April Update

I'm surprised to find that May is almost half over already. This happened to me last month too! The months are just speeding by and I can hardly keep up!

I wanted to share a bit about what we've been doing. April wasn't nearly as busy for us as March was. Here are some of the highlights:

We enjoyed Easter with both families. It's nice that our families live so close to one another because we never really miss a holiday or other important events because of distance.

Jake finished up leading a Sunday night home group at church in Bellevue. We really enjoyed meeting with these folks and miss our time with them. We all attend the same church, but there's something about a small group that's just really nice.

We (finally) wrapped up the Awana program at Jake's home church with a Grand Prix. We were supposed to have the Grand Prix at the end of March, but there was a power outage at the church that night and we had to reschedule for mid-April. Anyway, it was amazing! We had so much good help from volunteers at church. The kids loved it too! This was my (Erin) first experience with a Grand Prix and I was amazed at how much of a big deal it is for the kiddos! What a great time! (So sorry that I don't have any pictures of the night. I forgot my camera.)

We were so happy to have some professional 'belly pictures' taken this month. We're so glad to have this part of our lives documented like this. (Especially since we're SO terrible with taking pictures!) Jake's cousin took the pictures and she did a great job!!

On the 17th, our church in Bellevue hosted an Indonesian dinner. About 90 people came out to eat an all-Indonesian dinner and then stayed after to listen to Jake speak about his trip that he had taken there earlier this year. We were very happy with the turn out and I think people learned a lot about the country.

We also finished up our childbirth classes in April. Now we're experts and TOTALLY ready to have this baby!! =) (haha! Okay, maybe that's a bit exaggerated...)

We were able to meet with a couple from NTM that does member care in our area as well. They kind of keep up on the NTM missionaries who live in this part of Michigan and are there for support and encouragement. They were traveling through and we met them for breakfast one morning. It sure was nice to meet them face to face and we had a nice time together.

Erin had her first of three baby showers at the end of April. Jake's home church put it on and it was such a nice shower. And boy, were we showered with gifts! Wow! We are still stunned at the generosity of people. I think that practically, we are just about ready for this baby to arrive!

Finally, the last Sunday of April was our last Sunday of teaching the high school Sunday school class at Bellevue. We sure will miss those kids a lot but we needed to step away in order to be available for speaking in other churches for our partnership development.

Thanks for reading our update. Hopefully next month we'll have some really big news to report! =) (And some pictures too!)