Auntie Jill and Uncle Kevin!!!

This week I became and Auntie for the first time. Auntie Jill. I've dreamed of being called that... and now the time has come! :) Blake and Crystal gave birth to their first little baby girl this last week. July 8th, 2009. 07-08-09. Emma Joy. She is a beautiful little baby girl with a head of dark hair. The blessed us by video skyping us just a couple hours after her birth. We are so thrilled! And soooo far away! Agh. We knew when we came that she would be born with us overseas. And we knew that it'd be hard to be far away... but we're reeeally far away!! Really far.


Blake and Crystal are also some of our very best friends, on top of being our family. So what a blessing. And here we are... too far away to celebrate and too far away to be of help. That's totally the hardest thing about missions work... being far away. And now I've realized that even when we go back to the states... we'll be far away from our friends who have become like family here! We will always be far away from someone we love from now on. Uff.

But we will be thankful for all these people that we love no matter where they are - or we are!!

For now, our desktop is Emma and her family! :) Our skype is open in case we catch them online. Our hearts and prayers are in North Dakota!

You can pray for my sister-in-law, too. She had a loooong labor ending in a C-section. She's slowly healing and has high blood pressure to boot. Not how she wanted to spend her first few weeks with her new little love. On top of that, Ricky and Lisa are also some of her best friends along with us. (She, Lisa, and I, along with another dear friend, Anne, have done Bible studies together for like 7 years and continue to study together over Skype...) Their little one died the day after Emma was born. (See previous post.) So now she's got her little love to hold while she knows Lisa's arms are empty. They would have ("should have") had their two little girls grow up along side each other... Such joy and heartache right now.

And we're sooo far away... (You can tell how we feel this week...)

We all stand determined to bless the name of the Lord. But are so sad. And so happy. It's been an emotional week.

After the kids "met" their new - only - cousin on Skype, Hannie said, "Now I really feel far away." I totally understand. We want to be over there hugging - everyone!


Emma Joy is here. We're looking forward to the day we get to snuggle that sweet little girl. For now, her mama and daddy will have to do that extra for us! (Along with everyone else living in GF... we've told them all to give her love for us and to say our name a lot so she knows us when we come!!!) I'm an Auntie. Kevin has claimed her as ours... our little niece. She has our heart. She is a Joy. We're in love.