make-believe

When children make-believe, who decides who gets to be the princess and who gets to be the frog? Who gets to be "Beauty" and who gets to be "the beast"? Is there a hard and fast rule about boys always being the "knight" and girls always being the "princess"? Apparently in our family it has something to do with...whatever the biggest person decides.

While I was in the kitchen making supper the other day, Wesley (not quite 2 years) was sitting sweetly on the couch "reading" herself a story while her older brother Christian played around her wielding his hand-made cardboard shield and sword, engrossed in his fantasy play of "Viking warrior." After a while, he apparently decided he could use some interaction and I heard him tell his sister, "Wesley, blow on me." She looked up from her book with a puzzled expression and he insisted again, "Wesley, blow on me." In all sweetness she puckered up her lips and obliged...only to be met with a fierce "HA!" and brandished sword in her face as Christian cried out "Dragon fire! I'll defeat you!" and proceeded to valiantly defend himself with shield and attack with sword as he darted in and out around her. Little Wesley screeched and scrambled down from the couch running into the kitchen shouting "Wesley not a dragon! Not a dragon!"

I was surprised that she (a) knew the word "dragon" and (b) knew immediately that SHE was the dragon in that little scene. Hmmm... Apparently she has been relegted to that role before. Poor thing. With two older brothers, will she ever get to play the princess?

"Alex"

Alexandra ("Alex") Joy Kern was born November 22, 2010 weighing 6 lbs, 7 oz. and we could not be more thrilled with her!

Her two older brothers love to sit on the couch and hold her while her sister is a bit over-the-top in her excitement with the new little one. Every time someone comes to the house, she starts to jump up and down and screech excitedly pointing at "Aaahex".

hike in the woods

It is sometimes hard to even think back and remember what life was like in Mozambique last year around this time. The months tend to blend into one-another without the changing of seasons like we have in North America.

This year it has been so fun to experience autumn with the kids--the rushing in of fresh, cool weather, brightly colored leaves, pumpkins and apples, hot chocolate... The other day we took a Saturday morning to take them on a hike in a state park.

Cohen and Christian bundled up with their new hats and loved alternately running ahead and dwadling behind looking for acorns, rocks, leaves, and special sticks.

Wesley rode on Stefan's back for most of the hike.

They enjoyed a snack from a lookout point.

The boys in the family (and even Mommy) are getting used to the...emotional drama...that sometimes comes with little girls.

Fortunately, Wesley's little "storms" don't usually last long and she is quickly back to her charming and typically joyful self.

glimpses

Diapers and Hermeneutics classes, reading seven chapters from "Foundational Bible Teaching" while watching three kids and folding laundry, logging work-detail hours while praying for the troubled boy met during community outreach, chatting with a friend in Mozambique about their recent country riots...and then calling a friend in Lexington to chat about child-rearing--these are just a few of the facets and responsibilities that have been occupying our days the past few weeks as we settle in to classes here at the New Tribes Mission Training Center. Our lives have felt a bit fragmented at times as we juggle our responsibilities with our growing family, the communities we are a part of around the world, and our classes here in Missouri.

Sometimes I even find myself wondering what God is doing. Wondering things like...

...why He's blessing us with another baby--in the middle of the semester!
...why we find ourselves putting our five-year-old on a school bus every day when had been looking forward to home-schooling.
...why we find ourselves back in classes in the middle of Missouri rather than a year at "home" in Kentucky

Over our last four years in Mozambique we have found that the Lord often clearly sets us off in a direction without always giving specific insight into why He is moving or what He is doing. We know He is acting but our perspective is so narrow that we mostly just feel the growing pains.

And then there are those rare moments when He gives us a glimpse of the beauty of what He is doing...

I saw my daughter's face for the first time the other day--in three-dimension--her tiny hands clenched up by her delicate features as beautiful as any face I've ever seen. I haven't met her yet--still another nine weeks or so to go--but it was such a special moment to get a glimpse of what God is doing as He actively forms her. It isn't that I have not known He's been at work--there have been some pretty clear signs! Like the fact that I can't hardly walk up the long hill from classes to our apartment every day without panting heavily...or that my 18-month-old daughter runs around the house chanting "belly, belly, belly" and asking for peeks at my ever-so-conspicuous one.

It can be so easy to focus on the uncomfortable things in our lives--the growing pains. But I am finding that it helps to remember that my perspective is so incomplete and that God is doing something through that process--that all the stretching is somehow for His glory--and maybe for something beautiful. He doesn't always show us...but it is pretty amazing when He does!