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?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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.
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!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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...
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...
Monday, November 17, 2008
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!
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!
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