Thanksgiving

I don't know why, but this year my family didn't go around and say what we were thankful for this past Thanksgiving. I had mentally prepared a response earlier that morning just in case they asked.

As you might guess, what I am thankful for this year (among many other things) is the blessing God has given King and me in the life of the baby that is inside of me--which is quite apparent, may I add, from the looks of my protruding tummy and the graceful pregnant waddle I'm learning to perfect.

Lately, the baby's kicks have been more frequent and stronger. King finally felt the baby moving two nights ago! Each movement of the little one brings several different thoughts to mind. Here are a few of them:

• 'Wow...'
  
• 'I can't believe that I'm a mommy and King's a daddy.'
• 'How in the world are we going to raise this child?'
• 'Thanks, God.'
• 'I can't wait to see you, Baby.' (King says this to the baby all the time :) )
  
• 'Our lives are going to change completely.'
• 'Did you just kick or elbow me?'
  
• 'I was once the baby in my mom's tummy.'
• 'Are you a boy or a girl?'
• 'Get as much sleep now while you can, Faye!'
• 'I hope you're okay in there.'

God, thanks for giving us Baby.

...and then, there were three!

So I (Faye) just realized that in the midst of writing our last blog I was already pregnant! Yep. I'm 21 weeks along right now and there have been interesting happenings inside of me since July. I'm due around April 3 or 4.

We found out we were pregnant five weeks into it and my reaction was "Oh my gosh" probably at least 20 times. I found out first and decided to tell King by putting a picture of me and the pregnancy stick on the wallpaper of the laptop that is hooked onto our TV. I was so excited, but King's reaction was "Oh no..."(needless to say, hormonal me wasn't so thrilled at those words). My mom cried and my mom and King's dad were super happy for us. My Nanay (dad's mom) is also excited to have her first great-grandchild. It was one of the best things to see, hear, and read people's reactions when they would find out that we were gonna have a baby. We have been feeling so much joy and support from everyone.

Shortly after we found out, my body began experiencing things that I had never felt before. One such phenomena was that I had nausea like no other nausea in my life. I've been seasick before, but there was nothing that could compare with this. Yes. What they called morning sickness does not do the woman going through it justice. I began calling it all day sickness. I began to really feel for chemo patients. It took a few months, and now I can say that I am SOOOO glad that's over.

Through that nausea season, I learned that God does actually hear and answer our cries for help. I say that the following story was a miracle He did for us. I was taking days off at a time from teaching at CSUF and HIU because I just knew I wouldn't be able to make it through the class. I was just too sick. It would be different if I was working in an office where I could just sit and do my work. As a teacher, I have to be "on" and the class counts on me to be fully present and keep the class moving. Anyway, before I was about to talk to my supervisor about maybe taking the rest of the semester off, he came up to me. He said he spoke with his boss and the Dean suggested that I take the rest of the semester off, but they would still pay me as if I was still working. That means that right now, besides my HIU class in the morning, I am actually getting paid every two weeks by CSUF and am able to stay home and rest. I still can't get over how everything worked out. God does make provision and does care.

When King and I finally heard the baby's heartbeat at 16 weeks, I teared up. It was one of the most beautiful sounds either of us have ever heard. That's when I actually started to really believe that I was pregnant. hehehe

So, now, after the morning sickness, the crazy mood swings that drove King crazy, the bug I caught when I thought I was going to cough out a lung, I'm still alive. My tummy has been growing and I've been feeling the baby moving for the last two weeks or so. Because it's still a little early, King hasn't been able to feel any movement yet...except last night at RH, he said he felt him/her. He made me smile because he said he/she gave him a high five. King has been so incredibly supportive and it warms my heart to hear him talk to the baby and be excited for baby to come. King is good for me in that he pushes me to exercise and eat healthier for the baby. I am so blessed to have him as my husband.

One last thing. Instead of going the conventional hospital birth way, we have decided to go with a midwife. South Coast Midwifery in Irvine has been nothing but the best. Check em out: http://www.southcoastmidwifery.com There are two rooms with beautiful beds where we have our appointments and the midwives and staff have been exceptional. My parents still aren't keen on the whole thing, but I'm hoping they'll ease up a little so that they'd let us have the baby in their big ol tub...at their house!

Oh, I promise not all our blogs will be this long...it's just been a while!

(Also, I need to mention that we know 18 other ladies that are also pregnant! Can you say, "Baby Boom"? Sheesh.)

Our first time to share in front of people together and thoughts on labels.

So I guess it's time to really start this blog.

This past Sunday, King and I spoke at our church. We talked about loving Muslms and God's calling on our lives to share the love of Jesus with them in SE Asia. Who would have thought a few years ago that we would giving the sermon in front of our church, teach and challenging others about loving our Cousins?

So lately, people have been introducing us as missionaries. It's a little weird being labeled a "missionary". In this season of our lives we are learning to really think about our labels...what calling ourselves a "Christian" means and the perception of that word with those who aren't "Christian". The truth is that the connotations behind the word Christian are often negative and associated with extreme religious right, who many see as judgmental hypocrites who will try to get you to pray the "sinner's prayer" because you're going to hell if you don't convert to Christianity.

Please don't get me wrong. We share some of the same values and beliefs as the the religious right and are imperfect people who are also hypocrites. We won't deny that. We are learning how to critically think about what we believe in. We see that we put too many rules attached to being a Christian that we can get the whole thing wrong and thoroughly mess things up for those who might be actually wanting to know Jesus. In short, this is called legalism. We often try to do right and wrong with the best intentions, not knowing any differently. It's what we've been taught to do and think.

So anyway, after careful consideration, King and I have decided to call ourselves followers of Jesus.

I haven't really thought about what we're going to do about the label missionary. I think this term brings up other loaded words and ideas: convert, changing the person's cultural identity, etc. Some of these things we can't get away from. People think we're pretty weird and even out of our minds that we would leave the Orange County life and "downgrade". People won't (and don't) understand. Anyway, that's something for us to think about and post a blog about on another day.

Alright, I'll stop with all the asides. Back to this past Sunday!

Some things that were really cool:

• It wasn't hard at all to prepare for the message. I told the Lord that He would have to be the one to tell us what to say because both King and I didn't want to do anything out of our own wisdom. It was actually quite fun to put together the powerpoint.
• The people that the Lord wanted to be there were there. There were many friends and even a few people who came that we didn't even know.
• We bought a wireless clicker for the powerpoint presentation we put together. I messed up a few times but it was pretty cool...plus, it has the red laser pointer thingy.
  
• We went way over the usual time allotted to speak, but I think that we said what we wanted to say.
• People learned about loving Muslims, seeing them as equals, and hopefully helping to break stereotypes of Muslims being evil trrorists.
• People told us afterward that they were really blessed and learned a lot.
• We worked well as a team (I, Faye, tended to talk a lot...so I need to work on sometimes being quiet...hehehhe).

So...that officially ends our first blog. Soon, we'll add pictures and stuff :).