Summer Mercies

Author: Sarah

Front of House

Hello friends and family! Big news in the Gogel family. Lots has been changing around here for the past month (not just my belly size, which is growing increasingly rapidly!) Holiday World is open and in full swing! Which unfortunately means so is Braden's schedule. He works 8 or 9 hours a day, Tuesday-Sunday. However, some weeks (like this one), luck has it that he even has to do trainings on Monday - leaving him a grand total of 0 days off this week. But we continue to remain so grateful to the Lord for his provision of this job for Braden and I. It was exactly what we need, right when we needed it. He might not love the hours, but he does have a passion for the job. It is wonderful to get to see him pushed to learn more about the job and to know that there will always be continued room for growth. One of the last things anyone wants to feel like they are doing is working a dead end job with no tangible way to further your own personal growth or the companies. He loves talking about what he is doing in the park and ideas he has about improving it. I must confess, I don't share the same gusto for Holiday World as my husband, but I imagine he feels the same way when I talk about working in Disney World. =) 

Backyard

As for the home, we have moved in and begun a life. Have I ever mentioned that I strongly dislike moving? Moving box after box, furniture after furniture, and trying to organize it by room, wishing that you had been more clear on what you wrote on the box so you could unpack certain things first. Lord knows how long it took us to find our stapler. lol. But we were so blessed to be helped by Braden's family with all of it. They basically painted our whole house, including the ceilings, (all the walls were yucky) - I couldn't be around paint fumes and Braden was basically always working. What a relief and gift it is to be so close to family. But now almost every box is unpacked (save the office - we are still waiting on a desk) and it looks like a habitated home. The yard just about killed Braden and I. There was some pretty massive overgrowth happening (video). When we trimmed our bushes we got about 6 full feet of our driveway back! There were random trees and shrubs that had sprung up all over the yard from lack of care and the trees needed to be trimmed up - the branches drooped so low you would get whacked in the face if you were mowing. We had so many branches and trimmings that we filled up 2 full trailers to be haled off. Whew... it was a pretty long day.

Here is a video walk-though of our house so you can see what the inside looks like. 

Braden and I working on bushes - You can barely even see the storage shed!

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As for what the Lord has been doing in our lives - lots! Braden has had to be very disciplined in how he uses his time (as he really does not have all that much of it) and is learning so much of what it means to serve the Lord by being the sole provider of the home. He has a big weight on his shoulders now and I have never once heard him complain about the hours or the work that the Lord has given him to do. He is happy to do it for our family. I love him so much for it! As for me, I have also had to learn discipline with how I spend my time... because I have so much of it! Not having gainful employment (with no really prospect on the horizon) has been really hard on me. I have always thrived of finding my usefulness and purpose in the things that I do. I was always so busy, that I had to fight to find the time to be cleaning the home, or preparing dinner, or spending some extra time in prayer with the Lord. Now I have so much time that I often find myself wasting time. But the Lord has really helped me to see that this time is such a beautiful gift of preparation before our baby gets here! I have begun to attempt to become very organized (which, ask my husband, is not me at all). I have created spread sheets for recipes that I have, monthly calendars of meals for the month, monthly grocery lists so that I will only have to make one trip to Evansville a month (this is where the cheapest grocery store is located - I love Aldi). This will hopefully make meal planning abundantly easier when the baby comes. I can just plug in the recipes to the calender and have the grocery list ready! A lot easier said than done... it is taking forever, but it will be worth it. I also plan to do some serious freezer cooking, so that we will have at least several weeks worth of meals once the baby comes before I have to get back to cooking every night. There is so much to do to redeem the time, and I pray that He would continue to show me this.

Never-the-less, I still have maintained a certain level of discontentment with being here. It is something that I have been praying through for weeks. This is because I am well aware that my discontentment comes from a glorified view of myself and 'what I should be doing' and not what the Lord has actually given me to do. Yesterday, I had a surprise visit at my doorstep. Two young people, Peter (21) and Mary (24) showed up. I won't lie, when I first opened my door, I thought they were Mormons, and they were just about the last people I wanted to be chatting with at that moment (Amanda Smudde and Elizabeth Wurm were going to be stopping by within an hour or 2 and I wanted the house clean). It turned out, They were Christians with a passion and mission to unite the faith as it was united in the book of Acts. Peter said that they were coming to Dale from Evansville because the Lord had told them to tell us to "make way for the Holy Spirit, for he is coming" or something to that regard.  I was struck by their genuine desire to tell people this simple and beautiful message. And it reminded me, Dale isn't a small town with not much to do and where I can be of no use. It is a small town filled with people who need the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ just as much as the students on IU's campus. I was choosing to ignore this because there was no Campus Crusade or Clear Note Campus Fellowship (plug in ministry here) constantly calling me to this. There is no pre-established organization to make our ministry easier here. Anything we do will take serious thought and initiative. I invited them in and we chatted for at least an hour or two. What amazing work they are doing in Indiana. They had such wonderful stories of how God was using their ministry!

This morning I was reading in my time with the Lord, a devotion by Charles Spurgeon and, wouldn't you know it, June 3rd's devotion is on being content with who and where we are. He spoke of people who work for the King in scripture, like potters and gardeners, who do not have the most glamorous job, but are needed to serve the Lord all the same. They are still part of the community of people who serve him. The quote that really struck me was, "The place of our habitation is fixed, and we are not to leave it on a whim or just to suit our fancy, but to seek and serve the Lord in it, by being a blessing to those whom we reside with" (Spurgeon, Morning and Evening). I feel like I have often lived life on emotional highs of serving God and am prone to whimsical notions and ideas of glory for how my life will look. How little have I consulted the Lord in these matters. What a beautiful lesson I am learning right now. Praise God for his mercy to me and for the missionaries he sent to the doorstep of Dale, Indiana yesterday.

Wonderful Devotional - I recommend it above all others

Well, this is getting a bit long, thanks for staying with me (if you are in fact still with me, haha). To finish, here is a youtube video of the ultrasound of our baby! The quality didn't download amazingly well, but you can hear the heartbeat for a moment, get to see us find out we are having a boy, and get to see a bit of movement! 

And check out a few baby belly pictures!

21 Weeks

23 Weeks

It's a Boy!

For those of you who don't know yet! We are having a bouncing baby boy... the names on the table are currently...

Asher, Isaac, and Daniel - though we haven't ruled any out.  For all we know it could end up being Bob (though I highly doubt it). It is very important to us to choose a name that we desire our child to represent for the family and pray the Lord would bless us with that. Old Testament scripture is a wonderful example of this. Both Joshua and Isaiah mean, "The Lord is Salvation" and both men are faithful examples of  of a life served in full to the living God. Jacob means, "The deceiver" and he deceives his father Isaac into giving his brothers inheritance. Its a pretty consistent trend. Few break the mold. Asher means 'happiness', Isaac means 'laughter', and Daniel means 'worshipper of God'. These are hopes and desires we have for our firstborn. A joyful man of the Lord! What fun we have had praying through these! Let us know if you have any great ideas we haven't thought of. =)

I actually meant to publish this 4 weeks ago. Opps... it was in the drafts...

Wow, what an eventful past few weeks! I'd love to inform you that the next few will finally be nice and restful, but the odd of that are looking pretty grim. Well, lets start from the very beginning - a very good place to start (get the Sound of Music reference... just me? haha). 

16 weeks - the starters of my baby bump!

Well, its long overdue to tell you guys that our bouncing baby is doing great! We have had the opportunity to hear that precious heartbeat twice now and (Lord willing) a third time next Monday. I cannot tell you what that first ultrasound was like. All the fear and anxiety that had attacked me in weeks prior melted away as Braden and I watched this child pop up on the screen in front of us. I couldn't even hold in the tears - I never thought about how that could be an emotional experience! Luckily they had a tissue box nearby, haha. I guess I am part of the norm. Braden and I stood breathless, watching the baby that we had made together kick, wiggle, and twist around in my belly - I guess I had too much sugar that morning! Then just this past week (18 weeks pregnant) I had my first experience with baby kicking! It was so wonderful to feel those beautiful precious pushes inside me. It makes it feel all the more real! I am currently 19 weeks pregnant and Braden and I have decided to find out the gender of our baby next week! Yay! We'll keep you posted on that! Glory be to God that he had carried this baby safely through the pregnancy so far. We plead for your continued prayers for this child and for us as this pregnancy continues.

Next on the agenda... the house. As some of you might know, we have been living with Jim and Shannon (Braden's mother and step dad) for the past 2 months. They have been so gracious to give us a place to live and food to eat while we get our feet under us again. As thankful as we are though, we are also anxious to be back in our own home, taking care of ourselves once again. The transition to living in Santa Claus has been particularly difficult for me as I haven't been able to attain any real kind of employment. I have been subbing, but it is extremely infrequent so I have had to try to occupy myself various seemly mundane tasks to pass the time. To make it all the harder, I don't even have my own home to care for, meals to cook, or other duties. The result has been many tearful night and conversations of Braden assuring me that I am not just sort of taking up space in this transition. That the Lord does have a purpose in our being here and that this time will pass, but that while here I should work my hardest to continue to cultivate a heart for the home and to begin preparing myself for the duties of motherhood. On top of that, since coming hear I almost immediately contracted the flu, followed shortly by a bladder infection, and managed to attain my first interaction with Hives as a result of being allergic to the medication. Yuck. I will mention the blinding back pain later, as that is actually a fairly funny story. But, I have had abundant time to spend with the Lord and to read books about raising a family, honoring God, creating a home filled with hospitality, etc. And now our prayers have been answered and, Lord willing, Braden and I will be closing on our first home on Friday! It is no masterpiece (green bedroom carpet and a blue bathtub, haha) but it is a lovely first home that we got a wonderful deal on. The Lord was so gracious to provide us with the finances for it and we could not be more excited to move in! We should be painting for about the next week, but in two weeks I do believe we will be moving into that home! Pictures soon to come!

Things are going wonderfully with Braden's job! He loves it and the park will be opening this week! Which also means that Braden will begin his 4 month adventure of working 6 days a week *sigh*. But with a new house I am sure I will have no problems keeping busy, but I will most definitely be missing him! Make sure you let us know if you plan to come to the park this summer! We have a good amount of free tickets to give to those who plan to come anyways!

This moves us almost to the present. I went to Wester Chester, PA last week so that I could spend some time with my lovely sisters before Melissa and Jeff's big day! What a delight it was to see them! I cannot tell you enough how wonderful these two woman are. Jace and Jenny (brother-in-law and sister) were SO gracious to let us use there home. Not many people would be willing to let there sister and brother in law blow up and air mattress and sleep in there own bedroom. But with 9 people in the house (with 1 bathroom might I add), it was wonderful for Braden and I to have a place to sleep that wasn't in a public living space (we were going to end up sleeping in the dining room or kitchen otherwise). They fed us (did I mention that Jenny is a great cook?) and got Braden and I more that excited to have our own child as we watched them love and nurtures their too cute 17 month son, Joshua. I loved getting some girl time with Jenny and Mel where we could just talk for hours like we did when we were kids. I miss them so much! I am crossing my fingers and pray that they get to church plant in Indiana next year. It gets harder for me to leave them every time! Love you guys! Oh, and remember that I told you about the blinding back pain? Well, turns out that I was simply sleeping on a bad mattress and it wasn't pregnancy related at all. Suddenly, after 2 nights of sleeping on Melissa's bed that almost incapaciting back pain was completely gone. lol. Guess I should cancel that doctors appointment with the chiropractor!!! =)  

Lobby Outside the Sanctuary

Bridesmaids before rehearsal

The wedding was beautiful, Melissa was the perfect picture of a blushing bride, and Jeff is as amazing of a brother-in-law as I could ever hope to have! It is such a beautiful reminder of Christ's love for his Church. Ephesians 5 reminds us that marriage is about so much more than a legal commitment to one another. It is about how Christ loves his Church and sacrificed himself for her and how she (the Church) now loves and submits to him out of love and reverence for his leadership. How beautiful that he the Lord has been so gracious to our family. And we were so lucky as to get to spend time with Nick Kidwell and his beautiful ladyfriend Happy Tao. The last evening we were there we had a feast of leftovers from all the wedding food, watched the most ridiculous promotional video on back labor - don't ask - I have ever seen (especially with Happy and Nick's voice over commentary the whole time), and talked for hours afterwards. It was a wonderful send off to a great week!

Melissa and Jeff Exchanging Vows Before God and Man

Jenny and I wearing tacky shoes around the church

The Murphy Sisters (Actually Gogel, Schinella, and Hudson Sisters) with Husbands