Libby was born April 19th.
Libby is our seventh blessing from God and our third girl. Brace yourselves but this was our fifth child born at home. WHAT!? Are you kidding me you gave birth at home... ON PURPOSE!? We know it's not the norm but God has taught us so much through these experiences. We'll never forget learning eight years ago the pros and cons of homebirth and midwives while we were in Georgia. In all honesty, our first home birth with Samuel Bennet probably had as much fear as anticipation but it has become a true celebration and a moment shared by the whole family... and even our friends! It's redefined birth for us into something truly awesome and beautiful - even something to look forward to. Surely it's not void of its fair share of pain and struggle but (suprisingly) it now also embraces joy, laughter, excitement, respect, and creation in ways that our family never would have known. Is birthing our children an unredeemable mess? It's definitely a hot topic in our culture. But we can confidently say that God has demonstrated for us and amazing beauty that he wants us to embrace. It was extremely uncomfortable and awkward at first, but we'd encourage you to reconsider your thoughts on how new life is brought into the world and allow God to reveal the beauty he intends for it to you.
JC went to Kyrgyzstan in March
Who in their right mind would sign up for their husband being gone for nineteen days while they stay behind with six (almost seven) children to homeschool and a small farm to take care of? We'd be the first to admit that we haven't always been in our right mind, and this proved to be one of 2010's messiest and most beautiful moments (c: However, when the opportunity for JC to go to Kyrgyzstan presented itself the decision was an easy one for us. It's something that we have been talking, dreaming and preparing for - for almost three years! Being seperated from each other for that long was definitely a stretch for our family. What started out as a trip with a family friend quickly grew into a six person exploration of Kyrgyzstan's natrual fiber industry. Here's who God provided for our trip: a tour guide named Gulasel who coordinated all of our meetings and appointments, a Kyrgyz national named Nurjamal who spoke wonderful English and did all of our translating and had past experience in the wool/cashmere industry, a young business professional named Ryan who understood (much better than JC) the ins and outs of business law and finances, a camera man named Tim who had the resources and the time available to capture the footage of our trip, and our family friend named Sy who had already made plans to move his family to KGZ and who discovered that he might be more interested in business as mission the he imagined. Over the course of the trip God did a wonderful work in our hearts to draw us together as a team. We spent 17 days together and were able to coordinate 55 meetings during that time with government leaders, to business organizations, and village leaders, artisans and farmers. During our trip we learned everything we need to know to begin developing a solid business plan and a strategy for how to effectively move forward. We also made connections with over 15 people that we still communicate with now on a monthly basis and sometimes more. At times we were able to Skype with each other. Skype is an online resource that allows to you to see and hear each other from almost anywhere in the world as long as you have access to the internet.
Marghie helped the goats give birth by her self
While JC was gone on his trip to Kyrgyzstan our two pregnant goats decide to give birth 10 days earlier than we expected!!! Originally we had planned his trip so that he would be back in time for helping with the delivery of our new kid goats if it was needed. However they decided that they would come on the 16th of March (three days before JC was home). One of our goats had four kids and the other one only had one but it was so big that the doe could not give birth to her unassisted. We ended up losing three goats over the next three days. Two kids and the one pregnant doe. JC actually came home to the doe with the single kid being helped by the vet - what a greeting! All the kids were crying and Marghie was emotionally ready to call it a year.
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