No Time!

I feel like I am running out of time........once you get married and have kids days are gone in a blink and years are gone even faster. I finally had a minute to update our blog before i return to the constant doing of things ie: mothering, cleaning, lunch making, story reading, diaper changing etc..

We are all doing well. Maddie is now 5 months and chubby as ever. She's always smiling and cooing and gets shy when Ry calls her his "pretty". Darius is already turning into a little man, he's so helpful and generous and loves his cars. he even sleeps with them. The church plant launch date is coming up soon and we're getting excited about it. We had a ministry training weekend up in Barrie last month and it gave us an idea of what our weekends will soon look like. Lots of work and lots of fun!

We're also off for a much needed break and time away come monday for a week. We're going up to Miller Lake with some families from our church at a christian camp near Tobermory. We're staying in a cabin by the lake and just living the cottage life for a week. We can't wait. Ry's been super crazy at work and ive been break'less doing everything @ home, so this is gonna be so good for us to rest and recharge.

If you want, check out this sermon by john Piper "The Son of Man should be lifted up like the serpent". It's really good. Click here.

Out And About

Here's some recent family pics of some of our outings :)

It's A Girl!

Madelyn Grace Fairhead was born on March 13th 2009 at 1:25am! She was a whopping 7 pounds 10 ounces and was born in an hour and a half and 2 minutes of pushing! We had her at home in our bedroom and were so pleased with our decision. Everything went so well and it was all such an answer to prayer. We are pretty tired and trying to adjust to life with 2 kids. I'll update more later as im holding her in one hand and it's hard to type.....

Compassion in Kenya

Click HERE to watch a news story broadcast of a medical team from members of our church Harvest Bible Chapel Oakville on their trip to the Mully Family Orphanage in Kenya to give medical relief and of course the Gospel.

9 Months Pregnant!

I made it! I will be considered full-term on Thursday (37 wks) which will mean I'm allowed to have a home-birth and the baby will not be considered premature :) I had my appt. yesterday and everything is amazing. Baby is head down and facing the right way, my weight gain is good, my iron levels are better than normal AND the midwife guesses it's a girl hehe. The only thing not going well in our house right now is our little toddler who has been sick for 3 weeks or more now! he keeps catching new virus'. Last night he woke us up at 4am crying in pain saying his ears hurt, so we took to him to the ER and found out he has a really bad ear infection. He just finshed antibiotics for the throat infection he had and now he's on new antibiotics again and in a lot of pain (poor guy). It rips my heart out to see him suffer like this. I really pray by God's grace he will be healthy when the baby arrives, it's just so stressful. I'm even considering putting him in a bubble and not letting him leave the house for the next 5 years (Its actually really tempting).

I laso got all my homebirth supplies yesterday to get ready in the room and after spending all night in the hospital for D i am so looking forward to birthing at home. Hospitals are just not the most comforting, warm places y'know? Plus all i could smell was barf. Anyway, the Lord is so good us even though we don't deserve it.

Valentine's Day

We don't usually celebrate Valentine's Day, I will usually make a small card or love note to remind Ry of how much I love him (which if your married you should do everyday!) This year, Darius got hit with a virus and was sick all weekend. So come Saturday night we were too exhausted to do anything. But last night after I put D to bed I came downstairs to find sparkling grape juice, marshmallow hearts and candles lit on the table, Ryan standing there with a dress shirt on and a big smile :) It was so sweet! We drank our juice and talked about when we met, our wedding day and all our exciting future to come. I thank God for such a Godly, loving husband. And am also reminded of God's everlasting love that bears all things.

34 weeks and counting!

It's been almost a month since my last post and I am still hanging in here getting bigger by what seems like the minute. I am now 34 weeks along, which gives me 3 weeks till the baby is full-term (37 wks) and 6 weeks till my due date! I'm allowed having a home birth once I hit full-term so I'm praying that I can at least make it to then. I'm having a lot of practice contractions so it worries me sometimes. The two things i hear most often when I'm around people is "your only 8 months? It looks like your gonna pop any second!!!" and "It looks like you have a basketball under your shirt, you can't even tell your pregnant from behind!". Seriously i hear these at least once a week. The baby is moving a lot and we can see his/her arms or legs roll aorund in my belly and it is such an amazing thing to watch. I officially can't sleep at night and am contemplating wearing adult diapers due to the baby pushing on my bladder constantly. We are getting really excited to meet this new addition God has added to our family!

In other news, Ry has quit his job at Exactics and is starting up his own business with a friend from church. He will be working at another machine shop until they get the business going. Once that gets started he will be able to have more freedom and be home more to help me and spend time with the fam, which would be a huge blessing. We're also going to be taking night school courses and Toronto Baptist Seminary in Sept. to slowly work on our degree. On top of all those new things, we're alos extremly excited about helping to plant a Harvest Bible Chapel in brampton in sept. So we have a lot of exciting things coming up for this year and we're stoked. I just feel so blessed to have such amazing opportunities and blessings in my life.

Happy New Year and 7 month appt.

Welcome to 2009! Im exhausted today after ringing in the new year with some friends past midnight last night, prob not the best idea being 7 months pregnant. Speaking of which, i had my 28 week appt on monday and it was great. krystle came with us this time to be a part of it and the midwife let her feel the baby's head, which is now on the bottom! you could feel the outline of the back of the head on the outside of my tummy. it was really cool. Anyway, the baby is very active these days, i gained 9 pounds in a month (oops) and now i see the midwives every two weeks. I get to take home my birthing kit at my next appt. im getting really excited! We've finally chosen names but are keeping them secret until the birth as to not keep changing our minds due to other ppl's opinions. I can't believe i only have 11 weeks left or less!

God has been teaching me a lot lately as well and i've really been growing in knowledge of who He is and loving Him more. Ry and i are still reading through the Bible in 90 days and are in Joshua right now."Th Which has sparked me to read a book on the trinity by James White called "The Forgotten Trinity" I've just realized that im still ignorant to what God's word teaches about God being a triune God and how the pre-incarnate Christ shows up in the OT and what it all means etc...anyway, i just have this desire to know God more and learn as much as i can about Him with my time on earth because ill be spending eternity getting to know Him, so i better get started now.

Some Christmas Pics:

On our way to the homeless outreach Christmas Eve

Christmas

Another Christmas has just passed and God has been so good yet again. We had a wonderful time reuniting w/ family, building gingerbread houses and exchanging gifts. More importantly though, we worshiped God in the morning through prayer and thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve had an opportunity to go downtown Toronto and give warm items to the homeless as well as the Gospel. It was awesome and sad at the same time. There were so many of them and most of them wanted nothing to do with Christ, some of them didn't even want our warm socks or food we offered! There were two people who talked to us about the Gospel and seemed interested, we left them with some good tracts and New Testaments and hopefully God will work out the rest. It was just so cool to finally be out doing missions again. Even though it was freezing, dangerous and we stayed up till 1:30 am walking (very tiring on a preg. woman) i loved every minute of it!Out of everything else in this world nothing brings me more joy than sharing the Gospel, especially with the poor and downtrodden. Anyway, i'm off to go read some Joshua w/ Ry before bed.

"And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Rom 10:15

6 Month appt.

I had my 6 month midwife appt. today. it went well and pretty much routine. Baby is doing well, everything is perfect actually. Praise the LORD, it's only Him who is orchestrating everything. 6 months down...3 more to go! whoo hoo! I am getting excited. Really excited. It's also December, which means Christmas is coming and that always makes me happy. Not just for the family reunions which are awesome but the celebration of why we live and and have life eternal! The birth of our saviour! I bet it will be like Christmas in heaven everyday because that's all we'll be doing, celebrating Jesus Christ and what he did for us!this is me @ 6 months, 23 weeks.

Overwhelmed

When it rains it pours. Or so it seems in our situation right now. Our truck died last Friday, so all weekend we were stuck without a ride. If that weren't bad enough, Ryan is busy at work doing a rush job so he has to work overtime every night till 8pm or later. On top of that, Darius is sick and got an eye infection today, so im not sure how to get him to the doctors, PLUS we have no groceries! Ry's trying to fix the truck himself but because he has to be at work this week he hasn't had the time yet. I guess im just feeling overwhelmed being pregnant on top of all this and stressed. It just feels a little better to write it all out, i don't know why. Hopefully, Lord willing this will all get better soon and our truck will be fixed. I hate how we live in a society where you NEED to drive everywhere. If your car dies your stuck. Your basically forced to buy two vehicles just to get by on a daily basis. It's ridiculous.

Ultrasound pics!

Here they are: my 20wk baby!

PRAISE! THE LORD!

God in His amazing faithfulness, compassion and grace has answered my prayer and my diabetes test came back negative!! I was praying a lot for this and i even told God that if it came back negative i would say "Praise God" in front of the midwife, and i did hehe. Anyway all the glory goes to Him because its very common to get it again in a subsequent pregnancy and the midwife said that there was not even a trace of abnormality in my blood sugar levels! So i am so thankful to the Lord for this. I definitely don't deserve it, but He is so gracious. Also ill post some recent pics of the fam from our weekend in Muskoka and home.

Felt the baby kicking!

Yesterday I had my diabetes test, as awful as it was to endure the nurses there were very caring and helpful. Praise the Lord i didn't faint or throw up either :) Later on in the evening, Darius was being his usual energetic self and accidentally hit my stomach w/ his arm, not hard but enough for me to feel it. Right after, i felt the baby start kicking!! Darius must have woke him up. He/she kept kicking for about 5 minutes, we could even see it moving under my skin. Darius enjoyed feeling it too, it was such a blessed moment :)

Prayer Request:

Tomorrow morning i go for my Gestational Diabetes test. I had it with Darius so its pretty likely that I'll have it again :( I'm really hoping i don't, because that would make me high-risk and i may even have to be transferred to an obstetrician. So if you could please pray that i don't faint tomorrow after all the blood tests, and that by God's grace I don't have diabetes, that would be amazing!!! Thanks so much :)

More Muslims..

Ryan and Scott went out to two mosques last night in hopes of witnessing to some Muslims. They ended up going during their prayer time and had to stand in there and wait till they were all done. So they prayed amongst themselves, not to allah however, to YAHWEH! They met a couple of Muslims and made future appointments w/ them to meet and discuss Christianity/Islam. One man they met named Richard, was a Catholic converted to Islam. please pray that his eyes would be open to false religion and to the one true God, and that the false gospel of Catholicism hasn't completely tainted his view of Christians. They are going back to the Mosque tonight to meet w/ the Emoms. I'll update more as it happens.

Hmmm.........

So Ryan and I are officially at a cross roads (again) and are seriously praying for God's guidance and clear direction for us in the next year. We were planning on going back to Bible school next September to finish up what we started, but recently our church in Oakville has told us that they are planting a church in Brampton (where we are) next Sept.! So were really excited about that and really wanna be a part of it. It kind of throws a monkey wrench into our plans though......the options are go to school, or stay here for at least another year and help out with the church plant. We also have a baby coming in March so maybe staying until he/she is a bit older wouldn't be a bad idea. SIGH! I have no idea.......i just wish i knew what God wanted us to do. Which is why we're praying i guess. Either way it's all good, and God glorifying.

Appt. Update!

I just got back from my appt. w/ my midwife and it went well. She said that I am still measuring large probably because I am petite to begin w/ and the baby has nowhere else to go. She tried to find the heart beat too but was unsuccessful at first, she kept finding it and then it would go away. She said it was because he/she kept swimming away, and was very active! Ry's like "oh no, not another one!" lol. We eventually got it for a consistent time and it was perfect beating at 140. Praise God! I go for another ultrasound and some more tests in another couple of weeks, please pray that i dont have gestational diabetes. the appt. was an hour long, which is fantastic compared t the 5 minute ones i would of had with an obstetrician. I absolutely LOVE midwifery care. We also discussed a home birth and so now Ry and i have to decide if thats what we want.

Another cool thing that happened today, we were driving through Georgetown and noticed random people holding up signs w/ Bible verses on them. Then we seen one guy w/ signs evangelizing a group of highschool students, so we pulled over to talk to him. They were all christians part of a bunch of bible believeing churches doing a week long evangelism thing in georgetown. He gave us a cd w/ a sermon on it (it's a really solid message) and the church's contact. Halton Hills Bible chapel is the name. Anyway, it was really encouraging to see Christians taking a bold stand for the Gospel and proclaiming Christ to the world. We need to get something like that happening in Brampton.

To Live By Faith!

I just recently heard a sermon on the life of George Muller. I've never heard of him before but I'm sure glad i did! I just started reading his autobiography and it's amazing!! He was a man who is known for opening up numerous orphanages, starting a Bible Institute and was also a Lutheran minister. His life reflected constant glory to God for providing all his needs. He refused a paycheck from his congregation so that he could only depend on God for his needs and when God provided....only God alone would get the glory. And He always provided, mostly in miraculous ways. I could go on but it would take up a lot of space. So i encourage you to read up on George Muller, He will inspire and challenge you to depend on God in faith, bring glory to God through everything, pray without ceasing even for the smallest thing and daily meditate on His word. Here are some famous quotes from him:

“If honest of heart and uprightness before God were lacking or if I did not patiently wait on God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow-men to the declarations of the Word of God, I made great mistakes.”


"The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray."


"There was a day when I died, utterly died — died to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends — and since then I have only to show myself approved to God."