and it was nice to put some faces to names. We personally handed them our formal application and are looking forward to hearing feedback from them. Our focus is on Africa and they have 2 hospitals in the Congo (NOT the Democratic Republic of Congo where all the conflict is) and a facility in Sierra Leone. At this point they would probably place us at one of the Congo hospitals. We will just have to see how the Lord orchestrates this.

This leads me to our plans for next year, but I will have to save that for another post and leave you in suspense because Lydia is hungry!

Stay at home mom

Well, I have been a full-time stay at home Mom for 4 weeks now. Not sure what to think of this new role, but I am getting used to it. Despite not working, I am still extremely busy with the two kids. A life saver is that Josiah is still going to daycare 2 days a week (Mondays & Thursdays) which allows me to catch up on some sleep, spend some great time with Lydia and run errands with only one child instead of two. Additionally, we are busy almost every other day of the week with music class, MOPS, and story time at the library.

We are still attempting to sell our condo and have had a couple of showings, but nothing after that. We are just resting in the comfort and praying that if God wants us to sell our condo He will bring the right buyer at the right time. And if He does not want us to sell, He will provide financially for both our mortgage and trip to India (I'll tell more about that in the next post). Hopefully, I'll also get some pictures posted soon of our great family.

It's a ....

GIRL!!!

We are starting out our blog with the great announcement that we are now the proud parents of a baby girl and Josiah is a proud big brother. Lydia Ann Abraham quickly came into the world at 3:59am on Monday, September 29th weighing in at 6# 8oz and 19 inches long. She apparently did not want to wait too long as Sandy ended up delivering in OB triage before Jeneson even had time to park the car and come up to the OB unit! We are all now quietly resting at home and enjoying getting to know our beautiful little girl.

There are sooo many things going on in our lives that we will go into in later posts, but here is a quick synopsis:
-new baby
-Sandy's now a stay-at-home Mom
-selling condo
-visiting India the beginning of the year