OKAY FINE!

Growing!, originally uploaded by russandval.

By popular demand, a picture of an increasingly pregnant Val.

Celebration

I got to go to church today!

When I think of all the times growing up I said, "Do I have to go to church today?", I wish that my current self could travel back in time and slap my past self upside the head.

It was so nice to get to see everyone and worship with them. The baby got excited when I started singing. I guess it probably feels pretty weird to him. Everyone was excited to see me--I didn't keep count of how many times people touched my tummy but it was a lot. But if you're telling me how gorgeous I look pregnant or how young I look, you can touch my tummy as many times as you want!

It was a weird day at church, though. Travis and Alicia left this morning for furlough (after a crazy 24 hour move!) and Matt and Mary Virginia were on the way home, so it was just us and the Porters. We managed fairly well (I say "we" but the burden really fell to Russ and Randy, especially with the setup and take down) and it was a good reminder that it's not by our strength and ability that we get anything done.

After lunch, we headed back to the church for English class. I've been looking forward to returning to my class but today Fabio, a guy that Russ has been studying with, came to help out. He's an English teacher and offered to come help out sometimes. So Fabio taught, Russ assisted, and I visited: first with some of the girls from church who were still hanging out at the church and then with the intermediate class, who were teacherless today but were conversing in English. We sat and did our best to solve the world's problems but we never could agree whether socialism or capitalism was the answer. Oh well, maybe next time.

I'm so thankful to be back in the swing of church life!

He Has Set the Captives Free!

Yesterday we went for our monthly doctor visit. The baby is doing well, growing nicely (a fact that is obvious to anyone who sees me!). The most exciting thing was that we found out that all my previous problems have now healed and I am free to resume "normal" life. After eight weeks of hiding I finally get to leave the house whenever I want! Thanks to everyone who went to the Father on our behalf in the past few weeks. We had some terrifying moments but He saw us through. Of course, we ask for your continued prayers for a healthy pregnancy from here on out.

Someone asked yesterday what I will do with my newfound freedom. It's honestly going to be hard to not overdo it (especially since my stamina is pretty low at this point!). Looming large is our citywide women's conference which we are hosting in about a month. It's starting to all come together but it's going to take some running around to make it happen! Also, Travis and Alicia are leaving this Sunday for their furlough--their first! (And they insist on taking Ceara with them, no matter how much we object!) They're going to be gone for over three months so it's going to be a lot of work for those of us who have been left behind. (At one point in the not-to-distant future, the Maberys will also head out on furlough, so everything will be left to us and the Porters, or should I say Randy and Russ and the two preggos! That will be even more interesting!) We're also looking forward to another visitor season starting for our family, beginning with Russ' parents in about a month. We can't wait to see them and spend more time with them. I'm making big plans for our time together (okay, so some of them involve painting the nursery!) and I'm looking forward to us getting to sit down to Thanksgiving as a family!

Six

I used to not get what was the big deal about shut-ins. They were always on the prayer list at church and many of them had been there for longer than I could remember. But since they weren't in the hospital, in some seriously ill state, I didn't understand why we needed to keep them in our prayers, at least not week after week. I mean, their condition hadn't changed recently and probably wasn't going to any time soon.

Then I became a temporary shut-in. Today I'm missing my sixth worship service. It gets progressively harder to be away from my church family. I feel more and more removed from regular church life and the lives of our members. And, though I have no evidence to back it up, I feel more and more forgotten. Oh, Russ comes in every week and tells me that they prayed for me and that everyone sends their best but with every day that passes that I don't actually get to be plugged into the people sending these messages, their warm thoughts have less and less meaning.

I try to come up with ways to make my Sunday morning special. I have praise music to listen to and endless podcasts of sermons. But they don't take the place of actual fellowship. The best Sunday I have had so far was when a dear teammate came and sat with me all morning instead of going to church. It was one of the most meaningful gestures I have experienced recently. We didn't do anything special that morning, but it was so nice to have someone with me at a time that I knew everyone else was together.

I think of how much that meant to me and I remember that I have only missed six weeks of church. Six weeks isn't all that much. There are many people on most shut-in lists that have been there for six years! It leaves me wondering what we can do to help our brothers and sisters who can't be with the rest of the body. These days, it's very easy for a shut-in to be able to listen to the worship service from their home. While it is certainly a blessing to have your soul fed in that way, it doesn't take the place of community. Gathering together is what church is supposed to be about, not just transmission of information.

I wish I had answers for how to help shut-ins. My experiences to date have been limited and I have the added blessing of knowing that my situation is only temporary. And in a fledgling church like ours, we don't even have any shut-ins yet (except for me!) But most churches do and my heart goes out to them today whether they are missing their sixth, sixteenth or sixtieth Sunday.

Countin' Flowers on the Wall

Yesterday I went back to the doctor. My body is slowly doing what it's supposed to do but it looks like I'll have another 2-4 weeks of bedrest. As you can imagine, I wasn't too thrilled to hear that but I'm glad to do what it takes to have a healthy baby.

And it is a healthy baby--the growth since our last ultrasound was unbelievable.

So yesterday was a good day. I've learned an important lesson, though, about allowing thoughts and worries to take me captive. I should be the one controlling negative thoughts and, in all my free time, I had started letting them control me. But now I've got renewed focus and am feeling very upbeat about it all.

Thanks to everyone for your continued prayers!

Just Chillin'

Well, I'm still on bedrest and will be here until at least Monday, when I return to the doctor. It's been two weeks since my last ultrasound and honestly I'm having a hard time keeping my spirits up. (There is a new rule at our house though--no google-ing medical problems and symptoms. It just gets me too freaked out!) Poor Russ (or should I say Saint Russ) has been doing an excellent job of taking care of me. We appreciate all of your prayers and ask you guys to keep it up!

Hopefully I'll be blogging more now, since our wireless connection was finally fixed. (That's right--I've been without internet this whole time! Didn't think it was possible!)

Update

Well, the last week has been very interesting. And yet it's been absolutely boring. I've been having some complications and ended up spending Saturday night in the hospital and then returning on Tuesday. We got home this afternoon. I'll be on bedrest for at least the next two weeks.

I'll spare the general public the details (but I'll be happy to email you if you really want to know). But be reassured that the baby and I are fine. My hospital stay was just for observation.

So it's been a rough week but I have come through it feeling so grateful to God for his goodness, kindness and mercy, and almost as grateful to Russ, who truly showed his love and partnership!

Must Read Post of the Year!

In my head, I've started writing this post many times. But now that it's time to write it, I've lost all cleverness. So I'll just come out and say it: I'm pregnant. (I'm pausing while you squeal!) I'm 14 weeks along, so that puts me into my second trimester (time flies!) I'm due on Feb. 22.

So there's a big part of the reason this blog has been so quiet lately. The biggest thing going on in my life was something that I wasn't quite ready to share. But now you know! And you can be excited along with us!

Introducing...

 
...Aubry Nicole Mabery, or Bree as she will be known. She was born in the very last minutes of Sunday night (which was kind of cool because it was Father's Day here!)


 
Here's the happy family (minus Nalah the dog but they don't allow her in the hospital!)

EDIT: For those of you in the Mabery-Sirmon fan club, there are more pictures of Aubry if you click HERE. Or include your email address in your comments and I can send you some more pictures (we took quite a few today!).

Still Nope

We still don't have electricity at the building so we had another dark Sunday. It was our farwell Sunday for the interns, which we celebrated with a special children's program and ice cream. (Very nice after sitting in the heat!) The week was spent (not by me, fortunately) in rather strong talks between the electric company and our building owners about who will be paying for the repairs. Thankfully the couple that owns our building are an electrical engineer and a lawyer so they were able to take on the battle. Everything seems to be resolved now and work should start tomorrow.

And the Mabery baby (affectionately known as "Babery") still hasn't arrived. We're all on pins and needles and think it will be really soon. Any time the phone rings at an odd time we get all excited. One of these times it will be "the call" and we'll have a new teammate!

I must just be out of the habit of blogging. My lack of posting certainly hasn't been because there hasn't been anything going on because there's always something going on. But until I get back in the swing of things, I'll try to just give you little posts more frequently.

Yesterday was an interesting day. As Russ explained, we are currently having "technical difficulties" at church. So yesterday's worship was low-tech. We printed up song sheets and set up the chairs in the corner of our main room right beside the doors. (We thought about meeting in the lobby but it was just too hot!) We had a flashlight available for taking to the bathroom. Alicia and I kept the kids in the center of the room the whole time. I think it was too hot for them to sit and focus. So instead we colored and made fans. I asked one of the little boys to give the fan that he had made to "someone older", thinking he would take it to at least one of our middle aged people, if not someone elderly, to help with the heat. But Jean had his own idea and he gave it to Heather, the intern! (Sorry, Heather, I forgot to tell you that yesterday!)

We hope that we will have power by next Sunday but we're really not sure. I feel a little bad for Heather and Laura since this is their last week with us. I guess, though, that this is a pretty realistic way to end an internship. Sometimes life is like this and you have to make do in less than ideal circumstances!

An Exceptional Week

Many things have happend to us as the winter season ended, and August began. We have taught dozens of English students, and my private classes are going well. I was teaching early Thursday morning, when the electricity was restored with a bang. I ran outside to see a shower of white sparks coming from our meter on the front of the building. As the employees from the neighboring store ran outside, I unloaded the fire extinguisher into the wall. The flames caused the meter to explode and then melt onto the ground. Nothing entered the building, and I was glad to see a city employee disconnect the main line from the transformer a minute later. He had been working less than 50 feet away on a side street.

Our problems continued that afternoon when the city company came and tried to connect the power directly to the circuit board. This caused the power strip for our sound board to catch on fire, and every light in the kitchen blew out at once. Now we have cancelled a membership class, youth gathering, and potluck this Sunday because of the power problem. We hope the situation will improve on Monday. We ask for your prayers; it is possible that our insurance policy might help (also the persistence of the building owners- a tough lawyer and her husband, an electrical engineer). We could not make one step forward without God's care. Have a great weekend; we won't give up! The high to balance out the low was Tuesday afternoon, when I took my new car and carried 15 kids to a VBS taught by Heather and Laura. It was an awesome day. Peace, and we love you bunches.

See?

Stormy, originally uploaded by russandval.

I just wanted to take a minute to show everyone that the weather isn't always perfect here. Okay, sure, this is one of a handful of days that was like this but still--we'd had plans to spend the day outside! The weather didn't stop us, though, and we had a great day up at Praia do Forte with the intern crew, the Sasses, the Maberys and Mary's parents.

(That's right, folks--Mary's mom and dad have arrived. Baby Watch 2007 has begun. My guess at the due date was several days ago but Russell's is the latest so maybe he'll win!)

R & R!

 
Lately it seems like everything is taking two weeks to actually happen. For example, after two weeks of rescheduling meetings, Mary Virginia and I finally met on Thursday to go over some stuff. (She is quite anxious to get all her ducks in a row at this point...that kid could show up at any second, though rumor has it that she may have a few weeks left!) The other big thing that kept getting moved was a day at the beach with Travis and Alicia. On Friday we loaded up the car, headed up north of town and spent a day lounging under the palm trees. (See, Stacey? We celebrated your birthday without you!) It was great to have the car so we could go to beaches that the buses can't get us to and also so we could lug Travis' barbecue. We brought chicken and steaks and a great supply of vegetables. Later Russ bought some shrimp from some vendors that came by. There wasn't a speck of food left when we were done. (We had help, though: we shared our food with several people who stopped to ask us for money.) It was the first day that we'd spent at the beach since we got back from furlough and we left swearing that it wouldn't be that long until we went again. I guess that considering the way things have been going lately we should go ahead and schedule it for two weeks from now--then we could go in a month or so!

New Life

I am well aware that I've been a total slacker since we got back from furlough. It's hard to believe that it's only been a few weeks! The truth is, I've only been a slacker with respect to blogging. So for those of you who frantically check this blog each morning or evening to see if I've updated, I'm sorry. (And may I recommend an RSS reader to simplify your life?)

But there has been a lot going on here. The "kids" left on Monday and we've been recovering from their stay. (Also, I've been recovering from a stomach bug that showed up right after we got home from taking them to the airport!) I've been trying to get all the pictures on Flickr (online photo albums--just click the word Flickr to get to our pictures). But here are a few pictures that I wanted to share with you:

 

Meet Clerlhan (don't worry, we can't really pronounce it either!). She is one of our LST students and had been studying with Kathryn, from Auburn.

 

We were so excited to welcome her into the family of Christ! It was an interesting baptism--the first time Russ had done one in the ocean (not to mention the fact that it was pitch black!)--and with the combination of members, LST students and the Auburn kids it was a bilingual event.

Clerlhan's family is spiritist so they are really not happy with her decision. Keep her in your prayers as she begins this new walk.

 

And then there's Whitney! Whitney was part of the campaign from Auburn. She had never been baptized but after spending a lot of time in the Word, she came to the conclusion that this was what God wanted for her.

 

Her baptism was in the ocean, too, but in the afternoon so the pictures are much better. We were excited to get to share this special moment with Whitney!

More updates to come!

Waiting for Normal

I'm home alone. I think it's the third time I've been home alone since we got back from furlough (over a month ago). While many of you who know me may know that at times, being alone is torture for me, I've started to really enjoy it. Before we left on furlough, there were many days that were just me and Sam. But since we've been back and have had "the kids" at our house there just haven't been many of those alone times.

I keep waiting for life to get back to normal. This is probably a lesson that those of you who are 50 or 40 or even who have actually crossed over to the big 3-0 have already learned but it's new to me. I don't think normal is coming.

I spent the last part of furlough eager to get back to normal life. I got back home to the chaos of the Auburn campaign and helping the Parkers move and looked forward to everything calming down. Now I'm looking forward to Monday, when the dear, sweet "kids" will no longer be in my home.

But today I realized that after that, we'll still have the interns here. And in a month (or less, as I have predicted), Matt and Mary Virginia will have their baby. Not too long after that, other people will head out on furlough. And...and...and...

I don't think normal is coming.

So I'm trying to figure out how to make peace with today, just how it is, and how to find peace in days that are absolutely insane. Even if I can't get my quiet time, I can be quieted. That's a challenge, especially for someone for whom quiet doesn't come easily. But if I keep waiting for normal, I'll be waiting forever and I'll miss out on all kinds of great days that weren't normal but were wonderful nonetheless.

It's been a good week...

Sunday was spectacular, not counting those we miss sharing the work with. We had a great praise service, then Val prepared a huge lunch and taught 26 women about fasting. The English class taught by Travis and Matt was even more packed that afternoon. We have enjoyed thrilling soccer games (we won 4-1), and long days regrouping after the Parkers decided to go. Today begain with an hour of body boarding at high tide. It was even better than it sounds!

Running with the dog, cycling to the lighthouse or laughing with a student over ping pong- it all makes the days more fun. We miss our friends, but our saddest times are for the hugs we cannot send over email. Please send big hugs our way, because we need them. We loved all the laughs we shared back in the States, and now we want to keep sharing how we feel. There is lots of work in the coming months, and we accept it gladly. Keep on truckin!

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Today life went on. I got up and went into the building for a devo with the team and the Auburn crew. I spent a couple of hours sorting through some boxes of stuff that the Parkers left. I went for my weekly mentoring time with the interns. I took Caitlin (one of my "daughters") for a manicure and ended up getting a haircut. (A dangerous decision--emotional haircutting--but I had been wanting a bit of a change anyway and it really is a small change!) I watched one of the Auburn girls get baptized in the ocean. I taught my English class. In between it all, I worked on my class for this Sunday. A busy day. But just the kind of day I needed to realize that life really will (and needs to) go on. What I am doing here is important and I love my job. Sure, I wish that some of my favorite people were still here doing it with me, but it's all still okay without them.

I'm okay. I really am. Just a little sad right now. I just don't want you guys to worry too much!

Today was the day I have been dreading. We said goodbye to the Parkers a couple of hours ago. I really don't have many words to describe how I am feeling right now. It hurts. A lot. We've had to say a lot of goodbyes in our lives, especially in the past couple of years but this one is unparalleled. Saying goodbye to them also means saying goodbye to the dreams we shared with them and what we thought our lives here would be like for at least five years. But we did have two great years with them and are so grateful to have shared any part of this journey with them. I'm going to wrap this up since I've started the waterworks again but I just wanted to share so you guys could be praying for them as they travel and get re-settled and for us as we try to figure out what our new life looks like.