Sending laborers into the harvest, or a Summer well spent.

This summer, due to Ben Jr’s arrival, we took a break from our normal summer assignments (where we work to advance the gospel via overseas summer projects or by training students on a stateside summer project) to ease in to the life of parenthood.  Jacqueline’s job description changes to “full-time mom” for the next few years.

As a result, my summer assignment this year is to phone coach a batch of freshly graduated students who have committed to a one year internship with Campus Crusade either in the states or overseas.  I coach them in the process of developing a team of financial and prayer ministry partners, and also help them with all other aspects of the transition from student life to this scary new “real world.”

The thrill for me has been seeing the fruit of other staff members’ work of winning these students to Christ, building them up in their faith, and sending them literally all around the world.  The interns that I am coaching are going to Argentina (two different cities), Lebanon, Slovakia, a large closed country in Eastern Asia (if I told you I’d have to shoot you), Memphis, South Carolina, and Middle Tennessee. This summer I get a clear picture of why we do what we do.

Over the summer, I will be sharing the stories of how God called each of these folks to sacrifice a year of their lives to reach students for Christ.  Please join me in praying that each of them gets the funding they need to report to their assignments on time!

Pacifier is a great name for it.

If the pediatrician or lactation consultant we spoke to is reading this, I’m sorry, but we are already using a pacifier.  If said healthcare professionals have a problem with that, they get to come and bounce him to sleep.

The pacifier is seriously like a drug.  One or two hits on it, and his eyes start rolling back in his head, his whole body goes limp, and he is buzzing like a champ.  We discovered this after what we will affectionately call the “feeding marathon of 2008” a few nights ago.  Jacqueline fed him for basically 4 straight hours, from 3ish to around 7 AM.  For those of you keeping score at home, that’s generally a time that most humans are asleep.  I took over at 7, and since I am running woefully short on breastmilk these days, I reached for the pacifier, to give Jacqueline a much needed nap.

Family Visits

Yesterday was the family visit day.  All six of the nieces from Jacqueline’s side of the family made it through at different times of the day, and my (Ben Sr.’s) uncle Joe and aunt Petra dropped off my mom for the “changing of the guard,” as Brenda headed home for a much needed break from taking care of us.

Sleeping at night.

We have great news.  Little ben is beginning to sleep at night.  Jacqueline got about 6 hours combined last night.  The best part of the story was that he was completely un-fussy last night.  He didn’t even cry when we changed his diaper.  It was like some sort of parallel universe. 

Kangaroos, Dogs, and Answered Prayers.

We are so excited about all that has gone on the past few days.  Baby Ben slept 4 straight hours last night, thanks to the absolutely unquantifiable help of Brenda, Jacq’s mom.  We are doing great, though, relaxing when Ben relaxes, and bouncing him back to relaxation (both the old-fashioned way as well as with the HD-BS.)

Our dog Loretta (as in Loretta Lynn, but in no way insinuating that Loretta Lynn is in any way similar to our dog.  At least I hope Loretta Lynn doesn’t ever pee on my couch… but if she did I could probably get something for it on Ebay… I digress) has had a great time getting to know little Ben.  From time to time ‘Retta will come over and sniff little Ben, and decide to take a nap nearby.

The other animal in our life these days is the kangaroo.  Not literally, so much, as that would smell up the house and cost a lot of money that we don’t have.  We have figurative kangaroos all over the place, in the form of “kangaroo care.”  Kangaroo Care is laying skin to skin with the baby (don’t forget the diaper for him, or you end up with kangaroo droppings on you…).

Kangaroo care is the greatest thing since sliced bread, if you ask a certain segment of the population.  Portions of this segment of the population also contend for things like militant recycling, bio-diesel only, and making your own clothes out of hemp only, so we have to sort out carefully what we will and will not take away from this particular kangaroo.  But it is a great way to take a nap when holding a napping child.  And it supposedly has some great health benefits both for mom and baby.  So we are doing it as often as possible.