Our Revolving Door and Why We Love It

My friends and family often comment on the amount of guests we have coming through our doors. I often hear, "How do you do it?" So I've been reflecting on it lately and asking myself this same question. How do I do it? Why does it always seem like so much work to everyone outside of our house but yet I don't feel overwhelmed by it? Since Teyah was born, less than 3 months ago, we've had a friend/intern from France stay for a week, a friend from Abbotsford stay for a week, my parents stayed for 2 weeks, and PeaceChurch friends (Fread, Reg, Kathleen) staying countless nights in between or even at the same time as other guests (luckily we have a comfy couch!). And this only includes night guests..... PeaceChurch gathers in our home every Wednesday and one Saturday a month and all kinds of friends are visiting throughout the week on top of that. Sounds tiring, right? But you know what.... it's not! Here's why....

1. Our friends are helpful. Its often actually less work to have friends over because they entertain the kids, do dishes and clean up after themselves. We may not have a dishwasher, but we have countless "dishwashers" who love us and enjoy helping out.  After a PeaceChurch gathering there are always volunteers to clean up, or else they just play the Filipino version of "rock paper scissors" and the job gets done :)

2. I'm an extrovert. Actually, our whole family is. We're not the kind of people who need a lot of quiet  time by ourselves and for the most part, we are energized being around friends. The boys absolutely love the many friends who fill our home and Teyah is already full of smiles for any face that greets her.

3. We make family time a priority. While we often have an extra "family member" with us, we also carve out time to be just the 5 of us and always make it special. We love to have extra guests, but sometimes it is important to be just "us" and we make sure that happens one night a week and we do something fun on the weekend too.

4. Sometimes I do say no. I have also learned that when I/we need our space, its okay to say no to guests. I never used to feel capable of doing this, but since trying out the "no, sorry" to guests a couple times now, I have felt confident in my decision and guess what? People respect it and we haven't lost any friends :) And sometimes just going to my room to nurse Teyah when the house is full gives me the rest I need by myself.

5. Sam is amazing. Ever since Teyah was born, our dear friend and helper, Sam, started working 4 days a week for us (used to be 2 days) and let me tell you, it is wonderful. The cooking, baking (I've taught her well!) cleaning and childcare she fills her days here with is a lifesaver. Because of her, I can host without breaking my back, spend more quality time with the kids, go on dates with Darnell, have some time to myself (like right now I'm writing this in a coffee shop with Teyah sleeping in her stroller beside me and the boys are at home baking cookies with her) and have a clean house. We are incredibly thankful for her.

5. Its what we're called to. Darnell and I (and the kids) are church planters. We have the personality for this, the calling from God for this, and the heart for this. So we open our home, again and again, to the variety of people who we call family. And we do it with arms open wide, embracing these people in the love Christ shows us with hearts full of thankfulness for the ability to extend our home, our food and our joy to those we meet.

So there it is..... why we love it and why we do it. It feels good to reflect on this and it renews my heart and energy to give, serve, and bake cookies for friends who call our house a second home..... you are welcome to visit anytime :)

Teyah Malaya Barkman

On September 5th, 2014, we welcomed our little girl, Teyah, into our family. At 9lbs 14oz, our chubby-cheeked blessing arrived early in the morning, the day after her due date.

I had worried about what I'd do if I was by myself with the kids and Darnell were on the other side of the city (quite easily a 2+ hour commute!) when I went into labour, but of course, we were in bed and our dear friend Reg was sleeping in the spare room so we didn't even have to call for our helper, Sam, to come in the middle of the night and we weren't faced with an hour of traffic either. Sometimes things just work out right :)

I had contractions for most the night but didn't wake Darnell until 3:30am and we left the house soon after. Teyah was born at 7:22am so despite being only 5cm dilated when we arrived at the hospital, she came pretty quick. This was my first delivery with an epidural/anesthesia so it was completely different. Makai's delivery was so painful that I had nightmares about it after. This time I decided to go the pain-free route and while it was kind of surreal to push a baby out without screaming, crying and sweating, it was sure nice to skip the pain! I had delivered 2 babies with no drugs and had nothing to prove anymore :) Darnell was sitting there kind of dumb-stuck when I calmly told him that I was having another contraction and felt like I had to push. What a different experience!

Teyah has been a wonderful baby so far and is doing really well. She feeds really quickly and is already going longer stretches between feeds at night. She's recently started the evening fussies so we've been rocking a little screamer after the boys go to bed and going to bed ourselves a little later than we'd like. But it has really been a good transition into three kids and the boys have been great. Cody loves holding her or lying down beside her and letting her "kick" him. Makai is also very gentle with her- yesterday I found him talking to her sweetly while driving his cars around her and piling them up at her feet. I am so thankful that the boys play well together (for the most part!) and at this stage, Teyah just sleeps a lot so she gives me lots of time to still be with her brothers.

I should tell you all about her name too. Her first name is after my Oma's best friend who looked after my Dad in Germany when he was small. Her name was Dorothea, but in German its pronounced Do-ro-tey-ah and she was called Tante Thea ("Tante" is German for Aunt). Darnell's grandmother (his Mom's mom) was also named Dorothea. I have always liked the name Teyah and we knew we would use it for a girl even before Cody was born. But we also wanted it to be spelt phoneitcally and not be pronounced with a "th" so the spelling is original. We couldn't decide on a middle name until a few weeks before Teyah's birth when we were asking our friend Reg about meaningful Tagalog words that would sound good as a middle name. Words like faith, hope or peace certainly didn't sound right.... pananampalataya, umaasa, kapayapaan.... not quite what we're looking for :) I asked Reg, "What about Malaya? What does that mean?" She told us that Malaya (pronounced Ma-lie-a) means free or liberation and is a deep Tagalog word. We thought it was perfect.... sounds pretty and has a good meaning! So that's the story of Teyah's name.

Thank you all for the love and prayers sent our way during this last month. We are so thankful for our family and friends both near and far.

Much love, from the five of us :)

Highlights from a month in Canada!

Its already been a month since we arrived back in Manila after a wonderful time in Canada. I started this post several weeks ago but figured I might as well still post it :)

Here's some highlights from our trip….

Spending time at my parents cabin on the lake. Cody and Makai loved throwing rocks in the lake and appreciated the fact that there were no guards there telling them its not allowed! It was nice and cold at the cabin, perfect for warming up by the fire in the evening to roast marshmallows. The boys also loved riding the ATVs and boating.

Cousin time! The boys LOVED playing with their cousins and especially loved all the fun things they could do at my sister’s house.

Going to the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly in Winnipeg. It was so great to connect with a lot of friends and also cousins.

Visiting with Opa.... my dear 99-year-old grandfather.

Speaking at three different churches and visiting with wonderful congregations that love and support us.

Staying at our house for a week! We housesat while our renters/good friends were on holiday. It was such a highlight to enjoy our forested backyard, the new playground down the street, and the quiet walks. These are the things we miss most when stuck in a crazy busy cement city of 12 million people!

Cody learning to ride a bike. He's now zipping around the paths in our complex with all the big kids.... and loving it!

Spending time with friends. We are so thankful for such great friends at home and also for our Missionary Support Team.... we'd be lost without them!

We are so thankful for this visit home. It helps us feel connected to so many people we love and it gives us rest to be away from living cross-cultural in a cement jungle. Its amazing how much you can appreciate parks, mountains, fresh air and quiet streets when it no longer surrounds you.

We've been busy with PeaceChurch this last month and have enjoyed meeting with them again and making plans. We will be starting to really develop an Anabaptist Network this year, as our good friend and PeaceChurch member, Jon Soriano, has agreed to head this up. We're excited for how this will take shape and the impact it will have on our wider church body in the Philippines!

Now its only 2 weeks away from our little girl's due date and we are ready to welcome her into this world! This phase is a little nerve-wracking, knowing that any minute now I could go into labour! My next post will be full of pictures of her, I'm sure :) It's also two weeks until Cody's 4th birthday..... September 4th could be a very well-celebrated day for our family!!