January ’22 Family News

Ministry

Anja

Band

This month, I was scheduled twice again, one time as alto, one time as tenor, but due to changes with the band members, I ended up singing alto twice. Again, I was asked to help the other lady with her harmonies, i.e. at 4pm, the two of us would practice her harmony until the band practice at 5pm. I would have been with the usual band leader, but he was asked to preach one night, so the worship ministry leader took over and he gave me a challenging song. Afterwards, he told me that I did a good job, which was nice to hear.

During the first band practice, I noticed a strange noise when I put in my earphones. I was first wondering, if it was the cable, but it turned out to be my earphones, which I now had to replace. I found a pair of inexpensive musician earphones on Amazon that I purchased and that I am looking forward to try out. However, it will be February until I will be able to do that.

Marriage Fellowship Band

Last year, I was singing in the marriage fellowship band. This year, I started out doing the same. However, one time, the lead singer was sick and asked me if I could replace her. I agreed. When I got there, I noticed that not only she was missing, but also our percussionist. She was sick as well. We started to practice, but it sounded a bit empty, so I offered to play the keyboard. They had no idea that I was able to play, so they were a bit surprised. However, they really liked how out turned out and they want me to sing and play now.

Livestream

Last month, I mentioned how stressful it was to do the sound and having to watch both girls sometimes at the same time and that I was trying to make it work. Well, apparently, it didn’t work. The team leader called me to the studio one day, telling me that “it was a bit much” last year and that he didn’t schedule me because of it. I must be honest, I was a bit shocked, when I heard that. He made it sound like he wanted to give me a break, but it felt like they didn’t want the kids in the studio all the time. I understand that, but at the same time, I was disappointed because I really tried my best to make it work and I cannot just make my girls go away.

This new situation brings me in difficult situation. Since I want to join staff again in February, I have to serve in one service on the weekend. With me not serving in the livestream team anymore, I need a new place where I can serve without having to organize a babysitter every time. We do that already when I sing, which is twice a month.

Fit 2 Serve

Remember me mentioning that we don’t have any guys? Well now, we do! We have one guy who has been showing up faithfully since our Christmas Edition, and he already brought two new people to the workouts! We haven’t really had more people, just different people since some were sick and others out of town. I would say that we started well into the new year though. We have used the slam balls that we received as a Christmas present a lot already and it is nice to have some diversity through them.

Yuna is always with me. I try to feed her before the workout, so she can sleep afterwards. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work out. I have been bringing an old blanket for her that I can put on the floor, with one of her blankets on top, so she can wiggle around freely.

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Chris

Crash…

On some days you just know that there is a lot going on in the spirit. Thus on one Wednesday, it was so bad that even our light controller which, until now, always was doing its job, crashed in the middle of the worship. Fortunately, only the software crashed and the hardware was still sending out the signal. Luckily, I was able to restart the software without too much flickering. But that incident made me think about a backup solution. Using the same light system as a backup would be too much since it’s rather expensive. Therefore, I decided to get one of the self-made light controllers ready. Until now, I have only used it for smaller setups so far, but with a few tweaks it should soon be ready for the bigger system.

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Changes

After all the Christmas activities were over, we got ready for the new year. That normally means something changes on the stage design. This year, we got four new screens that were connected to build a main screen. The old screen was moved down to where the middle pillar used to be. The multimedia system that we use to display visuals is a bit on its limits now. For this reason, I decided to help them out with a controller. I still had a raspberry pi ready from developing the light controller. It has 2 hdmi outputs, which is perfect for the multimedia system. I was able to expand the light controller software within a short time, so it could be used for the multimedia. Fortunately, the new task was not really a challenge for the controller. I can see more and more that I’m not only developing a light controller, but a multimedia controller for our church plants. Only God could have planned it that well.

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Family

Anja Sick

We had been invited to a friend’s house for brunch and they had some delicious avo/tomato/egg breads sitting there. I noticed that the eggs were not 100% cooked through, but ate it anyways… That evening, I ended up with diarrhea and nausea. Throughout the evening and pretty much all of the following day, I was in the bathroom. At first, it was just diarrhea, then diarrhea and vomiting and finally vomiting. My muscles ached, I was cold then hot and vice versa and I felt very very weak. The symptoms were the same as with a stomach flu, or COVID, but I am convinced that it was food poisoning. I was the only one who got it and I was fine after that evening and that one day.

Spa Time

Fondue with Friends

One time at Costco, we bought some Gerber Fondue and decided to invite people over. This month, we finally did it! We invited a couple from the marriage fellowship and it was the perfect opportunity to not only clean, but also tidy up properly, i.e. putting things away and getting rid of trash and things we don’t need anymore. It was the nicest our place has looked in a while! With the pregnancy and Yuna the priorities had just been on other things. We had a great evening with our guests. While she ate a lot of cheese, her husband decided to feast on salad.

Car Trouble

One Saturday after Fit 2 Serve, Anja put the kids in the car and drove home. When she got out of the car, she noticed a strange noise and she looked around to determine, where it came from. Suddenly, she saw steam rising up from under the hood. Immediately, she called Chris and told him about it. He asked her to open the hood and to see what was going on. Anja doesn’t know a lot about cars, but she noticed one of the neighbors coming home and asked him for help. He came over and was inspecting everything when all of a sudden, he started to swear. Anja knew that that meant something was not good. He said that it was the head gasket and organized for a mechanic he knows to come and have a look as well. The mechanic confirmed that it was the head gasket. Chris, who was still at church, immediately contacted some people to try to find a car for us to use until our car would be fixed. Fortunately, he was able to borrow a car, so we are still mobile.

Ziva

This month, Ziva surprised us with a lot of new words. For some of them, I was able to write down the way she really says them, for others not. Either way, she is making HUGE progress now: chuchuch (rojo), dea (deer), doa (door), dude, Duda (Yuna), beach, ca-a (car), jacket, kiwi, box, ichy, cown (crown), book, blue, black, hemin (helmet), pineapple, t-shirt, pepino, menos (tomatoes), pink, white, wett, gray.

The first time, Ziva used “wett”, she had just woken up and came over to where Anja was sitting. Anja first thought that she had said white, but Ziva kept saying it and touching her diaper. Wondering, what was going on, Anja touched Ziva’s clothes and noticed, that they were wett. Diaper leakage! The first time Ziva said “box”, we were at a friend’s place and they have a box with toys for small visitors. Ziva had been walking around, looking for something. When she finally came over, she said “box”. It took Anja a while to realize what she was saying, but then the penny dropped. The funniest however, was the time Ziva first said dude! We were in traffic and Chris got mad at another driver and said, “dude!’. Just a second later, we hear “dude” from the back 😀

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Chris had the great idea to get Ziva a trampoline for our backyard for Christmas since she is always full of energy and we still have troubles to find time to go for a walk or to the playground. Ziva LOVES her new trampoline and is asking to go outside to jump on it. She also got a sticker book with reusable stickers, and she likes to stick them on the different scenes that came with it. Sometimes, it happens that an animal from the rain forest finds itself under water 😀 Ziva rediscovered her helmet that we got her for when she wants to ride her tricycle. We haven’t used it a lot in the last 1.5. years, but now she is putting it on her head a lot, driving around the house with her bobby car. The most surprising thing she played recently was that she put her stuffies and dolls to bed. She was lining them up and saying, “bed” each time she would put one of them down.

On the not so nice side, Ziva started having bumps all over her body and she was scratching all the time. At first, we thought it was nothing bad, but it was getting worse and worse, so we took her to the pediatrician. She said it was allergies and sent us to an allergist in Tijuana. In the meantime, we showered her every day and put lotion on her body. When the water was touching her skin, she was crying, it hurt her so bad. It was heart-breaking. Two days later, we had the appointment with the allergist and he told us that Ziva had eczema and maybe allergies. He prescribed nose sprays, anti-histamine and lotion. The meds had a pretty much immediate effect. Her skin cleared up, she was scratching less and even her nose was finally dry. We have another appointment in a month to see how we want to proceed, but in the mean time, we are happy to see that Ziva is doing so much better.

Yuna

Yuna has been growing a lot! Anja can tell you, she has been eating a lot, too! When we went to the pediatrician with Ziva because of her skin, we weighed and measured her because we were unsure if she was gaining enough with all that milk she is spitting up. As it turned out, we were worrying for nothing! Yuna was already 63cm long and 5.4kg heavy (birth height and weight: 51cm and 3.25kg). We now had to switch to clothing size 3-6months.

Yuna is very alert. She looks at people in a calm, but very intense way. Some are lucky to see one of her big smiles, and a few chosen can even have a conversation with her – it’s mostly women and that makes sense because she usually speaks when she is hungry and men can only do so much to help with that 😉 Yuna also discovered that she can roll from her belly to her back. However, she doesn’t seem to do it consciously.

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Prayer Requests

• Health (Chris’ and Anja’s backs, Yuna’s spit ups, Ziva’s eczema and allergies)
• Appointment opening for Yuna’s Mexican passport
• Finances and favor for Ziva’s permanent residency