Prayers answered

Again, the Lord has shown himself to be faithful to hear our cries. It's been very difficult, and it still is, for Laurie and I to be apart during this time, as you can imagine. But she is doing as well as can be expected, resting at home. Sam is with some friends and is having a good time, though he wonders what is going on. He told Laurie that he also wanted to go to the doctor because his belly was also aoey (or however that is spelled).

Thank you for caring and praying and add another answered prayer to your list of God's faithfulness. It is great.

Andreas

Please pray

DEar friends,

Please pray for Laurie. She is going to have gall bladder surgery Thursday afternoon and
I am in Copenhagen Denmark. We have decided that I should stay but be ready to come quickly if needed. It is a very low risk thing, but we need the Lord in this, and your prayers will reach him. We know he listens and cares. He is our strength and hope.

Thanks,
Andreas

Building the crate

Here we go. We, or I, am building the crate that will hold our stuff for the trip over the ocean. This is the third time we are doing it so we should know how to do it. I think this one will hold. For you spec. geeks out there, it is 58"x92"x65" (which is rather big). Sam enjoyed it for the playfloor that it was. Soon it will sit in Memphis full of goodies and stuff.

Atlanta with friends

On our tour to say good-bye to our friends here in the States before we leave we went to Atlanta last weekend. We had a great time and really enjoyed seeing the Emmelheinzs and the Johnsons. They are great people and we had a lot of fun. These pictures are from Sunday morning when we went to the waterpark in Suwanee (I think).

Sam and Jasper, the Johnson's youngest

The Emmelheinz clan, minus Hannah who was just born and rested in Mommy's lap.

On the move, Sam is finished chatting with Nathan, the Johnson's eldest, and heads into the water yet again.

Sam the man...preaching the Word (or something like it).

Notes on the above video

This is what Samuel does while I start packing up the house. He made me so proud, though he has better oratory skills than I do and he is much more dramatic. Maybe he can help me preach in my church some day, who knows? He teaches us something every day, but this was unusually funny so here it is.

Down by the tracks

Sam and I recently went downtown here in Mississippi to our trainyard. They have an old Caboose that he loves to climd and check out. This day they also had this train in. It's some sort of grinding train, whatever that is. Anyway, we both took many pictures and enjoyed the 105 degree sun.








He was awed to look underneath the Caboose, where he told me he found the "engine".



Just to let you all you, this camera doesn't work. It is an old Canon digital camera that broke down on us, which is why Sam has it. But it works enough for him to use, which is all that matters.

The calm before the storm...

So, we are getting ready to move. I'm sure that's not news to most of you. We are in the process of getting ready to build a crate to take some of our stuff with us to Sweden. We have done this twice before and it really isn't all that hard to do. It just takes a lot of work and planning. Then we travel to Atlanta, Chattanooga (TN), Copenhagen (only Andreas), Wilmore (KY), Dayton (OH), and finally New York. We are excited and ready to go, though we would much like to skip ahead a couple of months and just be done. Pray for us as we prepare to move and everything involved, such as flying with our Golden Retreiver, building a crate, shipping a car, travelling across the country, etc.

I will try to keep the blog updated with pictures of the move and such, but I can't make any promises. We are so thankful and happy that so many of you keep coming back to check it out. It is great to have friends and family all over the world (as our map seems to indicate).

Under God's mercy,

Andreas

Throwing things is another favorite thing of Sam's. This empty bottle suffered much that day!

Our latest excursion into the horrible humidity and the quicksilver busting temperatures of Mississippi in August. Sam and I (and the dog) just went to the Natchez State Park here in Mississippi. It was absolutely way too hot to be outside, but sometimes you just have to get out of the house. We did enjoy it and Sam is such a fun kid to be around. He is getting used to the camera to the point of posing for it and asking us to take his picture. His latest playground trick is to get on the monkey bars and demand that I don't catch him when he drops. I disobey that little demand, rest assured.

Sam and his tree

Recently a tree fell behind our house. It was a rather small tree, and we knew that it was clearly not going to live very long. We had passed it many times on our daily walk around the lake, or walk-a-lake as he calls it, and it never gave us much thought of being much of a tree. That is, until it fell. Now, it is the talk of the house. Sam enjoys giving us play-by-plays of the most exotic and daring adventures, many of which probably never happened, but this one is a true story. So, every time I tell him that we need to take our dog on a walk around the lake, here comes the story of the falling tree. We think the most interesting part for Sam is the sound it made when it fell. According to Samuel, it was a big "crash!". In reality it was more like a "thud". But we like Sam's version better. So, here is Sam on his tree:

This one is of him hitting my camera...a millisecond before he does it. He had also practiced spitting right before the shot, adding to the drama. We call this one "Crazy!"

Another tradition of Sam's is to pick up sticks along our walks and sing songs, usually "Jesus loves me". I think this one was actually a song he made up, singing "Holy, holy, holy" over and over. Sounded pretty nice too.