my family

I have to say that I love my dear niece, Emma, and my nephew, Olivier.

This is basically an excuse to post some pictures of them on my blog. They are seriously the cutest little babies ever. And the most exciting thing is that my dear sisters-in-law are about to bring two new nieces for me into the world.

Anyway, here are the babies!

pix from last weekend at the beach

One of my dear students sent me these yesterday!

john under a cave thing


me resting on my japanese friends tubes

these girls are actually my room-mates!

blood, outreach (?), and ahhh, the beach

My poor baby, John, is sick. We took him to the doctor yesterday, he had multiple amounts of blood pulled from his body this morning (6 vials) and next week, we find out the test results. He has been sick on and off for three months, and finally, on Tuesday, I had had enough and we figured out a way to get him to the doctor. Please pray that they find what it is.

We are now re-praying through a lot of things, particularly about whether or not to go on outreach, and what to do if we don't go. We are starting to realise that it might not be the best idea for him to go if he's still recovering from whatever this sickness is. So, we are trying to figure that out.

Other than that, we had a glorious day at the beach last Saturday with some of our dear students. We went snorkelling (v. cool fish), sunbathed, climbed some lava rocks, swam under under-water caves, and just generally toasted & bathed in the sunshine! We finished the day by crowding round a TV outside to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The perfect end to a really good day.

the beauty of a sunset

After two hours of faffing, we were finally on our way. We rode the bumpy, long road to the volcano while watching Speed in the car. The scenery, sky, sun, everything was just beautiful. We raced to get there and arrived 20 mins before the sun set. It was beautiful. To be so high (one of the highest peaks in the Pacific area), to be so cold (yes, it was freezing), to think of God and His beauty just made the day really.




We then proceeded to make our way back down the mountain to the star-gazing area, where we ran into a group of students from the DTS. We hugged like lost-long friends who hadn't seen each other for months, when we'd seen them all earlier that day. We all stood together seeing more stars in the sky than we've seen in a while. It was a perfect clear night (we were actually above the clouds). B-E-A-Utiful...

good stuff

I am connecting more with students! We had our small group yesterday and it went well, as far as I could see. It was more just hanging out together and getting to know each other a bit. I'm excited for more times together. I also led a Bible reading/study time last night that seemed to go really well too, which is very cool. I felt like God was leading me throughout the whole prep process, which was exciting.

I'm kinda tired today though, and frustrated with some of the things that are going with the school - things that we can not really control, because they come under the base and the DTS departmental leadership peeps. It makes me not want to stay here after the school is over (one of the things we're praying through). I just don't know if I'm suited to the big base thing. I feel like smaller ones allow for so much more accountability and friendship as well as cutting down on dumb policies.

OH, and I am so torn with this whole outreach decision. Should I stay or should I go now...? I so wanna come back to the mainland and be with my brother's families as they receive their new babies. But, then I would so love to go to Tokyo for 2 months with a group of our students (who are just great, btw). Lord, help us make this decision!