As you know, we’ve just began the new FMS for 2010.

It’s been a great start and I’m so excited about what God’s doing. Led class worship this morning and felt such an openness in the class towards God. Very cool. (Btw, I didn’t throw up at the class. Turned out to be a bug and I prayed last night in the name of Jesus for the bug to go and I was perfectly fine by dinner time and totally alright this morning! Praise the Lord! My morning sickness is rather mild.)

Here’s a picture of our orientation last weekend. The creche and homeschool staff prepared a parachute game for the kids but noticed what eventually happened?!? The adults had more fun than the kids! The kids were pretty amused. So funny!

This class has only 9 students - 2 singles, 1 single parent and 3 married couples but we have a team of 9 staff so it’s one-on-one! So far so good. James has 1 guy for one-on-one and I have 2 ladies. One of the ladies is a Korean lady who is a missionary in China and she’s planning to pioneer FMS in China. Aiyo I’m so impressed and so excited to be her one-on-one, so many things to talk about. I love people who pioneer stuff, always super exciting for me.

Please do keep us in prayer. James and I are doing well, struggling a little with discipling Sophie at times because she’s really quite strong-willed by nature but with God’s grace, we know that she’ll grow and learn.

We’re actually in week 10, at least that’s what my Babycentre email says. YES! Almost done with the 1st trimester.

I’ve been so off yesterday and today. I’ll start the day super well and then at the end of the school day, i’m so tired out and I threw up twice today. I’m not sure if it’s the bug that is going around coz a few people have got it already or it’s morning sickness. It’s all kinda hard to tell at this point. But it’s making me unable to take in much food at all. Hopefully it’ll get better.

All my grand plans about homeschooling Sophie has come to a standstill since school started this week. The over ambitious me always ends up committing to more than I can do. Anyways I think I’ll take it slow… keep the important things in mind and leave the minor things till later.

YES! We’re expecting!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!! Sophie and James are super excited. Sophie kisses my tummy every day. James started thinking about where the baby was going to sleep etc once we found out we were pregnant.

We really feel so blessed. It’s really God’s timing. We kinda told ourselves we’ll start trying end of last year and within a couple of months we were expecting. We found out on New Year’s Day. It was such a great start to a new year.

This pregnancy has been a bit more happening than when I had Sophie. I actually threw up for the first time! Like serious throw up. When I had Sophie, I hardly had any of the symptoms that people talk about - no morning sickness, no cravings (I was really hoping for some so I can make James do something ridiculous for me! HAHA!), no nothing.

But this time, WAH! it comes in full force.

I am hungry like ALL the time and when I look at food, esp dairy, I wanna throw up! Even writing about it makes me feel a bit queasy.

And I’ve been having cravings. Serious cravings. Like chilli crabs. HELP!

And I’m only in wk 9 and I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans anymore. Ya ya the one pair I wear almost everyday. (Rem the Miss Sixties jeans that I kept trying on after giving birth to Sophie to make sure I could fit into it? It finally fit again when Sophie was 6 mths old. Sigh… have to wait long long this time.) Of course if I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans there is no way I can fit into my skinnys. And that means, no clothes to wear! Have to ask my MIL to send the maternity clothes soon. So fast!

Complains aside………… WE ARE SUPER HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baby’s due date is approximately 25th Aug 2010. We went to the local midwife on Sunday and had a chat with her. I think we’re quite comfortable giving birth here if we need to. We haven’t quite decided if we’re staying or going home, still praying. But whatever it is, we’re coming back to Singapore in Apr/May for a break and I’m seriously going to eat myself silly.

Dearest Sophie,

You’re going to be a che che in a few months! You’ve been really looking forward and talking about what you will do with your little sister/brother. You would like a little sister but we’re still not sure what baby is going to be. I do hope that you will get your wish. We all think that you’re going to be a great older sister and he/she is extremely blessed to have you as an older sister.

We love you dear one.

Love,

Mummy

The Family Ministries School (FMS) begins tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to staffing it. 

We’ve got John Rush teaching on Worldviews on family (he did a great teaching of Biblical Worldviews during the last DTS), Ian Hooker back to teach on Parenting, Jono on Communication, Sheryll will be teaching on Learning Styles Multiple Intellegiences (understanding how we learn and how our kids learn, very interesting), Bruce Thompson on Family Counselling and much more.

This time all the school staff have also been invited to share on different topics so James and I will be teaching in a school for the first time. Guess what our topic is? Pre-marital counselling. Funny coz we’ve never done that in a formal way before BUT realised we’ve always done that with our young adult friends in some way or another. So pls pray that the Lord will show us what on His heart for this new generation of counselling couples who are preparing for marriage.

So what would you have wished someone told you about marriage before you got married? Or if you are single, what questions do you have about relationships or marriage?

Btw, if you have some thoughts about this topic, I’d love love to hear your thoughts. Doesn’t have to be a Christian viewpoint. 

I hope that being on staff this time will give me a bit more time to summarise some of the teaching and post them here. The last time the school was so intense mentally and emotionally. I mean there’s no way you can go through a school like that and not have to deal with inherent issues in your own marriage with God and your spouse. So James and I had lots to deal with. Plus all the level 2 homework, intense! So hopefully hopefully, will be able to condense the teaching because it’s been SO good.

I’m a big fan of Sophie’s drawings, only coz I love how it just develops over time and it’s so cool to watch! It prob doesn’t mean much to anyone else but it’s super cool to observe how little kids develop their sense of proportions and spatial understanding over time.

Here’s a sample of her drawings over the past year.

Jan 2010 - That’s Daddy. Check out the hair. She never drew hair like that prior to this. So cute!

Sept 2009 - Our family. Daddy, Mummy, Sophie and Baby lying on the floor with a balloon upside down in its face. She’s been wanting a baby brother or sister and makes her requests known through her drawings.

June 2009 - She drew this and said it was Tigger’s House while Ling and I were having tea. The green thingy on the left is a flower. She got me to draw a roof coz she said she didn’t know how to draw a roof. Btw, at this point in Jan she draws her own semi circle roofs on buildings that she draws.

May 2009 - She drew this in Vanuatu. James coloured it in. It’s a smiling King she says. So cute lah.

YeYe, this photo is for you! Sophie ate ji jiao! Chicken feet! And she loves it!

Pris, ya! Chicken feet!

Btw, this was our first dim sum meal since we left Brissy. So shiok ah….

And thank you MaMa for sending the Xia Jiang Ji (Prawn paste chicken mix)……. So so so shiok…. really helps with the cravings!

Sophie was so thrilled to have her own name tag.

Ooo that past few days were so good! We spent Sunday till today in Tauranga at the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) 50th celebrations. Can’t believe our organisation is 50 years! We are now currently operating in more than 1000 locations in over 149 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000.

Lemme just say what I love about YWAM
1. God used it to change my life.
2. I met James at YWAM.
3. I love the emphasis on humility, repentance, hearing God’s voice and obedience.
4. I love how we need to trust God for our finances and not on someone paying my paycheck. No one to please except God and I do it with all my heart, only coz I want to be here.
5. I love how everyone has a God story - it’s not dead works or theology but it’s living faith and God is real to everyone.
and so much more…

We spent the past few days hearing from the pioneers of YWAM about how God has been faithful through the generations. Very inspiring.

One of the things that stuck to me was that all of them said that the times of humbling were the hardest times but I look at their lives at 60/70 years old, there was no hint of pride in their voices and sharing. I learnt that God humbles us so that we can really be of use to Him. So that at the end, we understand that it’s really all about Him, not about us. It’s hard but it’s so beautiful at the end of it. They all aged gracefully and with such joy. So surrendered. I think at the heart of surrender is much joy.

There was a great emphasis on the Pacific islands during the celebrations because NZ is the launchpad for the ministry to the Pacific islands. The islands are very much on the heart of our founder Loren Cunningham and forms a big part of our YWAM DNA. So it was SO GREAT to see almost 200 islanders from Cook Island, to Tonga, to PNG, to Samoa and best of all? VANUATU!!!!

All our friends from Vanuatu are here! They’ll be here for 3 weeks. God provided amazingly for 20 Ni-Vans to be here!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 months ago when we were in Vanuatu and they were signing up to say that they wanted to go. We said we’ll pray with them and believe by faith but in our hearts, being the logical Singaporeans, thinking HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?!?! 20 Ni-Vans means almost 8000 bucks!!! They have no money!!! Zero! But God being God, He provided. We were SO HAPPY they all came and it was such a cool reunion. Btw, they only had ticket money so now that they are here, they have absolutely no money. But their meals and lodging are all provided so that’s great.

We had a great time and we’re now back at the base preparing for the next school. It starts this Saturday and some of the students have started arriving. More about that later. Pls keep us in prayer!

We just got back from the YWAM 50th year Jubilee celebrations in Tauranga. YWAM is 50 years old! It was amazing! More about that in the next post.

But back to my inspiration posts, I saw our school leader doing this. We were praying for the nations using this HUGE gigantic map laid out on the ground. The map was almost the size of 1/2 a football field. Almost a 1000 of us walked across from one side of the map of the world to the other side praying for the nations and everyone had finished walking and I saw him alone, still standing over India (btw, he has been a missionary in India for almost 20 years) and still praying. You can see his heart even as he stood there.

That man is a man of prayer. That’s passion. Btw, he even speaks English with an Indian accent!

James very kindly gave us his cupboard space in his room. This is our homeschool material cupboard. Not the neatest but it is organised, to me that is!

The top three shelves are full of art and craft materials like paints, playdough, crayons, markers, lotsa egg cartons, cereal boxes, toilet rolls, coloured paper, drawing blocks etc for those whimsical crafty moments.

The second shelf up from the bottom is full of workbooks and flash cards for Chinese, English, Math and random colouring and puzzle books.

The bottom shelf is for me to store Sophie’s creations and all of our DTS/FMS notes and admin stuff.

So nice to have so much storage! I recycle tissue boxes and cut up the top and that serves as my boxes to sort out all the craft materials. We are not here forever so it just doesn’t make sense to buy nice baskets. Oh how I miss Daiso!

I am inspired by the books to start homeschooling. It’s been hard to find inspiration past few days coz I’ve been stuck at home.