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Our precious little gift from the Lord has arrived!

On Tuesday morning around 11:01am he came into this world, opened his eyes, looked around, and saw two incredible proud, awed, and humbled parents staring lovingly right back at him! He weighed in at a "healthy" 8lbs' 5oz's and was a solid 21" long!

It's still hard to describe those first emotions after meeting this stranger who'd been occupying Neena's belly for the last 9 months… and words simply fail to do justice to the utter joy and love that flooded my heart as soon as I set my eyes on him. I mean, I've been in love with this guy for months now but here was finally the moment to see him, touch him, smell him, and of course, kiss him with reckless abandon! It was an unbelievably incredible  moment that I will never forget as long as I live. After just a couple days I've already found myself in tears delighting over the joy of calling him my son and recognizing fully the weaknesses I long to avoid passing on to him… I've realized, now more than ever, Gracen's full dependence on Neena and I mirrors my absolute and complete dependence on the God and Savior I pray will give us wisdom in raising this amazing gift. My greatest hope and joy would truly be seeing my precious little "Blueberry" know the Heavenly Father as I do, but I sincerely pray that he'll know Him far more intimately than I and that he'll be a much more faithful, kind, generous, and loving husband and father than even myself. Many of you will probably chuckle knowingly to yourselves, but I simply didn't know this kind of love for another person existed (yes, I love my wife dearly)… and I'm certain I love and adore this tiny little guy just a fraction of the way the Lord loves us! What a staggering lesson to be learning daily.

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 The labor:

Early labor started on Sunday evening. I started having extremely irregular contractions and I just assumed they were those pesky Braxton Hicks, but these felt different than the Braxton Hicks. They were a lot more intense and I had to work them a little more. Isaac and I began to get so excited.  We thought, "Oh man, probably by this time tomorrow were going to have a baby!" I went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning just not feeling well. We cancelled our midwife appointment and decided to stay home and rest. My contractions came all throughout the day but were still irregular and I thought I was doomed to have the longest labor in history! :) That night Isaac helped me get through some of my contractions by rubbing my back constantly and listening to some relaxing music with me. The contractions were coming anywhere from 10-30 minutes apart and they were about 30-45 seconds long each time. We decided to try and get some sleep not knowing when labor was going to pick up. I could only lay down for about an hour because I found that if I wasn't ready for a contraction it was harder to manage it. I left our bedroom and headed to the guest bedroom. I thought maybe I could lay on the floor in there and work through the contractions. After a few minutes of that I got up because I realized that these were just coming to fast and I needed to be upright to handle them. Starting at 12am my contractions went from 10 minutes apart and gained in speed and intensity. By 4am they were coming about every 2 min and lasting for 45 seconds. I had 2 min to run and grab Isaac and to tell him to call the midwife. He jumped up immediately, full of excitement, and called the midwife and our "2nd photographer". He also started working on filling up the birthing pool and getting all the cameras ready for the epic film he had in store when this was over :) I worked through a few more contractions and all of the sudden they slowed down to about 3-5 minutes apart and lasted for about 30 seconds. I thought to myself, "Oh no, here we called everybody and I'm not even in real labor." I took a hot shower and waited for my midwife to come. At 6am she got to our house and I hugged her grateful to see her finally with us. She checked to see how far dilated I was and I was so afraid she was going to tell me I was only 3cm and I wasn't even in active labor.  Well, she checked me and to my surprise she said, "Neena, your about 8-9cm." I cried with relief! We were almost there! A few minutes later I was in the pool and the 2nd stage of labor began. The pushing stage. This is where Isaac really came in. I honestly know I could not have done this without him and his continuous encouragement and support! We worked through the contractions together, and he was the support and coach I needed to keep on pushing when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. After a couple hours of learning how to push and an hour of actually pushing correctly our little guy was born! He cried immediately and both Isaac and I felt a huge sense of relief and exhaustion flood over us.  Our little boy was finally here and he was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen! 

Thanks to everyone who was lifting us up to the Lord both then and now! We appreciate it you guys! All our love!

-Isaac, Neena, and Gracen too!

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Hope all the mother's (and expectant mother's) out there are enjoying their well deserved day of recognition! I for one am beyond ecstatic to be celebrating this day for the first time with Neena as Gracen's arrival date is just weeks away (that counts, right?)! I'm also looking forward to the years to come and many more Mother's Days of Gracen and I spoiling momma-Neena with all our love! What a truly wonderful blessing mothers are… hopefully we all let them know how much we appreciate them way more than once a year!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY EVERYONE!

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Answered prayers:

With everything finally slowing down for us ("slowing" is a relative term, mind you!) we wanted to take some time to say thanks to all of you who have been faithfully praying for us. Thanks for taking our transition, pregnancy, and search for a new home before the throne of our God and King! Over the last weeks we've seen the Lord move in some mighty ways as we've signed the lease to an apartment, moved in without TOO MUCH fatigue or frustration, found a midwife (that's a story for another post!), and been blessed with the financial means to get the things we need for Gracen's arrival!

A new home:

As many of you know we were very specifically praying for a location that wouldn't require to much setup--we knew between Neena's pregnancy and my knees we weren't exactly up to the "furniture shuffle" task… Well, the Lord, as He always does, provided in a way that simply amazed us! We found a place that a couple from St. Louis used as a vacation spot overlooking the lake! It's just a couple miles from the Missionary Training Center we'll be working at, and the best part? Well, it came fully furnished (yeah, very little setup/extra cost--just some cleaning!) and the owners dropped the price by an additional 20% for us! PRAISE THE LORD! We've been blow away by this blessing above and beyond anything we could've imagined or expected! Though relocating and readjusting hasn't been the easiest thing in the world we've been so encouraged to see the subtle (and not so subtle) reminders that the Father has been faithfully guiding and directing our every step along the way!

All our love!

Isaac, Neena, and Gracen too

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Slooooowly...

Man, what a crazy couple weeks we've had folks! Over the last 13 days it seems like we've been all over the place here in our new home of Missouri and we've thoroughly seen a lot of what the "show me state" has to offer. We've stayed in several different locations, with friends and in hotels, since our arrival and have looked at several homes and apartments in hopes of finding just the right location (not to far from the Training Center). We've also been on the hunt for a doctor/midwife/hospital nearby as we've somewhat frantically prepared for Gracen's fast-approaching arrival date in late May. As if those things weren't enough we've also been filling out paperwork to finalize our transition to a role with NTM, searching for a local church, registering a vehicle and getting new I.D.'s, familiarizing ourselves with the curriculum we'll be teaching, celebrating my (Isaac's) birthday, finding/buying items for our eventual nursery and home, setting up and adding content to a new ministry website, renting out and adding incoming packages to a storage facility, re-familiarizing ourselves with the MTC staff and campus... and the list goes on.

To top things off we've removed one of our greatest coping tools from our diet, i.e. sugar. Neena had some slightly elevated glucose levels at a recent check-up for little "Blueberry" and we both agreed to cut sugar... but, with all the new/added stresses we certainly want some chocolate cake reeeeeal bad! :D

So, please continue to pray for us as we're still very much in transition to the Missionary Training Center. Pray also for this last month or so of pregnancy--that Neena and Gracen will remain healthy and that our home/hospital will be found and setup with plenty of time to acclimate before our little guy's arrival. Thank you everyone, we miss and love you all dearly!

         
-Isaac, Neena, and Gracen too!

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Thanks to everyone who prayed for me during my recent trip to Missouri, I really appreciated it! Rather than tell you all the details of the journey I figured I'd just show you via an entertaining collection of time-lapses and random B-roll! Let me know what you think. Bye for now!

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Hey everyone, we know it's been quite some time since our last post. We had decided to take a few months off to process things in our lives and ministry and we just weren't at a place to post things regularly. We know that might've been unfair to many of you but we're trusting you understand why that decision was made (as most of you have already stated is the case). Anyways, the good news is as of right now things on the blog will pick up exponentially! We've had a wonderful time of refreshing and building up with our church body here in California and we'll be moving into a new role with NTM soon. So, the time to start updating and posting again has naturally come back around... now, without further adieu here are a few different pictures from our recent "maternity shoot"!

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So Wednesday morning we went to the doctors office to find out the gender of our baby... but instead of having Dr. Stigen tell us whether it was a boy or girl we decided we'd do something a little different; we had her seal the results in an envelope and give it to us - so we had no clue which one it was. We thought it would be a wonderful Christmas surprise for ourselves, as indeed it was, if we waited to find out until Christmas morning. We ended up choosing to entrust the contents of the envelope to some dear friends (thank you Fisks!), and asked if they would wrap up a present with contents indicative of either sex. Well, they went above and beyond and... well, we'll just let the video below explain the rest!

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We know it's been a LOOOOOONG time since we've posted anything here, but hopefully this post will make up for it just a bit! As most of you know we've gone through a lot of major transitions lately. To be honest, it has been very difficult at times. Yet, through it all, we've seen the Father work in some mighty and amazing ways... and ultimately, He has graciously seen fit to grant us one of the desires of our hearts. After years of trying to start a family our pr@yers have been answered! This is a video we put together of us sharing the news with our loved ones, and meeting our child for the first time. Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Thank you all for continuing to stand beside us through everything and for constantly bringing us before His throne. All our love!

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Finally had a good opportunity to capture someone making 'chai' at the stand we normally go to. Been trying to capture a bunch of video from all over the city in hopes of creating a larger film that will do a much better job conveying what life is like here.

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A quick video of our rapidly emptying house as we prepare to move back to the US...

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I'll just leave you with the age-old adage to summarize things:

"My daddy could beat up your daddy!" :D

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*We arrived back early Friday morning. Our friends came to pick us up at the airport and we were thrilled to see them. We brought a few surprises for them too. What would any cheese head kid want? Dairy! Dairy! Dairy! That's right! We froze a gallon of delicious 2% milk, cheesecake, cheese, cream cheese, donuts, candy, candy, and more candy. Needless to say the kids were all thrilled. I think John shed a tear too. That day we went to sleep and we didn't wake up until the evening. Some friends came over to visit and after they left back to sleep we went. Thank goodness for Melatonin.

*Two days later was my 28th Birthday. After church, we went out to a local A/C restaurant and ordered the infamous Paper Dosa. As you can see it is huge and delicious. If you are ever in an South Asian restaurant order the Dosa. You won't be disappointed.

*A friend of ours from our fellowship here is getting married this week but there are many pre wedding get togethers that usually happen first. Sunday evening was Nalugu. Nalugu, according to tradition, is when the bride-to-be gets absolutely covered in Turmeric paste by all of her family and friends. It is thought to represent the glow that she will have on her wedding day. She wears yellow so that she doesn't ruin her sari. After she gets covered, some of the more rowdy women start covering everyone else with the turmeric paste. I guess so we all have that beautiful glow. I turned out looking more like Lisa Simpson!

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*Monday night our friends wanted to do a little something extra for my B-day (they made me feel so special!). All 12 of us went to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 with McDonalds Ice cream afterwards. This truly was a special treat. My gift from them was the Ronald McDonald Back Pack. They called me Dora the Explorer for the rest of the night.

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*Now, here comes the real "kicker" (literally). On Wednesday morning Isaac and I had a long list of things to do for the day. We were both in high spirits and just happy to be busy. While Isaac was sitting in our office I asked him to help me take the fan out of the bathroom.  For some reason the plug wasn't coming out of the outlet.  When I asked him this is what he said to me, "Oh, you can't get it out because you gotta have skillz!" In my witty response I said to him, "I'll show you skills!" Up my foot went to Karate Chop my husband (I blame Kung Fu Panda) and instantly my foot went back down.  I completely missed Isaac and caught my pinky toe on the edge of his chair. The pain was instant. I looked down and my toe was hanging on the side of my foot! It wasn't pretty. I went to the doctor the next day and after the X-rays it was clear. I broke my toe. So for the past week I have been sitting. Not because I want to but because I have to. It literally hurts to walk.

This is my "you think this is funny Isaac" face!?

I think the Father knew we needed some rest so that's what we are doing. We'll enjoy it while it lasts. We miss you guys and we are super thankful for our time together. Keep lifting us up! Until we meet again or as Dora would say Hasta Luego!

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We know we've been sporadic in our posts lately (to say the least)… one of the hardest things to do was to even conceive of following up (or moving on from) our latest post. To be honest, where do you go from there? It kinda makes other things pale in comparison, don't you think? Life and death obviously overshadow other monotonous things we share about our days. Just a difficult thing for us to process and think through. Fortunately, we feel this video-post is a good starting (or restarting) point for us. It's a great reminder of the important things, and has given us a moment of clear and appreciated perspective. Hope you enjoy!

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Last night we had a "Celebration of Life" service for my father. I was blessed to get to be a part of remembering him through giving the eulogy. Though it was difficult and extremely emotional we know our Heavenly Father was glorified in what was shared and spoken about my dad. Thank you all so much for your help in making it an incredibly memorable occasion. Below we have posted two of the video slide-shows we put together for the event. One is a compilation meant to capture the life and joy of my father accurately, and the other chronicles my parents 37 years of marriage together. Hopefully they relay through pictures concisely what would otherwise take many, many words to convey. Please be remembering my entire family as we continue to mourn through this process…

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Sadly, as I already knew, heroes are indeed mortal... and my hero was no exception. On the morning of April 26th he went to meet his Creator, and presumably dance quite a jig like never before, as he was ushered into eternity with his God, Savior, and King. And though we know he will be missed dearly by so many, we take great solace and joy in knowing that for him the sanctification process is complete,... he is now completely at peace and before the throne of God.

Please continue to remember us at this time as we mourn with and comfort our family and friends. We love and miss you all and deeply covet your prayers at this time of joyful-sadness. All our love...

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Neena took these photos as we were heading into a Punjabi place for lunch a couple weeks ago. It's actually not to unusual to see this kind of livestock activity around us, but I mostly wanted to contrast it with our next post (coming soon!).

Just for the record: we ended up eating several chicken dishes :D

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