Keeping Up With The Joneses - April 2022

Missionary kid moments!

(It feels wrong to post a cheery update given what's happening in the Ukraine, but we're praying fervently for those who are living through trauma we can't even imagine, and for their leaders and ours.)

Me at age 4(?) with "Uncle Cam," William Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators. Photo taken when he visited our mission center of Lomalinda, Colombia, South America. He's showing me the medal awarded to him by the Peruvian government.

One of my favorite missionary kids who happens to be our best friends' and neighbors' daughter! We grew up in Colombia with her dad, then went to the same universities, dated and married our spouses at the same time, and I even got to be there at her birth. She wants to be a helicopter pilot like her Uncle Gavin, so joined him on a recent flight taking a Bible translator to a remote language location. So special! She's in grade 11 with Isaac and one of his best friends.

. . . and this is her little brother, one of Seth's favorite people!

Leave it to David and Will to have a great time getting their teeth cleaned.
David is moving Will's chair down for the hygienist.

Marcie still loves playing anything where she's a mom caring for something/someone. She's been like this since she was a baby herself. She'd cuddle stuffed animals even larger than herself and say, "Oooo-weee!"

Speaking of which, we got one of our kittens from October back again. She wasn't thriving in the village as the runt of the litter and is still super small. Her name is Misty.

Seth was working on LEGOs, and Misty decided his leg was as good as spot as any to perch!

Here Misty has chosen Isaac's forearm - doesn't seem very comfortable or roomy!

Poor Gracie's nose got displaced by Seth's forehead when they collided during play. All's well now - she was a trooper! We love our doctor/medical director! He is so great with our kids. A sweet little friend gave her a stuffed toy to comfort her during the reset.

And as long as we're on the subject of the Clinic:

We see pregnant women every Wednesday morning at the lab.

Alice is both a wonderful, supportive supervisor and friend.
I am SO grateful she works full-time so I don't have to!

 

Madang over New Year's

Playing with friends on the raft

Taking a dive course! (We celebrated Isaac's 18th birthday on the 22nd of January. I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that we have an adult child! Because we didn't start him at kindergarten until he was 6 we still have another year-and-a-half with him, for which we are truly grateful.) 

Date night!

The reason we have life insurance (Gavin is worse than the kids!)

Seth floating in the waves

Will

David and his favorite soda - pineapple Fanta!

Marcie (Few things are more refreshing than a soda at the sea on a hot day!)

Gracie's sweet face becomes a mass of freckles no matter how much sunscreen we use!

Marcie selecting her lunch at the nearby fish market

I think this is yellowfin tuna, but either way, she loved it!

Seth chose sago pancakes for his lunch from the fish market. He and I LOVE them!

 

A few fun Christmas photos

 Credit: Siobahnne Duhe, set up by Susan Smith for our Clinic staff! Gavin was off flying and Isaac was . . . not keen to give up his first day of break. 

A not calm but very bright Christmas

Not much in our lives has been calm since the five babies joined our family! But this was a lovely Christmas with lots of blessings.

Flashback to 2012: Seth was still in the hospital. We couldn't fit Will's big belly in the stocking. 😆

The girls and I sang in our week-before-Christmas church service. Gracie is the only visible girl.

Making a gingerbread house!

My favorite night of the year: our Christmas Eve service!

Gracie's gift to her siblings was a Christmas kitty cake. She is a keen baker and cook already!

We served it Christmas Eve with friends at our house.

Happy Christmas morning!

Isaac with his gifts: an ESV study Bible and Biblical Doctrines book - which he took on vacation with him. 😂 He requested theology and Bible study books for his gifts this year and bought Thomas Watson's Body of Divinity with his grandmother's gift. We're thrilled that the Lord has given him a passion for Truth, and we pray that his love for Christ continues to grow! We appreciate your prayers for him. He wants to go into full-time pastoral ministry, specifically aiming for the mission field. He needs your prayers because we know there is an enemy who would love to trip him up and attack him.

How they love LEGOs!

This young woman, Iren, needs your prayers. Marcie gave her a homemade plaque that says "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you, Hebrews 13:5." She's been a friend of the family since 2006 and has a very painful growth in her back and abdomen. Her pathology reports were never released, thanks to COVID disrupting everything. She needs to get to the hospital again ASAP and see a surgeon, but if it's cancer there's nothing that can be done. We had a lovely day with her and her family!

Keeping Up With the Joneses - November 2021

And now they're 9!

APOLOGIES to everyone who actually still checks this blog (those of you on a mailing list I don't feel so badly about, ha ha). I thought I had published this way back in August. Instead I'm publishing in NOVEMBER - the month of their due date when they were expected to be only one baby! 😁 Forgive me! I don't know what happened to my brain. Blame it on having 5 very busy nine-year-olds or COVID coming (finally) to our area and requiring me to work way, way, way more than usual. Both of those is probably true. But the Lord is good, and we're on the other side of this wave (I trust/hope/pray), so here's the birthday post, at long last!!

August 9th:

God is so good, keeps going through my head. How far we've come! How kind He's been! How much we love these kids He's blessed us with!

Portraits by a very dear friend; clothes from our dear Aunt Mickey 💞:

Will Edward

David Stephen

Seth Jared

Marcie Jane

Grace Elise

We didn't want Isaac to be the odd man out! This photo is so perfect for his personality and silliness towards his siblings. They LOVE when he plays with them. He graduates in 18 months! 😫💙

With a brother from another mother (the photographer)! He fits right in! 😍

This was the birthday of the LEGOs for everyone except Marcie, who's our glamour girl! She got a fancy, long, sparkly dress. 

This girl loves her dress-up!

We had a waterslide party with all their friends. When the kids asked for How to Train Your Dragon cakes I had to enlist this lovely colleague to do it for me. These were not only amazing to look at but DELICIOUS: dark chocolate ganache and white chocolate peppermint!

Isaac is amused, Gavin mildly so, but the dog is NOT.

And a cool extra photo of the helicopter on Mt. Wilhelm. (Gavin was giving high altitude training to our newer pilots who are also great friends. We thank God for sending them!)