Changes are Coming Our Way

Hi, everyone! 

Lauren here. It’s the beginning of September which means that our due date for little baby Yoder is NEXT MONTH! October 10^th , to be exact. A lot is going to change here for us very shortly, and we’re anxiously anticipating those changes.

I have just one more week of work left at NCA Nejapa before my maternity leave begins. But actually, the beginning of my maternity leave means that my work at NCA Nejapa is finished for good. Since our school year ends at the beginning of December, that means my maternity leave will take me through the end of the school year. Then, come school year 2017, I will not be returning to NCA Nejapa as Mitch is. He will work while I stay at home with the baby. This will allow me to focus on our little guy, or girl, and also focus more on CINAFE, Fortress of Hope, and Yosi and Martha. In our last blog post, we showed pictures of our new home. Moving here has been one of the best decisions we’ve made since having Yosi and Martha with us, but with that change comes bigger bills. Come January, living on one income and supporting a family of five requires more money than we have.

We can’t wait for these changes to happen, but with that being said, we realize that we need to begin fund-raising for our family. Since the changes that are coming our way will make it much harder for us to financially support ourselves as much as we could before, we’ve been talking with our Mission Support Team about the best way to go. They will be helping us raise money, and we wanted to let you all know as well, being that you’re close family and friends who have supported us in many ways throughout our time here.

If you would like to support us financially, stay tuned. Our Mission Support Team will be sending out letters to lots of you and making announcements in several connected churches. Thank you for following us on the blog, writing to us, Skyping with us, and praying for us in these past two years of our lives here in Nicaragua. We are abundantly blessed and beyond thankful for the love and support we have from each and every one of you, and we’re excited to see where the Lord takes us in this next year!  

Pictures of Our New Home!

Hello everyone!

It's been too long since we've written and today we just wanted to send you all some pictures of the new house we moved into this past June. This home has been such a blessing for us and it's been a much needed change for our ever-growing family (Mitch, Lauren, Yosi, Martha, and baby Yoder...and Emre :)) This house still has three bedrooms, but the layout gives us so much more living space and our yard is such a nice haven for us and Emre.

Enjoy and thanks to everyone for your prayers of support and financial support to make this possible. We are very grateful.

Here they are!

Front view of our house

Lauren with Emre when we got the keys!

Living Room

Dining Area

Kitchen, with real space to prep and cook!

Girls' room

Hallway bathroom (girls' bathroom)

Our master bedroom

This shows our walk-in closet and bathroom

Walk-in closet with space above for our suitcases! No more suitcases sticking out from under the bed!!

Our bathroom

Our nursery - just needs a few more touches :)

Rocking chair and pack n' play

Looking through doors leading to back porch

Back porch area

Emre loving life here :)

Our big yard for Emre to run and play! (Lauren's in the very back of our yard)

April means springtime?

Hello everyone! 

How’s springtime? Are the flowers blooming? Are there blossoms on the trees? How wonderful is the smell of freshly cut grass? How are the allergies this year? WE MISS SEASONS and would love to be experiencing spring in any one of our states – Virginia, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. However, we’re currently in the hottest time of the year here in Nicaragua where it just gets a little hotter each day until the rains come in May/June. It’s quite miserable really, weather-wise, but we’re happy to here, a year and six months in! Time really is flying.

We realize it's been a while since we've written and we want to update everyone on our lives. A lot has been changing for us and we’re excited about the changes that will also be coming soon! Here are just a few things to fill you in on:

1. Lauren’s pregnant! She is due on October 10^th and we’re so excited! Right now she’s in her second trimester and is feeling a lot better than she was in the first! (¡Gracias a Dios!//Thanks be to God!)  Please pray for us, however, as the Zika threat is now a confirmed fact in baby defects. We have a private doctor and everything looks great at each appointment and we pray that things continue to stay that way. No worries for us though, please, just prayers. 

When we moved here we were just two, Lauren and Mitchell. Then, we quickly added our dog, Emre, and last September Yosi and Martha came to live with us. Our family is now 4 people + Emre and will soon be 5 people + Emre. Going from no children to three was not something we anticipated when we moved here in 2014 and we are quickly outgrowing our house. In June, we will be moving to a different place where we will all fit a lot better! The house will be a very nice change and will also be out of the city which we’re both very excited about!

2. Work at NCA Nejapa has been tough this year. It’s been challenging for us and some different things have come up in our jobs that we have to deal with and work through; part of working in a different culture, right? A lot of things happen that don’t make sense to us or don’t seem correctly done and that makes things difficult. We’re praying that we can put God first and make good decisions in our jobs that glorify Him.

3. CINAFE/Fortress of Hope continues to go well. This year, we’ve adjusted to less time there as we’ve been busy with our jobs and the girls. It’s been nice to have less to do after school as we don’t have to head to CINAFE each day. Mondays are our days to go over, hang out, help with homework, play some games, and enjoy dinner together. It’s really nice and is a welcome change.

In an attempt to keep this short and sweet, we're going to stop there and end with a few pictures at the bottom! We hope you enjoy our recent photos including Martha’s 14^th birthday on April 5^th, our baby announcement, and a couple from CINAFE.

Much love,

Lauren, Mitchell, baby Yoder, the girls, and Emre :) 

Happy 2016!

Hello everyone!

We have lots of family and friends that have been stuck in the snow between Pennsylvania and Virginia, and we can't say we're not jealous of your cold weather!!! For us, this is actually the coldest time of year right now as well but cold to us is mid-80's. That's not cold, but we'll take it!

We'd like to send a quick update to all of you as we begin this new year. We will try to keep it brief as sometimes that's a lot nicer when you're checking your social media in between all of your other things!

School (NCA Nejapa):
We're just starting our second year of teaching at NCA Nejapa. Right now we're in our second week, out of three, of teacher work days. I know, it's a lot. The students begin on February 9th, and we're excited to see what this year holds. Last year was a good and difficult year for the both of us. We learned a lot about the people, culture, and language and spent so much time building relationships that we both feel like we are able to be more forward, effective, and helpful in our roles as this year begins. That doesn't mean that things won't be super hard for us because they will be, but we feel encouraged and hopeful for year two.

Fortress of Hope (CINAFE):
Ah, yes. The reason we moved to Nicaragua in the first place, right? We have been taking these past two months, December and January, off from CINAFE. It's been a really nice break for us as we were very, very busy with lots of different travels and different people - including us visiting PA for Christmas, Mitch's family visiting us for the new year, and our friends Jackson & Katie visiting just after that. We hope to put a new plan in place for our time at CINAFE once February roles around. If this past year is any indicator of our time at CINAFE, our roles will probably change quite a bit as this year goes along but we have a good idea of where we'd like to start. Our main focus will be a weekly activity with the kids of CINAFE. We're excited for that as it will allow us to spend intentional time with everyone there.

Our girls, Yosidara and Martha:
They continue to be great, and we are so thankful to have them in our family. It's crazy that in a matter of weeks we went from the two of us and a dog to the two of us, a dog, and two teenage daughters. Again, we feel like God has given the two of us tools to be able to take in two girls from another culture. It's a pretty unusual situation, we realize, and we're glad we listened to God and are doing what feels like following in His will for our lives. These two girls have quickly become our focus and are changing and forming us in ways we didn't imagine for ourselves in our time here in Nicaragua. We are thankful and trust that He will continue to lead us.



That's all for now!
Here are a few pictures from our vacations:

Here we are in PA for Christmas with our nephew Wyatt. He wrote us a card for Christmas :)

Here we are with Mitch's family standing by the Masaya Volcano, one of many things we did during their visit!

Jackson & Katie came to visit us before their little one is due and here we are in front of a cathedral in Managua. It was such a special time and we're thankful we could spend a few days together.

Just the two of us by these beautiful hydrangeas during a staff spiritual retreat for the start of our school year 2016.

Here are Dale and Jason at CINAFE for the annual board meeting. We enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know Jason more, not a board member but supporter of CINAFE and member at Pigeon River (Mitch's home church.)