Praises
Thank you for prayers. The downside to Dad's being retired is that money is a little tight for Mom to come visit baby & me this November. The upside is that Dad is a member of AARP and can get a lower-priced airline ticket for Mom. Cool huh? Please keep praying for us. Please pray especially that God will grant us wisdom in how we spend our resources including our time. Things are getting very busy now and I think our time here at Augustine College will give us enough to think about for our whole lives.

Today has been a good day.

We had Latin from 8:30-9:30

I came home and made banana bread (4 loaves) some of which the Augustine College guys came over and helped us dispose of.

I am making a New England Boiled Dinner (never had it, just found a recipe) for supper tonight.

I am looking forward to a busy week and feel like I may actually learn Latin.

I got to spend some cuddly time with Joshua on the couch.

I found out that my best friend is actually going to be able to come visit us over US's Thanksgiving (which is different from Canada's)

And we may actually be able to get our student visas in two weeks!

I may actually be able to stay enough on top of things so that this baby's birth will not put me too far behind and I can catch up by the end of the semester. Should I pray for an earlier-ish birth to make things easier? I am praying for God's timing and for the patience to accept whatever it may be.

Hello to all who are keeping up with us. We miss you.

Hello this Sunday! I am going to post quite a few pictures today because I really want to give people who are not here a picture of what we are doing. Of course we are not very consistant with the camera so just because there are more pictures of swimming and eating does not mean that we are neglecting our studies! :) It is just that when we are studying, taking a picture is not the first thing on our minds. It is also not very interesting to take pictures of people studying. Anyway, here are our pics with a few explanations:

First, here is our apartment:

Pic. of our hall and washroom and laundry machines, Josh's and my bedroom, and Josh in our rocking chair


These are pics of our kitchen, our living room (the two are one big room) and Ryan with our books


Here is Ryan's room (which is actually bigger, but I couldn't get a good angle) and our study/Guest room


Here is a picture of me and my growing belly. Only 5-7 weeks left! I can't wait to see this baby!


Here are some impressive pictures of the swim party that the guy students at Augustine College had last weekend


Here is the meal that the guys ate after swimming (remember... pizza and pork chops!)


And here is Joshua studying Latin. I think in my next post I will list the books we are reading and what is happening in our classes since that is the main reason that we are here. Meanwhile, I must away to study Latin myself.

Please, as a special prayer request, pray that there would be some way my mom can come up within a few weeks after the baby is born. Financial stuff is restricting my parents from being able to come and it would be so nice for both her and me if she was able to be here. If God would be so gracious, it would also be nice for my dad to be able to come and see the baby. Anyway, I know that the people who check this page are praying for us and I thought I would pass along that specific request. Thank you.

Social Time!
So we ARE studying! But there are currently no papers due and the workload has not become intense yet (as it has promised to become...) so we are taking this time to get to know our classmates. Yesterday Josh and Ryan went swimming at one of the guy's places and then apparently had a great dinner of pizzas and pork chops at the school with all of the guys. (pizza and pork chops? I would have never matched those two up!)

I, on the other hand had some wonderful quite time and then the girls came over here for great conversation, pizza, and a movie. What fun!

Today we went to church and took a long nap. I was really surprised by how long we slept and it is a little shameful so I won't tell you. :) Then because I am having bothersome reflux and a little behind on my Latin I stayed home while the guys went back up to the school and ate dinner with everyone there. Apparently they had tacos and soup! Wonderful! Even in Canada we can have Mexican food.

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out how to put our pictures on the web site. Thank you for your patience and keep checking back because we will get them up eventually and then you can see what we are up to.

Hello to my parents (both sets!) if they are keeping up with us. And many greetings going out to our community and friends. Thank you so much to everyone who made this possible.

ps We are coming home (to Dallas) Dec. 15 through Jan. 2 and would love to see anyone. Our friend Joshua is working on setting up a way for everyone to comment directly to our blog so when that starts to work perhaps we can schedule get-togethers. (And you can meet the baby!!)

pss keep in mind that it is a 30 minute walk to the school as we don't have a car so we are also getting in lots of wonderful exercise! I so enjoy walking and I really missed it in Dallas. When the snow gets thick, however, I think we will just take the bus. *grin*

We are here and classes have started! So far we have had Latin, Art and Theology, and Science and Technology (taught by Dr. Patrick). Classes are going very well so far as we are not really into them far enough to be absorbed with assignments yet. Last night was the public lecture and it was given by Rev. Doug Hayman. By public lecture I don't mean that the lecture was out on the street corner or anything but it was in the basement of a nearby church and was open to anyone who wanted to attend. Rev. Hayman talked about believing in order to understand which was taken from a quote by St. Augustine. He used the last of Luke 2 and John 3:1-12 as texts. People seemed to get hung up on the John 3 passage in verse 5 where Jesus talks about being born on water and the Spirit. I didn't know this until afterwards, but everyone seemed to be trying to apply both the water-birth and the Spirit-birth to what has to happen to "enter the kingdom of God."

Rev. Hayman briefly mentions how babies are born with a breaking of the water and so we must also be born through the Holy Spirit. So, off goes my pregnant-mind thinking about how amazing physical birth is and replaying memories of births that I have been to where I have gotten to see the bag of waters break right there in the mother's opening and the baby's head slide so beautifully through after a brief gush of water. Then I start thinking about how cool it is that Christ used such an amazing picture to parallel what must happen to us when we are born of His Spirit. I am also, just now, realizing how feminine of a picture that is. I don't know if birth was regulated to "women's work" at that time, but Christ just took an image in which the pregnant female is a necessary part of and applied our spiritual rebirth to it. Hmmm... this will require further thought.
Anyway, this was the course of my thoughts last night and since I was so lost in my own head I was only occasionally tuning into the conversation around me. Apparently most everyone lost the illusion that Christ was making to a physical birth and began to discuss what role baptism had in our spiritual rebirth. I didn't realize this at the time or I would have spoken up and said "Hey! The water-birth is about our physical birth, Christ is saying, we must be physically born and then spiritually born in order to enter God's Kingdom." I, however, was completely tuned out. I didn't know people were seeking for a meaning for the water-birth part of that verse. This just goes to show how being pregnant is wonderful, but distracting and often keeps me from being fully aware of everything around me. Oh well, perhaps I will bring it up again in our Scriptures class on Thursday.

Meanwhile, I will begin a search on what Christ says about our spritual rebirth and how that very feminine image fits in with it all.

We are here and finally connected! God has been so good in taking care of us and we are excited about school starting next Monday. Guess what? We have a rocking chair in our apartment! Is that a blessing or what?!? Also, the church that we visited last Sunday seems great with almost everyone coming from a different country. The pastor is from Brazil, he spent 2 years in Iraq, he is married to a lady from the US who was an IMB missionary to Brazil until they got married. Well, his wife has been replacement "mother" to several ladies in the church who have had babies, especially during their labors. Could this be a sweet answer? Perhaps! The weather is a nice change from Texas but I still miss the people there. If anyone reads this before going to LGBC on Saturday, please pass on my love to them. We look forward to seeing you all again at Christmas and you will get to see our little one! OK, more later. If anyone does read this, please let us know! :) It is always nice to know you are talking to someone out there....