So Little Time, but so Many Blessings!
Hello again from Romania. We apologize that it has been seven weeks since our last post. It has been quite the seven weeks though. We have found that the time we lacked prior to having a third baby just got thinner, so finding a few minutes to give an update has been tough. If breathing wasn't something that our bodies did automatically, then I doubt we would still be breathing today. We are thankful for each day that we have with our wonderful children though. Here is an update as to what has been going on over the last seven weeks.
1. Our precious Lydia was also born in July, so once Claira came, we immediately had to begin preparing for Lydia's Birthday. Our baby girl turned two years old this July and we were thrilled to throw her a Minnie Mouse party. We invited some teammates over who also had kids and celebrated Lydia turning two.
2. During this time we have been fortunate to be able to take so much time off and spend it with family. Emerson and Lydia love Claira so much, but they also miss spending time with their parents. Since Claira has come home our time has been limited due to a few things. Claira has terrible acid reflux as well as gas causing her to have a lot of pain when eating and right after. It's especially difficult for her in the evenings, so juggling all the evening and bedtime routines has been a huge learning curve for us. We are praying that all of this subsides in the next for months as she gets older and her body matures.
3. We began language classes again. It was refreshing to be able to take 4+ weeks off from learning language. In doing so, we have had to review quite a bit to refresh our memory on much of the grammar. We are eager to learn the new, more complex grammar such as conditional statements. Language learning does look a bit different for us though due to having Claira with us. Just a little glimpse into our morning routine. We now wake up around 6:00am to get dressed and feed Claira. We wake Emerson up and prepare breakfast. We leave around 7:30am to take Emerson to school. We immediately leave to travel to our language tutor's home where we spend the next 3 hours speaking and learning Romanian. After our class we go pick up Emerson from school and drive back home to prepare lunch for the family. This time is extremely busy for us, but we are slowly figuring out a good routine to help it go as smooth as possible.
4. These past seven weeks have also included multiple doctor's appointments for all three children, but mostly Claira. We are thankful that they have all gone well. They have also included the process of obtaining Claira's Romanian and American birth certificates, her U.S. passport, and her Visa. This whole process has been stressful, but we are fortunate that it has all gone very smooth. Praise the Lord that we have already obtained both certificates and the passport. Now we wait for the Visa card to come in. Due to being a baby, the visa process was quite easy for her.
5. Emerson went back to school at the end of August. He is now in K4, which is preschool for 4 year olds. Romanians call preschool "Gradinita", which translates into little garden or Kindergarten. He was so excited to start school back and so were we.
6. In the past week we have had to work through having our hot water heater repaired. We woke up last week to our carbon monoxide alarm going off at 4:30am. What a scary moment it was for us as we have never dealt with this before. After one person came out to test the gas leak and then another person came out to repair it, we are fortunate to find out that it was a minor leak.
7. Finally, we end this blog post more sleep deprived than normal due to Emerson having to go to the hospital via the ambulance. Yesterday Emerson was being a little monkey jumping on the couch. As the book goes, one little monkey fell off and bumped his head. In our case Emerson fell off, hit his head on the coffee table slicing the back of his head open. Because of the amount of blood and pain Emerson was in we made our first call to the Romanian emergency line (112). We are thankful that the person who answered spoke great English because when you are in a panic, the last thing you want to do while living in another country is try to explain a scary moment in the target language. Emerson and Drew spent 3 hours at the hospital while receiving great care from a public pediatric hospital. After receiving stitches Emerson was sent home. We praise God that the cut wasn't bad and that Emerson did not have to stay over-night at the hospital.
8. We also thank God that family are finally coming to visit us over the next two months. Brooke's mom will be visiting in October and Drew's parents will be visiting in November. We are looking forward to spending good, quality time with them as we share our lives in Romania with them.
Prayer Requests:
Juggling our time with three children 4 years and under while also being able to learn the language and do ministry.
Good health for us all, especially our children, as we head into the colder months.
For God to lead us in determining the ministry He has called us here for.
For our older children to show us grace since we cannot give them the attention they desire all the time since welcoming Claira Grace into the family. This is something we are struggling with emotionally and physically.
For Emerson to have a great year at school.
For the hearts of the people we meet and witness to throughout our day to day lives and for boldness to share when the Lord presents opportunities.