Faith

Sometimes it is our faith that stirs us. Lately with the situation I am in I am really stirred in my faith. I was hanging the laundry on the clothes line yesterday evening and I thought to myself how surreal it feels to be in England. When we drive in the car and do not have a cd or my morning alarm is classical music. I don't know that I have ever listened to classical music on a regular basis. It just makes this adventure that much more unreal. As I look back at the past couple years I think about the difficult things that God has taken me through; colicky babies, a 9 month deployment, a miscarriage, and now a move away from everything that I have known. I have always had people around me that I could run into at the store that I would know. Here there is no one. God has been faithful and increased my faith through these times. Now as I anticipate the birth of our third child I really just have the faith that through all of this that there might be some challenges with this baby but I really am praying and having faith that it will be easier than my other two. God has moved us across the world and I just don't believe that He would put me here and not help me. I am really praying in faith that Bethany is not a colicky baby and that really she is a fairly mild tempered child. I know of people that have been blessed with these children and I just can't help but pray for that for myself in this situation. As He stirs your faith allow Him to encourage you and love on you but also have hope not only through the difficult times but that times of refreshing and peace would come to. And faith for those times.

Tea anyone?

This is a place that I heard about today. Anyone interested in going to High Tea with me in London?

Cambridge University

We had a friend come visit us from Ireland. It was such a blessing to have her here and have some excitement in the middle of this stressful time. Here are a few pictures!

I have two weeks til my due date and frantically trying to get my house unpacked and in some kind of order. We got our shipment on Friday and we are slowly getting there. With no closets it is not like you can just organize it and close the door. We have to figure out another way to put this stuff away. We have an Ikea fairly close but I should not be traveling that far so close to my due date. This move has truly been an experience. We are hoping to get settled and be able to enjoy and see the country around us.

CHEERS!

God's Chisel

You need to watch this. Oh how we need to be reminded of what God thinks of us.

Pictures galore....

I have been meaning to do this many times and have forgotten about it until recently. Tammy Huntting took tons of pictures of my baby shower while I was still in Montana and so I thought that I would show you where they are so you can take a look.

Also, when Montana was getting all the snow it was beautiful here. Not to rub it in but I got some adorable pictures of my children playing in the park here in Burwell. We walked there and I am not sure that I can handle that walk any more right now but the kids sure had fun! Enjoy!

Please pray that my household goods come in soon. We are very ready for our beds. It has been two months since we have slept on our own beds or had anything that resembled home.

My job description...

PARENT - Job Description

This is hysterical. If it had been presented this way,
I don't believe any of us would have done it!!!!

POSITION :
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION :

Long term, team players needed, for challenging,
permanent work in an
often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication
and organizational skills and be willing to work
variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends
and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.
Some overnight travel required, including trips to
primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed.
Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES :

The rest of your life.
Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily,
until someone needs $5.
Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
Also, must possess the physical stamina of a
pack mule
and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat
in case, this time, the screams from
the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges,
such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets
and stuck zippers.
Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and
coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings
for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
Must be a willing to be indispensable one minute,
an embarrassment the next.
Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a
half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
Must assume final, complete accountability for
the quality of the end product.
Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and
janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION :

None.
Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills,
so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE :

None required unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION :

Get this! You pay them!
Offering frequent raises and bonuses.
A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because
of the assumption that college will help them
become financially independent.
When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that
you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS :

While no health or dental insurance, no pension,
no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and
no stock options are offered;
this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love,
and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.

Funny Kids...

 
 
 
This is how I found my children this morning. They like their "wellies" and always wear them around. Even in their pjs! Cory had some juice and there is still some on his face. Sarah wanted Cory's hat on and Cory insisted that he wear Sarah's Easter hat with the bow in the front. You never know what you are going to get with these two!

Easter 2009

I want to show you all of our Easter festivities. We wanted to take the kids to an Easter egg hunt (our stuff was not here yet to do our own) and we found out that the museum here in Burwell was having one. We decided that it would be fun to check out the local museum that is literally in our back yard. Unfortunately, it was not the kind of egg hunt for a two and three year old but we had fun anyway. Our new friends, Rob & Mandi and their daughter Makayla joined us. We only have a set of dishes and a few pots and pans. Cooking is a bit of a challenge but I made a ham and potatoes. I did not have tin foil yet so the ham got a little over done. The carrots that I put in with it were burned and the jello just wasnn't right but it was Easter. We will never forget our first holiday in the UK on a card table!

 
 
 
 

From the Hands of the Creator

God moved the placenta! Bethany is sitting with her head down ready to go in a few weeks. I am no longer high risk and we can just let God finish the work He has started. He created this child in me, He will walk me through the rest. When I left Montana my placenta was 1.2cm from my cervix. Now it is 3.5cm. It needed to be above 2cm. Thank you so much for your prayers. We have so much to be thankful for!

When it rains it pours...

As if this move to the other side of the world isn't enough there are always things that happen back on the home front. The week that we left for England my dad was in the ER for kidney stones, my grandparents were in a car accident (not injured just minor damage to their car), my grandma's (who has a mechanical heart valve)went out of rhythm and they had to jump her heart back into rhythm.
This week has been another story. Of course with my ultrasounds and Dr appointment we all are on our knees asking God for a miracle. Now my brother has taken an emergency trip to Montana to be with some friends who lost their mother tragic situation. Now I get an email from Mike's mom (Linda) and they have had a horrible fire in their shop on their property. Linda's husband, Wayne, restores old cars. Mostly Packard vehicles. He does this for a living. Now this shop had 4 Packards (including their coupe and a fire engine), a 77 Camero, and a Lexus. The shop is gone and some of these cars were just being stored by other people in this shop.

Our status is that we still do not have any of our shipments. We have been told that our small shipment is in country waiting to go through customs and they will call us when they can deliver it. We are looking for a right drive car for Mike to drive back and forth to work. I am SO ready for our household goods to be here. I am ready to cook with my pans and put things on the walls and make it home.

 

 

 

 

Life....

What more can I say... this is life. This is the life that God has placed me into. I wanted to give you a few snipets of life here. Since I cannot "nest" in my home I have done a little nesting with flowers. For those of you who know me very well, know, that I love hydrengeas. Here is the plant that I found here. It needs to be repotted but it loves my very humid laundry room because it does not vent outside it goes into the room and then there is a small fan to vent it out. This beautiful plant loves this humidity. Here are the couple planters that I found and planted a few flowers in my front 'garden'.

The bugs here are really big, thankfully not dangerous. I had to share this lovely spider that I found on my kitchen wall.

Each village here has its own sign. Here is the Burwell sign. I will be sharing more of these as we travel around. They are very cool how they show their heritage.

Belly pictures!!
I really need a lot of prayer. In Montana I had a few ultrasounds and they found placenta previa. When I left Montana the placenta had moved and so I just have a low lying placenta but the doctors here are still saying that I cannot deliver naturally that I would have to have a c-section unless it moves more. I am at 33 weeks this week and we still have time but I really need a miracle. I am praying in faith that this will happen. I have an ultrasound again on Tuesday and will see a doctor on Thursday. Please pray with me!

 
 
 
 

Our home in Burwell, UK!

So we signed the lease on our house today! How exciting! We are ready to stay there and get out of your tiny little TLF. We have really seen God's hand in it all and we are very excited to see how He is going to use us in Burwell. It is about 20 to 30 minutes from RAF Mildenhall which seems to be the only downfall about the home. We really like the location. The town of Burwell we have fallen in love with. I have not had a chance to take a picture of the roads around here but they are very narrow with no shoulders. There are trees or brick walls on the side of the road. When we first got here and were driving around I was sure that we were going to either hit a tree or someone in the other lane. Ok so about the house. It is a 4 bedroom. Typically the washer is where your dishwasher would be in your kitchen. This one fortunately has a laundry area. It also has a fridge and a dishwasher (I am so blessed)! It has two large rooms downstairs one to be the dining room (which we are going to use as a play room) and the living room. There is also a half bath. There is also a tiny room right as you come in the door of the house that Mike says gets to be my scrapbooking room. YEA! A Hide-a-way for me! The bedrooms are small by American standards but for homes around here they are quite nice. We are going to use one as a closet, Sarah & Cory's room, Bethany's nursery, and our bedroom. There are two bathrooms on that floor with one only have a bathtub and one only having a shower. Here are a few pictures. Also, check out my "Life in Pictures" on the right for further pictures and details. Mike even gets a garage! Check out our HUGE yard!

Love you all!!

BTW! - no complaining if your refrigerator is too small. The ones in the UK are TINY!

Home

Here are pictures of the tiny place we are living. It is a one bedroom and it is about a 20x20 room. We are very crammed and all we do it step on each other. It is very hard getting over jet lag in this tiny place. When one of us is awake we are all awake.

We landed in London!

We landed in London. Got off the plane and knew that we had to find all of our luggage. We found where our luggage was and Mike creatively stacked our 10 bags plus our few things that we carried on onto two carts. We got to the customs counter and we showed them our passports and their really wasn’t any issues there. Then we went and found our luggage. Now we were really hungry and I wanted to find food but we were not sure how far we were going to have to travel to get there (we had 2 hours). We also had learned that because the kids were walking that it takes a lot longer to get places because of their little legs and them getting distracted by all of the people and scenery. We started walking but the kids were not being cooperative and wanted to be carried. That was really challenging since we had to push these carts. It would have been one thing if we would have just pushed the carts on a level surface but we had to go from level to level through these tunnels (Mike sometimes had to duck with Sarah on his shoulders it was so low) pushing and pulling these carts. So we put the kids on our shoulders pushing these carts that you could not see over with one hand hoping that people would just get out of your way. We had many comments about how we pack light. J Little did they know that I was moving here and what I had on those two carts was all I had to live with and have lived with for a month. My first observation of the London airport was that there wasn’t stores and dining places wall to wall. There was lots of long hallways with little to no advertising. They would have little areas with an information desk, maybe a restaurant or two, some bathrooms, car rentals, and maybe a gift shop. We walked down lots of hallways or mostly ramps. We got to where Mike was told that our bus would come and we just prayed that we would be able to find it. There was another family there (she was very anxious and was very glad to see another military family) that it was obvious by all of the luggage that they were going the same direction. Their sponsor met them at the airport. While we are waiting for the bus Mike and Sarah left to go find some lunch while Cory and I sat with the luggage. There was this older gentleman in a wheelchair surrounded by 3 police men (the police wear these black and white checked hats with a brim). I could not really tell what they were doing with him other than he kept opening and closing this briefcase and one of the officers was on and off the phone. Then they would pull each other aside and talk about the situation. This made me a little nervous. Then they moved closer and by the door. I could hear then that they were asking this man about the prescription drugs that he had in his briefcase. Then there were some other authorities that came and they were discussing the situation and eventually they took him out. Not sure what that was all about but a little scary. I definitely felt like a homeless person walking through the airport. There was not a lot of windows and natural lighting in the whole building and we really stuck out with our mounds of luggage. The bus came and there was another gentleman and his wife that was riding the bus home from a day trip from London. They were very helpful. We found out later that they do Military Ministry for Campus Crusade for Christ. I have since emailed her and have gotten some wisdom from them. How awesome the hand of God putting Christians around us from the beginning. I met another Christian today and we also ran into a guy that rented one of our houses in Great Falls. It truly is a small world.

Sorry no pictures. There were signs everywhere saying "No Photography!"

Prayer for Andrew Brown

Hey blog friends!
I saw this bulletin on My Space from Suzanne Brown. Will you please join me in prayer for Andrew?

Hello everyone, I am writing to ask you all to pray for our little Andrew. On Monday, the docs were having trouble pulling blood from his central line. They decided that we should return Wednesday to have an echocardiogram done. Dr. Garrington called today and told us that Andrew has a blood clot in his superior vena cava. That is one of the veins that brings blood to the heart. We are going to Denver tomorrow morning to have a catheter put in a muscle in his leg, so that we can give him twice daily injections of a anticoagulant at home for as long as it takes for the clot to go away. He told me today that he isn't scared of doing this as long as he doesn't have to feel the needle two times every day. All of this makes me think back to a few days ago when we were in Texas at Grandma Busker's (Jeff's Grandma) funeral. We were on our way to the cemetary and Andrew was laying sideways in the backseat. He suddenly said look mom, a heart in the sky. I looked up and there was a perfect heart drawn in the clouds. I truly believe that the heart was from Grandma Busker sending her love to all of us, but I am beginning to think that maybe Andrew was the one who picked it out of the sky for a reason. There is a picture of the heart that Andrew saw that day in my March 2009 album. Please pray for our little boy, that God will dissolve this clot and that he won't need these injections for long! I know that God is AWESOME and he has healed Andrew once. I am praying for another healing, and I am asking you to pray for that too.
Love to all of you, Suzanne

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Looking...

Looking at the natural this move to England is really scary. A week from today all of my belongings will be packed up. Lets just hope that sometime between now and then I figure out what is going into storage and get it set aside and also have time to get our suitcases packed. We are going to Missoula this weekend and I am excited about that. I need time for a physical break but sleep has been very minimal because there is just so much on my mind to do and being away I am sure that I will just think about what I should be at home doing. This pregnancy has been very uneventful other than the ultrasound is showing that I have partial placenta previa. Sarah and Cory are wild children these days. Mike told me last night that when all the packing and organizing is over that he would take me to London!! :)

Looking into the spiritual I am on the adventure of faith. I do not know where I will be living in a month but God knows and I have peace in that. I do not know who will care for my older children while I give birth to this child that God has knit together in my womb but God knows and I have peace in that. I do not know if I will be able to have this child naturally but God knows and I have peace in that. My placenta will move and I have faith in that!!! God has called us to a new mission field and I am very excited about that. I cling to His word that says "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Off to packing!

Fleming Fun

Well this is actually the Superbowl party. I had to share pictures! I am so blessed to have spent this season in my life with the Flemings and I hate to leave but I know that God has something big for us. I am sure there will be more time together with you, Steven & Christel but you have blessed our live so much! I truly love this picture of Emily and Sarah. My plan is to put it up in her room when we get to England. Emily, you have the most adorable personality and you are going to be a powerful woman of God because you have parents that will show you the way. Noah, I just can't get enough of those sweet cheeks. You are going to rock the world for Jesus!
Christel, thanks for sharing your kids with me. And to all the fun times! CHEERS!

Kyla was so adorable falling asleep on Rebecca's lap. What a doll!

For the love of ribbon!

No Tammy it is not the pictures of Cory's Birthday yet (I still can't find which card they are on....

Packing, orgnaizing, packing.... that is all that I seem to do these days. I have been trying to figure out something to do with all my ribbon. With a little inspiration from Ali I grabbed these two Uppercase Living boxes and cut some slits in the slides. And..... there you go. Ribbon organizers! Some day I will have time to paint them and make them look all beautiful but it is function and organization over beauty these days!