By His Grace

Sorry for the long pause in updates! It is crazy home many things change when you have a baby, especially when you live overseas and family comes and visits for 2 and a half months :)

I believe you all know already but we were blessed with Naomi Brooke who joined us just a day after Christmas. We had a rather long labor and delivery that resulted in me loosing a lot of blood and needing to be in the hospital for 3 days after Naomi was born and about a week of not being able to walk anywhere without Seth at my side, a week and a half before I went on a short walk outside and two weeks before I could stand and carry my daughter. But it's crazy I can look at her now (sucking on her fingers) and not only say that it all was worth it but also that I don't really remember it...(too bad I wrote it all down, although I don't think Seth will forget :))

Anyways about 2 and a half weeks after our beautiful 4 kg daughter joined us, our families began to visit, starting with my mom and brother for 2 and a half weeks followed by about 10 days alone then Seth's parents and sister came to a visit for 10 days and Eva than stayed longer and we just took her to the airport yesterday. It was absolutely wonderful having family here, especially since it had been a year since we had seen any of them. It got a little cramped at times considering we have a one bedroom apartment but it was definitely worth it! It was a lot of fun being able to share with our families more of what we do here and have those here get to meet some of our family. It is almost unreal now thinking of all the things that we did with them and then that they are now all gone once again and it will be about 9 more months until we will see them again. You could definitely be praying for our hearts during this time being away from family once again. It was a blessing seeing the family that we did but it definitely made me bummed that we won't see the rest of the family, especially our nieces and nephews until we get back. (most likely)

So I mentioned at the starts that many things have changed for us. Honestly I would be a little concerned if things didn't change after having a baby. However we are still getting a hang of things and probably will be for the rest of our lives but there are a few things that we could use prayer for. First off that we would make sure that we are making time for God. It has been easy for us at times to put the needs of Naomi first and then our family and then time with each other and push our time with God to the side so please be praying that we are able to get some kind of routine. Another thing to be praying about is that Seth and I have quality time together. It is easy to just want to get things taken care of whenever Naomi sleeps but we need to take the time for each other. Lastly we are working on figuring out what ministry will look like for me now that we have a baby. I am going to need to have this decided by the end of the month so please be praying for wisdom.

A couple more prayer requests for us are for Seth as he along with 2 others are planning and preparing the youth program for another mission organizations conference that will be at the start of April. So far it has been a good learning experience for Seth, just pray all the planning goes well and it comes together. Also Naomi and I are currently planning on going with to this conference since it is a week long although it is in Croatia and we are not sure yet if Naomi would need her passport to go there which we have ordered but it will most likely not come in time. So please be in prayer for how it all will work out.

This was a long post since it has been so long but I do plan on starting back up with posting on here once a week. Here are also a few pictures of the last couple months. If you would like to see more check out Facebook :)

Alyssa