March 21′ Family News

Ministry 

Anja

Livestream

Our team has grown further! For a long time there were five of us, then a young woman joined us to operate one of the cameras. Recently, however, we have three more helpers: a young woman who helps with the slides and another young woman and a teenager who operate one of the cameras. Our team leader just asked the teenager if he could add him to our calendar and he said yes! It’s exciting to see the team grow!

Band

I have now completed both of the band practices that the worship leader asked me to attend, and he seemed quite happy. I will be serving on one Wednesday evening a month, starting on April 14th (you can find the recording on the Calvary Chapel Rosarito YouTube channel). It was strange that the band members knew before me that I was going to be singing with them, because the bass player told me that he saw me on the calendar and the guitar player, who is also the leader of that particular band, told Chris that I would be singing with them. I am looking forward to it and I hope that I will be able to learn all the harmonies well enough to not forget them when I am on stage. Singing off-key is really not something you want to do.

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Chris

Light Team

I’m still trying to figure out how to lead the light team best. One thing is clear though, God brings me new people, one at a time, and keeps me busy. Every time when I got a light master ready do the job alone, there’s another person showing up, ready to learn the more or less complicated task. It’s always interesting to see how different the personalities are and what they already know. But one thing is sure, if I don’t step back and let them do the job alone, they don’t grow. Sometimes it’s hard for me to let them fail in a certain area so they can grow. I guess God is preparing me for something…

New Light Controller

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It’s been already some time since I started to develop the light controller for our church plants. I am at the point where I have a working prototype, but I’m still developing the software. We had some of our Easter devotionals on our patio and it was the perfect opportunity to test the controller in a live environment. It worked pretty well, but also revealed some weak spots, on which I’m gonna work next. At the same time, I could already see where the controller performs much better than our other light solution. The setting up of a small live environment, for example, was simple and fast.

Staff Lunch

Once a month, our staff is heading out for a lunch together after the usual meeting, which consists of each person sharing something that blessed them in one of the services, a teaching by Senior Pastor Mike and a prayer time where we split in a Spanish and a English group, for time’s sake.

This time, we went to Pollo Asil, it’s a food chain that serves chicken with beans, tortillas, tomato rice, elbow pasta salad, tortilla chips and salsa on the side. In that particular place, they also have a beach volleyball field. Anja was looking forward to playing, but since she found out that she was pregnant, she could not play. However, Chris was playing and Anja still had a great time watching and talking with the other staff members.

Senior Pastor Mike wanted to challenge someone, so he put beans (frijoles) on the cheesecake and dared people to eat it. Much to everyone’s (except Anja’s) surprise, Chris ate the whole thing. He said it was not too bad.

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Family

Women’s Conference

This women’s event had been scheduled for around Christmas, but then the government had decided to close the church for a short time, so it was rescheduled for March. I (Anja) wasn’t sure if I wanted to attend, but then someone invited me and I ended up going and it was pretty good!

When I entered the room, I saw how beautifully everything was decorated. There were table cloths, flowers, snacks, canvases, paint brushes and an example picture. It looked very inviting and I found a table where some of my American friends were sitting together at and I decided to join them. The band was already playing and we started with singing some worship songs. During that time, the band leader waved me over to the stage and asked me if I could run upstairs to let the media team know that the screen that the band could read the text from was not working. I then ran upstairs to get things sorted. Unfortunately, the media team had to switch off the main screen too, so that no one had a screen for a while, but eventually, everything worked fine again.

The Senior Pastor’s wife welcomed us, gave us a brief overview of the evening and prayed for the food. It was delicious! The chicken was super tender and juicy, the sauce divine. I did not eat the mashed potatoes, but the garlic bread was good and so were the salad and the cheesecake. As soon as we were done eating, we started our art class. A guy who used to translate at our church was leading us through the painting process. It was a pleasure to see everyone getting creative and trying their best to make their painting look nice.

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“From Chaos to Passion” was the title of the sermon that a guest speaker held. The question was, are you allowing your fears to reign over you or are you trusting the Lord that He is in control? The guest speaker encouraged us to draw near to Him in the midst of our problems. The event ended with a raffle where Calvary Chapel Rosarito beanies, coupons for massages and facials as well as flowers were given away. I didn’t win anything, but that was fine with me. I enjoyed the evening and I was glad that I attended.

Parenting Conference

We were super excited to attend this parenting conference. Especially since the family who hosted it is one of our best friends here at church and we often go to the parents for advice concerning Ziva. It’s quite a big family, with two adults and nine children, of which three are living on their own now. What we appreciate the most is that they try to live and base everything they do on the word of God and they know it very well. So when they give you an advice, it’s not just their opinion, but it’s something that they have researched in the word of God and lived by.

The conference was very entertaining, which is just due to the family members. They have a fantastic sense of humor. It was also well organized with a simple, but delicious lunch and, of course, child care. We started each block with a couple of worship songs, followed by two teachings with a short break in between. We looked at “The Pillars of Parenting” and in it at what God thinks about children, about parents, about parenting and what it takes to be a good parent (1. Humility, 2. Honesty, 3. Righteousness and 4. Love), “How God Trains Children”, “How God Loves His Children” (1. He has adopted us, 2. He is patient, 3. He is affectionate, 4. He affirms, 5. He leaves an Inheritance) and “Discipline”.

Mexican Paperwork

After we were able to renew Chris’ temporary residency in August, we knew that Anja’s and Ziva’s would be due about half a year later. In the beginning of March, we went to the INM (immigration office) to get the list of requirements so we could get all the necessary paperwork ready on time. It was about mid-March and Anja knew that she had to renew her temporary residency before the end of April, so we were still early. However, we decided to start preparing already, just in case, and in that case, it was a very wise decision because it turned out that Ziva’s card was expiring by the end of March! WHAT?! We quickly finished the paperwork and went to Tijuana as soon as we had her paperwork ready.

As it turned out, they changed the process for the better, at least for renewals. Instead of going there several times for each step, we could get everything done in one day, which also saved us a lot of time and gas! However, we arrived at 9am, the time the INM opens, and there was a line that was 1 1/2 times as long as the building… It took Chris 2 hours to get into the building! After another 3 hours, we could leave with Ziva’s card. It was insane, but at least we got her card now! For Anja, we will go to the INM around 12pm, when the line is a lot shorter.

Once our baby is born, and we plan on having it in Mexico, we can apply for permanent residency. That’s really nice because that would mean that we could stay here without having to renew our paperwork all the time and it would also make it possible for us to work here. The wages are not very good though. It’s also possible to obtain permanent residency after four years of temporary residency, but it’s just easier when you have a Mexica baby.

Pregnancy

According to the doctor, the baby is perfectly healthy and there is no sign of any anomalies. He told us how he can tell a baby has down syndrome by measuring the distance between the nose and the back of the head. We found that quite interesting. He also thinks that the baby will look similar to Ziva and will have the same nose. We am not sure how he can tell, but we will see. The baby was moving a lot and it was a joy to watch it. Ziva was with us again and this time, she was not scared anymore. She even got excited when she heard the baby’s heart beat. Next time, the doctor should be able to tell the gender for use. It was still early this time.

We decided to have the baby in one of the private clinics that our doctor is working at. When we talked to him about it, he mentioned the price was USD 1350 for a vaginal birth. That is about USD 150 less than what the clinic had told me. Included in the price is the doctor, the pediatrician, the time in the hospital as well as all the meds and material you’re gonna need while you’re there.

Ziva

Ziva has made some amazing progress. After we stayed with her until she was a sleep, we progressed to sitting next to the bed and then to leaving the room and sitting on the stairs until she would fall asleep. In the beginning, it was a big drama, but now, she has gotten used to it and falls asleep on her own. So we just get her ready, tell her a story and pray with her before we leave the room. Another thing that has made our lives a lot easier is to transition from counting to three when she doesn’t want to listen to expecting her to obey right away. It’s funny how much peace that brought to both Ziva and us. That was a good piece of advice we received from our friend.

Other things that we are amazed by is how well Ziva understand and follows instructions. We can tell her to bring wet wipes and a diaper so we can change her. Without us saying even a word, she will pick up the wet wipes and put them back. She would also take the dirty diaper, but we prefer to put them away ourselves. She also helps us with preparing breakfast. When Anja is making breakfast, she can bring the milk, the orange juice and the yoghurt and put them back in the fridge. We just need to make sure she is not opening any of them on her own. When Chris is making breakfast, she is also allowed to open the microwave and to set the timer (no worries, the microwave is at adult head-level, so she won’t be able to reach it without our help).

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Ziva’s hair is now long enough to do side or back tails and it looks super cute. She is very interested in hair brushes at the moment and Anja allowed her to brush her hair, which she did for quite a while. She hasn’t quite figured out how to do it properly, but practice makes perfect, right? Ziva was super excited to try out the trampoline at our friends’ place on Friday evening. She was giggling as daddy was jumping up and down, but hasn’t quite gotten the hang of jumping on her own. Ziva has also started to walk with mommy’s shoes. Funny enough, she prefers the one with heels.

One thing that we have been trying to stop Ziva from doing is sticking her tongue out all the time. We really don’t want her to bite it by accident. Talking about accidents, Ziva was trying to roll a ball between her legs, tipped over and fell on her face, which resulted in a bruise on her nose. That didn’t keep her from trying it again though.

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Prayer requests

• More supporters
• Health for all of us
• Easy pregnancy, healthy baby

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