Internet Trouble

It has been way too long since I have updated this blog, but several months ago we had to change our internet and since we are out in the country side, the connection is just terrible. It takes a long time to download photos, and sometimes after a long wait they still don’t download.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if we will have this issue fixed any time soon.
For this reason I have not been able to update this blog. I apologize to those that enjoyed getting updates.
Next year in January we will be spending one year in Curitiba (Mario is doing a 10 month Bible course at a YWAM there). I hope that there I will be able to continue normally with the updates.
For now, just enjoy at least these few pictures of Lucas and Danny (who is now almost 6 months) that I was able to download with a lot of patience.

Lika's Water Birth

I can't believe Danny was born almost a month ago! I've been meaning to publish these pictures of the birth experience for weeks now, but only now took the time to do so. I wanted to share a bit of my water birth experience. For those of you who are not from Brazil, you will appreciate this even more knowing that here in Brazil vaginal births are almost regarded as "old fashioned" and "risky", most doctors discourage mothers from having them and that makes Brazil the second country with most cesarian births in the world! So the fact that I had a water birth is almost a miracle and unheard of here. Luckily I found a wonderful, Christian doctor named Dr. Luis Carlos Pinheiro who was an angel in this  process. He was also the one that did Lucas' birth 2.5 years ago!

Some of you may remember that when I was pregnant with Lucas I waited until 41 weeks and 5 days before we finally decided to induce the birth…with my second pregnancy I was sure I wouldn't have to go through the same torturous waiting…but I did!…we had to induce again! This time we waited till 41 weeks and 6 days!

 This time I felt much more prepared for what was coming. I had the help of a wonderful doula named Kimberly, she is also a missionary. She was fundamental in calming me through the whole process! Thank you Kim!

 Mario was also present the whole time and even helped Dr. Luis fill the birthing pool! I think he enjoyed being so useful!

 I was induced early in the morning and began feeling faint contraction at irregular intervals…after a couple hours of waiting for things to get going with no such luck, Dr. Luis suggested we break my water to see if that could speed things up…it worked!

 Soon I began to feel short, but very strong contractions…Kim walked with me up and down the halls and rubbed my back during the contractions…Mario also encouraged me and helped rub my back now and then.

 Finally the pool was full and I got in at 7cm…

 I felt an immediate relief…I remember thinking, "This was a great idea!"

 but only until the next contraction! After I got into the pool it only took about 20 minutes for Danny to be born…in other words…it took less than 20 minutes to get from 7-10cm dilated….no one, not even the doctor, was expecting that! It was very intense and I confess I was pretty scared because I thought all that pain was only from the contractions to get dilated and I thought things were still going to get a lot worse, I remember thinking this could not be normal and that I was not going to make it through the pain! I didn't realise I was already at the height of the pain and was actually already pushing the baby out! At one point I reached down to "see" what was going on down there and if I was not ripping open and to my surprise I felt the baby's head…that's when I realised Danny was already coming out and I screamed out "the baby is already coming out!" After that I had one more contraction and Danny was in my arms!!
We had a big scare when he came out blue because the umbilical cord was wrapped really tightly around his neck, and Dr. Luis has some difficulty getting it off because Danny was already out of the water we couldn't lower him to unwrap it and I couldn't prop myself up to help, but in a few second Dr. Luis was able to unwrap the cord and immediately Danny started to cry! What a relief!

 About 30 minutes after Daniel was born my parents arrived bringing Lucas who was ecstatic to meet his little brother! My parents told us that when we called home to let them know Daniel was born, Lucas was jumping up and down declaring "Daniel James, nasceu (was born)!

Daniel James Braun Milhomem was born at 1:25 pm weighing 3kg 700 grams and was 53 cm long! Thank you Jesus for another beautiful, healthy baby boy!

Here he is a couple days later looking handsome as ever!

Thanks to all those you prayed for us!

Victories in the Lord

So much has happened in the last couple of months I don´t even know where to begin this post...I am 6.5 months pregnant as I sit and write here and most of my thoughts lately have to do with our baby boy who should be arriving sometime in mid May. I am in the midst of preparing the ``nest`` for his much awaited arrival. We just finished some much needed painting around the house and finally bought that new closet for the boys room I was hoping we could get and I just washed and ironed piles of clothes that I had saved from Lucas which now our little Daniel will be able to wear. They look great in the new closet! I am so glad I saved them!

Other than that there has been a whole lot of other stuff going on outside of me as well. Some of you may be wondering what came about of the drug rehab center moving to the base...well, it happened! It was a smooth transition and has been a welcome addition to our YWAM base family! Here are some pictures of the move:

 Our new kitchen! Pictured is Victor one of our recoverants who is a talented cook!

 These are all the guys that joined us (6 guys in the picture are staff)

Mario´s mom was a P.E. teacher and had a gym for many years which in the last few years was closed and she was trying to sell the equipment with no luck. Mario suggested that she loan the equipment to us and in exchange we would pay for the maintenence. She agreed and we had the equipment sent by truck and it arrived in the midst of the move so we had many men to help us with the set up.
Now we have a gym on our base! What a blessing!

Meanwhile at home...I´ve had a wonderful little helper in my own kitchen!

Jonas has also been a great help looking after Lucas every once in a while so I can have a break.

Mario had this new sand box built in our yard for Lucas. He´s enjoying it very much!

The rehab center not only brought a bunch of new people, but a whole addition of animals, including several parrots, chickens, ducks, geese and a dog. Lucas is loving the action!

A much needed relaxation at the end of the day...

Here´s a little bit of what went on inside our home in the last few weeks! I´m so glad it´s over!

 On February 19th we also began another DTS with 16 students from several parts of Brazil. 

We had a wonderful and blessed opening service...

 Three men who finished their recovery period are currently doing DTS! One of them is doing the course with his wife who also decided she wanted to take up the challenge! Praise God! What an amazing testimony!

 The DTS students agreed to help the base by raising funds to help us by a ``kombi`` (VW bus) for the base. The blue tin cans were passed around for those who also wanted to help raise funds...

 Something we were not expecting is to have our feet washed by the other leaders as a symbol that they are with us in this new journey! What an honor!

Mateus, the director of the drug rehab center was also honored...

as was his wife Mical  (they have been married just 4 months!)

I couldn´t leave out another very important event that actually took place before all the above, which was Lucas´ second birthday. It was on January 2nd, but we had the celebration on January 5th. Since his first birthday was a smaller event, we decided to make it extra special for him this year.

My parents were in the States for the event, so they were not able to be there, but all of Mario´s family was there (except for one uncle who couldn´t make it).

Mario´s oldest sister, Katharine, is also pregnant and expecting her little girl about the same time as our Daniel.

Mario´s family helped us out so we could rent some fun things for the kids...

 Some of the Terceiro Espaço kids (our children at risk project) joined the party and enjoyed some cotton candy...

and  Lucas could not get enough of the trampoline...

He jumped until the sun went down!!

We are so grateful for all the Lord has done! Serving the Lord full time brings it´s difficulties and challenges, but the Lord also gives us moments like these that refresh our souls! Thank you Jesus for all you´ve done!