I2I DTS Week 11!

In 24 hours, our students are on their way to Brazil! It's pretty amazing that 3 months have come and gone already! Today is the last day of lectures! Wow!

Week 11's teaching topic was evangelism and the speakers were a South African father/son team named Len and Jono Du Preez. It sounds like they had great stuff to share from what I heard from the students, since I didn't get to sit in on any of it this week. It is the first full week that I have completely missed lectures =( I think it was great to spend a whole week on evangelism just before the Brazil team heads out!

Highlights of the week:
- Visiting my friend, Kristi for lunch on Monday!
- Noah tried a number of foods this week! Plums, eggs, soda crackers, cherries and banana bread! And he figured out how to open cupboards and pulled stuff out this week for the first time. Life is busy with my little man!

Getting into the diaper bag!

Pulling containers out of the drawers while mommy does dishes

- Visiting around the base
- Took Noah to the prayer room twice this week!
- Two afternoons with the mom's group/ladies Bible study this week! On Wednesday, I brought Noah and he even went down for a nap! Not only that but instead of sleeping 32 minutes, he slept 1 hour and 20mins! That was great! On Thursday, I got the lovely pleasure of going by myself!!! Thank you Shane!
- On Wednesday we had a potluck with the peeps from our DTS back in 2010....our present staff (Athol, Debbie and Tom) and Andrew came with his mom from LA to visit!

 

- When Steph drops by! And Noah and I got to visit at her place on Sunday!
- I got to the prayer room alone one evening! So good to do that!
- 5 days with long naps for Noah!
- The Lovefeast! It is a celebratory meal at the end of lecture phase where we enjoy one another, celebrate, eat together and affirm one another!

My ADORABLE family!

Mommy and Noah!

Daddy and Noah at the restaurant...looking handsome!

Noah and Faith (one of our staff)

 

 

Lovefeast at Buca di Beppo

We had the Pope Room to ourselves

 

Family style dining! Lots of yummy food!

 

 

 

Beautiful ladies!

One of my one-on-one gals, Calleen

 

One of my one-on-one gals, Rebekah

- Staff meeting on Time Management - I like figuring out schedules and I'm looking forward to a new season!
- Organize our living room/dining room and make a little more room!
- Supervise a prank!

A bit of revenge =)

3 boxes of Whoppers on the floor

Marshmellows and whipped cream in the coffee pot

Need S'More?

Chocolate pudding in the toilet (with the water turned off)

A gift left on the pillows

Some chocolate sauce added to the coffee pot

Very creative prank...everything involved was edible!

- Have a relaxing evening alone at home (after Noah was in bed)! Shane went out to the Impact World Tour event and there were 27 salvations!!! So awesome!
- A game of volleyball (and my wrists are holding up fine!)

- Our last staff meeting on a Sunday evening!

Low lights of the week:
- Some really rough nights =(
- Noah figured out how to grind his teeth =(
- The usual challenges of limited family time, being on call all the time and the challenges of discipleship.

Praise reports from last week:
- My sore throat recovered nicely and didn't progress into more! Yay!
- Noah's runny nose is getting better!
- More breakthrough in finances for some of our students!
- A good time together as a school during our Lovefeast!

Prayer requests for this week:
- Provision for the remainder of $ needed for outreach for our students
- Safety, protection, unity, love and power as the team leaves for Brazil tomorrow!
- A good staff debrief on Thursday
- Comfort and direction for one of our students who found out yesterday that she can't go on outreach because Brazil denied her visa =(
- A good visit with my dad and Rose, who are coming out on Friday!
- And the usual......REST!

A day in our lives during lecture phase...

Before we switch schedules and it's easy to forget, I have been wanting to post an example of a day in our lives during lecture phase for weeks now. Now's the time since our students leave for outreach on Wednesday already! Our routines have changed here and there over the last 12 weeks and we've gone from 4 naps to 3 naps and progressed to 3 meals of solids per day for Noah. At the beginning of lecture phase, I went to class a lot more because it worked with Noah but as he gets older, it is more difficult to take him there. So, here is the latest kind of schedule we have....

6:00am - Shane wakes and showers for the day
6:50am - Shane leaves for the prayer room with the students
7:00am - Noah wakes for the day and therefore I wake up too...morning routine begins - good morning hellos/hugs, playtime, opening the blinds, checking email, breakfast, put on the prayer room webstream, etc
7:30am - Noah feeds
8:00am - Noah has solids
8:30am - I try to shower....with Noah in the exersaucer, jolly jumper or stroller in the doorway, while talking to him to keep him entertained
8:50am - Shane drops by after returning from the prayer room and runs off to set up the classroom
9:00am - Noah goes for nap #1, I try to lie down too, class begins for Shane and the students
9-12pm - Lectures...sometimes we go and visit in between Noah's naps
9:30 or 10am - After 32 minutes, Noah is up and ready to play again! Lately, we've been heading to the prayer room, which we hope to make part of our regular routine as things shift in September.
10-11am - Noah and I head to the prayer room and pace during the first hour of the 10am intercession set
11am - Head home for lunch
11:30am - Noah feeds and has solids
12pm - Noah goes for nap #2, Shane and I head to the lunch room for lunch with the students (we bring the monitor along and it's just down the hall....on the 4 nap schedule Noah always finished his second nap before lunch and came with us to lunch with the students. Now it's hit and miss!)
1pm - Shane goes back to class with the students and sometimes Noah and I join them
2:30pm - Noah goes for nap #3 if he took the usual 32 minutes, I usually lie down again too and he feeds somewhere around this time
3:30pm - Noah goes for nap #3 if he took a longer nap
3-5pm - We go for a visit around the base, chatting with people and saying hi to the students during work duty, come home and start making supper, Shane is busy coordinating work duty and helping the students out.
5pm - Shane comes home for supper
5:30pm - Noah feeds
6pm - We all eat supper (Noah has solids)
6:15pm - Noah has a bath (on certain days), Shane is back out the door on the evenings that the students have class
6:30-7pm - Noah's bedtime - pjs, diaper change, sleep sac on, prayers, goodnight to daddy and the last feed for the day, often asleep around 7pm
7pm - clean up from dinner, tidy toys, have a little relax time at the computer
7:30pm - depends on the evening....do one-on-ones with students, go have some time at the prayer room alone, go participate in class, stay home and do stuff (like answer emails/blog), talk with Shane when we get an evening to ourselves!
9:00pm - aim to be getting ready for bed
9:30pm - my ideal bedtime...often not until 10pm

There is an glimpse of what some of our days look like! It doesn't always happen this way and there are differences from day to day in our school schedule, plus the times of our naps and feeds can vary too. My world revolves around feeding Noah and putting him for naps so it seems when you write it out like this =) In between, it's been a real blessing to be involved with things outside the home...like class, life with students, having my husband work in the same building or heading out to the prayer room or the moms group/ladies Bible study I recently found.

It's been a busy but good season and looking back, I'm grateful for the timing of when we started DTS. It was a lot easier staffing DTS with a 6 month old, compared to an almost 9 month old. I'm looking forward to what September holds and though I will miss the students, I'm looking forward to a change of pace for the next 10 weeks!

A Tour of our KC Home

I took these pictures a while back and forgot that I was going to do a post giving you a tour of our little apartment. So, here is our one-bedroom home here on the YWAM base in Kansas City. Living in community definitely had pros and cons and we're going to have lots of memories, I'm sure! Some of the blessings of community life are:
- We are adjusting to life in 1 bedroom and it hasn't killed us! I was so scared about all sleeping in the same room when I found out we would be in a one bedroom. Thank you Lord for making it possible!
- It's fun to have many people to interact with steps away, if you wish!
- It's always easy to borrow something!
- There is a sense of community and family!

Our front door

The kitchen from the entrance

Check out the retro and tiny oven!

Our bathroom area from the entrance....strangely in 2 sections

The sink/mirror/counter area

And the toilet/shower area...somehow bringing our own bathmat has made it feel more like home =)

Our living room from the entrance

View of the living room/dining room, kitchen and entrance

Our shelf makes it feel more like home too...and Noah loves it for standing!

Our one piece of living room furniture amongst lots of baby stuff! We still have to get our pictures up on the wall to make it feel even more homey!

Our backyard....though the drought has fried the grass

View of our bedroom from the sink/mirror/counter area of our bathroom

Our side of the room....oh how I miss our mattress!

Noah's side of the room! I'm so thankful we brought his furniture! It does my momma heart good!

The wonderful "wall divider" (aka a poster board from Hobby Lobby)...we were using a towel for a while, but Noah started pulling it down and now he can stand. It prevents him from "knowing" we are there =)

This is our little place we call home right now. The Lord has been gracious to find us a place, fill it with lots of love and laughter and helps us as we maneuver the kinks of community living with a sensitive baby. I am thankful for many things and learning as we go along. On the whole, the whole community living thing and a sleeping baby has been quite a challenge for me to be honest.

I long for a house of our own soon. I pray that if the Lord calls us here longer than 6 months that He would provide a place of our own. Shane and I really look forward to having our own bedroom again one day! Until then, I will count my blessings!

I2I DTS Week 10!

What a whirlwind of a week! I can feel things gearing up for a change of pace. Perhaps it was my week away and knowing that lecture phase is complete in a short 9 days away. I can feel my heart and mind preparing for September already but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I want to finish this lecture phase off well!

Noah and I arrived home last Monday and that evening when I put him to bed, look what I saw when I peeked in the room! I grabbed the camera and flicked on the light =) Bedtime will never be the same! But, things have been going well despite Noah's new skills and he does really well self-soothing at naps and bedtime (not so great at nighttime)!

I LOVE that smile!

The speaker for week 10 was Gary Gilbertson and the topic was Biblical worldview. He went through the Old Testament, teaching the student how to draw through the Bible as a creative way to understand the Old Testament. He had a booklet with symbols, pictures and such which made it easier to understand and remember the information in the Old Testament! I only got to peek into class on one day since my Noah is officially too loud to attend class (for my comfort) =) But it sounds like the students enjoyed it!

Highlights of the week:
- My sister has arrived!!!! She has relocated here to Kansas City to do IHOPU! My heart is so happy that she is here! Our wonderful friend, Kristen, came along to get her settled and the few days with them had a holiday feeling which was refreshing! We had suppers together, saw Steph's new place, I got to show them special places (like Belton and Orange Leaf), spent some time in the prayer room and enjoyed having them at our place!

Beautiful ladies in my living room!

 - Noah started eating toast...and loves it! He also started corn and likes it too!

 - Noah started pulling himself up to standing against the window and at my legs =) So cute and he's getting so strong! And we are going to have a climber on our hands!

 - Wednesday afternoon we got family time for 2 hours during the day! We talked, caught up from being apart for the previous week and went for a walk! Soooo nice!
- Mom's group/Ladies Bible Study! Definitely going to be a highlight of my weeks!
- Noah took a longer nap on two different days! Yay!
- Time in the prayer room with Noah twice this week in the morning instead of taking him to class (since he's getting louder)! He and I really enjoy our time together in there pacing the aisles =)
- I got to go to the Encounter God Service on Friday evening! I normally don't go but seeing my sister there was a big motivator and it was good for me!
- My wonderful husband turned 32 on Sunday! Happy Birthday babe! It was also the first date we've had since May and we really enjoyed lunch alone together! Thank you Auntie Stephanie!

Shane picked Buffalo Wild Wings for our lunch date! Mmmmm!

Many different celebration moments throughout the day!

A Canadian birthday celebration with ones we love dearly!

32 candles to blow out at our staff meeting!

A cake to celebrate with the class today - Happy Birthday Oh What a Shane =)

   Low lights of the week:
- Sleep deprivation =( Some rough nights with multiple wake ups and teething pains =(
- Seeing parts of my heart that need a lot more work =(

Praise reports from this week:
- Multiple of our students had breakthrough in finances, including one of my one-on-ones! It's an awesome answer to prayer!
- Noah traveled well!

Prayer requests for this coming week:
- For our students/outreach team as they prepare to leave for Brazil in 9 days! Unity for the team and power in the Holy Spirit!
- A good last full week of lecture phase, enjoying one another as a school
- Healing/no pain for Noah as he cuts tooth number 4 soon and hasn't been feeling well (runny nose, warm, not sleeping well)
- Healing for our throats (Shane and I both have sore throats this evening)
- REST for all 3 of us! This is a HUGE prayer request in my books =)