Babies in the Nursery

A few days ago I took Miles to the hospital to get weighed.  I left the building concerned because Miles is a little small for his age.  Many things were going through my head...am I doing something wrong?  is he just a small baby?  why is he a small baby?
For some reason, I wandered into the maternity ward/nursery.

I love the picture above because it is usually the woman's job to care for all things baby related, but this father was patiently feeding his little baby with a dropper.  You could tell, when I asked if I could take a picture, he was very proud of his little baby.  

The baby below was one of the bigger babies in the nursery 

 This little guy below weighed about 2 lbs when he was born.

 He's beautiful.

 This is him (right) and his twin (left).

Our little trip the nursery helped put things into perspective for me.  While we are still closely monitoring Miles's weight, we are thanking the Lord that he is a healthy, growing little boy.  And we pray daily for those babies in the nursery and their parents.  

Three House Update

As many of you may know, Jordan's latest project has been building three similar 3 bedroom houses for long-term volunteer doctors.  Other than being a little behind schedule, they are coming together very nicely!

Here's a look at what they look like these days:

Jordan has gotten some assistance from a team of college students from Olivet who are here for a couple weeks.  They have been a huge help with outside trim and painting! (Don't be fooled by the picture below...they don't always just stand around)  :) 

Even though most of the students are pre-med or pre-PA majors (which means they are more interested in the medical part of Kudjip life), they don't complain about the hot, dirty construction work.  

Decorating a House: Missionary Style

Obviously, we don't have a Hobby Lobby to aid in our house decorating...so we've found we have to be a little creative if we want our little house to feel more cozy!  I've found that a Sharpie, some yarn, and a few scraps can go a long way.  :)

This is just a scrap of cement board and a Sharpie.

Window pom pom garland made from PNG yarn.

Just some yarn, knitting needles, and stuffing needed for this one.

I didn't make the pot but the balls are just yarn and glue, and the star is just paper. 

I covered the lamp shade with a scrap of fabric that I drew on with a Sharpie (yay for Sharpies!!)

I drew the design for this shelf and Jordan built it one random Saturday.  I also made the "O come let us adore Him" sign the same way as the above sign, and the christmas trees are just paper covered in yarn.  

On To the Next Project

Now that Jordan has finished the Stone Cottage, he just sits around and eats bonbons.  HA! Just kidding!! :)

Jordan has moved on to building THREE new houses, AND these are to be bigger and better than the last!  Right now they just look like a bunch of lumber randomly nailed together (and the lumber, by the way, Jordan was responsible for getting milled...yep, he's building these houses starting from the trees!).  The plan is to have them finished before we leave for home assignment in June...so far, I believe he is a little behind (a giant wind storm will do that to ya) but is looking forward to the help of a couple Work & Witness teams to get him caught back up.  I'll try to keep you posted on the progress!

Miles Wakes Up

Occasionally I need to wake Miles up from a nap to feed him and so he'll sleep better that night.  One day I decided to document it.  Enjoy!

The Great Wind Storm Aftermath

Right after the giant wind storm, the entire station got to work.  Several of the trees had fallen on power lines, which falls under Jordan's responsibility as maintenance supervisor, so restoring power was a top priority.  Also, clearing the tree that fell on the house was also on the top of the list.  Thanks to God's oh-so perfect timing, we just so happened to have a volunteer here who used to trim trees for a living.  His name is Don and he is pretty much a superhero.  I'll have to remember to write another blog about him sometime.  Anyways, Don, Jordan, and several other guys got to work right away.  The next day, all the high school students pitched in.  Before we knew it Jordan had power up and running and a house that no longer had a tree sitting on top of it.  

The above picture is one of my favorites and was even more impressive in person...it's the bottom of a tree, the part of a tree that you are never suppose to see...ever.  :)

The Great Wind Storm of 2013

It was a fairly normal Tuesday afternoon.  I was at home, on the sofa, feeding Miles and Jordan was at maintenance as usual.  It was about 3:00 pm when it began to rain...typical rainy season weather.  Then things began to get bizarre!!  We live in a valley and rarely get anything more than a light breeze, but the wind started to really pick up.  Our sofa faces our large front window, so I had a front row view of trees bending and swaying, while small loose branches fell out of our front tree.  Suddenly a HUGE branch, probably 8 feet long and the thickness of my arm fell out of the tree and stuck straight into the ground.  And there it stood, like someone had just planted it there.  The wind died down and the rain stopped a few minutes later.  I, of course, began to rehearse in my head how I was going to tell everyone this GREAT story about the GIANT branch falling right in front of my eyes!!   Feeling that the story may not be phone-call worthy, I decided to wander around outside to see if I could "bump into" anyone who might be willing to hear my sweet story.  To my surprise, I found this:

That would be the under-side of our neighbor's tree...here it is from another angle:

Now my "fantastic" branch story seemed...well...much less fantastic.  As I continued down the road this is what I saw:

Turned out that over 25 trees had blown over during that wind storm.  We are praising the Lord for his hand of protection.  Miraculously, only one house was directly hit, all the other trees fell away from their surrounding buildings.  The missionaries inside the house that was hit were protected by a ceiling beam that had just been installed a couple months earlier.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!