My Missionary Baby July 28, 2014

Ellie was born a missionary. She learned to walk a balance of learning two cultures at the same time. We would have a modified American culture in our home and then expected Ellie to learn and operate like a Thai child would interact when we went out of our home and around Bangkok. When we moved to America, Ellie only had to deal with one culture. We don’t hold her to Thai standards but only American ones now.

On our team to Thailand, one of our church’s summer interns is from Life Pacific College. She has also been living with us this summer and loves playing with Ellie. She is an observer by nature and notices many things people often overlook. One day, as we were telling story after story of Ellie to our friends (as she stayed home with my mom), this team member remarked that after being in Bangkok, she understands Ellie much better now. Wanting to know how, I waited for a quiet moment when we could talk and then asked for clarification.

(As described by our church intern) Ellie is outgoing and very playful in small groups or one on one. When she gets into large groups or meetings, she tends to hang by the side and play quietly or sit quietly next to us. This is not normal for American kids and she wondered if Ellie was just shy or we had wanted Ellie to do that. And then on Saturday two slum community kids (3 and 4 years old) hung around the English camp for university students while all the older kids went to a meeting. They colored quietly on the floor while Andy shared the gospel story at the camp. Then we went on a bike rally at a park and the children played happily in the dirt off to the side of our meetings and games. (Ellie would have loved to play with them in the dirt…)

On Sunday, there were two kids from the church (around 5 years old) that quietly played during the service and meetings. You would barely know that the kids were in the room as they have learned to always stay off to the side or quiet. When you do hear them briefly though, no one minds as they don’t tend to try to grab all the attention. They might from their mom, but not from everyone else. This is how Ellie acts in large groups. Apparently her Thai beginnings continue to live on.

It was interesting hearing this from our team member. I’m often surprised when I realize how pervasive Thai culture is imbedded in Ellie. Yes, she was born in Thailand and spent the first two years living there, but we moved to America over a year ago. And yet still, there are ways she acts more Thai than American.

School Age at 3!?! July 18, 2014

Andy and I have been in Thailand for the last 10 days on a mission trip from our church. We came to partner with our old church, Our Home Chapel. They invited our team to come help them with an English camp. The goal of the camp was to invite university students in and then build lasting relationships with them that would lead them to seeing Jesus Christ lived out and want to have a relationship with him as well. Our team was the catalyst to seeing that happen once again in the church. With this goal and task before us, we had to make the difficult decision to leave Ellie behind in America with my mom. We knew that Ellie would love to visit and everyone would want to see Ellie, but it would be hard for me to lead a team, join in all the ministry, and care for Ellie. That, combined with expenses, and we left Ellie home.

Everyone in Thailand was excited when we saw them. When they realized that Our daughter didn’t come, they were a little sad…well, some were very sad. They wanted to see how she has grown and enjoy her cuteness, her personality. To many, she was part of their “family,” one of their nieces that ran around and charmed everyone who would play with her. We told lots of stories of Ellie. Stories of her continuing Thai-ness, how she loves to sleep on the floor next to our bed, her beginning understanding of walking with God, and on and on. Our friends ate it up.

What no one could quite wrap their mind around was why we didn’t bring Ellie. They understood the money issue, but the ministry aspects confused them as Ellie always joined us in ministry while in Bangkok. That is true, but they forget the early nights when Andy or I would take Ellie home for bed, or the times when I would take breaks for quiet times with Ellie during busy teams. With us only in the country 10 days, we didn’t want to miss any opportunity to pour into the church.

The first thing everyone asked when they found out Ellie was not in Bangkok was, “she’s 3 now, right?” You see, 3 is the age when kids start school in Thailand. School is in session right now, so Ellie must be in school, and that is why she couldn’t come with us. She had to stay home to go to school. I just nodded my head that Ellie was 3 and left the rest up to their imagination… Others asked if Ellie was in school now and I simply replied that I homeschool her. They were rather worried about Ellie’s education until I reminded them that I have a background in teaching. Then everything was good in their mind.

Even after living in Thailand for 6 years, it baffles me how concerned people are for their children’s education that their children need to start at the age of 3. I believe that it is so young. Children need time to play, explore and be curious about the world before formal learning begins. Ellie and I play together, explore things together, read together, and so much more that is fun. I hope that Ellie can catch a desire to learn about the world and that learning can be fun. That is how I “homeschool” Ellie. We don’t have formal lessons but informal ones and mini lessons about numbers, counting, and letters. My “school age” child loves to learn about her world but doesn’t need any formal training yet.

The Why July 8, 2014

Andy and I have just left for a 12 day mission trip to Bangkok. Ellie is staying home with my mom. She has only made peace with this fact yesterday as she really wanted to come with us. I wanted to share one quick story from the previous week as our trip begins. (It is amazing how much one can get done on those long plane flights without a toddler in tow…)

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Everyone warns you about this stage. The why stage. The constant barrage of questions trying to understand how the world works. I don’t mind the incessant question of why most of the time. It is fun introducing Ellie to new ideas and basic concepts. We have been talking about tides recently as we walk along the beach and Ellie notices that the water is sometimes much closer or farther away from our trail. Her eyes grow big as she tries to wrap her mind around the fact that the moon in the sky effects the ocean. Those are the fun why questions.

But then there are other times that the why questions are tiring and impossible to answer. They usually start out innocently enough: “Why is there a foot rest on the rocking horse thingy at the park?” If my answer doesn’t make sense or I didn’t explain it satisfactory, Ellie will simply ask me the same question again. I usually try to explain it better then. But by the third or fourth time of the same question, it is hard to give her any reasons.

This happened the other day at the park. Ellie was trying to chase down why the park was built the way that it was. After multiple attempts, I finally looked at her and said, “Mmm, I don’t know. Do you know why?” Without missing a beat, Ellie replied, “I’m 3! I don’t know everything, Mommy.” I looked right back and told her that I’m an adult and I don’t know everything either. That stumped her for a minute. It was a great open door. We then talked about how Mommy still learns new things now, but God knows everything. In fact God is the only one who knows everything. Ellie liked that idea and is still telling everyone who asks

Worshipping Once Again May 19, 2014

We often have seasons of how we interact with God in slightly different ways. I don’t know about you, but there are times where I am hungry to read the Word of God, others where I want to sit in the presence of God, and others where I feel the need to press-in in prayer. I’m currently in a season of increased prayer, not that I give up reading my Bible or worshipping or fellowshipping, but I find myself being called to a deeper prayer walk. Watching Ellie, and I believe that kids go through these same ideas of interacting with God differently in different seasons. There are times that Ellie wants to pray a lot, and there are times where she won’t join in to pray at all and demands that Mommy or Daddy prays for her. There are times where I catch her reading her Bible by herself or she wants to listen to me read mine, and then other times where she would rather play quietly during my devotion time.

As her parents, we have decided that the best way to cultivate her journey with God is to immerse her in our walks with God. We pray out loud, have set times to read our Bibles, do family communion, go to church together, and bring up discussions about God when they fit. We desire to show that following God is a way of life for us.

The other night we went to speak at a middle of the week young adults service. Ellie is typically shy of any childcare that isn’t her regular Sunday school class, so I told her she could sit with us during service if she wanted. She jumped at that, and joined us for the service. I was excited to immerse her in the service and help her feel a part of what the adults do during service.

As I held Ellie and worshipped, Ellie joined in with a soft wordless song. We caught each other’s eye while singing and both smiled. Ellie was worshipping alongside her mother.

My heart broke for joy for several reasons. First, she was entering into worship. It was in her own way and not under compulsion, but flowing from her heart.

Second, she hasn’t joined in during worship since we were living in Bangkok. For several months prior to our move, Ellie would sing during worship. When we moved, the worship song style was different and unfamiliar. The humming and singing that Ellie would do didn’t match these beats and patterns. She closed up and hasn’t sung during worship since. It has been a year since I heard Ellie worship alongside me and she has joined back in once more.

A beautiful moment because Andy and I chose to bring Ellie out to a late night service and to include her in worship. As we drove home I could barely keep back the happy tears as I recounted our worship time to my husband. What a wonderful night.

Our Journey to Parenthood April 26, 2014

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. As my husband and I have struggled with infertility, I thought I would blog about this often silent struggle and share our story. This will be the first of a mini blog series dealing with our journey of infertility, the birth of our daughter, and our continued struggle with infertility.

When we got married, my husband and I knew that we were going to go on the mission field. We chose to enjoy married life and wait to have kids until after we came back from the mission field, which was originally going to only be for one year. We left for Thailand before we had been married for 3 years. When we made the decision to stay in Thailand longer than one year, we decided that we would be open to having children outside of the US. So in January 2008 I stopped taking birth control and we began actively trying to get pregnant.

Our 1st Valentine’s Day in Thailand

When you first start trying there is an excitement and an expectation that you will get pregnant very soon. As the months pass by without getting pregnant, you begin to wonder why you aren’t pregnant yet. Is there a reason why you aren’t pregnant yet? Am I just over-stressing about it, or is something wrong?

After a year of trying we went to an infertility doctor to see if there were any problems. Now I don’t know the process if you go to an infertility clinic in the States, but in Thailand the doctor runs all the tests as quick as possible and without consulting or explaining what he is doing. So in not very long we had done blood tests, sperm counts, ultra sounds and some other tests. When the tests had all been run the doctor sat my husband and myself down and went over the facts.

The doctor looked at me and told me there weren’t any problems with my fertility but there was a problem with my husband’s fertility. There was a sign of infection in his white cell count and he has a very low sperm count. (When I first told my husband that I wanted to write this blog, I was going to keep the source of our infertility a secret to protect him. My husband wanted our story to be complete so he gave his permission for me to talk about his infertility.) That’s right, looking at and talking to me, even though my husband was in the room, our doctor delivered the difficult news to us, in a matter of fact tone. Our doctor then told us not to worry as I was still young (in my mid 20s) and we were good candidates for IUI’s and he thought we would get pregnant soon. We may have left that appointment with an action plan from our doctor, but inside we wondered if the doctor was right. Would we be able to get pregnant?

I think the hardest thing for me in finding out that we had an identified fertility issue was that it felt like the previous year had been a waste in trying to have children. How easy it would have been to clear up the infection in the beginning if we had only known. And yet we didn’t and only found out a year into the process. The hope was that once the infection was gone, then my husband’s sperm count would go up as well, but that didn’t happen. His sperm got healthier but still hovered just above extremely low sperm count.
With the doctor’s recommendation, we tried IUI to see if we could get pregnant with the sperm being condensed and having a shorter distance to swim. (The awesome part about living in Bangkok at this time was that each IUI cost us under two hundred US dollars.) After our first time, we reasoned that maybe we just needed to try again and that next time we would get pregnant. It was like our hope was renewed and we thought we would be pregnant soon. But after 4 IUI’s with no success, our hopes faded and we wondered if we would ever get pregnant. Our doctor’s initial and continued assurance that we would get pregnant through IUI only deepened the pain of not getting pregnant. We decided that we couldn’t keep getting our hopes up every month and that we needed to stop the fertility treatments after 6 months.

We didn’t stop trying to get pregnant and kept charting and doing what we could. Another year passed and despair had set in. It had been two and a half years and we had not ever gotten a positive pregnancy test. Would we ever get pregnant? Could we get even pregnant? It was comforting that we were working with college students mainly as they aren’t thinking about kids yet. They could help take our minds off of what we couldn’t have. But the pain and longing still remained, hidden deep inside.

We were set to go on a 3 month furlough were we would be traveling constantly to visit family, friends and speak in churches. While furloughs are refreshing to the soul, the pace is often physically tiring. The longest time we spent in one location was 2 weeks for missionary meetings/ training with our organization. We were simply on the move a lot. As we looked at that time, my husband and I realized that trying to get pregnant during our furlough would be crazy, if not impossible. And, we were ready for a break and a pause. We talked and decided that we would take a 3 month break and then when we got back to Bangkok we would re-explore fertility treatments. We knew that that meant looking at IVF (which is also considerably cheaper in Thailand).

On our furlough- Mini vacation with family to the Grand Canyon

As we prepared to go back to Bangkok, God had a special surprise for us. Five days before we left we found out we were pregnant. Andy and I were both in shock and disbelief. How did we get pregnant, we wondered and asked ourselves. We had been travelling. We hadn’t done any of “the things” right. It wasn’t because we had just stopped worrying about it, as we had been quite busy in speaking and sharing about Thailand. The only possible answer is that God blessed us with a little miracle. This little miracle is now three years old and brings immense joy to our lives.

There is Wonder Everywhere April 17, 2014

The other afternoon I made a pineapple smoothie for Ellie. It was the simplest of smoothies with only frozen pineapple chunks, ice, and water, but Ellie thought it tasted amazing. We have since had that same smoothie about 3 or 4 times. But I digress from my story. As I handed Ellie her smoothie I grabbed a large straw so she could drink it easily. She began to enjoy her smoothie and then realized that the straw was clear, and she could see the liquid coming up the straw as she drank. Not only that, but with the thickness of the smoothie, she could control how fast she sucked and watch as it flowed up the straw quickly or slowly. The “game” soon turned into suction control as Ellie manipulated the smoothie up and down the straw. Up an inch, down a half an inch, all the way into her mouth, watch it fall a third of the way down before drawing it back up the straw and into her mouth.

Wonder.

Found in a common occurrence, something we do on a regular basis.

Wonder, found in drinking with a straw.

Wonder.

When was the last time I was caught by the newness and excitement of something seemingly normal in my daily life? Having a three-year old in the home opens my eyes to wonder in new ways. As she is struck with wonder in the things around her, I am reminded to pause and look for the wonder in my life. God has placed wondrous things all around and am I too busy to see them or do I see things fresh over and over again? Am I pausing to watch the sunset, or am I distracted with dishes and bedtime stories? Do I notice the beauty alongside the road as we drive, or am I distracted with all I have to do for the day? Am I enjoying the flavors of my dinner (juicy chicken, freshly cooked spring veggies, and Thai Jasmine rice, for example), or am I just shoveling food in as I try to make sure that my child eats some chicken with her rice?

There is definitely wonder in these two!

Wonder is found everywhere, all around us. I want to see more of the beautiful, more of the wondrous around me this spring.

What are some of the wondrous things in your life right now?

Easter Impressions on a 3 Year Old April 14, 2014

Easter is about a week away and boy are we busy preparing for all the festivities, mainly with our church, but also here at home. I don’t know how to explain it but ever since the beginning of Lent (which we aren’t formally doing), Ellie’s heart has been very open to the message of the gospel. It is precious to watch as she tries to understand why Jesus died on the cross. Last year, at the age of 2, all Ellie understood of Easter was that Jesus died on the cross and eggs were fun to find. This year, though Ellie asks why as we talk about the story and look at the different pieces. You never can quite tell how much she is getting but I hope and pray she is understanding.
Here is a little glimpse, a reminder, that our kids do get some of what we talk about:

The other morning my husband was helping Ellie with breakfast while I was getting ready. After they ate their cereal, Ellie thought it would be a good idea to sit down with her daddy and read her Bible together. Since he can’t read (and she doesn’t like his made-up versions anymore), Ellie told him that she would read to him. So she opened up to Bible and started “reading.”
She found the story of the snake in the garden with Adam and Eve. Here is her rendition of the story, “The Snakey Snake (The Sneaky Snake).” The snake in the garden asked the Mommy, “Did God say, ‘No, no, no to eat the fruit on the tree?'” The Mommy said, “Yes, yes, yes, God said don’t eat the fruit on the tree.” But the Mommy ate the fruit and then Adam ate the fruit, too. My husband then followed that up with, “What happened, then? Did they get in trouble?” Ellie replied, “Yes, they got in trouble. Then Jesus came and died on the cross. But he didn’t stay dead, he is alive.”

Well, Ellie is digesting what we are talking about as we read our Bibles, make fun resurrection themed crafts, and talk about Jesus’ death and resurrection at opportune times during the day.

How are you talking about Easter with your kids?

A Zoo Birthday Party March 26, 2014

Back in October Ellie announced that she wanted to have an elephant birthday party. The next day she told me she wanted a panda and elephant birthday party. Since we did an elephant party for her 2nd birthday, I didn’t want to closely replicate it for her 3rd. When this party idea didn’t change for the next few months, I decided I needed to help Ellie refine her idea. I suggested a zoo party, which she readily agreed to, as we absolutely love visiting the zoo (and it includes both elephants and pandas).
For her party, we went to a local park since our backyard has a giant pool and isn’t conducive to little kids running around. We invited everyone to come at 11am and then served lunch during the party. Take a look at the fun we had at the party.

We served hotdogs and chili for lunch and then zoo themed sides: elephant head biscuits, bananas wrapped with monkeys, a lion face shaped from oranges, lemons and strawberries, goldfish crackers, and celery and carrot sticks on a zebra plate.
(Here is the link for those cute little monkeys)

For games, the kids colored animal masks, had to go on an animal hunt to find the missing zoo animals, wash the animals with squirt guns, and then fed the animals beanbags.

We finished the party by eating mini panda cupcakes and opening presents. I particularly love the small sized cupcakes for kids at this age. They actually ate the cupcakes and the parents could determine how much sugar each child got to eat. Ellie even ate her cupcake this year, it’s a first!

All in all, Ellie loved her zoo party and had a blast celebrating with her friends and family.

Ellie Turns 3! March 24, 2014

I haven’t blogged in a while. Life has been busy, and I get to the end of my day tired and with little energy to sit down and write. But I don’t want to let blogging fall by the wayside again. Ellie’s birthday seems like the perfect excuse to start back up again.

Ellie turned 3 on March 10. Let me start by saying that Ellie really gets this whole birthday thing now. She has waited in anticipation for her birthday since mine back in October. On the morning of her birthday, my husband and I asked if we could sing her “Happy Birthday” when she just woke up. Her response was classic. “Let’s go open presents!” Well, she had to wait until later for that, but I made her a special breakfast and invited Nana and Poppy to join us.

We got Disney Passes for Christmas and have been waiting to go our first time for something special. Since Andy and I had been away at a young adults retreat (we were the overseers) the weekend before Ellie’s birthday, Andy got the day off of work and we surprised Ellie by taking her to Disneyland. Her current favorite ride is “the horsie one,” also known as the carousel. Dumbo takes a close second, though. After a thoroughly fun but exhausting day we stopped at Ellie’s favorite fast food place for dinner, McDonalds.

Take a look at how this birthday girl has grown since her birth with a picture taken every year on March 10.

2011: Newborn

2012: 1 year old

2013: 2 years old

I Can’t See God February 4, 2014

The biggness of God is a difficult thing to teach to Ellie. We talk about how God made us and is powerful in and through stories. Ellie understands that we love God and he loves us. In modeling our faith, we talk to God throughout the day and about God when the opportunity arises.

The other day Ellie and I were talking as we drank tea and ate a snack and I suggested that we “talk to God about that.” Ellie just looked at me. “How can we talk to God?” she wondered out loud, ” but I don’t see him.” I tried to explain that God is always here with us.  Even if we can’t see him, he can hear what we are saying. Ellie logically looked out the window and asked if God was outside (i.e. I can’t see him but he must be really close to hear what I am saying). I sort of agreed with that while trying to say yes and he is also here as well. Ellie simply looked out the window harder, maybe she would see God.

It’s not easy trying to describe God in a way my two year old understands. I mean, God is so big and indescribable can any of us fully understand him before we get to heaven? While I will continue to share who God is with Ellie, I realize how easy it is for all of us to go about our daily lives and not “see God.” Load after load of laundry coupled with loads of dishes to be constantly washed, stories to be read, a dog to be walked, toys to be played with and then put away; really, a never-ending life to be lived. Wouldn’t it be easier to spend time with God if we could see him? Like a friend coming over to spend time with us. And yet, he is here with us every moment of the day. Present, and yet invisible. I may not be able to see God visibly, but I want to really spend time with him every day.