Change :)

Here is our living room when we first moved in. We really didn't change much with the furniture because our living room is really large and nothing else seemed right.

This is our new set up now. We wanted to put in some carpet so we can put baby on the floor without felling bad. And we moved Brion's computer into the living room and out of what will be the baby's room. 

Next step: Baby's room! 

Starting from Scratch

Starting tomorrow, as part of our training, we are not allowed to use any of our kitchen appliances (Except fridge and stove) and have to cook EVERYTHING from scratch. When I first heard that we had to do this, I was a little freaked out, but I think (if all goes well with my health this week) that it should be pretty fun.

So what's on the menu for the week?

Monday we are making tortillas and taco fixings for dinner. I figured we would start out with one thing super easy, taco meat, and one thing a little more time consuming, tortillas :) For breakfast we have powdered skim milk (eek) with some awesome homemade granola (Brion made it and gave it a special name, but I forgot what he called it). We are keeping lunch simple too with sandwiches on our homemade bread with some fruit.

Tuesday we'll do some breakfast burritos with our leftover tortillas and for dinner some awesome cheddar, potato, cauliflower, bacon soup.

Wednesday we'll make some more bread and have leftover soup and sandwiches for lunch and some crepes for dinner!! I just love making and eating crepes!

Thursday for lunch we are having grilled cheese with bacon and avocado and dinner is a spin off of shepherds pie. We are having company over so i'll probably try and make some sort of dessert. Maybe some chocolate pudding cake...

Friday I really don't remember what I planned for lunch, but for dinner we have a potluck with the rest of class to celebrate our survival of scratch cooking! I'm making a chicken pot pie and I think i'll do a apple crisp for dessert.

In the mix somewhere I'm going to try these awesome peanut butter cookies and maybe some other oatmeal snacky things. If all goes well, I will be the one making these meals, but maybe if you think about it, pray for Brion in case he has to cook this week on top of his already busy schedule.  :) I'm going to miss my toaster and my food processor this week, but luckily we have a hand crank coffee grinder and french press, so Brion will still have his coffee. Hope everyone has a great week. We are excited about ours!

Wasted

Holy conviction, Batman! That's what I feel like saying today. My thinking has been so off and today as I was looking in the mirror, I realized how wrong my attitude has been. This pregnancy has been hard for me for a number of reasons and I have been so focused on the negative and when everything will finally start looking up, that I have wasted 28 weeks of thankfulness and rejoicing in exactly where God has me. There have been so many days that I can't do anything but lay in bed and instead of praying for other people and getting into the Word, I was just feeling sorry myself. I should have taken advantage of every second of down time that I had and put it to good use, but instead I was self absorbed and wishing the day by.

My goodness it has taken me a long time to figure this out! I could just keep waiting and waiting for a time when I will feel better and rejoice in that, or I could rejoice for this moment I have right now. Even if that means I am rejoicing in my bed or on my couch. I have such a huge privilege of having a sweet little baby inside of me and instead of thanking God everyday for the challenge that this bringing us, knowing that we can grow from this, I am focused on the prayer of health. I know that God can heal, but He doesn't always choose to do so.

So I may not be making it to all my classes and I may not have the same fellowship opportunities as everyone else, but I still have the ability to pray and study God's Word. Thank you Lord for opening my eyes! From this point on, I am going to have a better attitude. If you catch me with a bad one, please call me out it. As I have 12 weeks left, give or take a few, I want to rejoice daily in the fact that my son is alive and kicking! He is healthy and growing strong for the day when he makes his grand entrance into this world.

My Goals for the next 12 weeks:
1. Wake up everyday and be thankful for whatever it holds. Before my feet touch the floor, I want to thank God for what He is going to use me for and teach me that day.
2. Spend quality time with my Savior. Whether it be in deep prayer or studying His Word. If I am not setting my mind on things above, there is no way my attitude will transform.
3. I can't really think of something right now, but I'm sure I will in the future.
I am going to need some help in keeping my mind and my heart in the right place, so as my brothers and sisters in Christ, if you see that I may need some work on something, please feel free to tell me.

Stuffed to the Brim!

Brion and I just sent out this e-mail update. If you would like to be added to our e-mail list, please shoot us an e-mail at thekendzoras@gmail.com. ~ 

One down, two to go! Or is it two down, one to go? Well, actually… it’s both. We just finished our first semester of school and have just 2 more to go before we complete our training. And next week marks the beginning of Annette’s 3^rd trimester. Time sure does fly!

Two Down one to go

Our baby boy is already the size of a head of lettuce. That’s right, it’s a boy! We are very excited for this new chapter of our life to begin. We are already starting to accumulate a lot of baby essentials.

When we were driving back from our Christmas break in the states, our car was so full of baby stuff that we didn’t have any room for grocery’s, which are much cheaper in the states. Even though our car was full, we couldn’t resist those low prices! So we were left shoving the items we bought into any nook or crevice we could find. Some things got a bit squished, but still tasted great! We are so grateful to everyone who has blessed us in preparing for our little man’s arrival, which should be around May 2^nd.

One down two to go

We are three weeks into our second semester and are diving into the language-learning portion of our training here in Canada. We are starting off with phonetics in our sounds and symbols class. So far we are learning how to listen to someone speak and detect where and how they are producing the sound they are making (Brion is finally putting all his strange noises to good use!).  This will help us in the future when we are hearing a new language for the first time to truly understand what we are hearing. 

As we continue with our training we have grown even more passionate for the salvation of the lost. We are confident that this is where the Lord has put us. Ultimately our goal is to reach tribal people living in remote areas of the world, but before we get there, our ministry starts right here. There is so much God wants to do through us before we head off to some foreign land and we don’t want to miss out on that.

Having our brothers and sisters in Christ behind us is a huge encouragement to us.  Please continue to pray for the health of the baby and Annette as well. Also, as our schooling becomes more challenging, that our focus and dependence would remain on God. We sincerely want to thank you for your prayers and support. Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.

                                    In Christ,

                                             Brion and Annette Kendzora

Growing, growing, growing!

Well, here we are at week 26. Some call him Mario, some call him Hank, but either way he is getting huge! I think he should be about 2 pounds now (so say the books) and his lungs are now capable of breathing air. He gets the hiccups at night sometimes now. We thought that maybe if we scared him his hiccups would go away.... we may be awful parents already..... Either way, it scared me more than the baby and his hiccups remained. Maybe the fact that we tried counts as something :) I still find it absolutely crazy that I have a baby inside me. And that the baby is going to come out eventually and then that means that we are parents. Life is just nuts. I love it, but man it is nuts! 

Heavenly Blessings

What a crazy 3 weeks we had on Christmas break! So many blessing I can't even begin to count them all. Brion and I had an awesome time visiting our home church in Arlington Heights. It was so great to be back in our church and feel all the love! We wished we could have had more time to hang out with tons more people, but surprisingly getting together with people to eat is very tiring.

We then had a week to spend at my parents house which was absolutely wonderful. My sisters and mom threw us baby shower which was so great. It was so wonderful to spend that time with family and my awesome friends who traveled a long ways just to celebrate with us. Our baby is a lucky one :) After a week of fun there, we went up to Brion's families place. We had such a great, relaxing time with them, but of course the week went by in a flash.

We have been back in Canada for 2 weeks now. It's good to be back in the swing of things. We are already learning tons this semester! Our first week back we had 2 guest speakers/teachers come and train us in how to approach the huge task of partnership development (support raising) and 1 tech helper to teach us how to use nifty computer stuff. You can tell Brion's the computer dude in this relationship... It was a crazy week filled with a massive amount of information, but we are so thankful for it! This week was our first week back in normal classes and we have been having a lot of fun with phonetics! I was very intimidated at first and wondered how on earth we were ever going to learn anything, but so far, it's been awesome. Yes it's challenging and no I don't understand everything, but it is super cool. :)

We have had so much homework, which is new for us here, and we have been so busy that today, I just don't know what to do with myself! Brion just went off to play ping pong with some guys. I would love to play but one girl intruding on guy time is always a bit awkward. Maybe I'll try to make some bread.....

Happy Weekend!

Baby Kendo

Baby Kendo at 24 Weeks! I kind of want to name this baby Mighty Mover, but I guess we might get weird looks if we did that.