Some really, really great news!

So….Shannon is pregnant!  We are pumped, overwhelmed with joy, feeling fantastically blessed, and boundlessly thankful.

Things are moving along and currently Shannon is finishing up her 1st trimester.  All in all, the 1st trimesters wasn’t too bad.  Other than a little bit of nauseousness and the need for a bit more sleep, she has been pretty healthy.

The due date for this little one is the 1oth of May.  Shannon will be coming home to Texas to deliver and I will join her with about two weeks to go.  As for now, we anxiously await the newest goranimal!  If you would like to see the newest family picture, check out the dashboard at the top of the page .

Back for a three week quarantine.

We are back in Ukraine and busy at work but there has been an interesting development since our arrival.  The swine flu, also known around here as the Californian flu (which is a complete mystery to me) has put the nation into a bit of a scare.  Things are slightly nuts.  One of the cities east of us, Ternopyl (not Chernobyl), has completely been quarantined due to a number of deaths.  Trains are not stopping there and I’ve heard that choppers are flying around spraying some sort of chemicals.  Things in L’viv aren’t so bad but there is still plenty of worried folks.  Most people are wearing face masks or putting scarves or over their mouths.  Yulia Temenshenko, the Prime Minister, has decided put a three-week national restriction on public meetings, including schools, universities, churches, movie theaters, etc.  Makes for tough campus ministry considering all the universities and colleges are shut down and many students have gone home.  We will see how everything continues to transpire.  I suspect it this is a bit of an overreaction.  We are sure hoping the universities aren’t closed for three weeks, but we will see.  We will probably continue our activities anyways, so take that swine flue!

Here are some L’vivians sporting face masks!  I got some very straight faced, “what are you doing taking a picture of me looks” when I took these.  So enjoy them!

Shannon posing so it looked like I was taking a picture of her...the lady on her left was not happy and trying to leave!

Goranimals Newsletter Summer-Fall 2009

Goranimals Newsletter Summer-Fall 2009

This is the newest version of our newsletter.  Hope you all enjoy it.  Shannon and I are still in the states at training and we will be heading back to Ukraine the end of October after a week of vacation.  Hope everyone is enjoying the fall, we sure are.  

 

Missionaries in Training

Stateside for a bit.

Well, Shannon and I are back in the states for about a month after being in Ukraine almost exactly a year.  It has been wonderful to be back and we are experiencing a slight bit of reverse culture-shock.  I think we are both most surprised by being able to understand everything that is going on around us.  We feel very overstimulated!

We spent the few days in Manassas, Virginia with Grace United Methodist Church.  This was our first time visiting a church and it was a wonderful experience.  Grace UMC gave us the opportunity to share from the pulpit and do the missions moment at all three of their Sunday services.  I was a little bit intimidated seeing as I had never formally preached at an American church before nor had I preached without a translator in a while, but it all seemed to go quite well.  One of the main goals of our visit, beyond sharing about Molod do Isusa and generating support, was to create some interest and enthusiasm for a short-term trip Grace is planning to do with us next summer.  Grace showed us amazing hospitality while we were there and we felt incredibly encouraged and blessed to have the church care so much about us and our ministry.  Thank you Grace, it was a wonderful time and we look forward to seeing you again soon!   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other random highlights of our time home so far include visiting my good friend Rob and his wife Liz, seeing my first Copperhead on a trail we hiked, and also watching Shannon run like a bandit from the second Copperhead I have ever seen.  I also got to go fishing and Shannon enjoyed a nice peddicure.  It is good to enjoy some of the pampering of home.  

We will spend the next three weeks in Stony Point, New York at a missionary training that we were supposed to have before we left in 2008 but has been postponed until now.  It will be good to have our many questions answered and become a little bit more familiar with the procedures of the General Board of Global Ministries.  Look for a new newsletter soon.  God bless.