October 2008

Finally... we can announce the biggest news since our wedding day. WE'RE PREGNANT!! Hana is currently 5 months pregnant with our first son!

The short version...

1. It's a boy
2. Semester half over
3. Katie (Hana's sister) gets married!

And the long...

1. It's a boy. Five months ago Hana arrived at church about a half hour before youth group started. She said that we had received a letter from a friend in Africa who asked if we were going to have a baby. Odd. Then, Nathan (a youth ministry volunteer) told Hana she was glowing. Interesting. She was glowing, I'll never forget it. When I got home that night she had taken a pregnancy test (ok, two). I walked in and she was sitting on the couch with a look of unbelief on her face. She told me the news and I started jumping around like a monkey. I couldn't believe it. She said she wanted to take another test... just to be sure. We went to the grocery store and bought a couple boxes of tests. We used all of them. Give us a break; we're new at this!

We made an appointment with the doctor our good friends used when they had their baby. They scheduled an ultrasound during the 9th week. We didn't know he was a boy yet, but we knew he was alive and well. His little heart was beating 173 times per minute. When I saw it on the screen, so was mine. I looked at Hana, and she was smiling big. The Lord had indeed given to us a child. The funny thing was that on the way their Hana had said (a number of times), "What if we get there and there's no baby in there?" I kept saying, "Babe, there's a baby in there!" As I held her hand and looked at the screen displaying the pictures of our baby I said, "See. There is a baby in there." We were given a print out of a couple of the pictures the technician took. We couldn't wait to post them on facebook!


On the way home we started talking about names (both boys and girls). I can't believe it has been so long since that day. Just over a week ago we went in for our 20 week appointment. It's amazing what happens in ten weeks. Now our boy looks like this...

The technician moved the thing around until she had a good shot of a distinguishing body part. She said, "Can you tell what your baby is?" I said. "Is it a boy?" She confirmed my suspicion. Once again, I was holding Hana's hand and I looked over at her. She had a tear in her eye. We were overwhelmed. We had brought a CD to download the pictures to, and once it was done we were out of there. Once again, on the way home, we talked about names. We're leaning toward Poyschamfunda. It's an old name from the northern region of.. ok, I'm just kidding. I made that up. We don't know what we're calling this little guy yet. "Baby Ryman" for now. We'll keep you posted. Please pray for him, and for us as we prepare to bring a child into this world. He is a gift from God and we are excited to raise him to know and love our Savior, Jesus.

2. I can't believe we're half way through this semester. And, I can't believe I'll graduate in May. My goodness! Everything is pretty much up in the air at this point. UPC doesn't know if they'll have the money to bring me on full time. I'm going to be sending out resumes soon in case they can't. To be honest, though, I hardly think about it. My mind is more on my boy, and the excitement of being a father. I know the Lord's in control anyway, so why worry about tomorrow? Tomorrow will worry about itself, right? (Matthew 6:34)

3. We went to Katie's wedding on the 18th. It was one of the nicest weddings I've ever been to (when I say 'nicest' I mean 'beautiful,' but I didn't want to sound like a girly man). Everything went to plan, except for the photographer arriving 30 minutes late. A seemingly big problem, that is, until later that night we realized that since he was late he was going to be there an extra half hour, which meant he'd be there for the cutting of the cake! God's got that stuff under control too. If we'd just trust Him!

Well, that's about it for now. Lots of stuff coming up: Turkey Day in Palm City, Christmas in Minneapolis, New Years back in Palm City, Baby in March, graduation in May, new job in June... pretty crazy. I just thank God that He has not only promised to always provide and take care of us, but has shown us that He always will. An example of that would be the fact that we've received enough maternity clothes from people we know that we don't have to buy anything. Not a thing. God is good.

"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-27).

God bless,
MjR