The New Year

We are seriously hyped up about 2010!! Overall, the package inlcudes a new baby, intercultural training, selling all of our possessions, "retiring" from our current jobs (which Bryan is MOST enthused about) & heading down south for language school in Guatemala!!
Our Goal:
We are just praying & hoping this actually happens by this summer. It has been a year since we started raising support for Honduras & we currently have over 70% of the funding. Our goal is to have ALL of it in by summer so we can venture down to Central America. Our spirits groan & ache so often because we feel like we're drifting rather than soaring toward the vision. Nevertheless, we have been incredibly blessed and amazed at how the Lord's timing for everything in the last year could not have been designated any more perfectly at our own will!! Also, we have experienced the blessing of developing a family and team of supporters & partners in ministry. This was something that originally seemed so impossible and distant to our logical comprehension, and when it actually started happening, we were awestruck. How right we were of how out of reach it is in all of man's potential, but at the will of our Lord, as the old saying goes, "Nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37). And I must say, this has been exciting to experience!
Baby Prep:
As of today, we have one month to the baby's due date (Feb. 9)! The few things lacking still are finalizing 6 weeks worth of Maternity Leave lesson plans for my sub at school, finding a pediatrician, making a birth plan, buying a stroller, attending a parent education birth class, and prewashing all those baby clothes before she's supposedly allowed to wear them. Most of these things would not so much have crossed my mind if I didn't live in the days of Google. I've realized through the pregnancy I'm not much of a planner and I'd rather things just happen without much expectation beforehand!! One reason I scheduled the birth class 2 weeks before my due date was in hopes that the baby would come early and I wouldn't have to spend an entire Saturday at the hospital talking about 8 hours worth of labor/delivery stuff. I'd rather be surprised with it all!! Of course, another aspect to not being much of a planner throughout all this probably has to do with the fact that we are in a weird transition of life right now. We can't fix up a nursery because we just expect to leave soon anyhow. So, we have a corner of our bedroom set up with a pack n play that will be her crib for the next 6 months and that's really about it! Not so much "nesting" going on around here, but hopefully once we get to Guatemala this summer, we'll have more the opportunity.
I had my 35 week checkup this week and the baby has already positioned herself head down in the pelvis!! Now all she can do is descend!!! YIKES!
One little inconvenience as of late:
When I was in the 5th grade, I was playing basketball and injured my right thumb (yes, of course, I'm right-handed). Back then, I just figured I jammed it. But I come to find out this week at the orthopedic that apparently, a piece of the bone at the joint of my thumb had broken off and for the last 18 years has been calcifying outside of the normal bone structure, thus causing all the pain & problems I've experienced with it over the years. But in the last 2 weeks, it has flared up - extremely tender to the touch, intensely painful at any movement, unbendable, and seriously swollen. So, the doc said instead of reconstructive surgery at this point, splinting it up for 3-4 weeks should allow it to heal & get back to normal (just until it decided to flare up again at some point). Let's hope & pray it will recover quickly because so far it has kept me from accomplishing so many things that I need to be doing right now!! And plus, I think I'm really going to need both hands for the baby when she arrives!!