Travels

Well, here we go the crazy pre-travel prep/packing/cleaning starts today! Parents arrive tomorrow, sewed up a storm of projects yesterday, so today is saved for cleaning and packing. Sunday we go up to Oak Harbor to see Nate get ordained by his father-in-law at CC Oak Harbor, then hopely home in time to chill do any last minute prep, head to church in Capitol Hill for a little in the evening with a friend. Then in the morning (monday) we leave for J&K. All the while, Judah will be working ever night from now until we leave on Monday (:( but good for monetary funds when we return) the kids will leave with Mom and Dad to spend a  day with Nate and Marielle and girls before they drive back to MN and then we fly back to the states on the 29th stopping first in MN to pick up the kids then flying back to Seattle on the 31st.

 Prayer request for our trip:

• That we don't catch any traveller's bugs or food contaminated stomach bugs. 
• That the kids enjoy there time with Oma and Opa and don't miss us to much.
• Also that the van doesn't have any problems as they drive back to MN.
• And just general safety for Judah and I and baby Elias in my belly!

So that's up for updates except for anyone who didn't get our text/facebook update or phone call, the baby is most definitely a boy! Everything with the pregnancy and baby is right on track and nice and healthy. Looking forward to meeting little Elias Orion during Christmas time!

Ah, Summer!

I love Seattle! I love living here! While the rest of the country is suffering a heat wave we are enjoying the cool mist and drizzle of 65 degree (sometime up to 70) of the NW Coast, not to brag but I really am grateful for the weather we enjoy out here. Today it's to be sunny and 75 can't beat that :)

So India, here we come! Literally it's right around the corner (Aug 15th we fly out), we just got our approved visa's back in the mail last week so we can officially enter India. The family we are meeting out there came through town on there way to CA so stopped and had dinner with us, it was great to see them and even talk in person (rather then email) what we should expect when we arrive. I still a little apprehensive about food and altitude and being able to drink enough water to stay hydrated and would appreciate any prayers while we are there that I don't get sick from the food or water or altitude. The kids are looking forward to traveling with Oma and Opa and Enoch keeps talking about in 3...6(his new favorite number is 6) days he's going to go in Oma's plane (we told the kids we were going to fly in the plane back home to seattle after mommy and daddy get back from India and some how that translated into Enoch's mind that it was Oma's plane we are going in)?

So other thing that some people may not know yet (but I think most everyone who reads this does already know) that I am right now 17 weeks pregnant! Very excited for that and enjoying being pregnant again, I have an ultrasound on Aug 5 and hopefully we will find out the sex of this baby, I am leaning towards it being a boy but would be pleasantly surprised if it's a girl :) Not really showing a lot yet but i am starting to stick out a bit more and am sure that with in the next few weeks will be showing even more.

Well, that's all for now we just got finished with Judah have a week long conference with the Discovery Institute and then some best-est friends came and spent the day with us!! So back to normalcy this week I think praying to get back on the exercise and trying my hardest to get myself as much conditioned and in shape as I can before we start our trip.

hmmm!

Well, i know i am overdue for an update and yet still not quite feeling the motivation to relate all that has occurred in the past month or since i last wrote :D but here are a few things:

Work at Carenet has been great! I am almost finished with my "official" in-center training, learning lots and lots, how to answer the phone, how to walk through an intake with a client taking into mind their mindset (abortion minded, abortion vulnerable, or not abortion vulnerable). I got to sit on two intakes so far and both were completely different  although they both were for a pregnancy test. One was not very open to any ministering and mainly just wanted a "official verification of pregnancy" where as the other gal was very abortion minded and we spent 1 1/2 talking with her. (Oh, Lord Jesus, please keep your arms around this girl and help her to choose the thing to do that is right and to bring back into a right relationship with you).  One of the ladies I have been working with is leaving, she got a job as the new director for a new clinic that is opening up it's doors very soon. So although i am not nearly prepared for it i will be filling her spot on our shift! So very excited for what doors the Lord will open and ways I will be growing through volunteering here. I love it! So again a plug for prayers, I am there on Tuesday mornings from 9am to 1pm (western time) so if you think of me then please pray for me there!

More plans being prepared for our trip to India in August last official thing to do is send off for the visas which I will be doing this week but all our tickets here and there and back are bought, Yeah! Thank the Lord for his provision and blessings.

Lets see what else. . . Judah and I got to spend the night in downtown seattle while some friends of our took the kids overnight. That was great and so very relaxing, we had a room at a great inn right at the harbor steps and then we just walked around downtown that night ate and then also walked around downtown the next morning after we checked out. We went to the Seattle Public Library which is this huge building i've never been in before but it was really neat and I am kinda excited to start taking the kids down there on a regular bases it's got a great children's section and lots and lots of great nooks and crannies to hind out in and read and even with the kids!

Well, for now that's all i am going to write because the kids movie is over and i need to start in on some school work with them now... here's some great encouragement from Amy Carmichael to end my note with:

Don't Give Up

The younger of the baby kingfishers has caught his first fish. He flew off with it to show it to his mother. We heard all she said about it, and all he said. Mother and son have talked of nothing else for the last ten minutes. But just before this joy the young kingfisher had a great disappointment. He had been practising all kinds of dives, and at last he came up jubilant. He had a beakful of something! He could hardly stand for excitement-but it wasn't a fish. It was a leaf. Have you ever felt as I think that poor little bird felt then? (It took him quite a long time to recover from his disappointment.) You thought you had found power and patience to deal with some difficulty, and then somehow you hadn't. Leaf for fish-it was rather like that.  Then do what the kingfisher did. Don't give up. Seek again. "In due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart" (Gal. 6:9) "He also taught them by a parable that they must always pray and never lose heart" (Luke 18:1)

just a quickish blog before off to bed with me... :-)

So today was my "official" first day at volunteering at Care Net of Puget Sound.
I am planning on serving there every tuesday from 9am to 1pm so if you happen to think of me then i would covet prayer for my time there.  Right now I will still have 7 more weeks of in clinic training before becoming an "official" volunteer there.

A couple of things I would love to have people praying for is that on Tuesdays planned parenthood has abortion day and the clinic i serve at is just two doors down from planned parenthood.
So prayer that the couples/women going there would come into Care Net instead...or would go through with those abortions.
Also that there would be more women coming into the clinic and finding Jesus!

Today was a blast from the past for me, I watched a DVD series called "sharing Jesus without fear" put on my Bill Fay. I heard him teach back in highschool at First B the church we were attending at the time. It is very good stuff, very simple and a great refresher for me. There have been things he taught that have stuck with me since i first heard them about sharing your faith and I am excited to grow in this area of my life...witnessing, sharing Jesus with people I meet...

We had some friends over for dinner tonight and it was great fun...(we had been trying to get together with them for the past two months so it was great to finally be able to make it work for both of us!)

 And tomorrow we are going to trek around town...let Josiah go biking, probably to up to Mountlake Terrace for church, enjoy Judah's day of spring break...his only one that we don't really have any obligations lined up for this week.

That's all for now :-)

Commitment

One day there was a hard thing to be done, and one of us didn't want to do it.
"I can't, " she said; but she added honestly, "at least, I don't like to!"
Now she was very fond of a certain hymn. " onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war," and her friend (Amma, of course!), who did not at all intend to give up doing this little difficult thing, began to sing it softly - only putting it rather differently:

Onward, Christian soldiers,
Sitting on the mats!
Nice and warm and cozy
Like little pussycats.
Onward, Christian soldiers,
Oh how brave are we!
Don't we do our fighting
Very comfortably?

She laughed at first; but soon she almost cried, for she saw not only the absurdity of it but the wrong of singing one thing and doing another.
So she and her friend knelt down together and asked God to make them true to their hymns and true to their prayers.
And then they sang this chorus:

From all fear of what men think or say,
Victory for me! Victory for me!
From ever fearing to speak, sing or pray,
Victory for me! Victory for me!
Lord, in Thy love and Thy power make me strong,
That all may know that to Thee I belong,
And when I'm tempted let this be my song,
Victory for me! Victory for me!

Amy Carmichael, "Fragments that Remain" ( Ch. 8 The Cross and The Commitment)

Oh Lord, Let me be true to my prayers and my words!

Writer

Today during our Women's bible study, one of the ladies spoke for St. Patrick's Day Bunch and her topic was writing your testimony. Now she is a writer/editor and although her content was good you could tell that speaking was not something she was totally comfortable with and who is right?? It was good stuff though and got me thinking about this blog and what the Lord is doing in my life lately... there has been no huge life changing thing but lots of little things that i am sure if I were a little more consistent with recording those things as they happen might prove to be something that ends up being a bigger thing he is doing with me!
So, I am committing (to myself mainly) to really make an effort at this writing because although I am not a "writer" I do enjoy writing when i do it and I want to be able to "recall, the works of his hands"

Enoch Daniel

It's 2:30am and i should go to bed (and I will be shortly) but officially Enoch is 4 today hard to believe it's here already! Enoch we've lived in four different places for each of his birthdays, first in Saint Paul were he was born at Saint Joseph's, then when He was one we were in Saint Cloud, living at Dom and Danielle's. Next, for his second birthday we had moved to WA and were living in Kent (and my mom was there for his birthday) and then for his birthday last year and now this year we have lived here in Seattle! This year he wanted a "blue, woody birthday!" (woody, from toy story) normally i don't decorate the house aside from balloons but this week spur of the moment i got some decorations and also very spur of the moment invited a friend and her two year old and baby over to enjoy birthday cake with us!! (I think it was my mood from changed plans but I felt the need to make it super special for him)
Another phenomenon which has probably occurred because we/I knew his birthday was coming is that in the past two months he seems to have almost completely turned into a little boy not just "my baby" any more. He's speaking more clearly, he's playing with more intricate toys...and i think in general we are expecting more of him and he is rising to the occasion! Anyhow we are going to enjoy the day tomorrow! Happy Birthday my sweet Enoch!

India

India!!

I love India :-) Back in 1999 I was blessed to go on a mission trip with Teen Mission's International, when signing up to go my first choice had been to go to Haiti but didn't get on that team, instead I was put on my second choice which was India. I have no doubt that was the Lord's design and ever since that trip I have greatly desired to go back. I fell in love with the Indian people and the country, the land itself, if you can look past the slums is a beautiful country.
And now the Lord is opening the doors and working out the details to allow us (Judah and I) to go (me to go back) to India it is going to be just a short trip but we're going!!
We will be joining our friends as they move back to the country after a furlough here in North America.

As of now (subject to minor adjustments) the plan is that my parents will make a trip out here by 8/15 to"pick up" the kids and take them back to MN, while Judah and I will fly out of Seattle and then spend a few days shy of two weeks in India, returning to the states via MN on the 8/29 to "pick up" the kids from my parents, then rent a car and get back to Seattle by 9/2 for Judah to return to work and school starting back up shortly after that as well.

Also in the "tentative and Lord willing" plans are to try and get pregnant again soon timing it out again as much as possible and as the Lord wills so that by the time august rolls around I will be past the 1st trimester and but not into the 3rd yet!

So time will tell how that all will work out but either way tickets are bought so no going back now!! (or at least not without a substantial loss of funds by aborting plan)

Back in the fall of this year I decided to look into pregnancy crisis clinics in the area for the purpose of finding one to volunteer at. About a year ago I had looked into it but didn't really find anything and also didn't really follow up on it other then an internet search. So this time around after searching again finding that the closest clinics were all at least 45 minutes away still decided to at least contact them and find out what they were all about. Sent them a request for more info and that a director from the clinic closest would contact me. Then I waited almost to the point of giving up on this clinic and starting the search anew they got back to me (it was about 2 months after the request was first sent) and set up an appointment for an interview and also just to meet and here what I was interested in doing and what they offered and what they were all about. That meeting took place then at the end of January and right away after first talking to the director (her name is Cindy) I felt really excited and that this was definitely going to be a good fit for me.
Before they let you come and start volunteering they have you go through roughly 24 hours of training spread out over 2 weeks. And the training was scheduled for the last week in Feb and first week in March....but then the "snow" came and if you didn't know this yet FYI Washington shuts down at the first sighting or even rumoring of glimmering and fluttering of flakes. Which in all fairness to Washingtonians is a good idea as no roads are a salted or plowed or sanded properly and everyone starts driving like a teenager who is driving on their own in snow and ice for the first time ever (lack of experience + potentially perilous conditions). We actually did drive in the mess of it and had a few stressful hours of driving to and from our destination. Minnesotians think spring time storm....just cold enough to slightly freeze, icy slush plus no salt or plows because in a day of two at most it will all melt away anyways.
All that to say the training got rescheduled :-)
Which for me the only difficulty in that was my planned in advance childcare (which included the 2 hour drive though icy terror to get it) for the all day training on friday was not available. But thanks to a friend who helped out at the last minute and a shortened day so i could get home in time for Judah to head off to work helped me get it covered...now all I have is tuesday evening left of training and then the rest will be completed at the center.
So once my training is complete, my commitment to the clinic will be 4 hours a week for a least a year and i am very excited to see what the Lord has in store for me through this all.
One thing that has really stuck out me in training had made me look at the whole prolife-prochoice debates is that if we would focus a little more on the women in need and not so much on the baby, as a side affect of that is the baby will be taken a care of... anyway i am sure this is very long and if you stuck with it I apologize for the disconnected thoughts and overly long sentences. I am super sleepy but wanted to get this out there before weeks pass with out anything being written. So here it is with more to come later when i am a little more conscious! Brandy

Yeah for internet access at home, we are back online!!

well so much for keeping a little more updated, we've lost our free wifi from neighbors so now i have to drive down to a coffeeshop to get internet...blah, after almost a week of no services i am missing it sorely. Only real news is our tickets to India this summer are bought so excited! Working on keeping in shape and homeschooling the kids and that's all for now.

blogs... well i know i had intended on keeping this updated at least a little more frequently so here is my attempt.

Since last writing life has returned to some sort of normalcy with a renewed determination to be -consistent in schooling Josiah and Jaelle (and Enoch a little): which has consisted of finishing his big workbook of everything a 1st grader should know, started working through a new math workbook (he finished his first one a little while before Dec.), learning and working through the Charlotte Mason approach to reading narration, hymn and scripture memorization as well as handwriting practice and for now that all i've managed to consistantly keep up but I hope to add a little more soon.
-exercising: to finish getting down to my goal weight and also to build up some endurance and strength for our upcoming planned trip(more on that in a minute)
-house up-keeping: getting rid of clutter and organizing the house I've managed to get our entire house nice and organized with the exception of one box of photo's i have been intending to clean up and organize and then just maintaining the house cleaning up the little messes right away so the don't become huge attempting to do laundry when i have only a few loads instead of 5 or 6 loads and then making sure i don't let it remain unfolded but putting it away right a way and also keeping the dishes and kitchen cleaned up every night. It's great and something i have worked hard at to get to this point in the past 3 years.

So aside from that other things that have started for us on Wednesday's we have a home fellowship but so far we've only had one other couple and then one other girl consistently come and then on Fridays I open up the house for a women's night of fellowship so far again only two women have come but Lord willing that will increase more soon!

Last update for us is we are planning in the middle of August (for about 2 weeks)joining the Ahlbrechts as they move back to India, so Lord willing and provided judah is approved for the time off work and we can work out the logistics of childcare and visa's approved we will going! I am excited about this trip. In talking about going and the possibility becoming a reality, we never talked about getting pregnant again and what that would mean for the trip, but it came up the other day. I was under the assumption that I would be pregnant on the trip and that Judah knew or I should say recall (because we did talk about this) as soon as possible I would want to try again but he hadn't and his first reaction is we can't go if you are because it wouldn't be safe and we've already said we are going to go. So either you get pregnant and we don't go or you wait till we get back but for me waiting another 9 months before getting pregnant again isn't an option I want!! So after a few disagreements, clarifications, research on the subject also getting the opinion of some who has "been there, done that" :D We have decided to go ahead with the trip. and plan on attempting to get pregnant before we go. Again Lord willing if it happens within the next two or three months it will put me at somewhere between 4 and 6 month along (ideal time for traveling while pregnant) . The funny thing and perhaps even something the Lord allowed is that if Judah had thought about it or recalled that I would not be willing (or content) to wait that long we wouldn't have even considered going. Anyway things to ponder and the current going-on of the Ivy's!

The Lord is good!

Thank you so much to everyone who has prayed for us, offered help, sent condolences and encouragement!

My prayers were answered in that I did not have to wait very long for my body to figure out what was going on ending the pregnancy and completing it's process of restarting. Tuesday evening is when it happened. I prayed that it would happen before Jaelle's Birthday which was Wednesday and before Judah had to go back to work/school which also was Wednesday (for school and friday for work). So many, many things to be grateful for, especially in the all the little things that have happened and in realizing how much harder losing this baby could have been for us, grateful to be able to see some ways God has had mercy on us.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Romans 12:12

Baby #4

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, everyone of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:16

I've read this passage countless times but this week my circumstances have given meaning to it for me. I know and love well the parts before and after this section, "God formed my inward being, he knit me together in my mother's womb, I am wonderfully made and my frame was not hidden from you..." and the passage after "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more then the sand. I awake, and I am still with you."
I am sitting here as my cramping is slowly starting signally the start of my body shedding the rest of the pregnancy tissues and the "little unformed substance" in me. Processing, grieving, and now accepting it, it was shock and denial at first, I've always been (even a little conceitedly I admit) one of those women who were fairly certain that having a miscarriage would never happen to me. Yet here I am. . . I mean I've been blessed with three very healthy and normal children easy pregnancies with no complications. So shock that this was/is really happening. Denial that this was really a miscarriage, (it's just a fluke my body was tricked into thinking it was pregnant, there was no baby in the ultrasound, no baby was even formed in me. . . ) so yes technically the baby in me never formed into having it's body shaped, it limbs formed, it's organs beginning to develop It never got past it's cells multiplying, the endearing "baby blob" stage. But if I believe the bible (and I do!) then God's eyes saw our baby's unformed substance and the days that were formed for him or her were counted and written down in God's book. I know this baby is with God in heaven, I am sure that God has will be giving him/her a new body that's fully formed and in His image just as he has promised to give us new bodies in heaven.
Even though this sucks right now (the Lord knows and a few of my friends and Judah how much I wanted to be pregnant again, how excited I was for this baby) I also am looking forward to what God can make of this in my life. I don't for a second believe he wanted this or even made this to happen but he did allow it, he did allow our baby to stop developing and then to be taken home for whatever reason or reasons.

I still would appreciate your prayers as this process isn't over yet and I have signs of it starting soon. I know my first post (on facebook or emailed) may have been confusing as it was to me a little at first so feel free to call or email me I don't mind talking about it and I have a much better grasp of what is happening.

"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." Isaiah 26:3-4