Christmas-time and birthdays

I think I was supposed to blog a while ago, but.... Life sometimes doesn't deem this as a top priority, though it should be a little higher on our list!

Christmas-time was fun, but busy.  We enjoyed a visit from my sister and her new fiance Thomas.  We missed having mom with us this year. We enjoyed ice skating, wedding dress shopping, sister day out, lots of time eating and cooking, and of course celebrating Christmas with Nate's family and with Gretchen and Thomas.    Oh, and did I mention planning a wedding for Finland for Christmas this year?  For those of you who aren't quite sure, but think maybe, just maybe that's a very far-off and COLD place, you would be correct.  It's where the arctic circle is, and the town they chose is considered to be Santa's hometown.  How about that?  It'll be dark there most of the time and COLD.  Did I mention it will be COLD???  I'm so excited though, for the adventure and for loving on my sister as she gets married - it's going to be something!

Gretchie and Thomas skating

Benson sledding with grandpa and cousin Annika

The first part of February, we got to celebrate our birthdays with Nate's family - we celebrated Nate's birthday, Dad's birthday, and my birthday all together.  Nate's sister is taking an online cake decorating class and she made the cutest cake for us (which was also delicious!).  We were spoiled with many wonderful cards and gifts.  One of the things I asked for was a "how to" book on crocheting.  I am making some baby blankets - in new designs and it's fun!  We also asked for money towards a weekend away at a marriage conference.  My sister had given us tickets to a hockey game for date night. It was only the third game I'd ever been to and there was a LONG fight between two players. It kinda freaked me out, but the game was fun and it's cool to learn about a game I don't know much about.

This past weekend we went on our first extended time away since Benson was born!  We attended the Weekend to Remember conference in Hershey, PA.  There wasn't a whole lot that felt like lightbulbs going off in our heads, but there were many instances where we were so glad to be reminded of how blessed we are to be married to one another.  The one speaker was so stinkin' funny I actually thought I might birth this little girl right there in the conference hall.  Seriously, so ridiculously funny. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard!  As the different sessions were conducted, I continuously felt so grateful for the man God has blessed me with as a husband.  And blessed that our children get to grow up with him as their Dad.  He's pretty awesome if I do say so myself!

We are feeling so incredibly blessed by God right now.  That's not to say things haven't been tough lately.  Life has definitely been throwing some curve-balls at us, but it's been amazing to walk together and see God's grace in all of it.  I can boldly say I think we're learning and growing!  It's been a month of God answering prayers before we knew they needed to be answered and seeing His provision in the big things and little things.  We are so grateful for the chance to continue to step out as a couple and family even more.  I've been so proud to watch Nate in the past weeks step out more as a leader, encourager, and even as a pastor at his job. If you feel like I'm being vague, I am :)  I'm sure we'll have some updates for you in the future.

A few weeks ago I began co-leading a women's life group/care group through our church with an awesome gal named Julie. I feel so blessed to be leading with her, she's someone I've respected from afar for many years.  And I LOVE our group of ladies!  I couldn't have asked for a better group to journey with - what a joy!  I'm still teaching Sunday School for 5-6 grade girls every other week, but will be stepping back from that responsibility as we prepare for the birth of our little girl (less than seven weeks from now!).

For those who support the ministry of Global Disciples and me, you are probably wondering what my plan is after our little girl is born.  I plan to continue working at Global Disciples as the Grant Manager - which means I'll cut back some on my responsibilities, but will continue to track and manage grants, etc. for the almost 250 programs we now work with.  Tefera, Galen, and some others are traveling right now in Ethiopia for the meetings - they have already been to India, Ind-nesia, N-pal, Zambia, Uganda, and Kenya in the past couple of months.  It's a little strange not being there, but there are aspects of the travel I don't miss (ie parasites).

Last weekend, my coworker Crystal and I co-led a seminar and discussion time at Missions Fest Lancaster.  It turned out to be a pretty good time of conversation about unique and inventive ideas on missions. Hopefully the participants went away asking God for creative ways to reach the unreached.

I'm so grateful for all who pray for us and support us in this ministry. I'm so grateful, too, to be able to continue to partner with God in the nations even with the responsibilities of being a wife and mom.  We were laughing yesterday at work that with this cut in hours, I'll be making full support for the first time!  Thank you for continuing to pray and bless the ministry God has called us to!

I'll update soon with a post about growing Baby Benson and our little girl :)

Much love to all of you - we are so grateful for you in our lives.

Jenny (for the rest of the crew)

I leave you with this parting shot of Benson with his cutie-pie buddy Owie.  (and his little sister in mommy's cute tummy - seriously, is my friend not the most adorable pregnant woman???)

Hello? Hello? We're stil alive! Just haven't posted in a while :)

Hi everyone!  It's been a LONG time... A really long time!  So to space things out, I think I'll break the past almost two months up into multiple posts!

I guess this post will be everything between my last post and Christmas and then I'll go from Christmas forward.  Ha.

Thanksgiving weekend was super busy and super fun this year! 

Thanksgiving this year was a little different in that we celebrated with a small number of Nate's family.  Nate's parents were on a prayer trip to Israel and his brother's family was elsewhere for the day.  It was a little laid back with only five adults and three kiddos.  We had some different foods (fun!) and also some traditional ones, just to be safe :) 

A couple days after Thanksgiving, we hung out with the Sandersons and Weavers at Nate's mom and dad's farm.  We ate leftovers and tried not to blow away in the freezing wind.  The kiddos rode horses, some of them for the first time!  We were so proud of them!

We also got our Christmas tree at a local tree farm where you can ride a horse and wagon to the lot and cut your own down.  It's expensive to do that, so we just opted for a pre-cut one, but it was still fun!  They had a petting zoo and I think Benson would have stayed there all day talking to the animals :)

One of the highlights of my (Jenny) fall was to go to NYC to visit my mentor from Colorado and her family who were in the area visiting some family.  Nate gave me the blessing to go and took a vacation day off work so I could make the trip - what a gift!  Nate's little sis Ang went with me and it was SO GREAT to be in their presence, if only for a few hours. I haven't seen Wendy's husband or children for 5 1/2 years and that was a delight to my heart, too!  They spoiled us with a fabulous lunch and such great conversation.  It was worth the drive, and I left feeling so blessed and refreshed (surprisingly not as exhausted as I thought I'd be).  The time with Ang was also a blessing - I don't think we've ever spent that much time one on one!

Ang, Wendy, and Jenny - FAO Schwartz, NYC (photo credit to Wendy)

Nate surprised me with a cooking class in the area in mid-December.  Cooking is a passion of mine and I love learning more about it.  The teacher is the owner of one of the top 200 restaurants in the country and it was fun to learn from him.  He taught using methods everyone could use and used only ingredients from local stores, so the recipes are possible to re-create.  The class size was up to 18 and I was praying for less, so it would be more one on one, and when I got there, there were only two of us!  I learned all sorts of fun things and some recipes we've already used here at home - delicious!

Benson's a busy boy these days.  Very, very busy.  Like, leaves my head spinning sometimes, but is SO MUCH FUN!  We love watching him grow and develop and change right before our very eyes.  He's such a precious little guy.  I think I can officially say this is my favorite age so far (well, minus the whole temper tantrums business, but that's part of learning and growing, eh?).  His favorite thing to do is run holding on to daddy's hands sliding across the floors, reading his books, playing with his blocks, throwing balls, and being outside and interacting with people.  Right at the moment he is crying pretty hard because daddy needs a break from the running wildly.  Ha.

On the work front, Nate's company moved to their new, six acre property with offices and warehouse.  It's a beautiful building and with it, he got a promotion, so he's still the Project Logistic Coordinator, but he's now also the Facility Manager.  It's more work, but work he enjoys - he gets to be outside more and do some manual labor, too!

Work for me continues to move along at a busy pace, currently we're getting ready to send the guys to the Annual Meetings.  I can honestly say I'm only a little bit sad not to go - isn't is so cool when God calls you on to different things. I still remain as committed as ever though, just in a different sense.  I wondered if I'd be able to keep the passion for my job not being able to see the precious brothers and sisters from around the world, but it hasn't changed that calling and passion at all and I'm so grateful!  We are now working with 246 discipleship mission programs - can you believe it??? It's amazing.  I'm so blessed to be able to continue to serve God there and here at home :)

By far, the most exciting news of the fall was finding out God has blessed us with a baby GIRL.  We are excited to meet her in mid-April!  It will be a change of pace for us going from a house with a very active toddler boy to a house with a toddler boy and a sweet little girl, but we are excited for her to join us :)  Naming her is proving to be a bit more difficult than naming Benson, because no one is telling us to name her after them. Ha.  We're narrowing it down, though :)

Second most exciting news leading up to Christmas was finding out my sister is engaged!  She and Thomas got engaged on a safari in Kenya during sunset - they plan to get married in Finland, so we'll be traveling there for Christmas 2011 :)  Fun!!!!

I'll be back soon with a Christmas/New Year's post and plans for our year!  God is so good and we are so grateful!!!

With love,

Nate, Jenny, Benson, and Baby Girl

My cup overflows

Have you ever just sat down and thought about how much you love people?  Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, maybe it's a bunch of other stuff happening in my life, or maybe it's just a good dose of God lovingly showing me how blessed I am. 

Nate's a wonderful husband - I like what he stands for, how he cares for us, and how much we've grown together in a short time.  He's a great mix of strength and compassion.  I often think of how blessed I am and how glad I am I ended up with him over any other person in the world.

Benson's 15 month birthday was yesterday and for some reason, I spent the day in awe that God would let me parent such an incredible little person.  He has his moments where he pushes boundaries, tests the limits, etc. but for the most part, he is just a really incredible kid.  I like him.  I love him.  I'm SO stinkin' glad he's our son.  I often think of his life and how fortunate we are and what a privilege it is to have children and to be parents.

I'm getting more and more excited to meet our new little one, too. I am excited to see who he/she is and for our family to grow in love and grace together.  We get to hopefully find out the gender on December 1.  Yippee!!!!  So far, from our pool of April preggo ladies, one is having a girl, one is having a boy and two of us don't know yet.  It's really so much fun to be pregnant together!

I could go on and on at how blessed I feel by family, friends, coworkers, even strangers.  But I'll stop by saying that I know Who these blessings come from and I'm so grateful!

*for some reason, I can't upload more pics to this blog.  I'll try more later. I must go get ready for a girls trip to DC :) :) :)

Walkin' in the Woods

Please try your very hardest to ignore my "cheering" Benson on... Yikes.

He's in the business

We've been going through some crazy stuff lately in our lives.  Hard, good, intense, thought-provoking, praying sort of stuff.  And it's been good.

God has been so faithful and just today as I was driving to a friend's house to pray, I sensed God saying to me:  "I'm in the business of producing fruit".  I love that.  This season is not without fruit and harvest and blessing and glory to God.  That makes me happy :)

And, because you all want to see some cute pics of B, here goes :)

Taking each step unto the One who created them...

I will tell you of a pretty cool journey we've been on in this home of ours...

I'm used to facing some judgement, some comments and "advice" due to the profession or calling I've chosen to pursue, or rather that has pursued me :)  At times, it has felt like a lonely place, like no one "gets it".  But I know people do, and I know God does.  God has been SO FAITHFUL to us over the years - first me as a single gal and now to us as a couple.  For a number of months, we have known we can't "make it" on what Nate makes and knowing some supporters have backed out of giving to my support (which is fine, God is our provider) made this realization well, a little more real.  Before the story below occurred, we both felt prompted that I should continue working (probably fewer hours) after our second child is born. I know, more comments and advice and judgement.  I can't help what God is asking me to do - I'm just going to OBEY.

Nate went to his employer (a ministry - non-profit) a number of weeks ago to ask for a raise and was told that everyone needs to sacrifice to work there.  That statement made me angry and made me laugh (after I got over the anger).  For anyone who knows us, sacrifice isn't something we are afraid of.  But there's a difference between sacrifice and being able to make it.   One question I had, though, was can we make it on less?  Maybe we can.  I am often convicted about what we "make it on" and what most of the world survives on.  By the world's standards, though we are not rich in America's standards, we are RICH.  Very, very, ridiculously rich. Maybe this is less about God giving us what we think we need to survive and more about us learning His sufficiency even more.  Seems crazy to me, since I think that's how I've been living for 5.5 years... But I do think we all have more to learn in this area. 

Since that time, we have had many people tell us (out of love) that we should move on, Nate should find a different job, even something he doesn't like doing, so he can provide better for our family. (and I've had those same thoughts) Do we have peace about this idea?  No, not at all.  We keep sensing God telling us to trust Him and to be faithful, even when it's hard.  To trust Him to provide for us (does this mean we will make an idol out of our callings?  I hope not!).  Does this mean it will be a tough road ahead?  Probably.  We squeak by as it is and to think about adding one more child to the mix makes that seem more daunting.  But I'm sure hopeful I'll learn even more in this season.  The reality is, God hasn't shown us a different path, a different way, so all we can assume is that THIS IS IT.  This is where we need to be.

Nate traveled a couple of weeks ago and it was one of the worst trips for me yet.  You'd think after 2.5 years of this, I'd be a pro at seeing him go but I'm not.  After struggling with fear, MANY tears, and wondering what in the world had gotten into me, I was able to let go of any bitterness and anger at those who think we need to sacrifice more, to just deal with it, etc.  I realized I could not joyfully release Nate because I was mad at people he works with. But really, I think I was mad at God. I have to whisper that, because you CAN'T BE MAD AT GOD!!!  Just kidding.  You can be, but I think it's a pretty futile task.  Don't you?  I was mad that sending your husband away 15% of the year isn't sacrifice enough, that not being able to do anything fun isn't sacrifice enough, and on and on I whined... Oh, man.  It was UGLY.

I am reminded of something I prayed for YEARS and stopped - perhaps I should start again - that God would make me sweet for Him.  Sweet to His plans, His ways, to be a blessing to Him and His people, even when I don't want to be.  I was reminded of that again last week, how I want to be sweet (not fake, but just a pleasure for Him).

I have heard many times from many places that "if God's in it, there will be more than enough money".  I don't know about that.  I think if God's in it, there will be peace and joy REGARDLES OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES.  I would hope if we ever do make more than enough, we will spend our lives giving that away, not living on much more than we make now, because really, we want our lives (and feel called) to be ones of giving and loving, not of having.  I am not opposed to people having things - nice things, many things. I believe we are all called to different things and to different spheres of influence. 

God has blessed Nate and I to be able to work in jobs we love, are passionate about (not a word used lightly here), for less than we could be making, but with what we believe is an eternal blessing (not because our salvation is works based, though!), and we hope our ministries are richer because of the gifts and talents God's given us to share.  We believe God has called us to these roles and walking away right now would be weakness. I believe He's looking for, searching for, and hopefully will find in us, is people who are faithful and not weak, but very strong in Him.

Does this mean we'll be where we are forever?  I don't know.  God does, though, and I can REST in that fact. I can rest knowing He holds the plan and hope for our future.  If He calls us to stay, I pray we're faithful. If He calls us on, I hope we're faithful.  It's exciting, isn't it? Living unto Him who makes it all worth it. 

Our lives aren't full of ease and glamour and fun, but they are filled with faith and blessings - will I be upset if God gives us more? Probably not.  Will I be upset if He doesn't?  I sure hope not.  Character, God. I want you to find that in us.

Can you please pray for us?  Pray that God would make our path very clear - whatever that is - and that we would have the strength to carry on, even when it's tough?  Right now, we are sensing very clearly to stay the course, to obey the last call, but with open arms to anything else He may call us to.  You just never know.  He has all sorts of fun in store, doesn't He?

Hopefully taking each step unto the One who created our steps... 

Jenny (for the fam)

Hooverlet #2

Is on its precious way.

Expected arrival date:
April 17, 2011

Along with a very close friend's #4.  We have the same due date - how fun is that???