1) Our close friends did leave this week, but we were blessed with a number of chances to see them during the course of the week. The night before they left, we spent a couple of hours at their (immaculate) house, reminiscing, chatting, and enjoying a little more time together. The blessings went further than that, though - our friends left us some amazing gifts: a basket of baby toys and diapers - none of which we have gone to the trouble of buying, yet. So, Baby Van Maanen now has more friends on the other side of the world (in Canada, eh?), but we'll be certain to remember them here.
2) Our church has officially called a head pastor, and he and his wife have accepted! Their names are Tim and Debbie. They were originally planning on leaving to go back to the USA this week, but have postponed their plane tickets in order to stay for a couple of extra weeks. Things at our church are just getting started with the new school year (most of the kids go to an international school, which runs on the same timetable as schools in the US), so Tim and Debbie and the elders wanted them to stay around for that. Tim preached again in church this morning, and there was such a feeling of joy in the congregation!
3) Baby Van Maanen - still growing every day (and kicking A LOT)! We had an appointment with our doctor at the hospital this afternoon. He spent a moment feeling my belly and commented, "You've got a good-sized baby there." ...whatever that means. :) I'm still hoping Baby takes after me (7lb range) rather than Michael (9lb range). I thought I'd include a visual for you, too:
(Please excuse the mess behind me in this picture - we've had to move some things out of our spare bedroom recently - see prayer request #2 below)
So, there's the updates. I have a couple of prayer requests that we would LOVE for you to pray for for us this week:
1) This week is overnight camp - our yearly activity of taking the 6th-12th graders to a resort for three days/two nights. It takes a ton of energy and is definitely one of the best parts of the entire school year! Pray for health and energy for all involved, as well as that the Spirit will work in our hearts and the hearts of the students through the activities and chapel times we have planned.
2) The spare bedroom in our apartment has a leak in the ceiling. It's a problem that we discovered in April, that maintenance took two months to fix, and now the 'fix' is obviously no longer fixed. We are a little concerned that the leak is going to get worse and/or turn into a major mold problem - not a happy thing, since the room is supposed to become Baby's room at some point in the future. Pray that the problem will be really, actually fixed in a timely manner - we're doing all we can to poke and prod the right people to get it done for us.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers! We love and miss you all. Have a blessed week!
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