Moving!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
No, we didn't sell our house. I followed the lead of Ethan and Amy Pitsch and headed over to Wordpress for our blog. Now instead of being a chauvinist pig and only having my name in the web address, both of our names are there:
Posted byMike Fennema posted 8:00 PM 0 comments
On Being 27
I’m starting to understand that the older that you get the less change that you feel from year to year. I don’t feel any different than I did when I was 26. Part of that might come from my forgetting in the last couple of months how old I am. I had to stop and think on multiple occasions is I was 26 or 27. I don’t think that I have ever had that happen to me before.
Being 26 was a big deal because I realized that I was closer to 30 than I was to 20. That was a weird thought. 27 hasn’t had any implications like that so far.
As I look back on this past year of my life, the thing that really dominated was school. It seemed that I never really had a break from school, not even in the summer. Because of that I am able to graduate in a couple of months, so I am grateful. But looking back, it seems that I always had a book that I had to read or a paper to write or a test to study for. I am glad that phase of my life will be over soon. After being a student for 20 some years, I am looking forward to not being that anymore. Time to move on.
Some highlights from the past year include a medical mission trip to Tanzania, which is where I celebrated my last birthday. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since we’ve been there. We also traveled to Aruba where I became a voracious reader and finished off multiple books for my own enjoyment. Love it. We also ventured to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins here in the great city of Orlando. Thanksgiving was in Chicago, Christmas in Dalton, and New Years and home in Mount Dora.
I think that my 26th year could be described as the year I put a million miles on my car. It seems that Stephanie and I spent more time traveling to places than we care to imagine. From traveling an hour each way to seminary everyday, to driving about 40 minutes to get to church and at least 45 minutes to see friends, the odometers on our cars have been extremely busy. They are ready for a break and so are we. We look forward to the next phase in our lives when we can be closer to our church, our jobs (which hopefully is the same thing as our church), our friends, and civilization in general. We know that God has kept us in Mount Dora for a reason, and we have enjoyed our time her, but now it is time to move on.
This past year brought its share of struggles as well. The year started off with finding out that we were pregnant, but the feeling of joy quickly turned to sorrow when we found out about the miscarriage. The week between finding out about the miscarriage and Stephanie have her procedure to have the baby removed was one of the most agonizing weeks of my life, and certainly the most agonizing week of our marriage. I don’t think that joy has so quickly turned into deep sorrow so quickly in my life. But God is faithful and true, and we were able to get pregnant fairly quickly after we were allowed to start trying again. Instead of having a baby in January which would have been difficult for us (Steph would have to go back to work immediately and I would still be in school), our first child is now due in August, after I graduate. this will allow Stephanie to stay home with Elliot, provided that I have a job. Through that whole ordeal, we were so confused as to what God was doing in our lives. When we stopped preventing getting pregnant, we felt God calling us to trust him with our lives and with the planning of our family. When we got pregnant, we thought he was calling us to be parents at that time. God has taught us much about his timing, resting in him, and allowing him to guide our steps. It has been a difficult and painful lesson, but we are placing our trust more on him every day.
This next year appears to be a big one in my life. It starts off with my graduation from Seminary. Hopefully, Lord willing, it will be followed up with starting a new job, followed by the birth of our first child. Those three events combined are enough big events for the whole year! We might have to squeeze in the sale of a house and a big move in there, if God is calling us to a different place.
Posted byMike Fennema posted 9:46 AM 0 comments
Elliot's Debut
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
After a month of having his pictures sitting on my desk, I finally have scanned them in for all of you to enjoy. and as you can tell from the title, not only are we unveiling his first photos, but we are also unveiling his name. After much deliberation and crazy occurrences with other names, we are excited to announce that we are naming our firstborn son Elliot Michael Fennema.
We were deliberating between a couple of different names, and we were amazed at how many people were very candid--maybe too candid--with whether they really liked or really didn't like what we were considering. We are just thankful that the people who read this blog realize that it isn't a very nice thing to criticize the name of a pregnant woman's child, especially right in front of her. That usually doesn't go over so well with the pregnant mother, so we are glad that the people who read this blog don't do that. :)
We are very excited about Elliot and his arrival, hopefully at the end of July. When Stephanie went in for her last checkup, she actually measured 2 weeks ahead. That could mean that he is going to be a big boy and would come early. Or it could be just a simple growth spurt. Who knows. We are just very grateful that little Elliot is growing healthy and strong. He is truly our little blessing from God.
Posted byMike Fennema posted 8:33 PM 6 comments
Happy Easter!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
He has risen! He has risen indeed!
Posted byMike Fennema posted 2:50 PM 1 comments
The Name Will Be Carried On
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
It's a Boy!!!!! We are so excited that we are having a boy after countless people telling us that we were having a girl (not that a girl would be bad). We have a few pics of the my tiny shopping spree ( Steph 
we will be living we went ahead and put the baby things in one of our bedrooms. Truth be told all the items have been donated graciously to us and we were running out of room in
the garage. So these probably are not nursery shots, but you never know. We feel so blessed that our little "Fennema" is alive and well, kicking and rolling about. We are grateful to our Heavenly Father for the joy of this little guy inside me.
Posted byMike Fennema posted 9:13 PM 3 comments
The Things You Swear You Would Never Do
Monday, February 18, 2008
I'm starting to learn to erase the phrases "I would never do…" or "I could never see myself doing…" or "I wouldn't be caught dead doing…". I've done that before (see this almost 10-year-old reflection I wrote immediately following Facing Your Future, and let me know if you find it funny in any way. I do.). Stephanie and I are praying hard—not only for our baby—but for a position to open up for me. We are waiting back to hear from the school in Honduras. They have my complete application, and they should be getting back to me shortly. We shall see what will happen. I had some interesting encounters recently and other opportunities might be presenting themselves in areas a little closer to home. I've also started to apply to positions that I never thought that I would apply to. That is where this post comes from. Steph and I had a great day in Sunday School yesterday. It wasn't that the lesson was extremely provocative or deep. It was a good lesson, and I think the kids are enjoying the study we are doing. What made yesterday so good is that as I was walking out of the class afterwards, the thought ran through my mind "These kids are actually starting to like us." Our students—junior high kids—actually like us. That is huge. In the beginning, we knew that they didn't. They weren't mean; they just didn't know us and didn't care to get to know us because they didn't know if we were going to be sticking around or not. Well, we've been around for almost a year now, and they are starting to trust us. It is truly a beautiful thing. On top of that, one of the kids related his past year to the man who was born blind and Jesus healed his blindness. He said that he feels like the blind man because God has been opening up his eyes spiritually over the last year, and it has been really cool. (I'm such a weenie that I'm actually starting to tear up as I write about it…get it together Mike…). The rest of the class actually clapped when he read that. It was awesome. Please pray for us as we try to figure out where God is calling us. Spiritually, we are experiencing a great exercise in trust and patiently waiting on the Lord. When you look back on great spiritual exercises, you can begin to see what God is doing. When you are going through them, it isn't always clear what God is doing and is quite often a struggle. Please pray for our struggle.
Posted byMike Fennema posted 4:26 PM 0 comments
Pregnancy Class C
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I often used to think of pregnancy as this magical, amazing time where you overnight developed the perfect basketball belly... ate pickles and ice cream with out adding cellulite to your thighs ...... drifted about in beautiful maternity wear .... and patted your belly gently whenever the baby kicked. I was so wrong. Although some people may have a pregnancy just like the one I mentioned - It has certainly not been the case for me, at least not yet anyway.
First of all, most people can not even tell that I am pregnant, you may ask why am I upset about this? I am nearly 16 weeks along every book I read says I should be showing now. Don't get me wrong I am thankful that I am not as big as a cow, but having a little belly would be nice at this point. Also, one thing I never thought about before this luxury was taken away from me, was the ability to self-medicate for whatever ailment or illness I had. If I was sore I would take Motrin, if I had a cold I would take Sudafed. The pregnancy has brought about headaches that I consider the worst in my life and the ONLY medicine I can take is Tylenol. I was almost in tears the day before yesterday with a headache and sinus congestion. As a PA you can imagine I looked up every drug I could think of and all of them were labeled "Pregnancy Class C." Basically, this means "we are not certain that this will harm your child, but it has not proven so well with baby mice so you probably should not try it" Oh the agony.
I hope you all can gather the hint of sarcasm in this post. I am really not loathing life, I think I have just started to realize the many sacrifices I have and will be making for this precious little one growing inside me.
On a much more serious note when I was having that agonizing headache, I finally laid my head down on the desk where I was trying to work and prayed. I often feel like I barely have the faith of an electron much less a mustard seed. However, I prayed that God would take away my headache and I told him I really was not sure in my heart that He could but I new in my mind that He was able. 15 minutes later the headache that had plagued me for 3 days was gone. The same night Mike prayed that all my cold symptoms would be gone the next day and they were. I fully understand that God did not have to do any of this and that He would still be a mighty and powerful Lord even if I was still hurting, however I also know it was nothing but God's power that enabled me to recover.
Posted bySteph posted 7:21 PM 3 comments
Did I say I was overwhelmed?
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
I thought I was overwhelmed last night. That was before the chaos that today was. I was working diligently on my essay questions for Systematic Theology 4 class that just got done last week. Our class has until the middle of March to get everything done for that class, but with all the work that has to be done during the semester, if you don't get it done as soon as possible, you are going to kill yourself. My work was interrupted by a voicemail from my good buddy Wes. How nice…he wanted to make sure I was ok….because I wasn't in class today. What?!? Class?!? I thought that classes weren't supposed to start until tomorrow! I couldn't be more wrong. Well, with one class already missed and another one already underway, I got my butt in gear and hopped into my car so that I could drive all the way to Oviedo (just a quick hour drive…no big deal) and catch the last 2 hours of my next class. And now I am here in Dr. Frame's ethics class when I thought that I would be at Orangewood sitting in on staff meetings, a place where I would much rather be. Oh well. Nothing like losing a day of being able to study to make you feel even more overwhelmed…
Posted byMike Fennema posted 2:32 PM 1 comments
Overwhelmed
Monday, February 4, 2008
As I sit and my desk, reading a rather intriguing article while I struggle to keep my eyes open—wait a minute---where did the last 20 minutes go? Ever had that happen? Well, it is happening to me now, so I thought I would quick post a blog to get me going again. For anyone out there who does not know, I'm about to enter into my last semester of seminary, and I'm getting the overwhelmed feeling. Not overwhelmed because I have so much to do over the next couple of months. Not even overwhelmed because I could be getting ordained this summer and going through that process might literally be hell on earth. I'm not even feeling overwhelmed that I am going to be a dad for the first time. I'm actually overwhelmed knowing that I'm gonna have to know stuff. I know that doesn't sound like much, but people are going to be coming up to me and asking me questions, and I'm going to be expected to know the answer. How do you know the Bible is true? Is it ok if I leave my wife? What's gonna happen at the end of time? Should women be allowed to be ordained? Why do we baptize babies? What is the meaning of life? Why do we take communion? Are there prophets still today? Am I allowed to play sports on a Sunday? Who should I vote for? And that is not even the beginning. I am sure that I can't even begin to come up with all the questions. All these questions beg to be answered, and people are going to come to me to ask many of these questions and more. I don't know if I am ready right now to handle all of them. I can just imagine my stuttering stammering tongue trying to come up with answers to everyone's questions, and I am just overwhelmed. I feel like I need all of the questions answered myself.
Posted byMike Fennema posted 10:43 PM 1 comments
Giving it a whirl
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
I am not a frequent blogger, but due to receiving great encouragement via reading other's blogs, I thought I would give it a whirl. So if you did not know already, I am pregnant. This pregnancy has been anything but easy. As many of you know, Mike and I had a miscarriage about 6 months ago. The day I found out we were expecting I experienced overwhelming joy followed by overwhelming anxiety. Many times during the first trimester I had to give the pregnancy over to God minute by minute, and some days I have to admit I had very little peace despite my resolve to trust Him with our family. My anxiety was compounded by the fact that it seemed every 2 weeks something happened to shake my faith a little more. First, it was the lack of morning sickness. With the last pregnancy I was ill from the beginning. With this pregnancy, the "all day illness" did not start until eight weeks. Just when I started "feeling pregnant," I started spotting. After an emergency ultrasound, they confirmed everything was alright even though my nerves were shaken every day as I continued to spot for 2 weeks. That spell was followed by dropping hormone levels and then another episode of spotting. I am now approaching 14 weeks, and the doctors have assured me that everything is going perfectly. (In my head I am thinking - if this has been perfect I would hate to see complicated.) I am thankful that through it all the Lord has continued to assure me. Often times I would just find myself saying over and over. "The Lord gives and He takes away so blessed be the name of the Lord." I am finally starting to relax in being pregnant. Of course, there are plenty of stresses considering Mike is graduating in May, and we have no idea where God is calling us. I am doing my best to give that to Him as well. In addition to being a little crazy, this pregnancy thing has given me quite and education. I am very fortunate to have several close friends and family members in a similar stage as me. Either they have just had kids or are pregnant but farther along than me. When I start to get overwhelmed with things like Boppi's, maternity clothes, "hooter hiders," "travel systems" (and no this in not a car - it is a stroller), and nursing bras, I have plenty of people to talk to. All things above said, I am thrilled about this next phase of life and I am doing my best to enjoy all the changes as they come.
Posted bySteph posted 3:02 PM 1 comments
What is God doing?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
What is God doing?
Stephanie and I have been praying lately that God would reveal to us what he has up his sleeve, and it might be something that we could never have possibly anticipated. During a conversation I was having with my wife, it was mentioned that if I was not able to find a position with a church or with a campus ministry, then maybe I would teach for a year or so. It seemed like a good idea, and we both agreed that it would work if God led us to that point. Soon after that conversation, Stephanie had a conversation with her friend Melissa in which she told Melissa about our conversation. Melissa promptly responded that we should come and teach at the school that her husband Adam has been teaching at for the past couple of years. Stephanie passed that on to me, and I was not opposed to the idea. A few days later, Adam relayed to us a position opened up at the school that requires an ordained pastor. The person in this position would plan and direct chapels and also spiritually mentor the students. What a great position! As of this week, I put in my application to this position. The way that Stephanie and I have been feeling God directing us as of late is that if I am offered the position, we will most likely take it. But we will wait and see what God is doing.
Oh, did I mention that the position is near Teguchigalpa? Yeah. That's right. Honduras.
What is God doing?
Posted byMike Fennema posted 10:04 PM 2 comments
My 15 seconds of fame
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Well it is official. I unsuspectingly had my 15 minutes of fame as I was walking out of the Mount Dora Library yesterday. A couple of DVDs that I had requested were on hold for me. I was busting my tail to get in and out of the Library so that I could get home and surprise my pregnant wife. She wasn't expecting to see me until she was already asleep in bed for the night, but my class got out early and I decided to make the hour-long drive home, surprise her, spend the next half hour with her, and then drive an hour back to Oviedo. The things you do for love. Anyways, so I pull up to the Library, and I notice signs announcing that it is an early polling place. Florida's primary is coming up on the 29th of January, and people can vote early if they want to avoid the chaos of an election day. As I near the entrance, I see a camera crew. Hmm. Interesting. Some goofy looking guy with long grey hair is joking around with them and you can tell he wants to get on TV. I park my car, and I see a large satellite truck parked in the grass behind the building. What I noticed about it was that it wasn't some local station's truck. It had no obvious markings on it. It was simply very non-descript, so I was wondering who these people were and where they were from. As I am walking up to the entrance, a retired couple passes me excitedly talking about how they just go interviewed, and in my head I'm thinking about what I should do to avoid the camera crew and just do my business. So I pull my hat down, put an "I'm in a hurry, and I mean business" look on my face, and plow ahead into the library. Once I am safe inside, I get what I came for and quickly head back out. The crew is still there, and they are blocking my way to the parking lot. My only hope of avoiding them is to have someone already talking to them as I pass. No such luck. As I am trying to brush past them quickly, the reporter asks me if he could talk to me. Everything in me wants to say "Sorry. I'm in a hurry." But what comes out of my mouth is "I didn't vote…" I assumed they were doing a story on people who were voting early. Wrong. "Oh, that's ok. We'd like to talk to you anyway." For some reason I uttered "Ok" instead of "Sorry, I have to get home to my beautiful wife." I don't know what I was thinking. So he begins by asking me questions about what issues are important for me as I am choosing a political candidate. Seeing as I view myself as slightly well informed on things (I have been known to listen to a little talk radio from time to time, and I try to keep up on the news), I was able to list things like national defense, the war in Iraq, the economy because I am a conservative and um…uh…I think…uh…something …you know, the typical answers. Then he starts probing a little and asking about the economy. I talk a little about people warning that a recession is coming and I mention the speech that Bush gave yesterday about giving the economy a shot in the arm. I'm feeling impressed with myself because I feel like I kind of know what is going on. I say something to the effect that I think it is important to put money back in the hands of taxpayers to give our economy a boost. I thought it was pretty slick, and I was impressed with myself. Well, after seeing the clip, I wasn't feeling so impressed with myself. It turns out that God has a sense of humor. He knows that I struggle with arrogance and pride, so instead of allowing me 15 minutes of fame, he cut mine back to 15 seconds. And instead of sounding extremely intelligent, he made me sound …um…uh…um…well, you get the picture.
Posted byMike Fennema
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7:31 AM
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Steph is pregnant!
Posted byMike Fennema
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11:33 AM
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I don't know if any of you have been following what has been going on in Kenya recently, but from what I have been reading and seeing on the news, it looks pretty bad there right now. Many people have died due to violence after their recent elections because the results are disputed and people think that the election was rigged, according to my understanding. It is just sad to see so much corruption, violence, and death.
Posted byMike Fennema
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10:54 PM
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I just thought that I would share with all of you a map of our favorite running route. I'm going to try and run this route 3 times a week, so pray for me! It's so easy to say I'm going to do it. It is another thing to actually do it!
Posted byMike Fennema
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10:37 AM
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One can not really be considered a "blogger" unless they blog about their New Year's resolutions, can they? I think it might be number 6 or 7 of the Blogger Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not let a New Year's Day go by without blogging about thy New Year's Resolutions."
Posted byMike Fennema
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10:30 PM
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Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
There it is. The cat is out of the bag. We have been trying our best to keep it on the down low, just to make sure that everything is ok before we make the announcement. We have told a few people under the condition that they be fervently praying for our little one. Since the word is getting around now (I won't name any names as to who might have let the cat out a little early) and Steph is pretty much out of the danger zone, it is time to officially make the news public.
Also, we need prayer because we had a little scare yesterday. Steph got test results back yesterday that were cause for concern. In fact, the PA at the OBGYN's office said that it could be alarming. A stress-filled, prayer-filled, tear-filled day ensued. Our fears were put to rest with an ultrasound where we saw our beautiful baby and his/her beating heart, happily bouncing around in mommy's belly. Our tears of fear were turned to tears of joy.
Today, we went to the OBGYN and everything is fantastic. Nothing to worry about. We even got to hear our baby's heartbeat! It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
So everything is ok, but we still would ask for your prayers. That is the condition that we have had for telling people: once you know about Stephanie being pregnant, you are now under obligation to pray. So please fulfill your new obligation. We certainly need it and would appreciate it immensely.
Pray for peace in Kenya
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Having spent almost 6 months in Kenya when I was in college, there is a very special place in my heart for the country and its people. Ironically, Kenya has typically been viewed as one of the most stable countries in Africa after it gained its independence back in 1963. However, peace is being held hostage as people protest the results of the election. Please pray for the nation as a whole and for the people specifically. During the passing of the peace in church today, our pastor mentioned that we need to be praying for peace ot reign on the earth, especially in placed like Kenya right now. If you have a moment, pray for peace, not only in Africa, but around the world.
New Year's Resolutions
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
This year, I haven't made a ton of new resolutions because my resolutions rarely make it out of the first week of the New Year. I am renewing some old resolutions though. Once again, I am resolving to read the Bible through in a year. I've only officially done it once, although I've resolved to do it every year for the past however many years. This year, I have a partner in crime: my beautiful wife Stephanie. In order to bolster the spiritual aspect of our marriage, we are going to be following the same track for our devotions. This way, we can share with each other things that we are learning in the passages that we are reading. We can even read some together. How about that? Reading the Bible together.
I've also resolved--in a vague, unquantifiable way, which is usually tough to resolve to do--to be more reflective. My journaling and blogging have been down in the past year. I was looking back at some of the blogging that I have done, and it is mostly pictures and "this is what we did this past weekend." I know that my family likes to see the pictures, but I've gotten away from really reflecting on life like I have done in the past.
2008 looks to be a year with big changes in the life of Stephanie and I, and I look forward to writing about it. So to those of you who used to check up on the blog more often than you do right now, come back often. I hate to disappoint people, so if you haven't heard from me in a while, call me out!
So, to all our family, friends, and people we don't know who might stumble across our blog: we love you all very much. May God bless you all in 2008.
