The Big 30!

Well, our baby turned the big 30 last week:) Somehow saying I'm in my 31st week this week makes the end seem much closer. Everything is still going well with the pregnancy. Sleeping at night is starting to get a little more uncomfortable with all of the positioning and turning and pillows and tiny lung space, but overall I think I still sleep well during the night:) He still keeps my day and night pattern, which I really like, and which helps me to sleep so well I'm sure. He's very active during the day time. He's started moving lower already and doesn't really kick so much into the ribs anymore as he does some kind of painful twirl/movement more into my hip sockets and bladder. That's not so fun! He gets the hiccups a lot, but only started doing that more recently. So far I don't like them at all:) What I really like is to watch his movements across my belly. Our next doctors appointment is next week, on Tuesday morning. I'll have my first 20-30 minute session of fetal monitoring and I look forward to that. It will be the 2nd time I get to hear his heartbeat and for much longer this time.

We tried to tour our local hospital on Monday, but they were beyond capacity with women in labor so they weren't able to show us any labor rooms or surgical areas. I hope to return next Monday and see everything there. I have some really great Czech friends here who have already been sending me lists of what I will need at the hospital, where I can buy those things, how to talk about them in Czech, etc. That's been really great! Even though we don't know where we will be moving to, yet, I've begun buying a few more "essential" items in the event we need them anytime soon. (By the way, we hope to begin looking at apartments next Tuesday, so please pray about that process with us). This week I bought a baby tub:) It was fun! Most apartments here don't have a sink big enough to bathe a baby in and not all apartments have a normal-sized bathtub, either. Some only have built-in, square shaped, showers, or something that combines the two, but is much smaller than a normal tub size. We will be looking for one that comes with both a shower and tub, hopefully. I also bought some diapers and wipes, some newborn warm sleepers, and some hospital supplies for me. I also (I know it's early, but that's just me:) packed my hospital bag and a small supply bag for the baby. I thought just in case he happens to come early I will be prepared and won't have to worry about Josh figuring out where everything is or where to buy everything. The shopping/finding everything in Czech process here can take so long sometimes- especially when it's a new area of life that we haven't shopped for before, or learned a lot of the vocabulary for before. Also, half of our bedroom is already packed in boxes, so it looks a little crazy in there already.

Before I move on to other fun events going on here... no, we still do not have a name picked out. We'll get to it, eventually:)

Below are some pictures of the reason why I haven't blogged in a while... these are from our new facility:

Children's Room
Children's Room
Main RoomFuture Computer and Teaching Room

Prayer, Study, Office Room

So, except for a kitchen area in progress, these are the rooms we have mostly finished in our new facility. We've been working on it for about 5 weeks now and have been hosting events here for 2 1/2 - 3 weeks now. It's going really well and we are very thankful to have this place. Especially for our teen ministry and our young mothers ministry, both of which have outgrown our homes over the summer time, we are taking advantage of this new place and all the different things we can do there. Each of us on the team took responsibility for different rooms and then we went to work painting, finding furniture, cleaning, organizing, etc. Of course, we all helped each other with most of it. Sarah K. and I did the childrens room (though we had friends paint it for us:). We've already hosted several events here. Each week we have after-school hours from 2-6pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays to give the teens we know a place to go after school. We play games together, talk, tutor with homework and with English learning, etc. On Wednesday evenings each week we host a Christian program for teens that is similar to the program they had each day at camp. We sing songs, play games around a certain theme, watch videos or have small devotionals for them, and then some discussion group time. Some is in English and some is in Czech. It's good for all of us and it's great that many teens are regularly visiting us now. We hope it will only grow and grow! This week Sarah K. and I will begin again our Moms and Kids English class we have done before. This time will have even more focus on Bible stories and Christian childrens songs and we are really looking forward to that. Many of our friends are inviting some of their friends and that is always a good sign. We just hope they will all come! Please pray about all of these events we are doing each week and that God will shine through us to all of these different people. Our relationships are going much deeper now and we are thankful for that and the opportunity it gives us to share even more from our lives and from the Bible with these people.