The Joys of Motherhood

I think it's starting to really hit me that I'm going to be a mom really soon (um, wasn't I just a kid like a few years ago???). I had a prenatal checkup yesterday, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time! What an amazing, breathtaking experience! I can't wait to meet this little one!

I also gave in yesterday and bought my first pair of maternity jeans. So much more comfortable than regular jeans for my ever-growing belly! I'm showing quite a bit now, at least to those who know me well. Other people probably just think I'm getting fat, which is probably also true, but I guess I have an excuse. :)

Even though I know that raising children is a difficult task, one that requires a lot of patience, hard work, and sacrificial love, I am excited out of my mind and so incredibly joyful to get to be a mom! I'm so grateful for the godly example my mom showed me. I hope I will be half as good a mom as she is!

Oh Canada

We had a wonderful (and very busy) first weekend in Canada! We spent most of Friday and Saturday at Peace River Bible Institute where Clint attended several years back. We got to sit in on the school's missions conference, and we also attended a class reunion on Saturday afternoon, which was a wonderful time of fellowship with some of Clint's friends and former classmates.

Yesterday, we had the privilege of sharing about our future ministry with Gospel Light Alliance Church. It was such a blessing and encouragement to interact with fellow believers who have such a heart for God, His Word, and spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth!

We've also been blessed to spend quite a bit of time with several of Clint's siblings who are living in the area. It's been good to connect with them and get to see some more nieces and nephews (well, really just one nephew).

Thanks for all of you who are praying for us during this trip! We appreciate it! Pictures to come soon! :)

Fall is Finally Here!

It's finally starting to feel like fall here on the Oregon coast. The temperatures are starting to drop and so are the leaves (I really miss the gorgeous fall colors that we have back East!). Time to start breaking out my tea cup and warm blankets! :-)

I also love fall because, if you're lucky enough to live near an apple orchard, you can pick apples and make apple pie, apple cider, and all those other delicious fall-ish apple things. We picked a bunch of apples (for free!) last Thursday. The result? 28 quarts of canned homemade applesauce and 14 quarts of homemade apple pie filling plus a few large boxes of leftover apples that are going in the basement. Yum! All set for the winter months!

We're headed up to Canada early tomorrow morning. Looking forward to seeing a bunch of our Canadian friends and several of Clint's siblings who live up there, and we'll also be speaking in at least one church. And I'm also looking forward to taking Baby Teele to Canada for the first time, although I guess it's not really very fun for him because he can't see it. Oh well. :-)

PNG Fact of the Day (2)

Ok, it's time for another fact about Papua New Guinea.

I'm sure all of you are familiar with the story of the tower of Babel. Right? (if you don't remember, check out Genesis 11) But what you may not be familiar with is that God did a REALLY good job of confusing the languages. Don't believe me? Ok, take a guess at how many languages there are in the world today (and don't look it up on Google first).

If you said anything short of about 6,900, you're wrong. Yup, that's right. There are almost 6,900 known languages spoken in the world today!!! Pretty mind-boggling if you ask me!

According to the Linguistic Society of America, "one area of particularly high linguistic diversity is Papua New Guinea, where there are an estimated 832 languages" (click here for article)

So, your fact of the day for Papua New Guinea: there are over 800 different (and distinct) languages spoken in PNG! There is a trade language called Melanesian Pidgin English, but it is a very basic language with only about 2,500 words.

One of our jobs when we move to Papua New Guinea as missionaries will be to learn one of these languages so that we can share the Gospel with the people in their own language. It will be tough, but we're excited!

Learning a new language is hard work!