my view from here (16 almost 17 weeks)

Well, I guess it's time for an update?!! Since my last post baby Foust and I have traveled the world and had quite the adventure! 

What did you do in Slovakia?

We traveled to Slovakia to work with the Parks family. They live and work in Slovakia with the Roma people, so we had a great time learning about Slovak and Roma culture and attempting to speak small phrases in the difficult language. We were really more about being together in that place than doing. I will surely share many other posts with reflections so stay tuned.

Dancing!

A group shot

On Saturday in Slovakia our team did a little bit of "hiking" slovak style. We didn't exactly know what we were getting ourselves into! We arrived ready to hike with our new friends and realized that we were not taking a slow pace on a trail but going straight up a ski slope. Needless to say, there were many breaks and many times when we stopped to enjoy the view! Once at the top, we grilled out for lunch, and by grilled, I mean we cooked over the open fire with sticks and stuck sausage, onion and pepper right on top. It was totally fun and totally exhausting. 

Our Roma grill party

It was fun to grill out with other new friends. I had lots of fun dancing with these girls! It was also very interesting that many of the mothers in the community recognized that I was expecting and asked right away-- totally a cool experience. Suddenly, because of that, I was a part of the club! 

We finished our journey in Krakow, Poland and made a stop to Auschwitz on our way there. We got to experience KFC in Poland, pretty good if you ask me! 

Auschwitz and Birkenau were both completely powerful and our group was pretty much silent for our four hour tour. It was heartbreaking to enter rooms full of people's possessions and think of the deception that was the ruler during the war. I tried my best to think of each person and pray that God would allow me to see the genocide's of individuals such as these that happen in our world today and find and use my voice. 

What was it like to travel pregnant?

Traveling pregnant was actually pretty fun. I kept praying that BFF (Baby Future Foust as it came to be called) would know and love the world as I do and that I would do my best, with God's help, to teach him or her about all of God's people around the world. I did ask for aisle seats on our long flights so as not to bother my seat mates! Everyone in my group pitched in with the spare change for all of the times I needed to use the bathroom. The food was wonderful and I couldn't wait to try anything that looked good! The ice cream was always a treat, but Tanya made sure we always had dessert options, you never know when you'll need something sweet!

My view at 15 weeks, can still see those toes!

16 weeks

I will be 17 weeks tomorrow and still think it a bit surreal that all of this growing is happening inside of me. We heard the heartbeat again this week which is just totally cool every time. One of my best friends welcomed her second daughter into the world this week and as I held her in my arms yesterday I couldn't believe that in a few (short) months we would be welcoming our own bean. Thanks for journeying and praying with us!