It’s a BOY!

becky    General    

Just as I suspected, our little “Acorn” is a boy!  Benjamin Matthew was born a few days ago after nine VERY intense hours of labor (though we’re praising God we didn’t have to go the medicated route this time!) He is a healthy, beautiful, sweet baby boy and we feel so amazingly blessed to finally get to hold him in our arms. Samuel is doing so much better than we could have ever asked for. He’s so excited about his new baby brother.  He has just been so sweet and gentle with Benjamin.  All last week Samuel kept saying “Acorn-out” and would sign “please,” or say “Acorn-ready, soon.”  He was just as anxious to meet the little one as we were!  Our boys are definitely a gift from God and we are so thankful to be their parents.

Breaking Our Hearts for What Breaks His

becky    General    

We first put in our applications with HCJB Global about this point in my pregnancy with Samuel–just a few weeks before he was born in the fall of 2008.  I’ve been thinking about the discussions we had in the months following about the ministry and what opportunities existed.  Based on the information we found on HCJB Global’s website, we thought everything Asia-related was based in Melbourne, Australia. We got excited about living in Australia, then we learned that the work was actually out of Singapore and the focus was in places like Indonesia and Thailand. I remember one evening as we drove to church asking Toffer if he felt called to live in Singapore and work in Indonesia. He said he didn’t necessarily feel that way, nor did I.

God has certainly broken our hearts for what breaks His in the year and a half since that conversation.  As we have learned more and more about the region, about the people in each of the places, and about the work God is doing, we want to be there. We do feel called to live in Singapore (even with the heat and humidity year round!) and to minister to anyone He brings our way.

Samuel has a book about Asia that he enjoys looking at.  It’s really designed for elementary age children, but the pictures are great and we’ll read tidbits of it here and there.  It’s mostly an overview of Asia and breaks the continent down into several areas. One of the things that struck me as I’ve looked at it with him is the lack of information about Christianity. The only mention of Christianity is the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia. I don’t think the book is biased against Christianity, I think there are just not enough Christians in the region to include it in the overviews of religion. And that breaks my heart.  There are literally billions of people in the region who don’t know God and who probably don’t even know someone who does.  What a joy it will be to share the good news of great joy with those people!