I am back

Here I am. Cannot believe how much I have neglected my blog in the last few weeks. It is not that I haven't thought about blogging, in fact I have thought about it every day, I even composed thoughts and posts in my head but I never got to sitting down and typing them in. Oh well. Whatever. If I want to summarize the last few weeks I would say: we ran out of money two weeks before our next paycheck due to unexpected medical bills. This put an unimaginable stress on us. For me it materialized in the forms or daily meltdowns, breakdowns, crying over nothing and everything, walking around with a long face and smudged make-up, blaming everything and everybody, shaking my fist and crying crying crying. I was hungry, okay? I felt especially sorry for myself because I was PREGNANT and I had CRAVINGS!!! I HAD to have certain foods, it was my RIGHT! 

Right?

For a while I was telling myself and husband that it must be a trial, we just have to persevere and trust the Lord. He wants to teach us something through this I am sure! Then I watched myself day after day and it didn't seem like I was learning "my lesson", I was still angry and impatient and hungry. I didn't take this "trial" with grace at all. I am so ashamed, I must be not only the worst missionary like...ever, but probably the worst Christian too. Have I learnt anything? I have no idea. My only hope and joy is that God sees me through Christ and as a "finished product". He is so patient with me, sometimes i wonder how come He doesn't just wipe me off the face of the earth...

All right, enough on that. 

I wanted to post this picture that husband took a couple of Sundays ago. I was posing in our front yard for my 15 weeks bumpie when I noticed that my neighbor and friend Marika was cleaning outside and peeking over the fence. I don't know why, I just like this picture It makes me smile! :)

A few days ago, Thursday was Benjamin's 6th birthday! Happy Birthday little man, I love you like crazy! :)
We took the day off, literally. He skipped school and we didn't go in to the office. After opening his presents and having some breakfast we took off for Pescara, a big city about an hour away from us. They have everything! Auchan, IPER, Megalo, IKEA....you get it. So we did a lot of walking around in malls and window shopping. At the end of the day we went to IKEA (Aawwwhhh!!!! :)  my favorite place in the world! I just love everything about it. They had a bunch of Christmas stuff already, it was a sheer joy just to even look at them. Decided to take a 16 weeks bumpie in front of one of the Christmas displays.

This morning at church the bambini sang a song in front of the church. Both in Italian and English. One of the other boys wasn't paying attention, did all kinds of silly stuff and that greatly annoyed Benjamin. He kept telling him to stop fiddling and start singing. Oh the little teacher! :) In the picture below you can see his annoyed little face. We talked about it with him afterwards that it is really not his place to educate other kids, especially not on stage, but secretly I thought it was really funny.