Here I am at 28.5 weeks. My stomach seems to have stalled in growth the past 2-3 weeks, which I’m actually thankful for! We had a doctor visit last week and everything is going great - this was my last visit before heading to the US. Now I need to translate all my records from German into English! I had to do the same with Jackson, and thankfully most of the medical terms are the same, or close enough, so that I don’t actually have to do too much translating. One great benefit of having prenatal care over here (in Austria) is that I got an ultrasound every single visit! And not just a quick one, but she would look at everything, measure the body parts, find good shots to print out for us to keep, and all that. I know that I just had my last one, and the next time we see our child it will be when we are holding her in our arms! Can’t believe that it’s coming so soon.

She has been quite the active baby, especially later at night and early in the morning, I can feel her just bumping away! We’re hoping that once out of the womb she isn’t *quite as active as Jackson, or we will for sure have our hands full. But she’ll have to be a mover to keep up with her big brother, that’s for sure.

Just wanted to throw up a quick post about the school of leaders that started this weekend. Kompas does a 9-month school called Å kola pre Pracovnikov s Mladežou (Å PM - school of youth workers) where youth leaders from around the country from various denominations gather every few weeks for training in leadership, theology, youth ministry training, personal development, etc. The people in this picture include 19 students, a couple guest teachers, and Kompas training staff. Please pray for this group, especially for the students, as all of them are leaders in their respective youth groups. They have the potential to have a huge impact for Christ on their churches and towns, as well as on the rest of the country. At the same time, many of them are in very unhealthy church situations, so please pray that they will be encouraged and equipped through these next 9 months to do the ministry that God has given them. Also, we’ve posted a blog at tckompas.wordpress.com where we’ll be posting thoughts and experiences about the program over the coming months. It’ll be in English and Slovak and will be periodically updated with posts and pictures… enjoy!

Anybody who has been on staff at Kompas for any length of time hates this dog. It resides at the house next door to Kompas and barks incessantly. Actually, it does stop every now and then, only to resume again when I walk by. It spins in circles as it barks… I would guess it gets in about three barks per rotation. Honestly, it looks fairly ridiculous and definitely comical, but the dog has quite an intimidating bark and can be quite frightening until you learn that it’s only going to harmlessly spin in circles on the other side of the fence. But when he gets really worked up, it runs down the property line and back, tracing the path that its worn bare in the grass from it’s constant sprints down the sidelines. You might think that would relieve some tension, but then it just resumes spinning and barking.

A couple days ago we took Jackson to Kompas and the dog was out. As usual it took us by surprise and made all of us, including Jackon, jump. But Jackson loves it when something makes him jump, so once he realized all was fine, he just started laughing. And calmly, from about 2 feet away from the dog, he points his finger at him and excitedly proclaims, “woof, woof!”

Amanda and I burst into laughter. “Yes Jackson,” we say “woof woof is right. That’s exactly what he’s saying!” He has no idea that this dog could, and probably would, rip him apart faster than he said “woof, woof” if it weren’t for that chain-link fence. Jackson seemed to be so thrilled that this killer dog was paying attention to him and just kept smiling and inching closer to the fence, almost mocking the dog’s efforts to warn us away. Once we pulled him away from the excitement, we just continued to laugh at how calm our little guy was in the face of that huge dog. Jackson definitely has things that he’s scared of but dogs, of any size and ferocity, certainly aren’t one of them.