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.

Sophia Lynn

Last month some of our best friends from North Dakota, Rick and Lisa, gave birth to their third baby and their first little girl. We knew we'd miss being around to celebrate her birth day. But we were so glad to hear she was born and all was well. Two weeks later, we heard that she was flown to the Fargo hospital and not doing well. She had a serious infection and the MRI's were showing blood clots and brain damage. After days in the hospital, our friends were told she was having seizures and that there was more brain damage. They had to decide to turn off her breathing support and she passed away right away. Their healthy baby girl, born three weeks earlier.


We are so broken for them. And feeling soooo far away from home. We spent the morning crying for their loss. Eleven years ago, our two month old baby boy passed away and we had to plan a funeral and pick a place to bury him. Not the thing a new mama and daddy should have to do.

We know that God will carry them and be their strength through this. But going through the valley can seem to take a long time. God is close to the brokenhearted. He is the God of Comfort and the Prince of Peace. They know Him as their Rock and will know Him better after all of this.

We can grieve with hope. Heaven is a little more of a reality when part of you is already there...

This week... our hearts are in North Dakota.

Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July... in Armenia!

We ate hot dogs, watched baseball, made red white and blue stars, had a red white and blue fruit salad, had potato chips, made chocolate chip/M&M cookies, sang patriotic songs... tried to really be American! :)

(Kevin missed the fireworks... especially now that the kids are a little older... last year they kinda enjoyed all the lighting of fireworks for the first time. I missed the parades and riding motorcycle with my Dad! Still, we celebrated and had a good day!)

We love the USA!

mother's day/father's day

Just wanted to post some pics for you to see our mother's day treasure and our father's day treasures... :) We love these kiddos who have made us a mom and dad! For mother's day we went to and Italian place here in Yerevan... yum. And for Father's Day we ate brownies! We had just gotten some in a package from the Blake and Crystal! Of course the best thing we did to celebrate, was to hang out with our sweet little loves!