Waiting on the Lord

This summer has flown by! It seems like life has been busier than ever, and I am sure that has to do with why time seems to fly these days. As I mentioned in our last post, our goal has been to get involved in our church, until our time comes to go to the Missionary Training Center in MO. We have thoroughly been enjoying being a functioning part in the body of Christ. Since my last post we have moved thirty minutes away to be closer to Alton's work. He now has a 2 minute commute to work every morning, and this has been such a blessing! It has made juggling one car much more feasible, and it's given Alton the luxury of getting to come home for lunch everyday, which really helps break up our day.

Over the last couple of months we have been enjoying being part of a small group. Small groups really are such a wonderful way to get to know people in the church in a much more intimate way. We are currently reading through the book Radical together, and Alton and I love it! Alton will be leading our next small group discussion, so pray that the Lord would give him clarity of words. We are also co-leading our churches college and career group, which consists of mostly young college students. We are going through the video series The Truth Project. We hosted it three weeks ago, and we had 21 people packed into our tiny apartment, and it was great! :)  I (Grace) am helping with the care ministry, which involves writing and sending letters to those sick or grieving a loss in the church. Alton meets once a week with a godly man in our church for accountability, and they are studying Ephesians together. I am meeting once a week with two other married ladies, and we are going through the book, The Excellent Wife. About a month ago we taught children's church, and we will be doing this every couple of months. So as you can see, we have our schedules pretty full most days, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. We are really loving investing in the peoples lives around us, and having others invest in us.

January is approaching quickly, and we are really hoping and praying that the funds would come in for us to head off to MO to finish our training with New Tribes Mission. We have to let our apartment managers know in November if we are leaving in January, so that we don't get charged a fee, and so we ask that you pray with us about knowing what to do. We want nothing more than to be able to go, but unless the Lord shows us how to pay for the training, we are not sure how to make it work.

Riah is growing so fast, and is adding such joy to our lives! We love watching her grow, develop, and learn new skills. She is attempting to repeat some words like duck, and dog, and she is cruising all over the place. She still does not have any teeth, but it looks like several are making their way in. She will be 10 months old on the 21st of this month, which is crazy to think about. 

Thank you for praying for us!!!

A change in our plans, but not in God's

We are thankful to finally know some of what the Lord's plan is for us currently. After talking with our home church leaders we have come to the decision to wait until January, or at the latest, next August to head to the Missionary Training Center. With the pressures of moving, Alton working out of town for 6 months, having a child, and all the changes that have come our way, we have not been as involved in our home church (Grace Bible Church) as we would have liked. They are completely behind us, and are wanting us to head to MTC as soon as we can, but they also would like to have us around a little bit longer. Since we have been home we were getting involved in another church in our area, but it came to our attention that the people in our home church did not have much access to us, and were not getting to see the growth we had made while at Bible school.

Thank you all for your support in what we are doing. We appreciate the prayers and comments that we get on a regular basis concerning what the Lord is leading us to. We will spend our time here in NC with Alton continuing to work, Grace spending her time taking care of Riah, and we will be trying to spend our evenings involved in small group, helping lead the college and career group, and fellowshipping with our church body.

Please continue to pray for us as we get involved in ministry right here in our hometown. Also continue to seek the Lord about how you can partner with us so that we can get our missionary training done, and eventually make it overseas for missions work. We are aiming to head to Missoiri in January now, but of course we know the Lord can still change our plans. Thankfully our application is good for 2 years, so we will not have to do the application process again! That's good news :)

August 2012

Our Goal:

We have started the application process to begin our training at the Missionary Training Center in Missouri. Our goal is to start this August, and we are so excited at this possibility. "What would stop you?" you may ask, and the only thing at this moment that we can think of would be finances. However, no matter our financial situation, if the Lord is not wanting us to go this August then that of course would stop us. :) 

What we need?

To start this August we need a LOT of prayer! Please pray with us that the Lord would make it possible for us. Some specifics that you could pray for would be: the application process to go smoothly, the money that we need to pay for the two years of training, the ability to focus on what God is wanting us to do, and the strength to once again leave our families and move far from home.

The Missionary Training Center
We understand that most of you don't know exactly what the missionary training is, and what we will do while we are there. We would like to ask you to click here to go to the NTM website to read about the academics that we will be participating in while we are there. You can also navigate around the website to find out any other details you might be wondering about. Thank you for taking your time to do that. 

Riah Skye Cale

Riah Skye Cale

arrived November 21st, 2011

7 lbs 9 oz.

We are so glad to finally have our daughter with us and healthy!

Riah is named after the book of Zechariah, which means YHWH has remembered. Skye is after Grace's best friend in South Africa, and also goes along with the meaning of her first name (YHWH has remembered in the Heavens).

The Birth:
Wow! I am sure glad that part is over. :) For those of you who are interested in how the labor process went...here you go.
Towards the end of my pregnancy we found out that my placenta had moved out of the way of the cervix, so all your prayers concerning that were answered! I was so happy to be able to have a natural birth (natural as in no c-section NOT as in no medication! lol). Due to the fact that I had gestational diabetes my doctors thought it would be best to induce me one week before my due date, because the health risks at the end of a gestational diabetes pregnancy are a lot greater. Sunday November 20th Alton and I arrived to "check into" the hospital at 5 p.m. to begin the process. They planned to insert cervidil that night around 7 in order to ripen my cervix, and then start me on pitocin at 6 A.M. the next morning. It was very surreal checking into the hospital knowing that when we leave we would be parents to a little girl.

After the long checking in process, and getting all hooked up and poked and prodded for a couple of hours it was time to begin. The doctor came in at 7 p.m. and inserted the cervidil, which had to stay in for 12 hours (at this point I was already dilated 1 c.m.). Often times this alone can kick start labor...and that's exactly what happened. After taking some sleeping pills around 9 p.m., I was nice and groggy and ready for a good night of sleep, so that I would be ready for the big task ahead the next morning. Like that was gonna happen!!! lol. ;) At 9:30 p.m. the contractions started. Yikes! The pain was so sharp and mostly in my back. Back labor = NO FUN.
Here is how the rest of the night went:
@ 11 P.M. contractions were 2-3 minutes apart
@ 12 A.M. I was checked and was dilated 3 c.m.
@ 12:30 A.M. I was given Demerol to help with the pain
@ 2 A.M. I was given a second dose of Demerol
@ 5:30 A.M. I was checked and was still only dilated 3 c.m. :( Bummer! Cervidil was removed and contractions slowed to 3-7 minutes apart.
@ 5:30 I was able to get up and shower before they started the pitocin (the medicine that would bring on contractions and labor).
@ 6:30 pitocin drip was started, and I was dilated to 4 c.m.
@7:30 I got the epidural! Hallelujah!!!! What a relief.

The rest of the day was much much better! After a whole night of no sleep and terrible back and stomach contractions I was able to rest. I started to dilate relatively fast for someone having their first baby. By 3 o clock I was dilated to 9 c.m.! One more to go. At this point Alton and I made bets as to when she would be born. I optimistically said she would be born at 4 p.m.. Oh boy was I wrong! I was, however, able to start pushing at 4. After an hour of pushing the nurse said that the baby had not come down at all. :( What a disappointment. I was EXHAUSTED!!! The doctor decided to let me "labor down" for a while...which means rest and just let the contractions bring the baby down the birth canal some more. At this point I was given a top off on my epidural because it's effects were wearing off. At 7:00 they finally decided it was time for me to start pushing again! I was so ready for it all to be over. I remember praying "Lord, please let this be quick!". Alton and I made bets again, and I bet that she would be born at 8:00, Alton said 8:16. Much to my utter delight and relief Riah Skye was born at 8:01 p.m.

The plan was for the doctor to place her right onto my stomach, and Alton would cut the cord. The policy at this hospital is that they would leave the baby on your chest for the first hour of it's life, and then they would take it to be weighed and cleaned off (and by take it I mean take it to the station that was set up right in the room with me. This hospital never takes the baby out of the room with the mother. Unless the mother requests it...they don't even take it to the nursery. EVERYTHING is done in the room with the mother). Sadly, during the final pushes, Riah's shoulders got stuck, and then when she came out she was in shock. They had Alton cut the cord quickly and then took her immediately to the station in the room to be checked. After what seemed like forever I finally heard her cry. She was ok! I told them to go ahead and weigh her, and clean her off. While that was all going on, the doctor was working hard to try and stop my bleeding. I was hemorrhaging bad! The nurse and the doctor were getting worried that they wouldn't be able to stop the bleeding. Just when I thought the painful part was over (and by this time my epidural was not working very well), the most painful part of the whole process was yet to come. In order to stop the bleeding there were two nurses and the doctor that were pushing as hard as they could on my abdomen. They were pushing on the clots in my stomach to try and stop the bleeding. This was the first time (since I got the epidural) that I cried from pain. It took approximately an hour for them to finally get the bleeding to stop. Yes, it was an hour before I finally got to hold my little girl. But the wait was WELL worth it! She was a beauty.
Total hours in labor = 23 1/2

Thanks to everyone who prayed for her and I during this time! 

God's Timing Is PERFECT!

God and His Timing

Oh how much we need to learn about God's timing in our lives! This is something that He is teaching us in ways we would rather not experience, but yet we know that there is no better thing than the perfect plan of God. In life there are so many things that we have to wait on: our favorite T.V. series to start, our dinner to be done, our spouse getting dressed, our test results to come back, and so on. Although most of those are very minor in comparison to other things we wait for. It is mind blowing to think of the fact that our God is Sovereign, and when we wait on Him there will be a wonderful result.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 ^" He has made everything beautiful in its time."
Isaiah 40:31 "they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings ^like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

What God has us Waiting on Currently:

• God has Alton and I waiting on Him in many areas of our life. The biggest one that comes to mind while writing this is Alton's job situation. It is no news to many of you that Alton has been working out of town for the last several months. He is usually gone Monday-Thursday, and sometimes it's Monday-Saturday. This job HAS been a tremendous blessing however, because it is well paying, and has allowed for us to buy the things we need to settle into life here in NC. However, with a baby coming next month we are VERY anxious for him to find a job closer to home. We have been looking for a while now, and nothing has yet to open up. Please pray with us concerning this! We may think that now is the perfect time for another job to open up, but God may have something else in mind. 
• With the crazy schedule/location of Alton's job we have also not been able to get involved in churches in our area like we had hoped. Our goal is still to go to the New Tribes Missionary Training Center in Missouri this coming August. As we mentioned before, we are looking to be better supported financially for this to happen. We are really hoping that God's timing for us to go would be this August, but we don't know what He has in store. Please be praying with us concerning our support, and timing in going to MTC (missionary training center). 
• Last but not least, we are waiting on this little baby girl to arrive!! :) 9 months feels like an eternity on some days, and on others it feels like a blink of an eye. We have already been blessed with a wonderful baby shower recently, and one more will be taking place this weekend. God is certainly teaching me (Grace) patience through this pregnancy as there are many things I am waiting for. There are so many things that you need when having a baby, and I have been learning patience in waiting for the right time to get those things. November 21st is right around the corner, and I just KNOW that God will provide me with everything I need to be a mother! 

What About You?

I am sure we are not the only ones that God is teaching patience, and timing to! I hope that you are learning things about waiting on the Lord, because we certainly are. There is so much joy in waiting when you know that you have a God who wants nothing more than to bless your life! Keep that in mind friends, and we will do the same! 

Thank you for praying! 

Please feel free to let us know what we can be praying with you about! 

Because He said, "Go!"

         Alton, Grace, & soon-to-be Riah Cale! 

All settled in

HOME FOR NOW

We have been back in the good old state of North Carolina for just over a month now. Alton was able to start working with a construction company 2 weeks after we got back, and it has been such a blessing that he got work so quickly. This past week we started renting a little house of our own. We were very fortunate to be able to stay with Grace's parents for the past month, and even though we were welcome to stay longer, we decided to go ahead and get our own place. Alton's job is going to require him to be out of town for the whole week, and so it will work out nicely to have our own place to be together on the weekends! 

Baby Cale

Since we returned home, we were able to get Medicaid for Grace's pregnancy. She has found a good doctors office, and has decided on the hospital where she will have the baby. Last week Friday we got to see our baby make an on screen debut at Grace's 18 week ultrasound. We got the WONDERFUL news that we are having a precious baby girl (which is what we were both secretly hoping for). :) We also found out that Grace has something called Complete Placenta Previa. This means that the placenta (which is normally located towards the top of the uterus) is located at the bottom. Because of this, the way that the baby would naturally come out is blocked. A cesarean delivery will be necessary, unless the placenta moves out of the way. The percentage of it moving is very slim, but it IS possible! So if you would please be praying with us that it will move so that we can have a natural delivery. If it does not move, there are many potential complications later on in the pregnancy. We are going back for another ultrasound in August, and they will know more at that point. Despite this disheartening news, we are still very happy about this baby, and we know that God is in control, and that if it is His will for things to change then they will. We have already decided on her name, which we have had picked out for over a year and a half now. :) Riah Skye Cale is her name. 

Our goals for this next year                                                               We are still hoping to carry on with the missionary training with New Tribes Mission. Now that we have graduated from the Bible Institute we have another year and a half of training at the missionary training center. This next year we are planing on saving up as much money as possible, and building relationships with people in churches in our area. Since we will not be able to work during the next phase of training we will need to have the money saved up, or raised through support. We are excited to carry on with the training, and we are looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us! 

Please continue praying for us! We know God has great things for us, and for you. 

Because He said "Go!", Alton & Grace Cale (+ Riah) :)  

The end is in sight!

It is crazy to think that in one month and 8 days we will be graduating from New Tribes Bible Institute! We are not entirely sure whether we should be rejoicing or feeling sorrowful about this, but we do know that whatever God has for us next will be amazing.

Alton & his friend dressed up for
Hollywood night as Gilligan & Skipper

Grace & her best friend Stephanie

As we have mentioned before, but now it is more official, we are moving back to North Carolina and will move directly into Grace's parents house. They are currently trying to sell their house, so we are not sure how long we will be able to stay there. As soon as we have jobs (which you can be praying for), then we will most likely be looking for an apartment to rent. We plan on attending Grace Bible Church (our home church) when we return, and would love to get as involved there as we possibly can. We are looking forward to what ministries the Lord has in store for us.

Grace's certificate of pregnancy-She is due November 28th

Hopefully you have all heard our AWESOME news that Grace is pregnant!! We could not be more excited, and would like to ask for prayers that this pregnancy will go well, and that the baby will continue to grow and be healthy through these next 8 months. Grace is only 7 weeks right now, so a lot can still happen in these early months, but we are praying for the Lord's hand to keep this tiny baby healthy.

We are looking forward to our senior trip to Wayumi starting on May 8th! When we return from that one week trip we will only have 4 days of class left. Those will be a very busy 4 days, as we will be rapping up class, packing, and readying ourselves for the big move back to NC. We have to be out of our apartment 2 days after graduation, because they are doing some work in the apartment, so we will definitely be in a time crunch.

Grace's last day of work will be May 4th, which is approaching quickly. Once again...we could not be more thankful for the way the Lord has provided for us through this job. It will be sad to leave Andrew, and the rest of the family that we work for. We have thoroughly enjoyed being part of those 6 kids lives, as well as getting to know the parents!

Our biggest prayer request at this time would be for financial provision. After doing our budget last night, we realized that we will not have enough money to make our final school bill, pay our 2 other monthly bills, and still have money for the gas home. That is even leaving out things such as groceries for this next month, as well as gas. We have seen the Lord provide in a miraculous way since we have been here, and we don't doubt He will continue to do this. Please be praying with us about the means in which God will provide!

We are so appreciative for the friendships, the learning, and the trials we have had here at NTBI the last 2 years! Thank you for praying and supporting us through this most amazing time of our lives!

Because HE said "Go!"