Peter's Ordination

Today's Memorial Day, a national holiday in the States. Our next door neighbours have their flag flying outside but I haven't seen a whole lot of other flags...

I've had a really busy and long few days and I've been surprised by how well I've coped only to find that my body didn't cope as well as I'd thought. I felt really rubbish today for the first time in about a week and I know it's because I'm so physically exhausted from having such a mad weekend. So many unexpected things came up last week though, it couldn't really be helped. Well, I could've said 'no' instead of volunteering for things but as you know, that's not one of my fortes! :)

Our church finally moved to the new building a couple of Sundays ago so we're now starting our 12 celebratory events of which one is Peter's ordination this coming Sunday at 16:00! So he'll be an ordained pastor or reverend as opposed to an un-ordained pastor. In Korean his title's completely different as he'll go from being a Jun-do-sa-nim (or JDSN) to a Mok-sa-nim (MSN). The "nim" bit is the ending we use for people to show respect in Korean so teachers are Sun-saeng-nim, your boss you call Sa-jang-nim, and so on and so forth. I'm a Sa-mo-nim (or SMN) at church as I'm a pastor's wife! :) It's weird 'cause a lot of our older church members have known me since I was 5 so for them to go from calling me Yeonsook to Sa-mo-nim is awkward for both sides! So I've ended up with lots of names like Mak-nae ("youngest") SMN, Ggo-ma ("young" / "child") SMN, Yeonsook-e SMN, Jenny SMN, Oh SMN, Jenny Sam (some of the Youth kids think that Sa-mo-nim is too long), Yeonsook, Jenny... :)

There are a lot of formalities that go with being ordained which we still need to figure out so it's going to be a busy week. We were thinking of going to an Obs & Gynae this week but we've pushed it back to next week - my 12th week! There's the ordination which will take a lot of coordinating (and cost a fair bit too!) but it's also Finals week for Korean School this Saturday so I need to come up with a colourful not-too-hard but still assessable exam paper for my beginners' class students (ranging from ages 5 - 10!) and there's also a Youth Praise Night revival event on Friday & Saturday evening so we're both going to be really really busy this week. Some say we don't have our priorities quite right... I don't think they're entirely wrong!

I'm hiding in my mum's room right now 'cause the smell of the fish dish I ate so yummily this afternoon for lunch is now making me sick so I'm in the room furthest away from the kitchen... Sigh... Unpredictability is a pain...

I've been encouraged by emails from friends (like Carolyn B's today!) saying that they read the blog even though I've been so rubbish at keeping it going - thank you for not giving up on me!!!

Going to bed now... Good night dear friends!!! :)

Lots of love,
Jenny xxx

Bit of news... :)

Well, I was going to wait till after our first doctor's appointment but we still haven't been so thought I'd share the news with you anyway...

I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

We found out the week after we got back from our honeymoon... Talk about things happening really fast... Sheesh! We were hoping I'd become pregnant within the 1st 3 months but not quite so soon! I really didn't think it would happen so soon 'cause I was the weakest I'd ever been in my life 'cause of all the stress, lack of stress, lack of exercise leading up to the wedding and during our honeymoon so thought my body would need some recovery time before I would be able to conceive but I guess not! We also wanted to enjoy a bit of time together just as normal husband and wife, do things together (like play tennis, go for walks), go on "dates" as we hadn't been able to spend any quality time together on our own at all prior to the wedding, go on a proper honeymoon even if just an overnight trip to somewhere nice with just the two of us unlike our 10-day honeymoon in Korea, find out more about each other, just relax and enjoy each other's company without having to worry about planning a major event but alas... God's keeping us on our toes and has blessed us with a baby very early on in our marriage - can't get much earlier than a honeymoon baby!

According to the e-calculator on ivillage.com the baby's due date is 22 Dec and I am now in my 10th week. As I mentioned previously we haven't been to see a doctor yet but one of the best Obs & Gynae doctors (or OBGYN doctors as they're known in the States) in the area is the husband of my mum's friend and he said that I don't really need to go till I'm about 12 weeks and that it's actually better if I don't go as the poking and prodding will only stress out the baby and can actually lead to a miscarriage and has done for many women in the past. He said to make sure that I get plenty of rest, eat as much as poss, don't stress myself out, don't lift heavy objects and take vitamins! Apart from him though, everyone's been saying that I should go see a doctor during the early stages especially as it's our first!

We wouldn't have been able to go though even if we wanted to 'cause I had to wait for my insurance to come through as Mrs Oh :) and also because it's just been so crazy with the church moving buildings that Peter's been completely swamped with work. Last week he worked a minimum of 12 hours per day and on 3 days worked 18 - 19 hours. Absolutely mad! If some of the Youth kids hadn't been around to help him Fri, Sat & Sun, even with him working mad hours, not everything would've been ready for our first service in the new building the day before yesterday (20 May). If mum hadn't picked-up and paid for 4 Mexicans + a U-Haul van on Friday, it would've been even worse! Also, there would've been absolutely no way we would've been able to conduct Korean School on Saturday 'cause none of the chairs & tables had arrived yet. Crazy... Mum was out working from 4:30 a.m. Friday morning together with Peter and came home late too.

(The picking-up Mexicans thing: there are loads of unemployed Mexicans in California that just hang around places like Home Depot - B&Q-type big DIY chain store - waiting to be picked-up for odd temporary jobs every day all day.)

Hopefully things will calm down a bit now, especially as we now have a new Youth Pastor to work with Peter! Phew! And maybe within the next couple of weeks we'll make it to an Obs & Gynae doctor.

So... Am I enjoying pregnancy? Uh... No!!! I think I might a bit later on but at the moment... I started feeling morning sickness already a few weeks ago and it was really hard 'cause I had a cold and bad hayfever all at the same time! On Monday, 30 April, Peter & I actually managed to go to a nearby lake and spend some time just relaxing before and after running errands and even catch a film in the evening - our first "date" since we actually became a couple! :) That evening when we came home I didn't feel so good and then the next morning was when it all started happening... Oh my goodness... Not nice... That first week was the hardest... Even without the morning sickness, just having a really bad cold + hayfever and not being able to take meds would've been hard enough I think. But then to experience morning sickness as well on top of all that... Just wasn't nice...

After that first week we moved into mum's 'cause I'd lost 4 pounds (just under 2 kgs) in 5 days and Peter and I were really struggling with my unpredictability when it came to food, not being able to eat in general, and nausea. We've been at mum's for two weeks now and we'll probably go back home today as we have a better idea now of how to handle this morning sickness thing. One of the most important things for me has been to always have a supply of something to eat next to me. I've found that if I don't eat / snack and let myself become really hungry, I start feeling nauseous and then I can't eat and then feel even worse and it's a vicious cycle. So initially I started eating cheesy crackers (called "Goldfish") but now I'm eating loads and loads of fruit every day which is healthier but a lot more expensive and a lot more work! Poor mum's been buying bag loads of fruit and preparing a big container full of them for me every day. It'll be interesting to see how Peter & I cope... From the frequent trips we'll have to make for fruit to the having lots of things available in the fridge but then me not being able to cook it and maybe not wanting to eat it even if / when Peter's cooked something to not being able to buy loads of different stuff and me eating what I can eat and then my brothers, Peter and mum eating the rest, it'll definitely be a challenge! It's been a real luxury having mum so close by and just being able to move in for a while.

The reason why we wanted for me to become pregnant within the 1st 3 months of our marriage is because we can't / shouldn't go out as missionaries during the first year of marriage (reference: Leviticus, Old Testament, Bible) and we've been advised that during the first year of your first child both parents are so busy and tired that we wouldn't be able to concentrate on our ministry and it'd be even harder as we'd have to adjust to a new country, new culture, new food, everything, so as that's already two years we wanted to have a baby earlier rather than later on into our marriage. I didn't go on the pill as you just never know how long these things are going to take but it all happened very quickly for us!

Pastor Chin, our head pastor at church, was very pleased when he heard that we're planning to stay for approx 2 years as if Peter and I hadn't met Peter would've already gone early this year and they would've been without a Youth Pastor completely! Peter sticking around for 2 years also means that they'll hopefully be able to resume a bit of stability within the Youth group as there's been a lot of comings and goings during the past few years.

The fact that I'm pregnant is supposed to be a secret at church, another reason why I've been delaying writing about it on my blog just in case anyone from church read it, but most everyone seems to know! Pastor Chin asked to keep it a secret until I'm a bit further into my pregnancy just in case so it's not "official" yet. My mum couldn't contain herself so she started telling "just the people I'm close to" about a month ago saying "it's still a secret but..."! And then on Mother's Day Sunday my brother and his Mexico Missions 2007 Team were in charge of pinning carnations on all of the mothers when they arrived at church and he pinned one on me saying that I'm a mum now too! So that raised a few eyebrows and prompted a few questions... ;)

Everything's happening so fast!!! I don't have any regrets but I do wish we could take things a bit slower. I know Peter's in a bit of a rush as he's older and has been praying and training in preparation to go out into the mission field for the past ten years and now he has to wait a bit longer and some of the things we didn't really have a say in (like how quickly I became pregnant!) but it still hasn't been 6 months yet since Peter and I had a long chat in his car on our way back from Wednesday night service at church and he asked me to consider him as part of my future. During that time I moved from the UK to the US, went to two Youth Winter Retreats (camps), got engaged, had our engagement party, organised & had a big wedding, been on honeymoon and am now pregnant!

Our honeymoon? We went to Korea for ten days, arriving evening of 1st April, from 2nd - 6th we had a lunch & dinner 'introduction' meal every single day including lunch on the 6th the day we went on our tour, from evening of 6th - 11th we were with a group of about 34 other people, mostly really old touring around Korea in a bus, waking up at SIX AM (me up at SIX AM!!!), breakfast at 7am, leaving at 8am, when we got back to Seoul on the evening of the 11th we had another 'introduction' meal and then had to go to my paternal grandparents and then finally got to our hotel around midnight and then on the 12th we went to check-in at the airport, then came back out to see my maternal grandparents, rushed back to the airport, ate a quick lunch and then finally relaxed on the plane ride home. We were exhausted when we got back! Thankfully Peter didn't have to preach that Sunday but I had to teach Korean School on Saturday so I had a lot of preparation work to do on Friday despite having done most of it prior to the wedding and Peter had a lot of catching up to do too. Peter also had his ordination interview / text to prepare for on Monday so he was trying to find time to swot up as well. We've already decided that we'll be going on another honeymoon some time in the future where we can actually spend some time on our own and relax!!! When and where, we don't know yet, probably won't be for a while now!

It's lovely to be married, to have a loving, caring, Godly husband I can really look up to and respect and who takes really good care of me. My sister used to say that he's completely goo-goo-ga-ga over me and I don't know if he still is that much but we're both very much in love and very happy together. :)

We finally have our Thank You cards!!! It was actually cheaper to print customised ones at a Korean printer here then to buy blank standard ones so we got 500 printed for 180 USD (inc tax) but it would've cost us approx 25 USD (exc tax) per box of 50 so it was about half the price and they're much much nicer too with one of the studio pics and a pic from our wedding too! I'll be busy writing them this week starting with the Koreans here (they've started complaining!) and I have hundreds to write so it'll probably take me a couple of weeks at least. Oh my goodness!!!

It's been a while since I've been able to spend a few hours just catching up on emails and actually write on my blog too - it's so refreshing and liberating! So strange... I used to take things like this for granted... Things like checking my email whenever I wanted to, eating whatever I felt like eating, knowing that I'd still feel like eating it when it's actually in front of me, being able to smell of rice cooking and loving it (can't stand it now!), being able to be just normal and do whatever I wanted to do!

Hopefully, as I get stronger and the baby grows more, I'll start to really enjoy the whole pregnancy experience and be able to do more of the stuff I want to do too!

Love you and miss you loads,
Jenny xxx