Life at NTBI

Our first week in Jackson, at NTBI, there were few students around- only married couples and families like ourselves, some staff, and later in the week the returning students who are this year’s student leaders. So it was pretty quiet in the building. But much too hot- 90 degree weather with no A/C! (But as you read earlier, we remedied that by treating ourselves to a small window A/C unit. it cooled our apartment off to only 80 degrees..but ohhh the difference!)

That first week we were almost too tired to think. But we pushed ourselves, and made several shopping trips to turn our 3 empty rooms into our home. We will, as stated before, post pictures or video soon to show you what we’ve done with the place! But I daresay, I’m still waiting for that magical burst of energy to do it! (It involves finding that moment when the dishes are washed, the bed is made, the toys are put away, etc….!) Speaking of dishes, I know many of you were wondering how we would fare with having no running water. Easily!! I say that truly, because it really hasn’t been a big deal. It just takes a little longer- bringing in your water in a basin, checking throughout the process to make sure you don’t overflow your bucket, and then emptying all the dirty water. But the water closet is very close down the hall. So is the bathroom, which is fantastic. It would’ve been one thing for my pregnant self to have to walk to the other end of the building! But the bathroom is about 30 feet away, and there IS a tub to bathe Naya in! I was prepared to give her showers for the next 2 years. I was happily surprised!

Saturday marked the first day of registration, which was a painless 30 minutes max for us. Then more waiting… Monday morning we dropped Naya off at the EXCELLENT child care they have here, and we started our orientation classes. The only downside to this was the chairs in the auditorium- theatre style. If I wasn’t pregnant, this would be fine… but they are soooo uncomfortable for me! We have at least 2 morning classes (chapels) in there every week. I’m not the kind of person to dread things… but at this point, I’ve started dreading those just because of those chairs. haha! So Orientation lasted until Tuesday afternoon. We learned about student life, school/classroom expectations, laundry schedules, etc, etc, etc… all the stuff you’d expect at a school orientation.

At long last, Wednesday morning arrived! Our schedule is something like this: We wake up between 7 and 7.30 and have breakfast. Noe has a Bibliology class at 8.00am. I get Naya and myself ready, and take her to child care at 8.45am. Chapel (sometimes this means a worship service, and sometimes it’s information/announcement hour- it essentially is defined as ALL of the students in one place, as the student body is split into freshman/sophomore/jr/sr classes) begins at 9.00am, which is where I meet up with Noe and enjoy my comfortable seats. 😛 At 10.00am, we both go to our Biblical Foundations class, followed by our 11.00am Pentateuch class. That last class lets out at 11.50am, which is when we go to the child care to pick up a hungry, tired Naya! She has been absolutely loving child care! Some of her new friends that she names often are Jordan (and little sister Charley, who live across the hall from us), Una (pronounced You-na) (and her big brother Gino, who live just beyond Jordan and Charley), Jarren, Owen, and a few others. There are 10 toddlers in the class, so you KNOW she’s having a blast! We bring Naya home and the three of us have lunch (whatever I make). Naya then goes down for a nap, and often I do as well. Noe either does some student work (he’s on the maintenance crew- all students except mommies do 3 hrs a week of work in/around the school) or heads off to one of his elective classes. This semester, his elective classes (which he chose of course) are Prayer Practicum, Job, and next week he’ll add the one-week course “Intro To NTM (New Tribes Mission”). I am hoping that in a later semester (a year from now?) I can take the Intro To NTM course myself! The rest of the afternoon/evening is ours, to make dinner and dive into homework, live life, etc…

We are loving the classes! The time spent on homework is a little more than anticipated. What we hear is that the bulk of instructors try to limit the homework, usually to 1 hr per classroom hour. So far there is more than one hour of work for the Pentateuch class- more like 2 hours. And Noe’s Bibliology class is a whopping 3+ hours each night- not just him, but almost every classmate we’ve asked! Brutal! But he’s loving it. Just pray that the workload will not overwhelm/discourage him/us.

Naya was fussy the first week we were here. We attribute that to the hot weather and new surroundings, different schedule, AND…. we allowed her to have her chupon (pacifier) in the car during our road trip, so we’re bringing her out of that, which has been “fun.” She is now used to this place, but at the same time, we’re noticing that she is developing more and more into a toddler (terrible 2’s!!)…screaming fits, disobedience… who taught her that?!?!? But oh, what a divine plan of redemption we’ve been given, yes?!! The bigger picture is always worth our consideration! 🙂

I turned 30 weeks pregnant yesterday, the 20th. 10 weeks and counting! And feeling huge and awkward! This baby seems more active than Naya was. Lots of kicking and rolling and whatnot. Always amazing and exciting, but at the same time, being my second pregnancy (and you know that pregnancy is NOT a happy time for me, unfortunately!), I’m just so ready to have the baby and not have the aches and pains of pregnancy. I’m looking forward to the early spring, when I plan to start running again! (somewhere, somehow)

So this morning I decided I wanted to see what the labor/delivery unit looked like at the hospital! No, I wasn’t in labor/false labor. But sitting in Chapel in my “comfortable” chair, I realized increasingly that I was more uncomfortable than usual, and did NOT feel well. I took a trip to the bathroom just so I could walk for a minute, then returned to my chair to pick up where I left off. 🙁 I then moved to the very back row of the auditorium so I would be less of a distraction to my classmates. By this point I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and consequently nauseated. Thinking I might pass out and/or become quite sick, I debated for several minutes if I should ask Noe to make a phone call or not (hard to anticipate having to miss classes…already!). As the unwellness continued, I asked a girl nearby to get Noe for me, and I asked him to call a doctor or the hospital. So we ended up at the hospital (right nextdoor to the school), where they checked my vitals twice and monitored the baby for awhile, and the determination was that nothing was seriously wrong, but my sugar levels were very high. So they discharged me and sent me down to the lab to take the glucose test (to test for gestational diabetes) and get bloodwork done again since I’d moved from Washington. We got back home around 1.30pm, and I rested/laid low the rest of the day. We will find out the lab results on Monday. Fortunately, the classes were both recorded, which is the acceptable method if you have to miss a class. So we will listen to those tomorrow or Sunday so we’ll be caught up.

Well, this is dreadfully long, but I hope you get a “picture” of what our life is like. Hard to imagine with no photos, I’m quite aware. We will try and remedy that soon. But as you’ve read, we’ve been very busy, and in the not-busy moments we’re tired!

We are looking forward to the baby’s arrival around October 29th, and my parents having the opportunity to visit after she’s born. And just a month after that, we have tickets to Lord-willing visit Seattle over Christmas to introduce the baby to the rest of the family, especially Noe’s mom!

Goodnight from Michigan! I’m still waiting to see some fantastic thunderstorms… I just love ’em!

Noe, Lisa, Adannaya, and “Little Two”