Flexible Living 101

Sunday evening I got a text asking if we can be at a team meeting on Thursday afternoon.  No problem.  We added that to our weekly plans.  Monday at 10am, a new message arrived.  Flights changed for the week, so the team meeting will actually be better in just a few hours.  Can anyone host it?  Can everyone bring a snack?  That's a true scenario and that's life around here in a nutshell.  I'm not saying that our mission is last minute.  I'm saying that LIFE here is last minute.  

You never know when you will have guests stop by just as you are putting the finishing touches on dinner (around here, you would never NOT invite them to stay).  I might find out in the morning that we will have guests staying for that weekend beginning that evening.  And then, after making the bed up, it wouldn't be unusual to find out that actually plans changed and now they won't be arriving until Wednesday.  Even fun things happen last minute…a phone call at 5pm to invite us for dinner in an hour.  Or a phone call asking, "Can you come to my daughter's birthday party in the morning?  And bring cookies?"  Then after baking the cookies, it wouldn't be surprising for the party to get rescheduled for next week.  Here's a real live example, our base may or may not be expecting 4 missionaries who Jeyson will then drive over to Suriname (yes, the country) to go check out a plane for our mission.  When's this happening (or not happening)?  Next week! 

Last minute changes - it's cultural.  To add to that, we live in a very remote place in the country which runs extra last minute.  Compounding that, we are in ministry.  Our job by nature involves serving others and "others" involves other people's schedules and needs…even the last minute ones.  And just to make it extra interesting, we work with aviation in the world's largest RAINforest.  Rain, jungles, and aviation don't mix.  So bad weather results in the flight schedule getting shuffled around non-stop.  And the flight schedule getting shuffled results in our life's schedule getting shuffled.  Hence the last minute guests, who might have been planning to stay at one of our co-worker's house who got stuck in a village overnight etc. etc. 

So, what's to be done?  I've learned a few survival tips along the way that keep me sane.  Well that help anyway.

1. Get as much done as you can on Monday, since you never know what the rest of the week holds.  

2. Meal plan flexibly.  I just make a list of a few meals I might like to make that week and buy the basic ingredients.  That way I can make whichever one works for that night, depending on what else is going on.

3. Make extra food in your meals so you can easily have people over.  If nothing else, there's a nice night of leftovers later in the week.

4.  Keep snack food on hand that can be pulled out to offer to unexpected guests (pretty much expected here).

5. Learn to say no to some things.  One of the nice things in Brazilian culture is there's an expression "Nao vai dar".  Literally means "It's not going to give".  It can basically be used to say no to things in a very vague way without requiring you to give any excuse about why.   

6.  Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.  We constantly have to remember that Jesus' major priority with his time was people.  We have slowly learned to be more and more flexible in order to make people, not our time or plans, a priority as well.

A Little Catch Up

It's been forever, but just this week I started to think about blogging and realized I've been missing it!  So here's a little update:

We just went on a fantastic retreat down to Goias.  Our whole mission gets together for a retreat only once every 3 years, so it was really special to see friends we haven't seen in a long time who serve at other bases.  

 When we were on our last retreat, Elijah was younger than Audrey is now!  So it was such a different experience trying to socialize and get something out of the meetings while keeping track of a preschooler and a new baby.  But it was a blast and even the 12 layover in Manaus wasn't a big deal and actually kind of fun since we were traveling with our friends Lauro, Rose, and their daughter Debora.  (We spent the wait at their friends' house).

The trip got us thinking about how many countless flights we've been on as a couple and now with our two kids. From all that traveling we've developed a pretty good travel rhythm as couple….if I do say so myself!  Anticipating each other's needs and moves as we go through security, round up our bags, check in, juggle passports, etc.  And our kids have definitely fallen right into the rhythm of travel flexibility, they did amazing the whole way!  Let's hope its a good sign for furlough.

 While nearby for the retreat, we got to visit Jeyson's family.  Doesn't Jeyson's sister have the coolest, most Pinterest -worthy house???  And all designed and created by them!

 I can't tell you how much we miss living near family!  You truly don't know what you have until it's gone!

 Elijah with his cousin Danny

 Back home we have really been back in the grind.  There has been nonstop flights and nonstop maintenance.  Our two planes are troopers but are badly needing to be replaced!  They are over 40 years old!!  So at routine inspections more and more there are problems that need to prevented before the next flight, which is usually the next day.  This has meant evening maintenance after a plane comes in from a flight to get it ready for the next morning.  If it can't be done in time and there is just one flight the next day, the planes take turns being grounded and worked on.  

It's been an intense few weeks and we're all feeling a bit tired at our base here since it is the same five guys who are the pilots that are the mechanics!  Our mission is working towards replacing these planes, and one is headed down soon to Anapolis for a major overhaul, but in the meantime it will probably be  a few more years of careful prevention.  It's not always so crazy, but our base seems to go through cycles of a few really intense weeks and then a few smoother weeks (depending on what the inspections turn up) so right now we're on a hectic cycle.  Even the other day two of our pilots wound up spending two days in a village to work on a problem before taking off again (and the other plane had to fly in some parts).  We always have to be 100% sure before taking off.  Jeyson has also been on a lot of flights these days, including today just went to the village of Palimi-U.  

Missionary aviation life is not quite as glamorous as you'd think!  It's a lot of sweat while doing maintenance in the oven of a hangar.  It's a lot of loading and unloading cargo from the belly pod.  It's a lot of uncertainty in trying to invite people over for dinner because you don't know what time the plane is going to get in that day.    But it truly is a lot of joy too, seeing the direct fruit of our grunt-work!

Meanwhile I'm finding myself feeling more and more called to invest every bit of energy I can into raising these two boogers with intentionality.  They say the days are slow but the years are fast and I couldn't agree more.  I want to do my very best at this job which involves everything from clipping toenails to pureeing pumpkin to scraping play dough out of the carpet to trying to model (yikes!) how to love God with all of our hearts and how much we need Jesus.  

 Especially when Jeyson has crazy hours at the hangar or is on a flight, I want to give my all every day to the daily task of motherhood.  And that's no easy job in any place, but even more so with the challenges of lack of conveniences in our lifestyle that we have here.  But like our aviation ministry, I see fruit and that makes it all worth it!

Catch Up - Me

Next, time to catch up on me!

The biggest thing going on here is I'm adjusting to being a mom of two.  I can't help but feel like a huge wimp when I mention that.  I mean, most moms of one go on to be moms of two eventually so it's should be no big deal, right?  But on the other hand, day to day it has felt like a huge step into deeper waters of parenting.  Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful and I wouldn't change it for anything!  But it's definitely more challenging.  It is nonstop, taking a ton more of my mental and emotional and physical energy.  Or maybe it's just having a 3 year old that's challenging???  Either way, one thing that definitely makes me feel better is a friend of mine who has 8 grown children.  She told me that she thought that the hardest parenting phase at all was when she had two young children…what I have now.  So, yeah…I'm 3 months in and still feel like I'm figuring things out a bit.

Over the last few months I've felt a huge need to finally get settled into our house.  Right around 18 months after we moved to Boa Vista, we started to really feel settled but we still weren't physically settled into our house.  Confession: there were still unpacked boxes and pictures to hang on the walls "one day".  So, I've finally worked on that over the past few weeks and we're just about done!

Going along with feeling settled into our house, lately I've felt very settled into relationships in the community.  Of course we're always looking for more friends and people to minister to, but I mean that we have a good solid group of friends and also a list of people we are "owing" an invite to.  That may not sound like a big deal or even sound stressful to you, but I mean it in a very positive way.  When we first moved here I hated that it felt like we had no one outside of our mission that we knew well enough to have over for dinner.  Now, we've gotten to know tons of people and I can see that proof in the fact that we have more people than time to invite them over.  To me that's a great feeling.  I love hosting people for meals so it is just such a "settled" feeling.

I'm very excited about a connection I made with an OBGYN in town.  She was interested in my work as a childbirth educator and referred a couple to me.  I was able to meet with the couple to prepare them for birth and even attend their birth as a doula.  Right now, with having a newborn and Jeyson's random flight schedule, it's more certain that I can teach scheduled classes than for sure be at a birth.  That's fine by me as really the class times are when I can spend more time talking with and ministering to a couple.  But in this case, I was able to do both and the birth went great.  I'm excited about the ongoing relationships I have been able to create and excited about future referrals from this doctor as a source for meeting people.

Btw, I was recently asked about how my own birth and how the birth went for the couple I was assisting a few months ago.  The couple I was assisting wound up having an emergency medical situation but were still very glad to have had the course I taught them and we continue on as good friends as we raise our newborns.  Also, I have been meaning to post about Audrey's birth and plan to do that soon after catching up on everyone.

Life as a missionary pilot's wife has it's challenges.  It means every week looks different, depending on the flight calendar.  It also means your husband leaving early in the morning and bringing a bag of clothes and a hammock, never knowing if a day trip could turn into an overnight due to bad weather.  Technology makes the job more fun though.  Elijah and I can watch a site online to see where the plane is and when it is headed home to us in Boa Vista.  The schedule also has it's perks as well.  Sometimes a flight is canceled last minute by the missionaries in the village or person who was going to be flown in.  And we wind up with an unexpected family day.  Growing up people used to called me "Stable Stephanie" since I loved stability.  Well "Stable Stephanie" is a friend I haven't heard from in years.  I've learned to relax and go for the ride.  It's more fun that way!

Christmastime always makes me miss family especially.  We had a nice Christmas, and I even somehow found the energy to bake 5 kinds of cookies to give out to people, but I definitely miss being around family at this time of the year.  I'm VERY excited though about my parents coming down to see Audrey and Elijah our family in just a few weeks.  :)

Today we have been married for 7 years!  What?!?  Where is the time going?  7 years feels very official…out of that newlywed couple stage but happier and more committed together than ever.  We look forward to going out to dinner tomorrow night when a friend can watch the kids.

Catch Up - Jeyson

Continuing in catch-up mode, here's a little update on this guy.

Audrey was only about 5 days old in this pic…already learning the art of drinking Brazilian tea from Jeyson

- Jeyson's has been flying as a co-pilot to villages a lot these days.  He's wrapping up the hours required by our mission before he can fly on his own in this region.  He's also getting advanced training on runways so he can be authorized to land on them one by one starting from easiest to most difficult.  (I could write a whole post on the landing strips and what makes each one difficult - mountains, rivers, animals, mud, etc)  

- Right now Jeyson is awaiting news about whether he will be helping to ferry two different planes down to central Brazil.  One could happen any day and other other probably in March-ish.  These will be trips of about 12 hours of flying and very tiring, but great experiences and helpful for the mission.

- Jeyson is really enjoyed spending time in the villages and with the missionaries there whenever he goes for a flight.  He brings home encouraging stories of what's going on and fruit from the jungle too.

- Back on the ground, Jeyson continues as the head mechanic/shop manager.  And he's really good at the job too.  Not that I know personally since I'm so UNmechanical, but all of the other mechanics always speak very highly of his abilities, and especially his ability to diagnose problems.  This is especially important when flying in such difficult areas, where there is no room for mechanical problems.

- Jeyson's a great husband and dad.  Even though he works long hours at work, he is great at balancing time with us at home too.  He also is wonderful at being calm and patient with the kids when I'm at my whits end at moments :)  And he's definitely into dates and not above diaper changes…couldn't ask for more.

Catch Up - Our Base

It's been a long blog-cation!  And after 7 years writing here almost weekly, it turned out to be really nice to have a break.  I'm not sure yet how often I'll be blogging going forward, but I thought I'd take a little time to catch up about what's new in a few posts.  To start off, here's what going on in our base:

- Looks like our base will wrap up the year flying close to 800 hours!  That's a lot of hours in the air to bring missionaries and supplies to villages!  But for each hour in the air, there are many more on the ground in maintenance, loading cargo, refueling, paperwork, communication via radio, and more.  

- Our team of five families (pictured above) are all really dedicated and passionate about the ministry here.  We have our differences in personality, but are committed to being united and focused.  It's a joy to serve alongside these other four families.

- We are all feeling a bit stretched thin with all of the work there is to keep the flight program running.  This is especially true of our pilots/mechanics (above) who often are gone for looong days on flights and even overnights or weeklong trips to villages.  We are looking forward to the possibility of another family joining us here next year.

- We recently had two of the "big cheeses" from Anapolis make their annual trip to our base.  It was great to be able to hear from them in person and get to share with them our mission's experiences, questions, etc.

- Those of us who can make it are looking forward to a mission-wide retreat near the mission headquarters in March.  We're really looking forward to seeing friends who serve at other bases, some of whom we haven't seen since the last retreat 3 years ago!  Should be fun and refreshing!

Blogging Freedom and a Catch Up

Lately I've been struggling to blog.  After 7 years posting just about every week, I couldn't figure out what had gotten into me that has taken away my blogging inspiration.  Then, I finally figured it out.  I realized that I originally started this blog because way back in 2007, I needed a practical way to update people back home with pictures.  So I started blogging and including a link to our blog in our update emails.  Since then, I've started using MailChimp, which allows me to put pictures right in our email updates and we created a facebook page where we often post pictures of the day to day stuff.  So that leaves me struggling to find something new to write here that I haven't already said and shown elsewhere.  

So, I've decided to take a bit of a blog-cation...a blog vacation that is.  Although maybe I'm better off considering it blogging freedom....freedom from any particular schedule of how often I will blog.  I will likely still post from time to time here when I have something longer to share than I have space for on facebook or in our emails, but it will continue to be random like this, or maybe even more random once our little girl arrives which will take up more of my time.  Basically, I'll blog when I have something to say that will work best in blog format, but I won't feel bound to blogging on any type of time table. 

That being said, while I'm at it blogging, here's a little update on some things I haven't shared about elsewhere.  

- The past few weeks we've been enjoying the cultural experience of watching The World Cup.  It was quite a bummer the way Brazil went out, but fun that for every game that Brazil played in, the whole country shut down and people got together to eat and watch the game.  Here's a shot as we were on the way to our friends' house for a game.  Everyone on the road was also headed to a game and dressed up in yellow jerseys to cheer.  

 - Amazing cake made by a friend for the game.  These two ladies and their families have become great friends of ours over the past year.

 - In other news, Elijah has officially moved out of his bed and into a "big boy" bed that Jeyson made for him.  It came out great!  And Elijah loves it.  Guess our eviction notice worked :)  Now time to get the baby's room ready.

I'm a little over 28 weeks now.  We'll be heading to Goiania at 36 weeks for the birth, leaving us with 7 1/2 weeks to get everything ready for the baby and the trip.  We decided to go with one way tickets.  Don't worry, of course we're returning to Boa Vista!  But this will give us more freedom to come back as soon as possible after the baby is born instead of buying tickets now for the last possible day she could arrive.  Here's to hoping for an early delivery...but what tired and big bellied mom isn't wishing for that?!? :)

 I've been enjoying water aerobics classes that are offered free through our insurance company for pregnant women.  I've met a couple of really nice ladies from the community, and I started giving childbirth education classes to one of the ladies and her husband.  It has been a wonderful time to build a relationship and minister to them as a couple, meanwhile helping me review my own material to get ready for my own birth as a perk!  I wish I could be here in Boa Vista to go along as a doula, but she's due only 2 weeks after me so I will almost definitely be in Goiania or nearly arriving back in Boa Vista when her baby arrives.  Btw, this mom to be is French and has only lived in Brazil for a year.  Both being foreign, we have a lot in common.  And since she doesn't speak English and I don't speak French, it's pretty funny that us two foreign women have to communicate in a third language...Portuguese :)

Elijah is getting so big!  Between sleeping in a big bed, playing creatively on his own, being potty trained...he's definitely turning into a kid rather than still being a baby.  He is starting to say a lot more too, like he will tell us what he wants to play with and remember things that happened and mention them to us.  He is still pretty behind on his speech though so he's going to get a few sessions of speech therapy before we had to Goiania and we will see if that helps.  If so, we will continue when we return.

 At the hangar, both of our planes are now in operation after the long and involved maintenance project, SIDs.  I'm very proud of Jeyson for all of his work leading the team through the project and doing a large part of it himself even though it meant teaching himself some new skills as he went along.  It was a sacrifice to put his flight progress on the back burner for almost a year in order to do this project, but that's what SERVING is all about and Jeyson always does that without complaining.  I really look up to that husband of mine!

And now the projects are complete just in time for July, which is our busiest flight month of the year.  There are several conferences and projects that take place in July, so two planes are definitely needed to make it all happen.  Jeyson is beginning is flight training again, beginning with some "book" style lessons with our chief pilot, and will now begin the hands on flights too to get proficiency flying in this difficult region.  Next week him and the chief pilot will head out on an overnight flight to bring missionaries to a village.  It's great to see that area of our ministry coming along in God's timing.

Lastly, this evening some ladies from our mission and partner mission are throwing me a baby shower.  It's such a blessing to see the friends God has brought into my life over the last year and will be a joy to celebrate our little girl's life with them.

Pregnancy Plans

We've officially decided to move forward with plans to travel back to central Brazil at the end of pregnancy for our baby to be born there.  The healthcare situation in Boa Vista is far from the best on many levels...especially when it comes to birth.  In fact, there's a well known joke around Boa Vista that the best doctors in town are "Dr. Tam" and "Dr. Gol"....Tam and Gol are the names of the airlines have flights leaving of Boa Vista to get to you a main city.   Although its very inconvenient to travel at 36 weeks, we feel like it's the best plan for our family.  I was just reading a Brazilian article about how people making trips like this for birth is getting to be more and more common in Brazil.  We have a wonderful doctor who will take care of us once we get to Goias.  (He is the same from Elijah's birth).  It was so kind of him to take me as a patient even though we will only have 1-2 prenatal appointments with him.  And we have a great support system for the logistics with the mission headquarters and Jeyson's family in the area.  And flying there will certainly be a lot easier than Mary who had to travel and give birth at the end of her pregnancy :) 

So, the main things to figure out next are buying tickets and figuring out who will keep an eye on our home in Boa Vista while we are gone.  We also are praying for continued good health...no complications that will make the late pregnancy plane ride impossible.

Once we are in Goias, we will spend some time with Jeyson's family, touch base with the doctor, and then have time to spend at the mission's headquarter base.  Jeyson has things we wants to meet about at the hangar and we're willing to help out in whatever ways are needed.  Once our girlie arrives, we will probably be back at Jeyson's family's house until we are able to travel (about a week after the birth).  We can also take a trip to the American embassy in Brasilia to get her American papers sorted out, something we'd have to travel away from Boa Vista to do anyway.  So, it looks like the trip will be just perfect for so many reasons.  The 6 weeks or so there will be pretty full.  Not to mention there are lots of friends and coworkers we look forward to spending time with. We're excited about the decision and very blessed that this door has opened so far! Just 16 weeks until my due date, 12 weeks until we fly to Goias!